Celebrating Canada: National Holidays, Commemoration and Identity Politics

With all of the hubbub surrounding the federal government's history agenda, I thought it was worth noting that one of the things that has been occupying me lately is the early phases of an edited collection about the practice and politics of crafting national identity in Canada's past.  If you're an academic who reads this blog, this collection might be of interest to you.


Call for Abstracts – Celebrating Canada: National Holidays, Commemoration and Identity Politics

With the 150th anniversary of Confederation coming up in 2017, it seems appropriate to reflect on the political, social and cultural forces which have shaped Canada over the course of its history.  National holidays and commemorative events provide an intriguing window into how these processes have affected, and continue to shape nationalism, culture and identity politics.  With this in mind, we invite interested authors to submit proposals for an edited collection that we are developing.  Tentatively entitled "Celebrating Canada: National Holidays, Commemoration and Identity Politics", our objective is to pull together scholarship related to national holidays and major commemorative anniversaries in Canadian history.  While our launching point for this collection is the celebration and observance of Dominion Day / Canada Day, we are taking a broad approach to the book's theme, and would like to include contributions that deal with major anniversary years like the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation, the Centennial of 1967, Canada 125 and other related – or competing! - national holidays such as Victoria Day, la Fête St-Jean-Baptiste/Fête Nationale, and Empire Day. We welcome contributions that situate Canadian holidays in a broader international context. 

We have already been in discussions with University of Toronto Press, where there is keen interest in this project. Interested authors are asked to submit proposals to Matthew Hayday [mhayday@uoguelph.ca] by 2 July 2013 (the day after the Canada Day holiday!) including a 250-500 word abstract and the author's institutional affiliation and contact information.  Our planned schedule is to contact authors regarding their proposals by the end of July, and have first completed drafts due in late spring 2014.  We are planning to apply for a SSHRC Connection Grant, with an eye to having participants come together for a workshop in the summer of 2014 to discuss each other's work.  This should provide ample time for revisions and the peer review process to allow the collection to be in print no later than 2017.

Please feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions.

Matthew Hayday
Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Guelph
mhayday@uoguelph.ca

Raymond Blake
Professor, Department of History, University of Regina
Raymond.Blake@uregina.ca

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Shared Embassies - Imperial Federation League Redux

Many people have already vociferously attacked the recent, and highly publicized, announcement by John Baird, Minister of Foreign Affairs, that Canada and the United Kingdom have brokered a deal to share embassy space in a number of countries as a cost-saving measure.  It is hard not to think that the fact that this was the subject of a press release, rather than a quiet administrative arrangement (as currently exists, for example, between Canada and Australia in a number of countries) is because this decision is part and parcel of the current Conservative government's efforts to re-Britishify Canada's identity.

I share many of my colleagues' concern with this development, at least in part because of my understanding of Canadian history, which includes national narratives about Canada's twentieth-century development largely being a story of progressive Canadian disentanglement from British control over our foreign policy, while still remaining close allies.  The decision to create separate Canadian overseas offices in the 1920s and 1930s was part and parcel of showing that Canada and Britain did not always necessarily speak with one voice and that their interests were not identical.  In many respects, Canadian foreign policy autonomy was hard-won.  And yet, now I find myself snarkilly inventing Onion-esque headlines for where this policy direction could lead, albeit taken to some absurd extremes.  To wit:

Canada to ask United Kingdom to retroactively counter-sign 1923 Pacific Halibut Fisheries treaty: "It just never felt right not having Britain's permission, official says."

John Baird issues formal apology to United Kingdom for Canada's failure to enthusiastically volunteer troops for 1922 Chanak Crisis: "Do you have any brewing concerns in Turkey today that we can send the Royal Canadian Air Force to help you out with?" foreign affairs minister asks.

Canadian government asks to have signature removed from the Treaty of Versailles, and membership in the League of Nations stricken from the historical record - Canadian government admits it was being uppity in 1919. 

I've got more where those come from, but this gives you a pretty good sense of my mood this afternoon!
 

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Symbols Matter - Canadian Forces Edition

Symbols matter. Traditions can be invented. Nationalism is the product of collective will to create an imagined community.

All of these concepts (which are debatable, of course) are vitally important to understanding the trajectories of Canadian identity politics since the Second World War. This has been my academic stomping ground, so to speak, for the last decade or so. I was thus not particularly surprised, although I was disappointed, by the leaked announcement that the Harper Government is planning to bring back the "Royal" in the official names of the Canadian air force and navy. It fits very nicely with what Queen's history professor Ian McKay has referred to as the Right-wing reconceptualization of Canada, a rebranding of Canada's national symbols and identity markers, including the Citizenship Guide to give much higher prominence to the military and the monarchy.

The 1968 amalgamation, re-naming and re-uniforming of the Canadian Forces was an incredibly contentious issue. Coordinated by Miniser of National Defence Paul Hellyer, this break with British traditions and symbols has never sat easily with many members of the Canadian forces. Indeed, it is one of the few topics that my students, usually reservists, have requested permission to write about in my post-war history courses, despite the fact that it isn't on the list of suggested topics. To a one, these papers have taken the stance that the amalgamation of the forces was the worst thing that could have been done, a sop to French Canadians, and an attack on military morale. Clearly the culture of grievance has been passed down through the generations, given that these students were born two decades after the incident in question, and the papers tend to be based more on opinion than academic literature. I'm therefore not surprised that the Harper government has opted to make this change. It reinforces their conservative narrative of Canadian identity, and plays to their electoral base, particularly their older supporters. Personally, I see it as a retrograde move, one which further reinforces a connection to the monarchy, a hereditary institution whose time I believe has passed.

