Canadian Patriotism

I had the chance to attend a small talk by Michael Ignatieff two weeks ago. He was speaking about his latest book, "True Patriot Love", at the Ottawa Writers Conference.

He mentioned two points in particular which highlight his opinion on how patriotism can be defined in Canada.

1) Patriotism as a postive

People today often worry about the dangers of patriotism. Our memories are short and we remember the lies that can be told in the name of patriotism, and the lies that are perpetuated in other areas of the world, in the name of patriotism. But Canadian patriotism is about simply caring about the future of the country. If we ceased to care about our future and care about how we operate in the running of our country, than we would cease to exist as a country. 

2) How we define ourselves

Canada is unique in that, we have managed to define ourselves as a nation, in opposition to the greatest power the world has ever seen, without hating them. 

My thoughts

It's an interesting and worthy take and theres certainly some accuracies in it. 

In general, patriotism/identity is an area of extreme interest to me. Ever since I read Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" I've felt that that maybe nationalism and patriotism does more harm than good. 

I think I'm going to do my dissertation at LSE on the relationship between identity and conflict, in the context of a globalized world in which the identity of nation-states has become more or less, (depending on how that nation defines itself) easy to determine.  

As someone who grew up overseas my entire life, and always labelled myself a "Canadian", without even really knowing what that meant, I've felt firsthand, the irrationality of the fundamental need that we all have to identify with something. Since moving back to Canada I have found that people here don't identify themselves as Canadian, they identify themselves in regard to their ethnic heritage. But, over time those links begin to wither away, and the younger generations of immigrants more or less identify themselves as Canadians first, with their specific ancestry. 

Canada, in its purest sense, does not apply to Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Community" because we have done a terrible job of promoting our history and, as a result, it is not the focus of  what draws Canadians together. Instead, Canada exists as a nation state not based on any ethnic identity, but based on a socio-political contract between its citizens. (In someways it simply does not have a choice, as everyone here originally came from somewhere else). People move here because they agree with the way we live and they want to be a part of that social contract. 

(Some might say the US is similar, but they really perpetuate the myth of American exceptionalism, which plays right into Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" concept) 

And, I agree with Ignatieff, because this is the root of what brings us all together as Canadians, all citizens should care about what is happening in the country and care about trying to improve it and make it better.

                         What really brings Canadians together? Hockey.

In my opinion, in the era of globalization, a nation-state founded on purely ethnic terms is beginning to become outdated. Those countries that continue to rely on that ethnic identity to define themselves may face a much higher likelihood of conflict as globalization continues to take root in the international system. The very fact that Canada does not define itself in such a way, is precisely why we can define ourselves in opposition to the US, while at the same time, maintain a very healthy and functional relationship with the.  

The Liberals are collapsing...

Just to give you a glimpse of what I can see here at the Green Party HQ.

News out of BC is that the Liberals are collapsing in BC.

They have only 11% of the support, the Greens have 18%, the NDP have 15% and the Conservatives have 30%.

Watching this election from the inside, I can make a couple of observations:

1) It really looks as if the "Left" wing in Canada is collapsing. There appears to be a new order in the left with 3 equally supported parties, the Libs, NDP and the Greens, and on the otherside are the Conservatives, which tend to have a solid base of about 26-30% of the population.

What has accounted for the Liberal collapse?

I think its because they simply don't have a firm position on anything. It is very clear what the conservatives stand for, it is very clear what the greens stand for, and the position of the NDP is also very clear.

The liberals on the other hand, appear wishy washy. They are so afraid of excluding anyone that they say both yes and no to everything. They seriously need to re-create their identity.

2) The Liberals and the Conservatives have become, it appears, regional parties.
The Conservatives only really win out West and in the Prairies (the odd seat in Quebec and in Ontario) and the Liberals only win in Ontario and a, to a weaker extent in the Maritimes.

Both the NDP and the Greens have support spread sporadically throughout the country but because they arent as regionally concentrated, they still get less seats despite having practically equal amount of support as the liberals.

So what can happen here? I think the Conservatives will win in a landslide majority with only 30% of the vote(even if the Greens exceed expectations and take all the votes that have left the Liberals in BC.

I think the Liberals will sit down and re-structure themselves after this devastating loss. Dion (although he would make a good PM policy-wise he is a terrible communicator), will step out and lots of changes will be made to the Party identity.

Still, we could be in line for a long reign of Conservative majority rule.