CKNW Editorial
for October 1, 2001

I have, for my age, a rather curious outlook on life, I suppose. I not only try to, I actually view life through the eyes of my 21 year old grandson … and through the eyes of the forty-ish tiler who bought me a beer at the Silver Chalice on Saturday might. If I didn’t do that, many of the pleasures – and fears of anticipation - would be denied me simply because I won’t be around when they come to fruition. I can’t help my physical age but I don’t have to let my outlook go down the same path.

I also have always – I claim no success here – tried to look at the broad sweep of history. I read a lot of histories and biographies if only because I think it was Churchill who rightly said you can see no further ahead than you can back. We cannot escape our history.

Canada is in an interesting position. Unlike the United States, it has a series of histories. I suppose I shouldn’t imply that American history was one long continuum from the European transplants, through their revolution, then civil war to today - perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Americans have settled most of their private histories and now, especially for such a diverse nation, have found their national personam.

The traditional Canada – thrust, I might say, upon British Columbia in 1871 – was anti-American. Thomas Haliburton wrote of the Yankee trader, Sam Slick and the 1911 election featured the slogan "no truck or trade with the Yankees". This ancient Tory mantra, in one of those strange twists that beset the world of politics became, after the Liberal leadership of Pearson, Trudeau and, the campaigns of John Turner, the Liberal mantra.

There were a number of reasons for this of course. The fear of absorption by the United States, which has cast no real covetous eyes for 150 years is one … but mostly, I would argue, it’s been economic. Like Argentina, we wanted to build a nation based upon protection. We would sell out natural resources south of the line but not our finished products – that was mostly because they were so coddled with tariffs and protection that they often bordered on the shoddy. These finished products were, of course, sold dear to western Canadians in return for cheap raw resources, a policy of Sir John A. Macdonald that, though failing fast, continues the dream of those who would see Canada tucked in its comfortable old bed with the covers pulled up over its head.

But the times they are a’changing. Free trade with the United States came and was extended to Mexico and it will surely spread to other parts, if not eventually all, of Latin America. With all due respect to Maude Barlow and Mel Hurtig there was an inevitability about this that is clear from any look backwards. The policy of Sir John A was shattered when the National Energy Policy, the clear extension on Macdonald’s policy where the western provinces would be the hewers of wood and carriers of water for the eastern industrial machine, was repealed by Brian Mulroney who won the West with a promise to do so. With the end of the NEP the notion of a self sufficient Canada was dead. I suppose you could argue that the first nail in that coffin came from the Autopact. With the end of the east’s energy grab it was only a short step towards free trade. (One of the facts always forgotten by opponents of free trade is that the American Congress, which has its very protectionist moods, was about to pass a trade bill that, without free trade, would have done our economy huge harm.)

John Turner, in his last ditch fight against Free Trade in the late 80s, always argued that free trade would carry with it a loss of political independence. He was right. My argument then and now is that free trade had to come as a matter of national economic survival and pooling of political sovereignties was an inevitable result as it has in the European Union. The question has always been, how do we confine that loss to the area of trade and retain our political independence?

There are two forces at work, here, I think. Canada is no longer the 1/3 French, 2/3 English country it once was. In fact one of the great ironies of Canada is that Sovereigntist Quebec fears Ottawa more than Washington. Old Canada is in a minority though one must hasten to add that they still make up the Establishment in Central Canada and thus still run the country. But that’s changing too. Less and less do Canadians outside Quebec look upon the United States with the fear and loathing that the Colonel Blimps waving their Union Jacks once did. In fact, while it has often been said that Canadians deep down dislike Americans I believe recent events show that the dislike is on the surface – evidenced by tourists to Europe wearing maple leaves so as not to be taken for Americans - and that deep down we are very close to our neighbours.

The next step in this logical historical progression will indeed be a cordon sanitaire around North America so that Canadians and Americans, and their products can travel across their border freely. This will be, in fact, the next battleground where the Yankee baiting Liberals and their left-wing friends will do battle with rank and file Canadians across the country that see the future more clearly than they do.

Inevitability in a general sense doesn’t mean that every possibility of change must take place. I don’t think that, in the longer pull, Canadians can avoid – for their own greedy reasons as much as those of Americans – a closer and closer relationship with the United States. But that doesn’t mean we cannot fight for and save those values we treasure … such as a one man dictatorship run by Central Canada for the benefit of Central Canada. The struggle to retain that characteristic will have lots of cheer leaders like the aforementioned Maude Barlow, Mel Hurtig, and the Liberal Party of Canada – although the latter, being so able to adapt themselves to whatever is necessary to get them elected, may wind up leading the forces that move Canada into this oh-so-dangerous but oh-so-interesting century.

But to close on a serious note – the winds of change are here and bear with them the younger generation of our country.