The Lafontaine-Baldwin lecture: Canadian nationalism

In many respects, Canada suffers from the same ailments as Quebec. Like Quebec nationalism, Canadian nationalism is congealing under the weight of the myths and dogmas that are becoming obstacles to the nation's evolution.

If this startles you, it shouldn't. The nationalisms of Canada and Quebec are close cousins, even Siamese twins. Despite important differences, the similarities are dramatic.

I know that Quebec nationalism worries and annoys English-speaking Canada through its militancy, flags, the conflicts that have brought us into opposition; but also because people often tend to confuse the nationalist sentiment shared by most French-speaking Quebeckers with the sovereigntist current and ethnocentrism of the more inflamed militants.

But there are more sober ways of defining it. One way is the sense -- shared by a solid majority of Quebeckers -- of having a distinct identity, of constituting a nation and of wishing that this nation would be recognized and have the means to fulfill itself.

This sense will not, and must not, disappear. It rests on a sociological reality, the existence of a people with its dominant language, culture, history and institutions, and difficult relationships with the majority that demand special considerations.

The sense of constituting a nation and the will to build on it can be an extremely rich source of energy -- social cohesiveness leading to progress. But this national sense needs to be in touch with the evolution of society. If it is static, it can be a terrible check on social progress. If it is exalted, it can easily become a tool of exclusion rather than a window on the world.

I do not believe that present-day Quebec nationalism is reactionary. But we don't have to scratch very deep for those angry reflexes to come to life. For that force to travel in the right direction, it must be monitored, debated, and managed.

The excesses of Quebec's nationalism seem to be explainable by the weight of history. It is normal that Quebec's national sense is rooted in the past, since the Quebec difference and the Canadian duality are the product of three centuries of history. But what is less normal is the interpretation of the history that has nourished the Quebec myth.

Our nationalism, for a long time a survival tool, was largely inspired by the numerous defeats that marked the tribulations of the French in America over the centuries, from the Plains of Abraham to Meech Lake. Its heroes are often losers: Montcalm, Dollard des Ormeaux, de Lorimier, Riel, the Patriotes, or even René Lévesque, who founded the Parti Québécois but lost his referendum.

A people must not forget where they come from. But we should not necessarily revel in the past. This nationalism fed by history has created an image of ourselves that does not correspond to reality. It has perpetuated the pain of oppression long after the oppression itself disappeared. It has shaped a culture of losers, something that Quebeckers have not been for quite some time.

I've taken to heart a passage written by Paul Valéry: "History is the most dangerous product that the chemistry of the intellect ever evolved. Its properties are well known. It makes us dream, it intoxicates people, creates false memories for them, exaggerates their reactions, keeps their old wounds open, torments their rest, leads them to delusions of grandeur or of persecution, and makes nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vain."

This is what we have to get rid of to break the chains of the past. The defeatist culture that rose from the past continues to affect our behaviour and determine our socio-political agenda: the "humiliation" period of Lucien Bouchard; the language fears; the maintaining of traditional demands that have less and less to do with real needs, but which can't be abandoned because it would be a treason.

Nationalism also finds expression in pride. This is certainly progress. But pride, when expressed in a rigid context, can have perverse effects. Witness the Quiet Revolution: consecrated, defined as an integral part of the Quebec identity, and therefore untouchable. This kind of pride becomes a justification for the failure to act.

The result: Quebec is imprisoned in a political debate without issue, between an undesired sovereignty and an impossible reform of federalism. The impasse has given rise to other constraints: a province that is more indebted, more taxed than others, and that offers fewer services. A province that is poorer, but incapable of acquiring the tools that would secure it greater growth.

Et voilà pour le nationalisme québécois. But can we find, in this Quebec experience, useful lessons for Canadian nationalism?

First, we have to ask whether Canadian nationalism really exists. The answer should be obvious, but it seems that many Canadians are often unaware that certain attitudes, gestures or debates are expressions of nationalism.

Yes, Canadian nationalism exists. It rests on an obvious identity, rooted in an attachment to a territory Canadians have pioneered, and whose integrity they do not wish to see threatened by a secession. It rests on a history, political and social values, a culture, the co-existence of two official languages, traditions, lifestyles, a vision of the role the country plays in the world, institutions.

This sense of nation has been expressed through the vision of elite nationalism left us by Pierre Elliott Trudeau; the grassroots nationalism of Preston Manning; the pride taken in Canada's unique role on the international scene.

