Thisis a bit old, but found it interesting since it was written by someone in BC.
March 31, 2003
There have been two recent, widely-reported examples of anti-Americanism by Canadians of some official stature. According to Francie Ducros, then director of communications for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, U.S. President George Bush is "a moron." Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish's condemnation was far wider: "Damn Americans. I hate those bastards." These comments are not isolated, but are part of a wider and deeper phenomenon.
Anti-Americanism is a sort of "legitimate prejudice" in a world of increasingly stringent political correctness. "Substitute any other group for 'Americans' in Ms. Parrish's comments – "Damn Palestinians – hate those bastards' or Damn Africans – hate those bastards – and imagine the firestorm" (National Post editorial, Feb. 28, 2003). The U.S. is a wonderful whipping-person – so large, so rich, so many nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, such a powerful set of widely-shared values, and such a successful exporter of popular culture. What's not to "hate" (loathe) if one is an insecure Canadian?
In stark outline, here is my theory of the bases of the wide streak of anti-Americanism among some Canadians. The root cause is those Canadians' appreciation of their weakness, a serious inferiority complex if you will. Feelings of weakness or inadequacy – even if inchoate – generate a sense of insecurity and even of fear. Insecurity and fear, in turn, generate hostility to the country against which Canada is so evidently weak – the United States.
The sources of Canada's weakness are several. First, the U.S. has a population of 287 million to Canada's 31 million. Yet Canada's area is slightly greater than the U.S. More importantly, the real per capita GDP of the U.S. is over 20 per cent above that of Canada. This reality breeds resentment and even loathing by some Canadians.
The weakness of Canada is also partly due to its dependency on the U.S. in economic terms. Canada has long been dependent on the U.S. economy and this dependency has grown under the FTA and then, NAFTA. CanWest News Service (owner of the National Post) (Nov. 28, 2002) put it this way: In 1970, 65 per cent of Canada's exports went to the U.S.; today it is 87 per cent. That amounts to over 40 per cent of our GDP. "We trade more with the Americans than with each other," referring to inter-provincial trade. While Canada is the No. 1 export market for U.S. products and services, the relative dependency is highly asymmetric. We need them far more than they need us.
Second, the U.S. is now the only superpower and this fact alone is threatening to many Canadians. Such power is seen as immoral in itself and so its exercise is also immoral in the eyes of many of the critics of the U.S. Prime Minister Chrétien, for example, believes that the United Nations must play an important role in constraining the power of the U.S. Christie Blatchford (National Post, Feb. 14, 2003) quotes Prime Minister Chrétien in a speech in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2003: "The price of being the world's only superpower is that its motives are sometimes questioned by others. Great strength is not always perceived by others as benign. Not everyone around the world is prepared to take the word of the United States on faith." He clearly implied that Canada was one of those nations.
Being a superpower comes with many burdens and painful decisions. American taxpayers pay a big chunk of their taxes each year to support their military forces. For them, Canada is seen as a carping, free-rider benefiting greatly from the U.S. defence umbrella. Even Canada's role in peacekeeping has shrunken greatly. Jonah Goldberg, writing in the National Review in November, 2002, noted that, "Today, Canada ranks number 37 as a peacekeeping nation in terms of committed troops and resources, and it spends less than half the average of the skinflint defence budgets of NATO."
Since the early 1960s, Canada has systematically chosen to greatly expand social expenditures (health and income transfers including regional development) at the expense of defence and international expenditures. (Canadians should remember that in WWI and WWII, a larger proportion of the population fought and died than was the case in the U.S.) The self-righteousness of much of the elite on the international stage appears to have grown in inverse relationship to the declining relative importance of Canada's defence/international expenditures.
The U.S. is not only powerful economically and militarily, but its people are seen as aggressive, swaggering and self-confident. These characteristics are the antithesis of the Canadians most critical of the U.S.
Americans are also seen as insensitive due largely to having great power, but being inward-looking.
The third source of weakness lies in the easy acceptance/strong desire for U.S.-made products of pop culture by Canadians. For example, U.S.-made shows account for over 70 per cent the TV viewing of English-Canadians; American movies account for over 95 per cent of box office receipts in Canada. The export of U.S. cultural products is seen by Canadian cultural nationalists as a form of "cultural imperialism."
Why do they feel so threatened? They apparently believe that the importation of U.S. popular cultural products will lead eventually to the demise of Canada as an independent nation. According to Canadian playwright, director, and actor Mavor Moore (1997, p. 128), "Modern Americans have made a masterful discovery...a secret weapon enlisted in the Star Wars dialogue: popular culture. Camouflaging its armies as entertainers, America has conquered the world....What American leaders have grasped....is that politics, commerce and war are no longer the most effective methods of gaining or establishing power – and indeed often prove counterproductive."
