Today, President Barack Obama, the product of a reinvigorated and dynamic political culture, met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the by-product of a diseased system of government and an apathetic Canadian public. Although both men ran in federal elections this fall, the Canadian public largely ignored Harper's battle for re-election as they were so transfixed by the American race. On Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 only 59% of the Canadian electorate bothered voting, marking the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history. Stephen Harper's Conservative Party managed to get another minority parliament, but this was in the shadow of the ominous fact that all of the major Canadian political parties lost supporters at the polls in 2008. This miserable fact stands in sharp contrast to the new American appetite for participation that led to a record high voter turnout in the United States just a few weeks later. And then to reinforce how meaningless the Canadian federal election had been, Harper was able to convince the Governor General of Canada to prorogue Parliament in an attempt to dodge a vote of non-confidence that would have forced him to relinquish his role as Prime Minister. Thus, as President-elect Obama readied a transitional team to take on some of the most daunting challenges facing the world, Canada's government closed shop and sat on the sidelines as the Canadian and world economy continued to crumble.
This strange series of events in Canada barely made a ripple in international headlines. Last year, an eerily prescient episode of South Park premiered in which Canada went on strike and nobody, except the South Park boys who missed their Canadian TV, cared. Apparently, even the twisted imaginations of South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone couldn't have fathomed the actual story: Canada did go on strike and not only did the world not care, the Canadians didn't really think much about it either! The irony of the sheer boredom with which Canadians approach their democratic duty, each of whom appears to have become convinced of its inconsequentiality, is that it inadvertently resulted in a Canadian Prime Minister that would make the American GOP proud. That's right, the earnestly progressive and PC True North Strong and Free, land of gay marriages, permissive approaches to 'illicit substances' and universal health care, somehow elected Stephen Harper, a man who combines a Palin-esque provincialism with Dick Cheney's reverence for secrecy and control. And, today we foisted him on the new American president to represent the Canadian case.
While most Canadians do seem vaguely disgusted by Harper, they're not concerned enough to do anything about him. Perhaps this is because they're relatively confident that Harper doesn't have the power to challenge the other major Canadian parties and the bloated Ottawa bureaucracy. It is, after all, business as usual in Ottawa, a national capital bereft of ideas and cowed by decades of influence peddling by Quebec sovereigntists. This is not to say that Canada doesn't face major problems. Canada has not escaped the ravages of the global financial crisis, which has hit Alberta's ethically debased oil sands economy and central Canada's manufacturing sector particularly hard. Instead, it is to say that most Canadians expect President Obama to fix the problem for them, even if most would never publicly admit this due to a national pride that has been constructed around a particularly virulent strain of anti-Americanism.
Although Canadians tend to be polite and to love American money, they generally don't like Americans. Canadians love Obama and have celebrated his trip to Canada, but there is a trace of bitterness about the whole thing. Canadians are proud today because they believe that Obama's trip has once again validated the special relationship between the two countries and, in so doing, justified Canada's sense of global worth. At the same time, they resent having to rely on the United States to reaffirm their own sense of self.
And, Canadians are all too aware that with Obama, America has once again proven to be Babe Ruth -- badly behaved, messy, ignoring the rules, but somehow, at the plate, able to confidently point to the sky and always -- no matter how improbable -- always hit it out of the park. Previous President Bush, on the other hand, had given Canadians hope. For a fleeting moment, the disheveled genius of the American experiment looked to have finally failed. In the Bush years, Canadians had a dream. They began to believe that their quiet, safe, and completely unoriginal approach to running a country had won out. And, they saw a time where the classic Canadian justification for it's own middling status, indoctrinated into each of us in Canada's public schools as a theory of history in which the allegedly more ethically and morally sound example of Canada's painfully slow political evolution was clearly far superior to the apparently obvious excesses of America's revolutionary spirit, was actually correct! Of course, this didn't happen. Obama was elected and Canadians found themselves in the familiar, if uncomfortable, position of vicariously living off the hope, energy and experimentation of the United States, coveting every step that America took towards once again searching for that ever elusive but always captivating dream of a more perfect union.
Despite the tortured self-reflexivity that Obama has inspired in many of us, Canadians, including Stephen Harper, can also be very practical. We know that the Obama administration has a plan for getting America out of the financial crisis, and we want in on it. In today's meeting, environmental policy and Afghanistan were discussed primarily to, I suggest, give the talks the gloss of a meeting between two world leaders. But, the really important issues were trade and jobs. This wasn't a meeting between two world leaders; it was more like a meeting between a CEO and a branch-plant manager. Stephen Harper, of the Canadian branch plant, brought his concerns to the table and asked President Obama to address them. For instance, Canadians don't like the Buy American clause in the American bailout and don't want to see anything like it in future financial reconstruction packages. Canadians' primary expectation of Prime Minister Harper was that he would convey this message. If Mr. Harper succeeded in this task as branch plant manager, Canadians will be pleased and will continue to regard him with a numb disdain that will ensure his continued tenure as Canadian Prime Minister.
It is only through understanding the strange confluence of anti-Americanism and Canada's economic dependence on the United States that we can really understand the significance of today's meetings in Ottawa. Ultimately, today's events will be at best a blip in the international press and a footnote in the history of the Obama administration. But, in Canada, this was monumental. Canadians were able to see on their own soil the glorious product of a vibrant and powerful American experiment. This made us celebrate even as it made us jealous. But, perhaps most of all, it gave us a sense that we might be on the radar of a real leader and that he might lift us out of the darkness too.