And then there are the most mundane manifestations -- like that spontaneous phenomenon, rich in significance, of the unexpectedly successful beer ad that trumpeted: "My name is Joe and I am Canadian." There's no call for embarrassment here. This cri du coeur,spontaneous and unsubsidized, has done more for the Canadian psyche than all of Sheila Copps's flags.

But Canadians nevertheless often tend to be unaware that they are nationalistic. How many times has the constitutional crisis been presented as the result of pressures arising from Quebec nationalism -- that eternal troublemaker -- rather than as a confrontation of two different and sometimes incompatible visions of nationalism?

When we examine the conflicts that have brought Quebec and Canada into opposition, and in particular the last conflict, Meech Lake, it becomes plain that the seriousness of the crisis can be explained only by the fact that the Quebec demands were met by the other side with an obstinacy every bit as symbolic and irrational.

Meech was the confrontation of identity myths in their purest form. Quebec turned its demands into a life-or-death issue. But Canada was ready to be torn apart, ready to risk breaking up rather than recognize a difference that would call into question its own vision of the country, including the completely absurd cult of the strict equality of the 10 provinces.

This denial of Canadian nationalism can also be found in attempts to grade nationalisms, to define some variants as noble -- the Canadian variant, for example -- and others as less so, like Quebec's.

The question is not to determine who has the better nationalism but to note that whenever it ennobles its own cause, a society will tend to overlook the more undesirable manifestations of nationalism.

The reality is more complex. Canada's nationalisms are a hybrid. The Canadian variety has its origins in an ethnic nationalism, essentially British, which has undergone alterations with the intermixing of populations, but which over the decades has experienced spasms of exclusion. Quebec nationalism, on the other hand, has for a long time rested on language and culture, and is evolving toward civic nationalism.

Their dynamics clearly reflect different social realities. Quebec nationalism is that of a minority, one that rightly or wrongly feels threatened. It must exhibit a constant degree of tension in the face of the majority -- but entertains no doubt as to its identity.

Canadian nationalism does not undergo that constant pressure; but its borders are less focused and more fragile.

But the two come together in the sense that both are built on a culture of dominated peoples, Quebeckers being losers and Canadians being underdogs.

French speakers feel dominated in relation to English-speaking Canada, and to a lesser degree to the English-speaking America that surrounds them. English-speaking Canada lives in constant fear of American domination, and in moments of crisis is quick to mobilize in the face of threats from French-speaking Quebec.

In both cases, we're dealing with manifestations of reactive nationalism, which expresses itself on the basis of the real or dreaded threats, conveyed in misgivings and fears -- fear of free trade with the United States, fear of Quebec, fear of English-language encirclement, fear of suffocation. And fear, as we know, is a collective sentiment that rarely bring a people to progress.

These similarities come from two nations sharing centuries of interaction; failing a common history, they have a common past and common values of the country they have built.

But Canadian nationalism has no guidelines. The consequence -- Canadians tending to be ignorant that they are nationalistic -- is potentially costly.

Nationalism, here as everywhere, has its dangers; it can lead to excess and loss of control. For nationalism to be a positive force, it needs managing.

The situation is more worrying in Canada than in Quebec. Quebec is obviously not perfect: The national debate has generated its share of excesses.

But we have mechanisms that limit loss of control, because we've lived for a considerable length of time in a universe dominated by nationalist thought, and we're acutely aware of its existence. And further because our political dividedness provides us with watchdogs: federalist Quebeckers who keep a close eye on sovereigntist excesses; English-speaking Canadians, always extremely vigilant where Quebec is concerned; and even the self-discipline of principled or image-conscious sovereigntists.

Thus, when Jacques Parizeau, on the evening of his referendum defeat, spoke of "l'argent et les votes ethniques" ("money and ethnic votes"), he survived for 24 hours. Certainly other factors were involved in his departure, but this lack of control alone -- which had less to do with xenophobia than with a loser's paranoia -- would have sufficed.

These checks and balances do not exist in Canada, and for a rather obvious reason: the absence of division. When nationalism shows up on the national scene, most often in the framework of the Canada-Quebec debate, English-speaking Canadians as a whole share a single point of view. Everyone is federalist by definition; everyone reacts badly to the prospect of Quebec's separation and everyone is moved by the same love of country.

The result is that no mechanisms exist to control nationalist excess. Some examples?

In my arena, that of print journalism, because of the divisions within my readership it is impossible to present extreme positions. There is an such an imposed self-discipline that there are no Quebec equivalents of Diane Francis.

