47 Comments

Terrific piece after the lionization of Trudeau and, dare we say, Angela Merkel

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We dare, we dare!

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The woke promotion of micro identies at the price of the larger sense of Western Culture has leached the vitality from most Western countries. The weakness and moral confusion is unmissable. Fortunately the rot has recently accelerated to the point that it feels life-threatening, and natural pride and survival instincts have clicked in.

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Doesn't the Quebec question hang over any debate about Canadian identity and nationalism?

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Definitely, which is not to say one cannot have a version of Canadian identity that incorporates biculturalism/bilingualism. One of the interesting dynamics in Canada's history was multiculturalism was viewed as a kind of solution to the tensions of biculturalism (viz. Francophone Canadians would have greater difficulty claiming special privileges if they were just one minority among others).

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A Canadian remarked: “Being Canadian is like living upstairs from a meth lab.”

Just because as a nation they are polite and unobtrusive does not mean they don’t have an identity. Their neighbor sets themselves on fire and runs around in circles and Canada is lost in the smoke screen. Perhaps knowing who you don’t want to be is “identity” enough.

As the joke goes - As an American, I am not totally useless, I can always be used as a bad example.

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> Perhaps knowing who you don’t want to be is “identity” enough.

Not even close to cutting it.

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Declaring that Canada’s sovereign borders don’t exist also “doesn’t cut it.”

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You snooze, you loose.

You stop caring for your country long enough, somebody else might :)

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What are you talking about? Nobody is staging an insurrection at the Canadian House of Parliament. Canada’s Parliament is functional enough to pass government funding legislation. Which country is “snoozing and losing?”

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Actually, given the state of the Liberal Party, with Trudeau having convinced the GG to prorogue Parliament until only a week before the March 31 deadline to pass a budget, it's not certain that Parliament is functional enough to pass funding legislation.

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OK, but I’ll trade you one U.S. Congress for your Canadian Parliament… 🙄

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You seem to conflate mass apathy while politicians are doing their business as usual with a people caring for the country

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So, an insurrection and desecration of a nation's Capitol is in your definition: "a people caring for the country"?

That is one twisted sense of patriotism... So much for the rule of law and human decency.

A Pew Survey showed that 52% of Canadian citizens were satisfied with their government while only 31% of U.S. citizens approved of their plight. You might be confusing outrage with caring.

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It's hard to sympathize recalling the years of reading Canadian commenters reliably chiming in on posts that, unlike the U.S., they have national health care, affordable housing and education, high-brow culture, gun control, yada yada yada.

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Canada's problems are a lot more 'fixable' than the lack of national health care, affordable housing/homelessness, declining education system, lack of culture, and a tsunami of weapons the U.S. is confronted with. I doubt Canadians want our "sympathy" but only basic respect for their sovereignty.

If they built a wall, would the U.S. pay for it?

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Hadn’t heard that one, and I’m annoyed by it for the same reason you uphold Canada’s right to identify by what they’re not: That’s usually enough to form an identity.

Kelefa Sanneh, the originator of the concept of “poptimism”, if not the actual term, has a premise in his recent book Major Labels that cultural movements form based on shared dislikes. It’s why I think Canadian and my Reformed Judaism have been noted to be similar (to clarify, I’m Reform Jewish and American, meth lab indeed!): Canadian’s primary identification is “not American”, my Jewish identification is “not Christian”. There’s more to it than that as a Reform Jew, but it’s still substantial, I’d argue.

Think of how “Owning The Libs” is an identity unto itself with Republicans, and has been for a very long time (there’s a joke about Vermont without snow is like finding a Democrat there in the movie White Christmas; might be slightly different than “the libs”, but then again Adlai Stevenson was labeled an “egghead” by another bald guy). As a thoughtful person, it’s good to self-reflect on being constructive, but identity is more base than that. “We’re not American” is fine as is. “We’re not Europe” is fine for us Americans.

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The author mentions the threat of an enemy as a national rallying cry. It seems that Canadians and half the U.S. public now have more in common with the threat of the 'Domestic Terrorist in Chief' soon to be inaugurated.

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That is a very insightful and compelling argument in my view. The Canada that I knew from the past has long since faded into a distant memory of being able to defend itself, respected as a middle power, and offering a realistic alternative to the more harsh and divisive political environment of the US.

I really don’t know what Canada stands for anymore that is meaningful and realistic in today’s world - we can’t eke out a ‘living’ as a place where desperate people from across the globe come to seek asylum, prosecute their tribal grievances, and dominate our social and political landscape. Give me the good old Pledge of Allegiance, the US green back and Fox News…I’m ready!

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I appreciate the provocativeness of this piece, but I'm not a fan of how it partakes in the usual skepticism about whether English Canadians have a shared identity if you rule out defining yourself by what you are not. (I say English Canadians for obvious reasons; Polansky conveniently ignores French-speaking Canadians, who don't suffer from this identity anxiety.) Non-elite English Canadians have plenty of touchstones for their shared identity. The problem is that the intellectual elites of English Canada have done a piss-poor job of developing narratives that put it all together. But the fact that English Canada is short on unifying narratives doesn't mean that ordinary English Canadians are short on unifying emotions.

