I have recently been teaching my students W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe. The novel reads like a long love letter to American culture, ideal for foreign students hoping to enter university in the US.
But it is written by a Canadian.
At the same time, I see a reference to The Band as the originators back in the 1970s of a new musical genre, “Americana.” Their albums are a celebration of everything American: “Up on Cripple Creek.” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Yet four of the five, including their two chief songwriters, are from London, Ontario.
It is not just The Band or W.P. Kinsella, either. Neil Young, from Toronto via Winnipeg, is also deep Americana. Leonard Cohen has a love affair with American country music. The most hyper-patriotic American Youtubers and political commentators seem to be Canadian refugees: Gad Saad, Steven Crowder, Mark Steyn, Gavin MacInnis, David Freiberg (“Viva Frei”), David Frum, “Clyde Do Something,” Jordan Peterson. Joe Schuster created Superman, who fights for “truth, justice, and the American way.” Schuster was Canadian.
Which leads me to the obvious conclusion: within every Canadian, there is an American screaming to get out.
Most Canadians, to be sure, define their Canadianness by not being American. But that makes the point. It is a textbook case of denial. The only thing that makes us not American is the mere assertion that we are not. By any objective measure, we are the same people, the same culture, the same nation, founded on the same principles: the same language, leaving aside French Canada; a shared geography, a shared home; a shared history; a shared legal system, the English common law; a shared form of government, liberal representative democracy and federalism; a shared patrimony in the UK; exposure to virtually all the same influences in our childhoods, Dr. Seuss and Disney, Sesame Street and Pixar; a shared religion, Christianity, with more or less the same mix of Protestant denominations and Catholicism. We play and have always played the same sports, often across our shared border: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse. All have deep roots in both countries--sports often unfamiliar in the rest of the world. Even our standard accents, let alone our language, are indistinguishable to outsiders and usually to ourselves. It is rare to find a Canadian, if not a recent immigrant, without known relatives in the US.
For Canadians, therefore, to criticize America or American culture amounts to self-hate. It is a poison that enfeebles us. Without our Americanness, we have no culture; for we are Americans.
For those brave few who embrace our Americanness, like Kinsella or The Bend, it is visibly exciting, dizzying. You can witness the enthusiasm. It is at last meeting our true selves, discovering our heritage, spreading our wings, and breathing free.
The best thing for Canadians is probably joining the US. Even without the economic benefits—we pay a premium in higher prices and lost opportunities by keeping our independence. Even without the security benefits—with the rise of China, it is reckless not to join forces. And Canada is too vast and underpopulated to defend itself.
For political reasons, the US would not want a full union. That would skew their electoral map leftward; Republicans would never agree.
Kevin O’Leary has the solution. Keep our pretty passports. Canadians do not vote in the US, and the Americans do not vote here. So the Americans can keep their electoral balance, and we can keep our Medicare. But full freedom of movement over the border, like going state to state or province to province. No tariffs, and the right to live and work in either country. Our militaries should be fully integrated, and so should tariffs on anything coming from abroad. We should have the same currency.
We would be richer, our quality of life would be better, and we would be happier.
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