On Royal Rebranding

In light of this week's ministerial command to "hang the Queen" in Canada's embassies abroad here are some comments from me in a story by Sarah Boesveld in the National Post. For the record, I'm shocked, shocked(!) by what Rudyard Griffiths had to say.

Well, actually, I'm not shocked at all. He said precisely what you'd expect the founder of the Dominion Institute to say.

Enjoy your weekend, folks!

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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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Canada's Economic Action Plan: Now Creating Advertizing Jobs!

I guess this story can safely be placed in the "a braindead gopher could have foreseen that this would provoke problems" file. Not that I personally care all that much that an American company was contracted to paint signs to advertize the B.C. and Canadian governments' stimulus spending. But it's hardly the first time that this sort of issue has landed a government in trouble.

For me, the bigger issue is how much taxpayer money is being spent pimping "Canada's Economic Action Plan". I suppose it's creating jobs in advertizing. Why, between those ads and the "Save Local Television"/"Keep Cable Fees Low" spending spree, something like 50 short-term jobs must have been created, right? I mean, where else are those terrible actors going to get work? [/end dripping sarcasm]

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"A nation of minorities"? Time to retire a political buzz-phrase

Fighting insomnia last night, I decided to watch Paul Martin's farewell speech. I'm incredibly happy to see him go, as I think that his tenure in office will likely go down in political history as one of the most botched Prime Ministerships in the history of our country.

Listening to his speech, I couldn't help but notice that he was trotting out several of the catch phrases and buzzwords of the last election campaign. Particularly evident was the manner in which he wrapped himself, and the Liberal party, in the cloak of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not a bad strategy at the moment, by the way, given that the Conservatives have just scrapped the Court Challenges Program.

Part of Martin's discourse on the Charter, however, is to speak of Canada as being a "nation of minorities." There has always been something about this phrase that didn't quite sit properly with me. It's not that from an objective standpoint it isn't true - there is probably some way or another in which every Canadian is a part of a minority group. However, there is also something of the politics of resentment, or the politics of victimization, which is elicited by this discourse of majority-minority relations. It speaks more to our particularisms than to what Canadians share in common, and what we might be trying to build together as a nation (or a country, depending on your choice of terminology). While I firmly believe that minority rights should be protected, I don't think that rights discourse alone is necessarilly enough to build a national vision (a concept that Michael Ignatieff also once discussed, back when he wrote The Rights Revolution - although his political philosophy appears to have drifted since publishing that book).

I'd be quite happy to see the "nation of minorities" phrase be dropped from the Liberal phrasebook, and see the party move on to a more unifying slogan. Of course, given that the party seems to be willing to throw around the term "nation" willy-nilly right now, I'm not sure that they're ready to construct new semantic concepts.

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Actions speak louder than resolutions

For those keeping score - and I use that term advisedly - Gerard Kennedy is set to announce his opposition to the Harper resolution recognizing that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada. I say "keeping score", because our politicians still seem to be treating their treatment of Quebec (or Québécois) nationhood as a political football to be kicked around for short-term gain. It is this treatment of the issue, at least as much as its content, which has worried me.

My colleague, Andrew Nurse has beaten me to the punch with his more scholarly treatment of the nationhood debate. Although Andrew doesn't name him directly, he is referring to Benedict Anderson's seminal work on nationalism - referring to nations as "Imagined Communities" which are voluntary communities, more often than not stateless, of people who consider themselves to be a nation. Applied to the Canadian situation, the Québécois people, or Quebeckers who consider themselves to form a nation do, simply as a matter of self-identification. No resolution in Parliament will change that fact. In the realm of semantic games then, or the politics of recognition, to use a more lofty phrase of Charles Taylor, the Parliamentary resolution could be considered to be Parliament expressing its recognition of a sociological reality, and an act of self-definition. One might take the argument further and argue that this effectively changes nothing, and might even be a positive step indicating that English-speaking Canadians recognize how many Quebeckers feel about their identities.