But the most revealing example of the loss of control of Canadians is probably the partitionist movement in western Quebec in the days that followed the referendum almost won by the sovereigntists, where anglophone municipalities sought to remain within Canada in the event of Quebec's secession. The movement, fraught with emotion, was understandable at the human level and reflected the trauma of people whose lives had almost been turned upside down.

The experience of the past decade internationally, which has given rise to the formation of many new states, has taught us that the partitionist model, wherein portions of a new state remain attached to the previous state, has only been applied in one country, the former Yugoslavia. And that paved the way for a monstrous dynamic.

Canada, of course, is not Serbia. But it is clear that the temptation of partition, in the event of a Yes victory, would lead Canada to choose the most explosive model of secession management imaginable.

And yet that model, which should have been condemned out of hand because of the potential for violence, was actually encouraged by the Chrétien government. Why? Because that partitionist movement was useful at the political level: The non-integrity of Quebec territory could undercutthe sovereigntist cause.

This is a typical case of nationalist deviation wherein a nation, feeling threatened, develops defence mechanisms that fall outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour.

The purpose of these remarks is not to attack Canadian nationalism, but to underscore that Canadians must take great pains to reflect on their identity, to define it, to precisely trace the outline of their nationalism.

Canadian nationalism, like its counterpart in Quebec, is founded on a certain number of myths.

Canadians, an insecure lot, have, just like Quebeckers, erected a monument that would better define them and enhance their self-esteem. This was a noble and healthy process; it lay at the basis of the vision of a modern Canada so fully embodied in the person of Pierre Trudeau.

Of course, there are characteristics of the Canadian identity that are deeply rooted, a history relatively free of violence, for instance; a capacity for co-existence among different cultures.

But the three elements that probably most accurately define the Canadian identity are not the product of spontaneous generation but of human intervention and are extremely recent creations: a concern with rights that finds expression in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; a respect for plurality and difference, including multiculturalism; and values of generosity and sharing that underlie the social-security safety net.

The Charter is less than 20 years old; the idea of multiculturalism is 30 years old; the welfare state began to emerge 40 years ago.

We could, at first glance, see all this as a sign of modernity, the ability of a society to define new values. But these new values so quickly become sacred cows, reflecting a great insecurity.

We find the same thing in Quebec, where the sacred cows are also remarkably young. The Révolution tranquille -- the Quiet Revolution -- is 40 years old; Bill 101, the French Language Charter, is 25; and the Quebec model is no more than about 30.

But the most striking phenomenon is the Charter Rights and Freedoms. However much its principles derive from Canadian values, the tool -- a U.S.-style charter that is foreign to our legal traditions -- is itself very recent.

This young document, whose implications we have not yet digested, has already been internalized as a central element in the Canadian identity to the point that it is now impossible to deviate from it. There is something suspect about this sudden and absolute adoption that makes us wonder how it was possible to be Canadian a quarter-century ago.

Even if Canada has always had a tradition of immigration, the idea of pluralism that Canada holds to was essentially reformulated when multiculturalism became a cardinal virtue some 30 years ago, partly in response to the two-nations theses and to the rising sovereigntist tide.

We are in the presence of a myth here. It is true that Canada is a land of diversity, where tolerance has taken root. But when we look at Canada's recent history, and even harder at its older history, we quite quickly discover that Canadian society stands up rather badly to the shock of difference.

Canada deals well with a mosaic society, especially because the great diversity of the sources of immigration has a way of minimizing any threat. But Canada reacts quite badly when that diversity oversteps the boundaries of folklore and threatens the dominant culture.

We've seen in the case of Quebec how difficult it is for English-speaking Canada to accept the principle that part of the population can be different, and that it should be formally recognized -- something that constitutes the very essence of respect for diversity.

We've seen it with the first nations, with whom we're still painfully seeking a way of co-existing in difference.

We see it now with the Western provinces that try to assert themselves through values that diverge from dogmas established in Central Canada.

The perception -- a false one in our view -- that Canada has of its own tolerance is accompanied by another equally erroneous perception about the behaviours that go along with this openness. It's the image of gentleness that makes Canada think it can resolve its internal crises through love -- a touchy-feely nationalism.

This was the approach that gave us the love-in in Montreal on Oct. 27, 1995, a few days before the referendum, when Canadians came to tell Quebeckers how much they loved them.

This event left me deeply uncomfortable. Using love to resolve conflicts among peoples is naive and inappropriate. It's true that Canadians of all origins, unlike many other bi- or multinational states, carry on cordial relationships at the individual level. Montreal has never been Belfast.