Here's a short list of emotional touchstones: Paul Henderson's goal in '72, Crosby's golden goal in 2010, Terry Fox, SCTV, Gordon Lightfoot, Gord Downie, and the name "Gord." I'm deliberately leaning on hockey here, along with a few other things that members of the elite habitually look down on. Maybe this list is low-brow, or middle-brow, but the emotional resonance is undeniable, at least it is for me and for a lot of other people who are comfortable with being Canadian.

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"The intelligentsia are not the brain of the nation, they are its shit."--V.I. Lenin

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Before we recycle Grant's lament for the Canadian nation, maybe we should ask the obvious, more unsettling counter-question (answered recently by Christopher Zurn): why should the US stay together as a coherent sovereign country? Why should we expect it to?

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Because Lincoln. He transformed the US from a confederation of sovereign states into a single national entity--at enormous cost.

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It seems Canada's problem is in other artificial constructed Angelo counties as well.

I wonder how Canada can hold together?

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That is a very insightful and compelling argument in my view. The Canada that I knew from the past has long faded into a distant memory of being able to defend itself, respected as a middle power, and offering a realistic alternative to the more harsh and divisive political environment of the US.

I really don’t know what Canada stands for anymore that is meaningful and realistic in today’s world - we can’t eke out a ‘living’ as a place where desperate people from across the globe come to seek asylum, prosecute their tribal grievances, and dominate our social and political landscape. As a senior I’m sad to say- give me the good old Pledge of Allegiance, the US green back and Fox News…I’m ready!

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I would be curious to hear what the author believes is the coalescing identity of the USA. I believe we are swiftly reaching the point where “Does the USA exist” is a legitimate question

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Hard to say, though the US has far stronger gravitational pull than Canada (or a lot of countries). E.g., this was the main concern in Sam Huntington's last book, though he appears to have underestimated the ability of the US to assimilate hispanics.

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Taylor Swift. Donald trump. Michael Jackson. The NFL. College football. NASCAR. Coca-Cola. We have been one nation since WW1 (and the radio).

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If we're talking about merger, I would farcically suggest that Canada join the EU.

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In fact, it has already been non-farcically suggested: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/01/02/why-canada-should-join-the-eu

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... and here's me thinking I was daringly ahead of my time... thank you!

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If that happened in coordination with a (nonviolent) acquisition of Greenland by the US, that would be magnificent.

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Speaking as a consternated European: It really would be not.

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Canada is basically a US protectorate at this point. But Canadians are so sensitive and psy opt about their relationship to the US they usually behave in hysterical ways whenever they’ve been confronted. The current tarrifs issue is illustrative…..MAGA style baseball caps made in China, declaring “Canada is not for Sale” and state controlled liquor stores removing US wines and liquor off the shelf after having been already bought and stocked, sometimes one wonders if Canadians aren’t missing a chromosome. Regarding the defence and “sovereignty” issue, Canada has basically disbanded its military, so this is a country with the 2nd largest land mass in the world with basically no defence forces. This means Canada is under the defence of the Pentagon. Who pays for that? The American taxpayer. If Canada says it’s a sovereign country it needs to clean up its room, and stop living in daddy’s basement.

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Canada wouldn't join the American revolt against the British because it was majority French and had other priorities. After the Revolution, Canada was guarded (occupied?) by the British who threw back the American invaders with ease in 1812. After that fiasco the US became preoccupied with slavery and never got around to invading Canada again, although the invasion plan was kept fresh. Today there is no plan to invade and a trade deficit is really an insufficient pretext for war. In any case, Trump is antiwar and prefers tariffs to tanks. It is entirely up to the people of Canada to decide whether they prefer DC to Ottawa. Me? I remain supporter of the Confederacy so my advice is: stay independent at all costs.

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The Canadians need to talk to the New Zealanders and the Australians. Those 2 are probably the most able to offer something in terms of how to build a national identity in terms that would be more acceptable to a majority of Canadians.

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Lots of people are not really Christians. And Jewish people are found in all the major religions, including atheism and Christianity.

If there’s anything that offends me, it is the use of “Christian” to mean “Gentile” and yes I know that a lot of “Gentiles” used to use the word that way.

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Provocative, but id have to say that it’s not only under Trudeau and the latest hyperliberalism strand that Canada’s identity is in crisis. The Canadians have debated the issue of lacking a strong identity, heroes. Ideology etc. forever, often defining themselves in direct opposition to America. Best book I ever read on why the two countries came to be so different is Seymour Martin Lipset’s ‘Continental Divide.’ A classic. Highly recommended: https://a.co/d/iNCpldL

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No question that the problem didn't simply begin with him, and I agree on the Lipset book, which makes for good reading alongside George Grant's Lament for a Nation.

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Canadians consider the following scenario;

Alberta unilaterally joins USA.

The rest of Canada has the option of staying where they are or moving to Alberta/USA. What would you do?

I would join Alberta. Not for myself. I’ve had a fine life in Canada. But I think the opportunities for my kids would be better in such a new USA.

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