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/20/the_axis_of_stability
As many Canadians, also, I have a love-hate relationship with the US...on the one hand adoring their generosity and spirit, on the other, loathing their being the most un-informed citizens of a developed country in the world and...God forbid...absolutely oblivious of anything that happens beyond their borders, especially north of their 3000-mile long one. (It's depressing and disturbing to be ignored!)
Barack Obama's ability to excite the imagination of the world insofar as what we believe is possible is exactly what we all need. It's up to us!
It was a good lesson we only wish the US knew about over the last miserable 8 years, but it taught the canadian political opposition a faulty lesson: that a vote of nonconfidence can be hoisted for posturing and advancement by manipulative political factions. I'm not such a fan of Harper, but the alternatives are, I agree, meagre. But let's face it - the US real estate crash fuelled by lack of oversight and regulation put the entire world in a dire economic position. So why position this as all Harper's problem? I didn't support the vote of nonconfidence at all, and was happy for the time out! That the Liberals joined with the Bloc is folly, and as a long time liberal, I'll continue to vote against 'my party', until they wake up. They could learn a thing or two from Obama. Unfortunately, they learned a thing or two from Bush and his host of thugs.
Your article offers Canadians as apathetic, lazy, resigned, passive, envious, and jealous, but it does not illuminate Canadians I know, or my Canada.
However, and let me offer this as a polite Canadian is want to do, your article shines a bright light on its author.....
Harper is a pretty sad case for a Canadian Prime Minister with little charisma and some pretty lame opponents but that is the way the political jockeying sometimes gets so Canadians will endure. The nation is good at that. As is we can rely on a "bloated bureaucracy" to guarantee that basic services are met, the economy is sliding but not slalooming and that the politicians have time to craft laws instead of ram them down our throats.
By the way have the Americans found a solution for their healthcare problems yet... didn't think so.
One of the stupidly wrong-headed opinions of this OP. These are the talking points of the radical right wingers up here in Canada (yes we have them too). The progressives in this country have no media voice, (Air Canada is an airline).
I remember one radio host looking down from his high rise studio at a peace march who had among their concerns the Iraq War, and commenting at how many "Anti-Americans there were down there".
For the umteenth time, Canadians love Americans. We are brothers and sisters of the same continent. We have many of the same values. And those of us who call ourselves progressives, have never hated Americans, but the policies of the Bush Administration that put the whole world on edge. Of course it was hard to swallow that the American voter gave that cowboy a second term, but we can understand the ignorance level in places where all they get is FAUX news and Rush. It is not the American people progressive Canadians despise, it is the institutional domination of the right wing blowhards down there.
I am sick of being labeled "Anti-American" just because I don't stand with the 20% of Americans who still live in George Bush's New American Century fantasy.
I was truly down when President Bush was voted in the second time around after all that we knew by then.
When American's come up here they know absolutely nothing about our country, our governement or our culture. They think we are all Esquimaux. And six feet deep in snow.
We are in fact many things, but we are not NOT a "branch plant of the USA." We have health care for everyone, and strong banking system and a good education system and a sense of responsibility instead of a sense of entitlement.
I voted in three elections last fall, the Canadian, the USA and the civic elections in my town. But the Canadaian election was hard to get excited about because there were no new choices. The USA had the advantage of a delightful new choice with new ideas.
That does not make the USA better or Canada some kind of 51st state. It just puts us at different places in our history. Our turn will come. We had the exciting and intelligent Trudeau for many wonderful years while you bounced from Johnson to Nixon, from dull to dull and criminal. Our turn for the big political fun will come again.
Meanwhile - we are distinct and seperate, not a 51st state. Not a branch plant. And we whoped your ass in the War of 1812!
I can differentiate between a city and a state in the U.S. (you know, Detroit Michigan, Houston, Texas). How many times do we have to hear our American buds say Vancouver, Canada - instead of Vancouver, British Columbia. Geez, a little knowledge does go a long way you know.
I can't say I have negative feelings about our pals to the south, only wish they would look outwards a little more, Canada and the world. I suspect Obama will help do that.
And by the way, who started that rumour that we Canadians feel inferior to the U.S? I certainly don't and none of my friends do. My family in Ohio don't feel superior to us, so let's drop that one!
They can take a look across the border at Detroit and not be too jealous.
I wish that we had a more efficient health care system, such as yours, and that our banks weren't in the crapper, that the housing bubble hadn't been all that was driving the US economy, that our Armed Services weren't bleeding out in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the American Judicial System of 3 strikes your OUT and our insane drug laws didn't make us tin #1 incarceration of our own citizens in our massive for-profit prison system, that Abstinence Only wasn't the leading Public School health education curriculum, that our airwaves weren't owned by a handful of consolidating corporate media behemoths, and that the gap between the very rich and the rest of us had widened as much as it has here in my beloved country.
Comparatively speaking, I think the end product of the Canadian Governing System takes care of the Public Weal a bit better than the American one does. What's the level of debt you are of leaving for your Canadian youth to pay off? Things have to change in the US because they're so off track. What you call apathy is simply the result of living under a more equitable government.
Canada is a much more loving and sharing society. I have been shocked at the rhetoric against the mortgage bailout plan. Virtually all of the uproar is from individuals who whine that they've paid their own bills, they're not going to help out their neighbours. It's so opposite from the accepted frame of mind of Canadians helping each other. Guess that's what 'socialism' does for you, eh?
They have internet at Penn right? Better check some facts before your PhD defense.
It's doubtful Harper win the next election now that Michael Ingatieff is the leader of the Liberal Party. Yes, we love President Obama because he inspires us much like our late former Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau did. He made us proud to be Canadians.