There is an important element of elitism mixed into the nationalism. To a considerable extent, such elitism reflects Canada's colonial past (based on both the British and French heritage). The elites believe that they have both the right and duty to use the power of the state to guide the "masses" into the light. They implicitly believe that they have the patent on the definition of what Canada ought to be.
Fourth, the feelings of inferiority and insecurity that prompt expressions of anti-Americanism stem in part from a terribly weak sense of national identity among English Canadians. (Quebecers have a much stronger sense of who they are, in large degree based on hostility to the rest of Canada.) Since major changes in immigration policy in the 1960s, anglo identity has been strongly challenged by a long, large wave of non-European immigrants such that over the past six years over one-half of all immigrants to Canada came from Asia. Trudeau's policy of multi-culturalism within official bilingualism (announced in 1971) greatly strengthened the rise of the French fact in Canadian politics. It is possible, that the interaction of the two policies has channelled the frustration of anglos away from domestic targets (because any criticism will be denounced as racism), and onto the United States in a weird form of psychological displacement.
Finally, there seems to be the idea that the poor and weak, by definition, have morality on their side since they do not appear to benefit directly from the stance they take. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley put it this way: "I think it is a sign of our insecurity, that sometimes we feel that we have a moral conviction that we are somehow or another superior [to the U.S.]" (National Post, Dec. 4, 2002). The weak gain a perverse satisfaction from verbal barbs directed at the strong. The strong are inhibited from administering a physical or economic response. The weak see these barbs as "free" – they will not result in retaliation.
In summary terms, Canadians who are strongly anti-American appear to be a) fearful about the influence of the U.S. on Canada, b) insecure as to their own identity – they need reassurance from a variety government-created symbols (such as the CBC), and c) these Canadians are more than a little envious of our rich, powerful, southern neighbour. Contemplation of the American elephant – sadly – brings out the dark side of the character of the Canadian mouse – envy. It is a sort of national penis (genital?) envy wrapped in a blanket of moral superiority that is the natural refuge of the woefully insecure and the truly weak. There are lots of good reasons to criticize various policies of the U.S. government, but surely reflexive anti-Americanism is unworthy of what Canadians want to be.
W.T. Stanbury is professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia.
March 31, 2003
There have been two recent, widely-reported examples of anti-Americanism by Canadians of some official stature. According to Francie Ducros, then director of communications for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, U.S. President George Bush is "a moron." Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish's condemnation was far wider: "Damn Americans. I hate those bastards." These comments are not isolated, but are part of a wider and deeper phenomenon.
Anti-Americanism is a sort of "legitimate prejudice" in a world of increasingly stringent political correctness. "Substitute any other group for 'Americans' in Ms. Parrish's comments – "Damn Palestinians – hate those bastards' or Damn Africans – hate those bastards – and imagine the firestorm" (National Post editorial, Feb. 28, 2003). The U.S. is a wonderful whipping-person – so large, so rich, so many nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, such a powerful set of widely-shared values, and such a successful exporter of popular culture. What's not to "hate" (loathe) if one is an insecure Canadian?
In stark outline, here is my theory of the bases of the wide streak of anti-Americanism among some Canadians. The root cause is those Canadians' appreciation of their weakness, a serious inferiority complex if you will. Feelings of weakness or inadequacy – even if inchoate – generate a sense of insecurity and even of fear. Insecurity and fear, in turn, generate hostility to the country against which Canada is so evidently weak – the United States.
The sources of Canada's weakness are several. First, the U.S. has a population of 287 million to Canada's 31 million. Yet Canada's area is slightly greater than the U.S. More importantly, the real per capita GDP of the U.S. is over 20 per cent above that of Canada. This reality breeds resentment and even loathing by some Canadians.
The weakness of Canada is also partly due to its dependency on the U.S. in economic terms. Canada has long been dependent on the U.S. economy and this dependency has grown under the FTA and then, NAFTA. CanWest News Service (owner of the National Post) (Nov. 28, 2002) put it this way: In 1970, 65 per cent of Canada's exports went to the U.S.; today it is 87 per cent. That amounts to over 40 per cent of our GDP. "We trade more with the Americans than with each other," referring to inter-provincial trade. While Canada is the No. 1 export market for U.S. products and services, the relative dependency is highly asymmetric. We need them far more than they need us.
