February 20, 2007
Richard Gwyn
Of all the innumerable polls measuring public opinion that get trotted out these days, one recent one stood apart from the rest because, in conventional terms, it makes little sense. It's this very fact that makes it so interesting.
The poll was by Angus Reid. The subject was global warming and respondents were asked their preferences about alternative policy approaches.
By a wide margin, 66 per cent to 34 per cent, Canadians said they preferred "domestic action" to halt climate change rather than "international policy."
By definition, though, a global problem – of which climate change is the ultimate form – can only be solved globally.
Domestic "action" is, of course, of immense importance. But only global action, in which the great majority of countries act co-operatively, can actually solve the problem.
So why are Canadians giving secondary importance to the most effective route to dealing with a challenge that they are so deeply concerned about? A couple of positive explanations come readily to mind.
It's only at the local level that Canadians can get involved personally, as so many want to do.
Also, local action functions as a springboard for global action. Only once we've paid our dues by meeting our Kyoto commitments will we be able to credibly lecture other countries that, at present, are doing little or nothing.
But a less encouraging motive may also be in play.
The relative indifference to international action captured by that poll suggests an underlying shift in Canadian attitudes toward the great wide world. It wouldn't be accurate to call this mood neo-isolationism. But it does give a clear impression of a weariness with, and wariness about, the world.
This is quite a change. For about half a century, we've often measured how we were doing as a nation by what others thought about us (or what we thought they thought).
No one, of course, is going to say out loud that they want Canada to pull back from the world. Yet the bits of evidence keep multiplying that a growing number hold this view.
Consider the strong opposition to our military involvement in Afghanistan. That opposition should exist is understandable in itself: This is the first time we've been involved in a war in more than half a century.
But the action has been sanctioned by the United Nations and is being conducted by the very kind of multilateral organization – NATO – that we habitually support so strongly. That many European NATO members are shirking their Afghan responsibilities is infuriating and depressing; but that's a separate matter.
Then there's the report the Senate has just issued on our aid program to Africa. It's title is almost shocking: Overcoming 40 Years of Failure.
What is shocking is not the Senate's conclusion that our aid to Africa has done the continent precious little good at all, nor its dismissal of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as a moribund bureaucracy. Insiders have long been well aware of both these facts.
What's shocking is that the Senate now judges – correctly, surely – that Canadians are in a mood to hear these kinds of painful realities, even at the risk of eroding their support for foreign aid.
As goes without saying, terrorism is a major cause of our new-found wariness about the world. There are now large parts of the world that Canadians no longer want to visit.
One cause of the shift in our attitudes has be the way the left, traditionally international-minded, is now so often hostile to what's going on beyond our own borders.
Virtually all of the opposition to and the demonstrations against globalization – in the sense of free trade – came from the left.
Opposition to Canadian soldiers being in Afghanistan, even though without them there can be no reconstruction or development there, is led by the New Democrat Party.
The finding that most of us want to deal locally with the global problem of climate change simply confirms this trend.
Traditionally, we've seen our international role as going around doing good while the Americans go around kicking butt.
We're as skeptical as ever about the U.S.'s tactics. But we are losing, if not our taste for doing good, then our certainty about how much of it we can actually do.
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/183407
Richard Gwyn
Of all the innumerable polls measuring public opinion that get trotted out these days, one recent one stood apart from the rest because, in conventional terms, it makes little sense. It's this very fact that makes it so interesting.
The poll was by Angus Reid. The subject was global warming and respondents were asked their preferences about alternative policy approaches.
By a wide margin, 66 per cent to 34 per cent, Canadians said they preferred "domestic action" to halt climate change rather than "international policy."
By definition, though, a global problem – of which climate change is the ultimate form – can only be solved globally.
Domestic "action" is, of course, of immense importance. But only global action, in which the great majority of countries act co-operatively, can actually solve the problem.
So why are Canadians giving secondary importance to the most effective route to dealing with a challenge that they are so deeply concerned about? A couple of positive explanations come readily to mind.
It's only at the local level that Canadians can get involved personally, as so many want to do.
Also, local action functions as a springboard for global action. Only once we've paid our dues by meeting our Kyoto commitments will we be able to credibly lecture other countries that, at present, are doing little or nothing.
But a less encouraging motive may also be in play.
The relative indifference to international action captured by that poll suggests an underlying shift in Canadian attitudes toward the great wide world. It wouldn't be accurate to call this mood neo-isolationism. But it does give a clear impression of a weariness with, and wariness about, the world.
This is quite a change. For about half a century, we've often measured how we were doing as a nation by what others thought about us (or what we thought they thought).
No one, of course, is going to say out loud that they want Canada to pull back from the world. Yet the bits of evidence keep multiplying that a growing number hold this view.
Consider the strong opposition to our military involvement in Afghanistan. That opposition should exist is understandable in itself: This is the first time we've been involved in a war in more than half a century.
But the action has been sanctioned by the United Nations and is being conducted by the very kind of multilateral organization – NATO – that we habitually support so strongly. That many European NATO members are shirking their Afghan responsibilities is infuriating and depressing; but that's a separate matter.
Then there's the report the Senate has just issued on our aid program to Africa. It's title is almost shocking: Overcoming 40 Years of Failure.
What is shocking is not the Senate's conclusion that our aid to Africa has done the continent precious little good at all, nor its dismissal of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as a moribund bureaucracy. Insiders have long been well aware of both these facts.
What's shocking is that the Senate now judges – correctly, surely – that Canadians are in a mood to hear these kinds of painful realities, even at the risk of eroding their support for foreign aid.
As goes without saying, terrorism is a major cause of our new-found wariness about the world. There are now large parts of the world that Canadians no longer want to visit.
One cause of the shift in our attitudes has be the way the left, traditionally international-minded, is now so often hostile to what's going on beyond our own borders.
Virtually all of the opposition to and the demonstrations against globalization – in the sense of free trade – came from the left.
Opposition to Canadian soldiers being in Afghanistan, even though without them there can be no reconstruction or development there, is led by the New Democrat Party.
The finding that most of us want to deal locally with the global problem of climate change simply confirms this trend.
Traditionally, we've seen our international role as going around doing good while the Americans go around kicking butt.
We're as skeptical as ever about the U.S.'s tactics. But we are losing, if not our taste for doing good, then our certainty about how much of it we can actually do.
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/183407