It's rare for nations or communities that co-exist in a single country to love one another. Multinational societies are usually the consequence of turbulent histories where cultures, languages, religions and values have come into conflict. Canada is no exception: We can't help but see that the values, demands and political choices of some have tend to at the very least irritate others.

There's nothing especially troubling about this. Love is not a functional basis of operations. It's more of an immature response to a complex problem. Tensions in bi-national states are normal; the wisest path is to accept and manage them rather than deny their existence through amorous outbursts.

The Montreal love-in failed to impress me in tactical terms as well. I saw a purely narcissistic exercise. English-speaking Canadians, arriving in groups, demonstrated with other groups of English-speaking Canadians, and then took off again by bus, car or plane without ever having met the object of their effusions.

The true gesture of love would have been to say to Quebeckers: "We love you, we don't want to lose you, and here's what we would do so that you could stay" -- just as a spouse would do to prevent a separation.

But the message in fact sounded more like this: "Don't leave, because we love Canada the way it is." What Canadians loved, that day, was not French-speaking Quebeckers, but themselves.

The third pillar of this new nationalism is of course the culture of solidarity that finds expression in the values of sharing, a progressive tax structure, equalization policies and, above all, a social-security safety net of the European type.

The trap does not lie in these admirable policies, but in what they've generated in the collective unconscious. They have served to shape the Canadian identity because they help to distinguish Canada from its threatening neighbour.

The result is a Canadian identity that is extremely vulnerable, because the soul of the people comes to depend not on the citizens, or values, but instead on government programs, civil servants and budgets. A budget crisis -- or even relatively innocuous acts such as closing a railway link or shutting down a regional radio station -- become nation-destroying gestures.

This identity attachment has crystallized around the health-care system, which has inarguably become the symbol par excellence of the Canadian soul and the bulwark against the awful American model. Among other things, this attachment enshrined itself in a Canadian health-care law that in the early 1980s laid out the conditions to which provincial health plans would have to submit.

And thus it is that the symbol of identity boils down to a law with five conditions and one formula, almost a mantra: "one-tier system."

Not only is this a dogmatic approach, but it removes us from the real world and delivers us to the land of myths. Canada, despite its attachment to the formula, has never had a truly one-tier system. More important, this way of organizing a health-care network exists nowhere else in the industrialized world.

Every regime, including left-leaning European countries, allows private and public to co-exist. They accept that not all activities are provided free, that the state manages the system with other partners. What is illegal in Canada and perceived as morally reprehensible is accepted in every other country that believes in solidarity.

So it was absolutely surrealistic when Health Minister Allan Rock, with whom I had shared this observation, answered me that yes, there was in fact a nation whose system rested on the same principles as ours -- Cuba. This was not, alas, meant as a joke.

There's a price to be paid for these rigidities, which entail numerous perverse effects.

First of all, they deprive us of the possibility of exploring other avenues of reform. This is the case in health care. The chokehold that Canada has applied to itself will make it much more difficult to restore quality of care and people's confidence by re-engineering the health-care system.

They also make it harder to respond to challenges such as raising Canadians' standard of living and lessening the dangerously deepening gap between us and our neighbour to the south.

Another much more disquieting perverse effect is the development in Canada of an ideological orthodoxy. In Quebec, there are pressures that discourage intellectuals from straying from sovereigntist dogma without running the risk of exclusion and mistrust. I know something about this. The same process is at work in the rest of Canada, through the Canadian social model. It is difficult to be a true Canadian without espousing the centre-left values that underlie our welfare state.

The idea of Ontario's then-premier Bob Rae during our great constitutional debates to have social rights enshrined in the Charter reflects this tendency.

The idea was noble and generous. But it carried with it important secondary effects, centring on the fact that it would constitutionalize the elements of a political program whose values are certainly not shared by all Canadians.

Too homogeneous a political vision can lead to abuse. For example, a federal minister told me that current Ontario Premier Mike Harris was "un-Canadian." That term reminded me of all the intolerance that led our neighbours to define certain fellow citizens as "un-American."

This ideological orthodoxy contributed considerably to fostering the alienation of the West and the anger against Central Canada that found expression in the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance. In effect, Canadian citizens were deprived of their democratic right to be right-leaning, and of expressing values that differ from those of the central government.

Therein lies a democratic deficit.

I do not support the Alliance. But I defend the right to be different, and even the possibility that other roads might enrich our collective experience. Above all, I defend the inalienable right of Canadians to choose.