But here's the problem. For a large number of Quebec nationalists, this type of resolution is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of their demands, and acceptance of this resolution will do almost nothing to end this debate. What most separatists, and many soft nationalists, actually want is a wholesale devolution of powers from Ottawa to the Quebec state, and an unfettered right to use the Quebec state for nationalist objectives. To wit, if we look at the Meech Lake Accord round of constitutional talks, a Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Charter of the French Language (Bill 101) was handed down in the middle of the ratification process in 1988. The Supreme Court struck down the Charter's provisions requiring French-only signs. Premier Robert Bourassa re-passed legislation on commercial signage, invoking the notwithstanding clause to do so. It is notable that at the time that Bourasse said that if the "distinct society" clause of Meech was already in operation, there would be no need to invoke the notwithstanding clause - Quebec would have the right to pass laws restricting the use of English as part-and-parcel of being a distinct society. (And for those who are wondering, this does roughly coincide with the implosion of that Accord, at least as much as Trudeau's denunciation of it). What was sold in English Canada as being little more than a nice turn of phrase was revealed for having the real power that it might, and the popularity of the Accord plummetted.

What I am getting at here is that "nice" words of recognition like "distinct society" (which passed through Parliament in 1995) aren't enough for nationalists. Without real power/influence stemming from them, they count for nothing. And so we can count on a resurgence of demands for some form of constitutional entrenchment of this Parliamentary resolution - which is when these pretty words would begin to have some constitutional oomph (to use the technical term).

In rationalizing his acceptance of the resolution, Stephane Dion has apparently stated that he would also find resolutions acceptable which recognized First Nations as nations, or Acadians as a nation, or French Canadians as a nation, etc. There are many who like this approach of considering Canada as a country that contains many nations working together. You will, however, note, that the resolution being proposed has not been amended to include all of these other "nations" - or even a Canadian nation, which has as much sociological/historic validity as a Québécois one if we are talking about self-definition. The fact that noone is actually putting such a resolution forth concerns me. The politics of recognition should be mutual and diverse. What we have right now is a unilateral resolution recognizing only one group, which to my mind is only going to further divisions, feelings of non-recognition, and further conflict in the politics of Canadian identity. If Parliament is going to follow this fool-hardy path, I'd at least like to see other MPs put forth the other resolutions that Dion proposed, and have them pass Parliament, and maybe even have Jean Charest (one of the chief negotiators in the final days of Meech, in case anyone has forgotten) pass a resolution through the National Assembly recognizing the united Canadian nation of which Quebec is an integral part (or some wording to that effect).

We may also come to the point where it is felt necessary to re-open the constitution, and re-allocate jurisdictions between Ottawa and the provinces. If this is to happen though, this must be part of an open process. Significant constitutional reforms should not slide in through the back door as the result of parliamentary gamesmanship.

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A misguided slippery slope of a resolution

Sigh. Federal politicians, it would seem, are a gang of short-sighted tools, with little regard or understanding of our country's constitution and history.

First off, I'd like to point you to the following post from Calgary Grit which notes, as I always find that I must, that all this talk of the "Quebecois nation" conveniently forgets the pan-Canadian French-Canadian and Acadian francophone populations. And try as many might to obscure this fact, demands for recognition of the "Quebec nation" are not coming from those who are not ethnically francophone. The Harper/Bloc resolution is about recognition of ethnic nationalism, despite the intellectual convolutions that misguided federalists might be putting themselves through to make this into a recognition of a civic nationalism.

Calgary Grit goes on in an earlier post, slamming the various party leaders, and rightly so. I'd also point you to Paul Wells' denunciation of the resolution as short-sighted, and the first step towards another constitutional fiasco.

If anyone thinks this is resolution will put an end to the discussion, they're sorely deluded. The Liberals passed a resolution through the House of Commons a decade ago recognizing Quebec as a distinct society. Why should anyone believe that this will close the constitutional Pandora's Box any more firmly?

Frankly, this entire debacle leaves me scratching my head about my future voting intentions. I've never liked the NDP's constitutional positions - Jack Layton is far too eager to suck up to nationalists. But now all of the Liberals are willing to go along with this misguided resolution, which is little more than an exercise in smoke and mirrors, more likely to further inflame passions than to cool heads? It boggles the mind, and depresses the voter. The Bloc has played the three federalist parties for suckers, and they deserve a collective slap in the head for having been drawn in to these shenanigans.

I'm not saying that our federal leaders should hide their heads in the sand and hope that this issue will go away. But I will say that constitutional issues should not be debated on the fly. They require serious consideration, and consultation with both experts and Canadians who would be affected by any significant changes. Neither Stephen Harper nor Michael Ignatieff was elected with a mandate to rework the constitution, and so I would humbly suggest that a bit more thought and consultation is in order before recklessly committing Canada to a particular course of action.

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