If you're particularly interested in learning more about the amalgamation and re-naming of the Canadian forces, the backlash it engendered, and how it is lamented by more conservatively-oriented academics, you might want to take a look at The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964-68 by C.P. (Chris) Champion. Champion has been an advisor to the Conservative government on its citizenship and heritage policies, and his book has been endorsed by a who's who on the Canadian academic (and populist) right. If you want to know what sort of intellectual thinking is fuelling this re-branding and conservatizing of Canadian symbols, it's not a bad place to start.

Of course, given my own recent research projects, I wonder how long it will be until we see a return of Dominion Day!

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An international broadcasting of Canada's insecurities: The closing ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics

I'd better get this post up about the closing ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics before my prescribed course of medications and therapy allow me to blot it forever from my mind. Because, let's be frank here, that was perhaps the most appalling display of Canadian kitsch and insecurity that I've ever seen. And I've watched 50 years worth of Canada Day ceremonies. I've seen Patsy Gallant croon "Sugar Daddy" to Joe Clark. I've seen the Calgary Safety Patrol Jamboree sing "I've Got a Dog Named Leroy" on Parliament Hill. I've seen the Spirit of a Nation tour. They all pale next to the travesty that occurred on Sunday night. That, my friends, was a national disgrace.

And it's a real shame, because the evening started off reasonably well. I thought it was a nice bit of self-mocking Canadian humour to acknowledge the torch malfunction. But really, it could have stopped right there. Because it wasn't long before things headed downhill. I will give credit where credit is due. There was a token effort to "bilingualize" the closing ceremonies. The opening number did feature singers from Canada's anglophone, francophone and aboriginal communities. The Canadian anthem was performed in its bilingual version. The cultural performance for the Sochi Olympics was dramatic.

But...

In the two weeks between the opening and closing ceremony, could someone not have phonetically written out the French portion of John Furlong's agonizingly turgid speech? Not that the English portions were riveting, but the French portions were so badly mangled that it almost would have been better not to include them at all.

And then, the so-called comedy. Three anglophone "comedians," all of whom have made their careers in the United States, were trotted out to deliver unfunny monologues that were vaguely in the tradition of the Molson "I am Canadian" advertisements. If only any of them had "Joe"'s talent for delivery. And perhaps a humourous script. And the good sense to deliver the monologue when only Canadians are watching. The rest of the world neither cares, nor needs to know about Canada's collective psychological insecurities about how we are perceived. It made us appear whiny and pathetic, which is hardly appropriate for one of the longest-established federations in the world.

Following the "comedy", the travesty... I believe it was Kelly Nestruck who tweeted that the "Maple Leaf Forever" number looked like it had been produced by Max Bialystock (of the Producers). "Springtime for Hitler" had nothing on this monstrosity of bad taste, which featured a Mountie-clad Michael Bublé crooning away while gigantic beavers, floating moose and a procession of antiquated Canadian clichés were paraded around the stadium. It was as if all of Canada's capacity for camp, bad taste and self-mockery was being sucked into a quantum singularity located in Bublé's vocal chords, with each element tripping over the next in its haste to flood onto the stage. You know that a performance is horrendous when the appearance of Nickelback on the stage comes as a relief!

The final segment, the "rock concert" was problematic, but for its own set of reasons. Although there are reasons to question the specific choices of the acts (see: Nickelback), I'm more concerned by how they represented Canadian culture. All but the final two were white, anglophone, mainstream rock-pop acts, widely known in the United States. I got the strong impression that the concert was being performed for the NBC audience, and that the rule was to "play it safe". The single francophone act and the only visible minority were held back until the very end of the concert, which to my mind smacked of tokenism. That being said, I loved Alanis Morissette's performance. But this was an opportunity not only to showcase the diversity of Canada's musical talent, but perhaps to broaden the international audience's awareness of great Canadian music beyond the best-known acts. I'm not suggesting (as Paul Wells quipped), that the entire short list for the Polaris Prize had to be featured. But perhaps something from our alternative music scene?

All in all, it was a schizophrenic and ill-conceived ceremony, which to my mind did little to correct for the flaws of the opening ceremonies. French-language and multicultural content was minimal, and clearly an afterthought. Moreover, the "fun" aspects were largely embarrassing, and perhaps better kept for Canada Day ceremonies, when only Canadians are watching. Indeed, given the bland, mainstream content of the rock concert which was so clearly targeted at the United States, it's surprising that the "comic" sections which preceded it were included. Or perhaps the producers of the ceremony want the United States to continue to think of Canada as an insecure, pathetic nation worthy of scorn. We are capable of so much better.

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Olympic Fever

The national news cycle is about to be completely dominated by the Olympics, which should provide Stephen Harper with his much-desired respite from his prorogation woes, and perhaps cover for any initiatives he's been waiting for the opportunity to slide into action without much media attention.

Since I'm not above using popular events to garner a wee bit of attention for academic pursuits, I'll be giving a talk at 7 pm on Tuesday night at the Bookshelf eBar in Guelph. My talk is part of the Café Philosophique series organized by the University of Guelph's College of Arts. My discussion will focus on the changing nature of Canadian identity, and more specifically, governmental efforts to shape the discourse surrounding this identity, since World War II. The Olympics, I argue, feature rather significantly in the most recent phase of efforts to come up with popular discourses of Canadian identity, a phase which stresses the individual achievements of Canadians. If you're interested, drop on by the Bookshelf's eBar on Tuesday for a drink and some interesting conversation.

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