November — VOL. 48, No. 11 —
After the Centenary,
Whither Now?
Download PDF version
This has been Canada's Centenary
Year, and a few reflections are in order before it is written
into our history books.
The captains of industry, the kings and queens and presidents
of nations, and all the other notable visitors, have departed
after helping us to commemorate our nation's birthday. Now
we must beware lest our Centenary should become an episode
that has no sequel.
What has been learned from our own efforts, from our millions
of visitors, and from the display of culture, industry, and
way of living presented by our own country and by other countries?
We paid tribute to our founders and our pioneers, to their
gallantry and their magnificent achievements. We displayed
our scientific and technical triumphs, our regional production
of forest, farm, fisheries, mine and industry, our manufactures,
our trade and commerce. We showed our paintings, our sculpture,
our architecture and our performing arts.
The confederation we celebrated was a great achievement,
but now we are looking to the future. We have made some encouraging
progress. It is only 475 years since Columbus set sail out
of an ancient port 120 miles from Gibraltar toward the rim
of the world and opened up America; it is only 433 years since
Jacques Cartier cruised into the Gulf of St. Lawrence; it
is only a hundred years since the colonies and provinces of
Canada united to become a nation; but look at what has been
accomplished.
This gigantic half continent has been explored, settled,
and linked together with railways, highways, waterways and
airways. Canada has become one of the greatest producing and
exporting nations in the world, and is a good customer of
other nations. At the turn of this century, affluence was
confined to a minority, and a low level of living was shared
by the majority: this is no longer so.
But the Centenary events have opened new doors. We have
been shown how other countries do things, some of them better
than we do. We have been given an incentive and are under
compulsion to take new steps forward.
Another benefit — a great one — was that Centennial
Year not only gave Canada confidence in her ability to do
big things when everyone lent a hand, but revealed that she
is not so stodgy as general repute led us to think. There
was a lot of sparkle in the show we put on.
We have ended our birthday celebrations more confirmed in
our good opinion about Canada as a homeland, as a nation,
and as a world figure, but what has happened in our country
during 1967 has given us rather more intelligent reasons for
this opinion. We have had a fresh and valuable look at ourselves
alongside all the rest of the world.
No longer young
We have no reason now to keep harping on the string that
Canada is a young country. Youth means the absence of history
or background; youth is a catalogue of untapped resources;
youth relies upon others for original thought in culture and
science. In every area of life we have attained heights that
would make any other country feel proud. Our constitution,
which we celebrated in 1967, is far older than those of all
but a few nations.
Is there anything that is an epitome of Canada's history
and culture ... something representing or standing for
all that changes and all that remains the same ... a
living, robust idea?
We keep poking around for a supposed identity, groping for
a role. We mourn our lack of the myths of nations whose heroes
have been elevated in pantheons. Our own events have been
modest. We have no Runnymede to inspire our people with thoughts
of Magna Chartal or the brave ground of Bannockburn celebrated
in poetry and song, or a Bastille where France tore down the
walls of injustice. But through our founding fathers and all
those who have come to us over the years we have a share in
everything that is freedom-loving and democratic and best
in all the past and in all countries, and we have achieved
our own sort of distinction through our own efforts.
Perhaps we need something softer than an Act of Parliament,
yet more animating than the compulsion of necessity. As we
think of Mother England or Mother France or whatever motherland
our ancestors came from, can we think of Canada as our Father
Figure to whom we can relate emotionally?
Canada is a rugged land, with few effeminate characters
in the cast of those who developed it. Given it as a Father
Figure we may work at the job of our further development with
the spirit of men, realizing our true potentiality and having
the sturdiness to be great.
This is the sort of forward looking into which the natural
retrospection of Centennial Year led us. The world has a new
pattern. The idealistic thoughts of a century ago have become
the material realities we saw at the International Exhibition.
Our ideals for the second century should be a challenge to
us and to our children to bring them to fruition.
The Manchester Guardian said editorially about our
Centenary that this hundredth birthday marks both an old and
a young age: "Old, because Canada's traditions of domestic
stability and international responsibility seem to stem from
a solid past; young, because with a population of only 19
million in an area larger than India, Canada still promises
more than she has fulfilled." To fulfil the promise of our
youth demands manliness and vigour.
The great values
Among the great values of national life are freedom and
democracy, and these require tolerance and compromise for
their preservation.
