Home Washington Secretariat Essays 2005/03

Getting Noticed in Washington: The Hard Part of Canada's Job

by Colin Robertson

Culture and identity are often believed to be the foundation of a country's political system. In order to fully understand the political, strategic, and economic relationship between Canada and the United States, it is first necessary to explore the cultural similarities and differences among Canadians and Americans. This highlights significant considerations for both Canadians and Americans. For example, what is Canada's cultural identity and how does it really compare to that of the United States? Are Americans and Canadians more similar than many Canadians care to admit? Is it accurate to assert the presence of a North American identity

I chose to call my paper 'Why the Moose Must Roar.' Some ask why I chose the moose rather than Canada's traditional symbol the beaver. I have nothing against the beaver. The beaver is a social beast. He loves his family. He gets along with all the other animals around. He's industrious: nature's engineer who bridges land and water with his dams that contribute to the neighborhood. He is on the front or back, depending on your monarchist sympathies, of every nickel. It is one of our more splendid symbols.

Alas the beaver, as naturalists have observed since antiquity, has a peculiar habit. When under threat, he apparently bites off his balls, leaving them to his adversary. They are believed to have aphrodisiac powers. Perhaps, but no longer for the beaver. It brings new meaning to pyrric victory.

And so the moose. The moose is making a come-back: the Manitoba Moose, the moose that decorated street-corners in Toronto a couple of seasons back. In San Jose the young techno-crowd created the Digital Moose Lounge that I used to attend. The Economist, still the finest newsweekly magazine in the world, used the moose, the 'cool moose' as its cover in its last look at Canada.

The moose is king of the peaceable kingdom. Lord of the North. And we are a people of the North. I am convinced that it is our sense of north — making a home in a climate best described as 'intemperate', which has given us our sense of community and our knack for compromise. Living in the North requires compromise with our geography and climate. And when your neighbor is the biggest and most powerful — 'hyperpower' in the words of the French, getting along becomes second nature. This is especially true when you are still nation-building and welcoming peoples from around the world to settle, to study and to start a new life.

Pluralism, tolerance and a celebration of diversity have become virtues of the Canadian character. To say nothing of our sense of humour. And while, like the moose, we are slow to anger, like the moose, when roused, we stand our ground — usually politely, it's the Canadian way, but in forthright fashion. And while we are not a nation of warriors, when necessary, war we will, with effect. Read Jack Granatstein and Des Morton; and war always creates a sense of national purpose and identity as Pierre Berton poetically describes in Vimy and Marching to War.

But, as a people, we need to cease defining ourselves by what we are 'not'. Too many Canadians when asked to describe what we are start with the negative: "we're not American." A people that defines themselves by what they are not and an identity that begins with the negative cannot inspire.

We are different. But we aren't better. We have to get past the assumption that we are somehow better than Americans. Unfortunately, we continue to leave the impression with our American cousins of the kind of attitude that led Dean Acheson to describe Canada as the 'stern daughter of the mother of God." Or as Henry Kissinger put it when I met him at the Republican National Convention: "Canada...Canada. I have dealt with Canada since Vietnam. The word that come to mind when I think of Canada is 'self-righteous'...yes self-righteous. In Canada you get to do what is desirable. In America we must do what is necessary."

Insufferability is usually rooted in the insecurity of the mouse living next to the elephant. I think the analogy is wrong. We are not a mouse. Nor are we fire and ice. While there is much to learn from Michael Adams, I think the better analysis is that done by Edward Grabb and James Curtis in Regions Apart.¹ Their argument, a sort of successor to Joel Garreau's The Nine Nations of America, is that North America is three and perhaps four societies. But as my friend Frank Graves of EKOS reminded me two weeks ago when I was with him in Ottawa, while Canadians may not like Bush, there is no big 'values gap' between Canada and the US. Our values are shared and similar although the perception that we are significantly different is reinforced by our media. Yet, said Frank, Canadians, 80% of us living within a hundred miles of the border, are much more like our neighbours immediately south. Those living in BC have more in common with those in Washington or Oregon than those within the same distance in New Brunswick and northern Maine.