Politically, the ideological corridor is narrow to the point that only one party can still embody the unassailable values that define Canada -- the Liberal Party of Canada. Canada is gradually making its way toward a single-party parliamentary regime.

That is why I fear that Canada is not well prepared for the challenges that the future holds. The way in which its nationalism shapes the Canadian identity risks being an obstacle to progress.

The Canadian search for identity has for some decades placed us in chains. To attain a positive and creative nationalism, Canadians need to question the myths that are suffocating the country.

This needs to be faced all the more urgently in light of the new challenges that Canada will confront, especially the impact of globalization on economic activity, the role of states and the fate of peoples.

These pressures will demand from societies like ours -- if we wish to continue to be what we are -- strong identities and a great ability to adapt. At the moment, we have trouble exhibiting either.

One way of finding flexibility and ridding ourselves of sacred cows is debate. Canadians reflect all too little, except in specialized circles, on their identity, on the expressions of their nationalism. Taking comfort from their dogma, rocked in the cradle of ideological orthodoxy, Canadians have lost the daring, the iconoclastic approach of the man that still inspires them, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The Canadian debate could benefit from a little more reason, a little more lucidity.

Another liberating tool is regionalization. I have no wish to talk here about the decentralization of power, nor of the workings of federalism, but about something deeper, a state of mind, a way of perceiving the Canadian dynamic whereby the regions can serve as a setting for initiative and identity definition.

In Canadian history, the initiatives of regions, competition that takes place among them, emulation and imitation have been major factors in national progress. I know some people associate modernity with a stronger central pole to counter what they see as provincial deviancy. But a sclerotic centre with an aging leadership cannot ensure creativity and energy.

Betting on regions seems to me more the order of the day as globalization comes to have a greater impact on the architecture of states, creates networks that transcend the traditional logic of borders and deprives people of frames of reference to which they've grown accustomed. These upheavals tend to lead citizens to reinforce their sense of identity at the regional level.

This phenomenon of regional reinforcement, obvious in Europe, will take shape in Canada as free trade imposes a north-south logic. Canada is obviously not prepared to facilitate this process. Nevertheless, rich regional identities exist in Canada and should not merely be encouraged, but showcased. They enrich -- not threaten -- the national identity.

A more distant yet still important pressure is continentalization, which has so far been expressed mostly at the economic level.

North America -- and soon simply the Americas, with the free-trade area of the Americas -- lags behind Europe in terms of political integration. But the fact remains that Canadians, and the younger ones especially, will progressively develop what can be called a continental awareness, a certain sense of belonging, a modification of what is their implicit space.

The mobility of students, researchers and management, the growth of transnational Canadian firms and the circulation of ideas -- all this will have the effect that a growing number of Canadians, while remaining Canadians, will be North Americans as well in certain areas of their lives. This can now, unfortunately, be seen in certain areas of cultural life, but in time will certainly come to affect other components of everyday living.

A new reality will emerge from this process, a double identity, the mere evocation of which is bound to make many Canadians shudder. But if the state is complex, it can nonetheless be managed -- as we are beginning to see in Europe, where Germans, French and Italians are learning to be European citizens as well. This is something Quebeckers are very familiar with, being Quebeckers and Canadians at the same time. Some day it will be your turn.

It can work -- on the condition that the national identity is firmly grounded to begin with.

I'm not a specialist on the Canadian question -- I'm not even Canadian in the same way than you are, given this double identity of mine. And that could possibly lead me to a degree of oversimplification. But my impression, despite certain misgivings, is that the Canadian identity is strong -- in lifestyle, the attachment to institutions, values, behaviours, certain components of cultural life. It is much stronger than Canadian leaders, who are heirs to and caretakers of cultural insecurity, seem to believe.

The finest example, once again, is that of health care. It is not Jean Chrétien, or Joe Clark, or Stockwell Day, or Gilles Duceppe, or Alexa McDonough who are the custodians of the system: it is Canadians themselves who, without their politicians, have expressed in a thousand ways their objection to seeing an American-style regime installed in Canada.

The rigidity of Canadian nationalism can be explained in large part by that obligation felt by our elites to furnish a bulwark against the Canadian identity. But that identity is strong enough to express itself without the artificial protection that the central power deems its obligation to supply.

That paternalistic approach can have the opposite effect. In desiring to protect Canadians from themselves, in imposing on Canadians crutches for which they have no need, in instilling in them a sense of unjustified insecurity, the risk is rather that the country as a whole will be enfeebled.