| |
July 2004 — A Citizen of Today's Canada
Download PDF version
 Canadian
citizens have cause for pride and reason to view the future
with hope. We can be proud of building a single, prosperous
nation in the face of vast distances and an unrelenting climate.
We should be even prouder of our unbroken tradition of constitutional
government and the rule of law. It is a long tradition. We
think of Canada as a young country, but at 137 years our federation
is older than all but a handful of the world's regimes. And
we can be proud, too, that Canadians have fought and died
to preserve our freedoms and those of the world.
Thus to be a Canadian is to be a citizen of no mean country.
In the historian Frank Underhill's words, we are a nation
because we have done great things together in the past - and
also because we hope to do great things together in the future.
If we can look forward with hope, it is because Canada's democracy
has flourished by constantly renewing itself, becoming steadily
more inclusive as we have evolved from a collection of colonies
to a country whose mix of cultures and range of political
traditions makes us distinctive, perhaps unique.
"Renewing" is the key word here, because while
the Canadian polity in 2004 has a long tradition, it is also
very much a work in progress, a country in the grip of sweeping
social change. Since this Royal Bank letter was last issued
in 1967, Canadian public life has been transformed by two
trends, sometimes contradictory and sometimes mutually reinforcing:
the growth of human rights and the quest for group recognition
and identity.
That all human beings have inalienable rights simply by the
fact of being human is not a new idea, but in the last half
of the twentieth century it was emphatically an idea whose
time had come. National governments have more and more been
judged by their respect for these rights or lack of it. Canadians
had traditionally conceived of their rights as constitutional,
rather than inherent. Parliament and the courts were seen
as their safeguards, but since the rights themselves were
ill-defined neither was particularly satisfactory. The adoption
of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 revolutionized
this situation and has done as much as any single force to
change Canadian society since. Responsibility for enforcing
the Charter rests with the courts, and they have fairly consistently
given judgments extending the scope of rights to new groups
and situations. In the process they have greatly helped groups
who had been pushed to the margins in our first century of
national life to claim a place in the Canadian sun. Women
and Canada's Aboriginal peoples have placed their issues firmly
on the national agenda. Encouraged by their success many other
groups have become publicly visible and vocal. Most of them
have made substantial gains in terms of recognition, respect,
legal protection, restitution or apology, according to their
different goals.
In many respects their success is a Canadian version of another
world-wide trend. This is the need humans today feel to define
and defend their group identity in an increasingly homogenous
world. It was once thought that spreading prosperity and increasing
trade, tourism and cultural exchange would erode the differences
between human communities, however defined - national, ethnic
or religious - and thereby bring the dream of a tolerant and
humane world closer. Evidence tends to show, however, that
while measurable differences may have indeed been lessened,
this has in no way diminished the compelling human need for
a sense of identity. In many instances it may have increased
it. Here Canada has a striking example. The measurable differences
between the French- and English-speaking populations have
never been less than they are in 2004, yet the Québécois
sense of identity is as strong as ever. In a country as diverse
as Canada, this quest for identity - and for public recognition
of that identity - has profound implications for the meaning
of our citizenship. Striking an equitable balance between
group rights and individual rights will keep courts and legislatures
occupied for decades to come.
Canadians in 1967 thought of themselves as a
diverse society, and by most standards they were; but they
still tended to see Canada in terms of the long-established
division between French and English. Today that mental framework
is not obsolete, but it is almost laughably inadequate to
describe the Canada of 2004. Decades of immigration from every
corner of the globe have made Canada, and especially our three
great cities, one of the most diverse societies that has ever
existed. The extent of the change is astonishing to anyone
who remembers the Canada of Mackenzie King. Toronto, once
famed as a stronghold of all things Anglo-Saxon, now has just
as many non-whites.
Perhaps even more remarkable has been the calm, or even enthusiasm,
with which this change has been accepted by Canadians. Racial
incidents continue to occur, and should emphatically not be
ignored, but this is a field where it is especially important
not to allow headlines to obscure the true picture. Canadians
have understood that out of manifold talents and different
ways of looking at things come originality, strength, and
a forward-moving spirit. Out of our multiple heritages have
come our basic freedoms, our democratic way of life, our art,
literature and music. Most important, we have inherited the
spirit of challenge, of exploring and pioneering. We have
assembled in Canada adventurous and creative spirits from
many peoples, and with them are pushing forward on many frontiers,
scientific, cultural and spiritual.
The challenge before Canadians is another version of the
tension between individual and group rights. We have to identify
the true meaning of citizenship in a nation where so many
different cultures and identities find a home. Unless the
citizenship of a nation embodies values and beliefs that its
citizens share, it is form without content, a bundle of legal
rights and nothing more. Today, perhaps two values can be
seen as fundamental to the overarching Canadian identity.