Freedom includes the prerogative of changing and growing
in accord with new social and individual ideas which are emerging.
It includes the right of dissent to express itself, but it
does not give unbounded liberty.
Democracy is a positive faith expressed in respect for the
equality and rights of others, limited only by the bounds
of justice for all. It is, in the words of the school textbook
Civics and Citizenship, written by L. D. Baker and
J. M. Brown: "An ethical faith expressed in the willingness
and desire of human beings to work together in the pursuit
of the common good."
With all the shortcomings that may be charged against it,
Canadian democracy possesses the instruments by which it can
make more complete the promise of equality and freedom it
contains. So long as the conditions for opposition and innovation
remain, every remediable social evil can be conquered by courage,
organization, co-operation and hard work. What we must determine
is that the people of Canada accept, and care deeply about,
the principles upon which democratic government is based.
The democratic method is that of persuasion and education:
the only other way is that of what Mao Tse-tung calls "commandism
and coercion". Democracy means having the right to raise questions,
voice opinions, and criticize defects, but once a decision
has been reached it obligates its members to give full support
in carrying out what has been decided upon.
All sorts of views
The golden rule of democracy is tolerance, through which
we recognize and admit that there are all sorts of views about
everything. Differences of opinion between people in such
a society need not be the cause of strife: they only become
so when they are combined with fanatical narrowness,
It helps in a touchy situation when people on both sides
are big enough to acknowledge the good will of those on the
opposite side. Every mature personality is unique, just as
the experiences that have created it are unique, but everyone
can find common interests instead of stressing separate prejudices.
The best thing to help troubled people is perspective. Being
broadminded does not mean being so pliable, so flexible, so
indecisive in all things that we have no personal standards.
We know that neutrality is not always a virtue. Every person
has the privilege and responsibility to think, to study, to
reason, to listen, and to accept differences in opinion, and
to decide for himself where he stands on all subjects affecting
his life and actions.
There is one sort of intolerance that should be upheld by
every Canadian. It does not discharge a person's duty to refrain
from committing any of the hundreds of offences listed in
the Criminal Code. The Old Testament prophets did not chastise
their people only for such sins, but also for day-to-day lapses
like tolerating poverty, bribery and corruption. For sins
such as these the whole nation is held responsible.
Compromise is a quality that runs in harness with tolerance.
There have to be agreements between what we should like emotionally
and what is workable practically.
Theories and desires do not change phenomena. Electricity
remains the same whether we consider it a fluid, a repulsion
of molecules, or vibrations of the ether. As one writer put
it: "If a man held the theory that electricity is a flock
of invisible molecular goats he would still have to insulate
the wire."
Methods and plans which cannot be accepted and used as they
now are can frequently be adapted by adding a "twist" or taking
a new slant. Many things we get peevish about are things that
we could adjust to or correct if we looked at them intelligently
and stirred ourselves to thoughtful action.
This means avoiding sharp angles. All beautiful forms in
nature are composed of curves. A dialogue consists in setting
forth facts and circling around them, reasoning things out
so as to resolve contradictions.
A home for all
Many races have helped to shape the character of Canada
so that this country is a home for all.
At a time when the authorities in France were calling Canada
"a few acres of snow" and in the English Parliament the legislators
were calling her "a mill-stone round the neck of the motherland",
stout French and British pioneers were laying the foundation
of a great nation, to the building of which they invited many
other peoples.
The human composition of Canada, added to the native Indians
and Eskimos, is the British part, the French part, and the
fourth part made up of all those others who have chosen Canada
in which to build their homes and careers.
Some 27 per cent of our population is of neither French
nor British origin. More than 180 foreign-language publications
are produced regularly in 27 different languages. In 1966
the Citizens Civic Action Association was organized nationally
by 33 of Canada's ethnic groups, made up of six million people
who are not of French or British stock, seeking a Canadian
Canada.
Canada helps immigrants to find their place in life without
losing their individuality. They have come here for release
from bad economic conditions, to preserve their spiritual
freedom, to escape from pogroms, to breathe freely politically.
All of them brought with them their cultural heritages.
It is to the advantage of everyone to see that all our people,
from the most lowly worker to the most powerful executive,
from the twelfth generation child born in Canada to the latest
newcomer from another land, shall have an interest in seeing
Canada endure.
