Damn Yankees

Whenever a group of properly-educated Canadians meet, at least back home in Canada, the conversation inevitably turns to criticism of the United States. So it was recently on an email list of Canadian professionals to which I subscribe. Unfortunately, and unusually, this time there was dissent.

Of a sort. Half the group was irate at Americans for calling themselves “Americans.” After all, weren’t Canadians, not to mention Mexicans, Brazilians, and so forth, Americans too? “America,” or “American” properly refers to anything in North or South America. The other half, though, was irate at Americans referring to things and events in Canada as “America” or “American.” After all, didn’t this imply a claim to our resources?

It is not, clearly, what Americans do—whatever they do is wrong. It is simply wrong to be an American. On that score there never seems to be any dissent, among properly-educated Canadians. There is something very wrong with anything coming from the US.

Among other charges laid against the great republic to the south, in this particular discussion was that they were only a “pseudo-democracy,” that they were “imperialists,” and that they were “self-aggrandizing.”

If ‘twere true, ‘twere a grievous fault. Well, reasonably grievous, anyway. But structurally and culturally, for better or worse, the US is actually objectively more democratic than Canada. I’m not making this up. The Canadian prime minister, for a start, calls the shots personally in a way unthinkable to a US President; there are few checks and balances on his power. One of our two houses of parliament is appointed; while our head of state is born into the position. And we have a historic tendency, to a level unique among democracies, to de-facto one-party jurisdictions. We hold all the records for single individuals or parties remaining in power. The US may not be the most democratic country in the world; there is a good argument that nations using some form or proportional representation exceed it; but it is at least doing better than Canada. Culturally, too—in its respect for the views and the values of the ordinary man in the street, for pop culture, as opposed to those of a cultural elite—it is more democratic in spirit.

Structurally and culturally, too, the US is rather less imperialist than Canada. Let’s look at the facts here: Canada and the US share the world’s longest border. Save for the part that runs through the Great Lakes and along the St. Lawrence, there are no natural defenses anywhere along it. The US is the world’s greatest military power, by an order of magnitude. Canada is much smaller in population, rich in natural resources, and has only a nominal armed forces.

And yet, do Canadians stay up nights fearing an American anschluss?

Not unless they’re certifiably paranoid.

Wouldn’t Ireland, Poland, Korea, Algeria, or Tibet love an equally imperialist neighbour?
Properly-educated Canadians will complain that the American invasion of Iraq was äll about oil.” But let’s get serious here. If the US wanted control of most of the world’s oil, they could have it in a week; and they wouldn’t waste their time in Iraq. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar are, most of them, barely bigger than their postage stamps. Conquest by the US would be a trivial matter. Not to mention, closer to home, Canada’s tar sands, or Venezuela’s oilfields.

No, the truer statement is that the US is perhaps unique in history as the first nation who, clearly able to seize an empire, deliberately chose not to. This is because the American ideology is uniquely anti-imperialist. We have America mostly to thank for the decline of empire worldwide: through Wilson’s fourteen points, and through Eisenhower’s actions in the Suez crisis.

It is we, Canadians, who are the old imperialists—the United Empire Loyalists. Even today, Nunavut is arguably a colony, and the vision of Canada promoted by our official policy of multiculturalism, enshrined in the constitution, looks like nothing so much as the old boy’s-book celebration of empire, with smiling natives in colourful native dress. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because empire is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is absurd to hear Canadians tar Americans with that cock feather.

As to self-aggrandizement: how often do Canadians abroad go around wearing the Maple Leaf, or sew it on their backpack? How often are they seen handing out little Canada pins? Nothing wrong, I suppose, with a little pride in country; but can you imagine Americans doing the same thing? They would be scorned, first and foremost by Canadians, as unspeakably chauvinistic if they did.

Come on, compadres. Canada is quite a nice enough, important enough country without running down the USA. Indeed, it looks rather bigger and nicer, both to myself and to many foreigners of my acquaintance, when we do not.