Reagan and Canada
Richard Gwyn raises a couple of interesting points in the Toronto Star:
1. Canada got a very good deal in the free trade agreement with the U.S. (signed by Reagan and Mulroney). Mulroney probably made himself unpopular in Canada by what was seen as sucking up to the president, but he got a good deal.
2. In the intervening years, with the movement of goods and people between the countries freer than ever (at least until 9/11), Canadians became more proudly Canadian, culturally insular, and almost anti-American. Freedom to trade is also the freedom to maintain diversity?
Matthew Yglesias has suggested that Canadians would benefit from joining the U.S.: they would mostly come down on the "blue state" or liberal side, and thus become part of the dominant majority of the only megapower.
This raises the question again: are there really noticeable cultural differences between Canada and the U.S.? Maybe we're moving a bit quicker on liberalization of pot and same sex marriage--but the latter is likely to be driven by the courts in both countries.
One big difference seems to be with war and defence spending. Maybe Harper will get elected, and spend a lot more on defence, but Canadians seem pretty happy with an armed force that can hardly do anything in a foreign country. Mulroney the pro-American made noises about new defence projects--first a submarine, then a helicopter (just as he attempted to pass legislation that would restrict abortion). But the Tories left office with little or nothing done, and the Liberals did not follow through.
Maybe Don Forbes needs to write a book about multiculturalism as Canada's distinct contribution to the world. Of course the U.S. is a very successful "melting pot," but there is still a tendency for people there to want to be one kind of American, with one creed, even a "way of life." The Pledge of Allegiance is still said in school, although the reference to "God" may be in trouble. Canada is perhaps more relaxed on what might be called "rituals of conformity," or unity; thus visible minorities can become comfortable more quickly, and remain comfortable even with visible differences.
You don't have to be a crazy conservative to think this may not work--there needs to be a somewhat irrational glue holding people together, more than a theory that "we're all the same underneath." (See Allan Bloom's essays on Othello and the Merchant of Venice; Merchant of V. also included here).
I don't know: is Sacramento as multicultural as Canada? San Antonio? New York?
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