Friday, April 25, 2003

WHY CANADIANS FEAR AMERICA. The title of this essay alone is likely to get me into trouble with both Canadians ("We do not!") and Americans ("You ingrates still don't get it."), but someone ought to talk about this. Let me start by dispensing with two myths: That most Canadians and Americans are really very similar, and that Canada couldn't exist without American support and forbearance. I spend half of my work life working with Americans and half with Canadians. While there are dangers in generalizing, recent opinion polls illustrate fundamental differences between American and Canadian worldviews and value. Here are three major differences: Americans are unilateralists, Canadians are multilateralists: The latest Environics poll shows that 70% of Canadians still oppose the attack on Iraq, not because they think Saddam was a great guy, but because they think military action against another country must have international support. Seventy percent of Americans now think the Iraq war was justified. That's a huge difference of opinion. The very concept of a pre-emptive unilateral attack on another nation is anathema to most Canadians. And having the majority of a country right beside you support a regime that relishes pre-emptive unilateral military adventures is terrifying. Americans have an authoritarian worldview, Canadians have a conciliatory worldview: A survey taken in 2000 revealed that 44% of Americans but only 20% of Canadians believe "the father of the family should be the master of his own house" and that "good parents make and enforce strict rules for their children". If you buy Lakoff's nation-as-family metaphor for conservatives (strict father worldview) and liberals (nurturing parent worldview), this means that Americans are evenly split (perhaps badly, even schizophrenically split) between conservative and liberal worldviews, while Canadians, like Europeans, are overwhelmingly liberal. The US is arguably the only developed country in the world where conservative views are sufficiently prevalent today to elect a government. To most Canadians this ideology is so outdated, so nonsensical and doctrinaire , that to see it pursued so aggressively by the most powerful nation the world has ever known is frightening. Americans like hierarchy and structure, Canadians like heterarchy and diversity: Another survey taken in 2000 revealed that 47% of Canadians, but only 19% of Americans, believe organizations work best when there is no single leader in charge. Many Canadians have learned the hard way that you don't criticize your American boss. The American cult of leadership is hard for Canadians to fathom: Canadians routinely poke fun at their managers and ridicule their Prime Minister. Canadian managers get paid much less than their American counterparts, while new recruits get paid more. Americans' fanatical patriotism and flag-waving is seen by Canadians as xenophobia and intimidating zealotry rather than as pride and respect for their country and authority. Put aside for a moment the Bush administration's bullying and threats of retaliation against Canada for its non-support of the war. Put aside the hypocrisy of Bush's claim to support free trade while his trade negotiators are reneging on every existing trade agreement that restricts American companies. Put aside Bush's refusal to sign Kyoto and his attempt to undermine the World Court of Justice. I think most Canadians see these actions as Bush/neocon excess, and not representative of the views of Americans. The only thing frightening about these particular actions is that the US political system allows one small group of mostly (entirely?) unelected people to wield this much power so undemocratically. The only Canadian prime minister that expected that kind of blind trust from the electorate (Brian Mulroney) almost destroyed the country when Canadians refused to be bullied into accepting his reckless plan for constitutional reform. He was ousted in disgrace and his Conservative party has never recovered. Americans seem to like arrogant, swaggering leaders; Canadians loathe them. Most Canadians also think the 'average' American (not to mention the average Republican president) is woefully ignorant of world history, geography, culture, and current events outside the US and Iraq. That may or may not be a fair assessment, but it underlies the Canadian perception that Americans see Canada as somehow utterly dependent on US largesse. By every standard except GDP, Canadian living standards are higher than those in the US. The trade interdependence is two-way: to a significant degree the 1990s US economic boom was sustained by handy access to Canadian labour that is more productive and 30% cheaper than their US counterparts', and by Canadians' willingness to sell them raw materials at bargain prices and then buy back the finished goods at a premium. And while Canadians would clearly be unable to defend themselves from an attack by a larger enemy, they also believe that no one else could or should defend Canada either, and that the best defence is hence neutrality, negotiation, consensus-building and a global reputation for peace-keeping and fairness. Ironically, Canada's very proximity to the US seems to reinforce these differences and the fear they elicit among Canadians. Those Canadians who are conservative, materialistic, entrepreneurial and religious are far more likely to move to the US, widening the Canada/US worldview gulf further. Twice the proportion of Americans vs. Canadians believe in trying to convert non-Christians, and three times the proportion describe themselves as evangelical Christians or as 'born-again'. Twice the proportion of Canadians believe the government should guarantee adequate health, education and welfare for all citizens, but Canadians are even more opposed to government restrictions on civil liberties than Americans. Canadians opened their hearts and wallets to help America after 9/11. They fought side-by-side with Americans in Afghanistan. It was Canadians who liberated the American hostages from Iran. But now 70% of Canadians fear retaliation from the neighbour with whom they are economically joined at the hip. They read that 30% of Americans would like to annex Canada. They hear about US boycotts of Canadian goods, and US demonstrations whose leaders propose to 'nuke Canada'. And they read that 70% of Americans support an administration that stands against almost everything Canadians stand for. They don't understand, and they're afraid. Postscript: Lovely quote from (Canadian) Robert MacNeil of PBS MacNeil-Lehrer Report fame: Canadians view America with a little kind of ironic distance. It's part of the Canadian psychological mechanism for asserting its own identity in the face of the overwhelming force of the American economy and popular culture. [How to Save the World] Hi Dave - so close and yet so different. Is not a key difference, when we look at Iraq, that America was born from an armed revolt and was shaped by the bloody civil war. So maybe In the US myth good things come from armed conflict. On the other hand no wild west in Canada but the Mounties creating law and order mainly not via the gun but by "presence" It is not that Canadians are wimps nor that they do not know how to fight. In World War I, Canada outfought all others and waere used as the shock tropps of Empire.. In WWII Canada ended the war with the 3rd lasrgets Navy in the world and bore the brunt of the War of the Atlantic as well as at D Day and the 1944-5 campagin in Europe. But we tend to fight for principle and then revert to being highly non militaristic. We go for duty but not becuase our myjt is built on war itself 6:23:00 PM    comment []