A Mare Usque Ad Mare

Daniel McCarthy writes:

Recent discussion of Red Toryism prompted me to buy a few books by George Grant, the Canadian philosopher with whose thought the term has long been associated. The epigraphs to the chapter on “The United States as a Technological Society” in the The George Grant Reader struck me as worth noting:

As a Canadian I have always believed in the use of the national state as a means of protecting Canadian independence. On the other hand, in the general economic situation of North America I dislike the concentration of power that is taking place in the hands of Washington. I would not have found it impossible as an American to have voted for Senator Goldwater, on domestic, but not on international issues. I unequivocally would have voted for General Eisenhower in both elections. — George Grant to George Hogan, 26 April, 1965

It is easy to be against nationalism when one is a member of a nation which is the centre of a great empire. But think of the other side: may it be a good thing to be nationalist when one is defending a communal existence against that empire? The alternative to nationalism for small communities is not internationalism but a dominance of their existence by empires. This seems to me as true of communities near the Russian empire as it is those near the American: though the ability of a capitalist empire may be more insidious than the more blatant means of a communist empire. — George Grant to John Robertson, 9 October 1960

If the Canadian David Frum could set himself up as arbiter of American patriotism, I’m tempted to ask whether I can be a Canadian nationalist.

The sort of British “conservatives” who think that patriotism means loyalty to someone else’s country, even if they cannot always decide whether that country is America or Israel, always used to despise Canada. Canada cherishes the aspects of a specifically British heritage that distinguish her from America, an almost accidentally English-speaking country. Now, though, Canada is hated by the sort of pseudo-Leftists who want to destroy secure jobs, proper wages, travel opportunities and a full diet for everyone except themselves. So the New Right loves Canada after all. Whereas some of us always did love Canada, and always will.

Canada is the land of John G Diefenbaker, the morally and socially conservative rural populist who established the Canadian Bill of Rights, the Royal Commission on Health Services, the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Act, and the National Productivity Council (Economic Council of Canada), and who extended the franchise to all Aboriginal peoples. He campaigned to save the Canadian Red Ensign, with the Union Flag in the corner and thus making Canada a nation under the Cross. He opposed official bilingualism in the English-speaking provinces. He denounced apartheid, and blocked the Commonwealth readmission of the new Republic of South Africa. And he refused to have American nuclear weapons in Canada. But, alas, he subordinated Canadian to American air defence, one of the effects of which was to put 30,000 Canadians out of work. A salutary reminder that One Nation politics must always place an equal emphasis on the One and on the Nation.

And Canada is also the land of Tommy Douglas, voted the Greatest Canadian by CBC viewers in 2004. Born in Falkirk, and therefore an embodied link between Canada and the United Kingdom, this Baptist minister led a party of unions, farmers and co-operators with that splendid name, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. He gave Saskatchewan the publicly owned Saskatchewan Power Corporation, its extension of electrical services to remote villages and farms, and the Saskatchewan Government Insurance Office. He gave Saskatchewan many Crown Corporations in competition with private sector interests, the unionisation of the public services, and Canada’s first programme of universal free hospital care. He delivered the Saskatchewan Bill of Rights, with its groundbreaking protections against private no less than government abuses. He laid the ground for the province’s Medicare programme, which soon afterwards became nationwide. And he became the first Leader of the New Democratic Party, Canada’s main party of the Left. Did I mention that he did all this while a Baptist minister?

Complete with the Queen and the Westminster model, a few retained British variations on the English language, and a British-style social democracy. Yet sharing with the United States a continent and the longest land frontier between any two countries. How dare they? Who do they think they are? They will indicate exactly who and what they are by withdrawing from Afghanistan. We should be right behind them. As we should be in defending secure jobs, proper wages, travel opportunities and a full diet for everyone.

Once the think tank is up and running, one of the things that we most want to do with it is set up some sort of Diefenbaker-Douglas Fellowship or Diefenbaker-Douglas Scholarship, embodying the best of both, in partnership with someone in Canada.