We are a moose sharing space with the eagle. We are not American, but we are North American. As Canadians we need to look through the right end of the telescope when we worry about 'our' cultural identity. By any American measure, by any world measure: the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammies, the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, Canada is a net producer of a North American culture of which we are an integrated and essential part. And we bring to them a lightness of touch — our sense of north, our sense of humour, our sense of people and place that transcends borders.

A year ago the cover story in the Canadian edition of Time trumpeted: 'Would anyone notice if Canada disappeared?' Yes, they would. Having spent a large part of my working career living beyond our borders I can tell you that the idea or 'brand' that Canada represents within North America and within the world, is hugely envied. Everyday that I am abroad, I meet people who want to come to Canada because of what that brand represents — freedom, cultural diversity, and opportunity. Values we share with our American cousins. Never forget that there are more Americans that think like Canadians than there are Canadians.

Again, we need to celebrate what we are, not what we are not. Our attraction and our strength as a people are rooted in our diversity — a diversity constantly replenished by our open immigration. We are northern people: the north of Hugh MacLennan, Glenn Gould, Roch Carrier, Robert Lepage, the Group of Seven. A Sense of North portrayed in films like Atanarjuat, Men with Brooms, les Invasions barbares. Storytellers like Rohinton Mistry, Carol Shields, Michael Ondaatje whose tales are at once particular, yet universal, reflecting the impact of successive waves of immigration and the access that is open to all.

Climate and diversity has created a dynamic culture that becomes more original as we internalize diversity. Our culture is now characterised by both a "diversity of authenticities" and an "authenticity of diversity." Without the awful baggage of ethnic or religious divide. We can actually inhabit the shoes of others. We are light on our feet. Our culture understands, preserves and integrates many cultures. And we do so with enormous success because we have a sensibility that travels well.

This sensibility and the commitment we make to ourselves, our place in North America and the rest of the world, are means to an end. The end they serve is to give Canada the confidence and the knowledge to play an increasingly constructive role in the world. First, to defend and advance our own interests, especially with the United States. Second, to play the vital role of interpreter. To interpret the United States to the rest of the world. To interpret the rest of the world to the United States. A role, arguably, even more valuable today as America rethinks and recalibrates its global involvement. Third, to make Canadian diplomacy, like our culture, an authentic Canadian medium that enriches our national life and, incidentally, makes a real contribution to international peace and security.

If the transatlantic world into which we are nestled, is coming undone, we have responsibilities. We have our interests, of course. But we shouldn't get too fixated on border, as important as it is. The security agenda is bigger — and it is spelled out in the Bush Administration's 2002 National Security Agenda. As for post-Iraq, what Bush 43 is doing is more likely to create a New World Order than what Bush 41set out to achieve.

We face a real dilemma. The 'rules based order' on which we correctly have placed such emphasis since World War 11 is changing, and it needs to change. There are good ideas out there for change, including those put forward by Kofi Annan. For a Canadian perspective, I encourage you to look at some of the ideas offered in recent books by Andrew Cohen and Jennifer Welsh.²

But our ultimate challenge is to keep the rules-based system appealing enough that the 'hyperpower,' and for the foreseeable future there is only one, doesn't take its marbles and go it alone.

As Canadians, as North Americans, we are uniquely placed to respond to these challenges. It requires leadership. It requires taking risks. It means doing things differently. But isn't that the definition of 'being Canadian'?

Notes

¹ Edward Grabb and James Curtis. Regions Apart: The Four Societies of Canada and the United States, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

² Cohen, Andrew. While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003. Welsh, Jennifer. At Home in the World: Canada's Global Vision for the 21st Century, Toronto: HarperCollins, 2004.