Second, the U.S. is now the only superpower and this fact alone is threatening to many Canadians. Such power is seen as immoral in itself and so its exercise is also immoral in the eyes of many of the critics of the U.S. Prime Minister Chrétien, for example, believes that the United Nations must play an important role in constraining the power of the U.S. Christie Blatchford (National Post, Feb. 14, 2003) quotes Prime Minister Chrétien in a speech in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2003: "The price of being the world's only superpower is that its motives are sometimes questioned by others. Great strength is not always perceived by others as benign. Not everyone around the world is prepared to take the word of the United States on faith." He clearly implied that Canada was one of those nations.
Being a superpower comes with many burdens and painful decisions. American taxpayers pay a big chunk of their taxes each year to support their military forces. For them, Canada is seen as a carping, free-rider benefiting greatly from the U.S. defence umbrella. Even Canada's role in peacekeeping has shrunken greatly. Jonah Goldberg, writing in the National Review in November, 2002, noted that, "Today, Canada ranks number 37 as a peacekeeping nation in terms of committed troops and resources, and it spends less than half the average of the skinflint defence budgets of NATO."
Since the early 1960s, Canada has systematically chosen to greatly expand social expenditures (health and income transfers including regional development) at the expense of defence and international expenditures. (Canadians should remember that in WWI and WWII, a larger proportion of the population fought and died than was the case in the U.S.) The self-righteousness of much of the elite on the international stage appears to have grown in inverse relationship to the declining relative importance of Canada's defence/international expenditures.
The U.S. is not only powerful economically and militarily, but its people are seen as aggressive, swaggering and self-confident. These characteristics are the antithesis of the Canadians most critical of the U.S.
Americans are also seen as insensitive due largely to having great power, but being inward-looking.
The third source of weakness lies in the easy acceptance/strong desire for U.S.-made products of pop culture by Canadians. For example, U.S.-made shows account for over 70 per cent the TV viewing of English-Canadians; American movies account for over 95 per cent of box office receipts in Canada. The export of U.S. cultural products is seen by Canadian cultural nationalists as a form of "cultural imperialism."
Why do they feel so threatened? They apparently believe that the importation of U.S. popular cultural products will lead eventually to the demise of Canada as an independent nation. According to Canadian playwright, director, and actor Mavor Moore (1997, p. 128), "Modern Americans have made a masterful discovery...a secret weapon enlisted in the Star Wars dialogue: popular culture. Camouflaging its armies as entertainers, America has conquered the world....What American leaders have grasped....is that politics, commerce and war are no longer the most effective methods of gaining or establishing power – and indeed often prove counterproductive."
There is an important element of elitism mixed into the nationalism. To a considerable extent, such elitism reflects Canada's colonial past (based on both the British and French heritage). The elites believe that they have both the right and duty to use the power of the state to guide the "masses" into the light. They implicitly believe that they have the patent on the definition of what Canada ought to be.
Fourth, the feelings of inferiority and insecurity that prompt expressions of anti-Americanism stem in part from a terribly weak sense of national identity among English Canadians. (Quebecers have a much stronger sense of who they are, in large degree based on hostility to the rest of Canada.) Since major changes in immigration policy in the 1960s, anglo identity has been strongly challenged by a long, large wave of non-European immigrants such that over the past six years over one-half of all immigrants to Canada came from Asia. Trudeau's policy of multi-culturalism within official bilingualism (announced in 1971) greatly strengthened the rise of the French fact in Canadian politics. It is possible, that the interaction of the two policies has channelled the frustration of anglos away from domestic targets (because any criticism will be denounced as racism), and onto the United States in a weird form of psychological displacement.
Finally, there seems to be the idea that the poor and weak, by definition, have morality on their side since they do not appear to benefit directly from the stance they take. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley put it this way: "I think it is a sign of our insecurity, that sometimes we feel that we have a moral conviction that we are somehow or another superior [to the U.S.]" (National Post, Dec. 4, 2002). The weak gain a perverse satisfaction from verbal barbs directed at the strong. The strong are inhibited from administering a physical or economic response. The weak see these barbs as "free" – they will not result in retaliation.
In summary terms, Canadians who are strongly anti-American appear to be a) fearful about the influence of the U.S. on Canada, b) insecure as to their own identity – they need reassurance from a variety government-created symbols (such as the CBC), and c) these Canadians are more than a little envious of our rich, powerful, southern neighbour. Contemplation of the American elephant – sadly – brings out the dark side of the character of the Canadian mouse – envy. It is a sort of national penis (genital?) envy wrapped in a blanket of moral superiority that is the natural refuge of the woefully insecure and the truly weak. There are lots of good reasons to criticize various policies of the U.S. government, but surely reflexive anti-Americanism is unworthy of what Canadians want to be.
W.T. Stanbury is professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia.