The first is democracy in the broadest sense. The second is
the acceptance of responsibility for our common future.
Few words carry more baggage than "democracy."
It meant one thing to the Athenians who invented the word
and something else again to the drafters of the American Constitution.
It has been invoked in modern times to justify every imaginable
policy. No one is against it. Even the most despotic regimes
usually describe themselves as the Democratic Republic of
X. Anyone setting out to describe it is in the position of
the blind men identifying the elephant - but the attempt must
be made all the same.
An ideal democracy is a world where every man and every woman
can find a place in society suited to his or her inclinations
and capabilities. It is a country where the ordinary citizen,
no matter how humble, has a chance to better his life. It
provides the environment to bring out extraordinary abilities
in ordinary people - and allows extraordinary people to reach
for the stars. Perhaps because of the sheer size of our country,
Canadian democracy in particular offers a certain roominess
of life. This is a land where every man and every woman can
find a place in society suited to his or her inclinations
and capabilities.
If this is the goal, it is not reached simply by passing
laws. Democracy is essentially a state of mind. It is learned
behaviour, just as much as table manners or ballet dancing.
We learn about it by studying or working alongside people
who do or say things new to us, and by listening sympathetically
to people who question some of our assumptions. A fully functioning
democracy does indeed provide certain clearly defined freedoms:
of speech, of discussion, of assembly, of the press, of vocation,
of ownership, of residence, of movement, of worship, of political
belief, of association, and freedom from unjust arrest. All
are important, but all of them are likely to prove hollow
unless the citizens who enjoy them are prepared to show the
initiative, the restraint and the responsibility to make them
work.
Citizens of a democracy must be prepared to restrain their
actions if they do not want the state to do it for them. Democracy
is a way of living in which the people rule by discussion
and compromise.
Everyone going somewhere through a crowd must step aside,
keep his elbows in, back up or advance, according to conditions.
Equally you do not need to have the same religion or colour
as the woman next door, but she and you need to have the same
ideas about citizenship. The citizens must accept the spirit
of a democracy's institutions, even while questioning the
letter of its laws or rejecting their application.
The ultimate test of our commitment to democracy is the fundamental
goal of human freedom, for ourselves and for others. Freedom
itself is constantly being redefined, as people become aware
of the fetters that can spring from law, custom, background,
poverty, disability and ill-health. That is one reason why
Canadian democracy is not a static condition but a journey.
In practice this means doing two things: being open to new
ideas, while retaining all that is best in our political tradition.
People who go through life with granite-like convictions
on every subject under the sun lead a cheerless existence.
They miss all the fun of exploring, all the challenge of debating,
and all the thrill of finding something new. Of course these
are never painless experiences. We are indulging in juvenile
thinking if we expect life to be always smooth, fragrant and
responsive to our wishes. Medical men must examine disease
if they are to promote health; music, to create harmony, must
investigate discord; the citizen has to learn what is ailing
in society to produce a healthy nation. It is natural that
people should disagree; indeed, there would be little point
to democracy unless people disagreed. But to disagree because
of ignorance is deplorable, and to disagree because of disinterest
is not civil. Building a common Canadian future brings together
people of strongly differing views. Each must be given an
open-minded hearing. Canadians in fact must be prepared to
go beyond tolerance to an active determination to recognize
and use the best, whatever its origins. To build a Canada
with room for all we will have to use stone from many quarries.
At the same time we must never forget that we did not create
our democracy out of nothing. It exists only as the result
of centuries of constitutional government in the whole western
world. We are the beneficiaries of much priceless experience
in shaping free societies. We are the debtors of many, many
people who risked their lives and property to defend and extend
the rule of law. We are, in short, free because we stand on
the shoulders of the free people who went before us. Nothing
can ever replace this heritage. It would be a tragedy if well-intentioned
Canadians, perhaps striving too hard to be inclusive, consented
to its dilution or abandonment.
Historically citizenship has been a privileged status. "I
am a Roman citizen" was a claim to well-defined legal
rights. It has never altogether lost this character. Canadian
citizenship brings the right to vote for the higher levels
of government and thereby to shape the country's future. It
brings the right to a passport, with freedom to travel and
the protection of the Canadian state. And - a point often
undervalued -- it is hereditary, the only status (outside
the Aboriginal peoples) to be so in our society. A new citizen
gains his privileges for his children as well as for himself.
Perhaps most important, citizenship helps the new citizen
to define him or herself. Citizenship and only citizenship
brings full membership of Canadian society, and is a long
step toward creating a sense of Canadian identity.
It is a cliché, but it is also profoundly true that
all privilege entails responsibility if it is to perform a
useful social role. Democracy is a responsibility as well
as an opportunity. Personal effort is of the greatest significance
in keeping democracy on the rails and progressing. You cannot
vote democracy and then go home and forget it. Democracy needs
to be lived by every citizen so as to create the moral and
spiritual atmosphere in which the government must operate.
The elected representatives have to be assisted, inspired,
and sometimes prodded, by public opinion if they are to provide
the conditions in which men and women may set about making
themselves happy. Democracy is not threatened by the corruption
of officials, but by the cynical acceptance of corruption
by the electorate. The only true protection of human rights
is not the Charter or any other document, but the understanding
of their rights by the people and their determination to preserve
them, along with their understanding that injustice to one
is injustice to all.
Defining the responsibility of a Canadian citizen can take
many forms, as is natural in a highly pluralistic society,
but a group of widely shared traits can be identified. When
we say that someone is a "good citizen," we do not
usually mean that he or she always votes or has memorized
the Charter of Rights. We mean someone who is an active member
of civil society as well as of the formal institutions of
government. Good citizens are good neighbours. As members
of the community they will have real consideration for the
feelings and needs of other people. They will support their
institutions, and will give people of another religion or
race the same consideration as he expects. They will set apart
time and put forth some effort to help their neighbours to
make the community a better place to live in. They will take
an active part in helping their neighbours make the government
of the community work better.
Good citizens as parents will teach their children to get
along well with other people, encourage them to get a suitable
education, and teach them to accept more and more responsibility
for their actions as they grow toward maturity. They guide
and direct, participate sympathetically in the ups and downs
of adolescent life, and provide fruitful soil in which young
people develop settled roots. Their children, governed by
principles, will be open to new ideas without being led astray
by every wind of doctrine they encounter.
Finally, good citizens know the important problems that face
their representatives in municipal, provincial and federal
government. They study and discuss these problems so as to
make use of the knowledge when they go to vote. This is an
inescapable duty, because the strength of a democracy depends
upon its electorate being well-informed.
It is evident, then, that much more than legalities are meant
by becoming a citizen of Canada. The essence of good citizenship
is the acceptance of responsibility. Every citizen is under
bond to do his best in caring not only for himself and his
family but also for society. Citizenship is thus not something
for passive minds. The lonely person who stands on the side-lines
watching the parade, speculating and conjecturing and criticizing,
and thinking how much better the show might be, is not a citizen,
for citizenship demands participation, involvement, and contribution.
No man gains a feeling of significance in life if he lives
in isolation. The Greek word "idiot" originally
meant, not someone mentally challenged but a citizen who refuses
to take part in the public life of the city. Pericles, Athenian
statesman of the fifth century B.C. said: "We do not
allow absorption in our own affairs to interfere with participation
in the city's."
It is sometimes suggested - most recently by Prof. Jennifer
Welsh in the 2004 Hart House Lecture - that Canada's democratic
and pluralistic society can be a model for an increasingly
globalized world, where more than 3,000 ethnic groups have
to find room in 190 countries. This is an idea many Canadians
find deeply attractive, but it is not without its pitfalls.
Being a successful model will require tact, emotional intelligence,
a willingness to listen and a commitment to the long haul.
We should not expect to be welcomed with open arms, nor that
the excellence of our intentions will be obvious to all. Nor
should we think of the exercise as cost-free. If we are to
offer more than good advice - something the world never lacks
- we must be prepared to commit people as advisers, elections
observers, peacekeepers and mediators. There will be dangers
and there will be financial costs. Paradoxically, we will
probably be most successful as a model for others if we do
not make this our primary goal. Let us do what we have to
do and do it supremely well, and let the world draw its own
conclusions.
This is a time to read the record of Canada's past, and find
our citizenship ten times more meaningful than it has ever
seemed before. The recent awakening of interest in Canada's
history is an immensely encouraging sign for the future, for
if we do not know our own history we cannot know who we are.
Nations have been defined as "imagined communities,"
existing in the minds of their people. Canada is thus at once
what each separate citizen of Canada believes it to be, and
the sum of their collective beliefs. Equally, its future will
depend on the contribution of every citizen individually as
well as the sum of their efforts. Citizenship, to repeat,
above all means responsibility.
At its best, citizenship gives orientation to life. Our citizenship
stirs us to enjoy and contribute to a society where people
advance together in search of the good life. Of course, some
will say: "all this is counsel of perfection: things
are not so simple." The details of nation-building will
certainly not be simple. Canada is not a simple place. Yet
a democratic society contains infinite possibilities of hope
and renewal. Canada will be as democratic as its citizens
make it - and good citizenship can be simple, if Canadians
will think of it not as something merely legal or intellectual,
but as something transcending law and reason, something so
deeply felt and deeply believed that it runs through everything
we do.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/community/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
[ Return to RBC Letter
home page ]
|
|