At the same time, the factor which most clearly distinguishes
Canada from other nations, and might give her the basis for
a national identity, is her Anglo-French partnership. So long
as a dialogue goes on among reasonable people there is hope
that the extreme exponents of racial separation within this
partnership may moderate their attitudes. To have a community
or a nation in which to live happily, men must work together,
having common principles and purposes.
This does not mean the death of individuality. England and
Scotland have been united under one parliament for more than
two and a half centuries, but Scotsmen still have a sense
of communal identity. The National Congress has always maintained
that the people of India, in spite of their religious, linguistic,
and ethnic differences, are members of one nation; that differences
among the various groups do not make the Indian society fragmented;
on the contrary, they enrich the Indian culture shared by
all.
Canada may solve its problems within the rules of the game.
As was said of the United Nations Charter: "A charter or constitution
which cannot be adapted to changing conditions is likely to
be inadequate for survival." And the Queen, speaking in the
Quebec Legislature in 1964, said: "To be happy, a people must
live in a climate of confidence and affection. But a dynamic
state should not fear to re-assess its political philosophy.
That an agreement worked out a hundred years ago does not
necessarily meet all the needs of the present should not be
surprising."
National unity
We need to play our parts on the provincial stage and on
the federal stage, and to play both parts with equal comeliness.
Excellence and wisdom have no provincial or county boundaries.
This was well illustrated in the herculean task of organizing
the International Exhibition. In January 1963 the formal Exhibition
agreement was signed by representatives of the federal and
provincial governments and the City of Montreal. Mayor Jean
Drapeau, who presided at the ceremony, said in part: "It is
the duty of every one of us to mark in every possible way
the solid reality which is Canada, its real personality."
Canadians must not grow away from one another regionally
in their day-to-day contacts any more than in their great
events. We are closely bound by common interests and shared
ideals.
Some provinces of Canada have economic difficulties, and
other provinces should not be indifferent, because all provinces
are involved in the economic health of all Canada. Forest
fires in British Columbia, a drought on the prairies, a manufacturing
slump in the central provinces, a slow down of industrial
development on the Atlantic seaboard: all these have an impact
on life everywhere in the country.
There are, despite over-all prosperity, still economic disparities
between Canadians in various regions. The equalization formula
has for many years made it possible for the poorer, or less
developed, provinces to provide basic minimum services for
their people. But if Canada is to be truly a nation, all of
its component parts must seek a decent measure of prosperity
for everyone. There can be no provincial right to default
on a national duty.
Co-operation
Around the confederation table was assembled as brilliant
a handful of practical men as any other 34 you could gather
on the globe. They were strong in their belief that national
responsibility could be effected only by national solidarity.
They gave an example to a sceptical world of how two people
of different origins and creeds could live together, not without
friction, but without disruption and strife. They came together
by compromise, rationality and hard effort. To paraphrase
what Tacitus said about Rome in his Histories, their
work "cannot be unraveled without destroying those who unravel
it."
It is true that there were strong compulsions of self-defence
and economics pressing Canada at that time. Confederation
was founded on a successful attempt to avoid internal revolution
or foreign conquest. It was a collective determination to
live together in harmony. And last July 1st, a hundred years
later, the Biblical lesson read by the Prime Minister at the
ecumenical service on the lawn of Parliament Buildings contained
this exhortation: "Be ye all of one mind, having compassion
one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous."
Confederation started with negotiated unity, and as we enter
our second century we need to continue resolving differences
through criticism and correction and compromise. This co-operative
behaviour directed toward the solution of common problems
is possible only to enlightened, reasoning, men and women.
We had a good illustration in 1967. The country came alive
from coast to coast through the joint efforts of men and women
of every ethnic origin. That they put into their celebration
of Canada's birthday many and varied examples of the customs
of their birthplaces is evidence that confederation achieved
national political unity without imposing racial, cultural
or linguistic uniformity.
A world view
The centennial celebrations held out hope to the world.
Canada took on new stature. While asserting afresh our solidarity
as an independent nation, we showed that we recognize the
interdependence of nations on one another.
What are the bases of our claim to world attention? One
reason may be that more than other countries we have experienced
the successful development from a natural and political wilderness
to a measure of economic stability and to unity in citizenship.
We have survived invasion by the forces of "Manifest Destiny"
four times; we have opened our doors to exiles from many countries;
we have placed our land and our harvests at the disposal of
hungry and penniless people.
We have, in many ways, an open society. By importing people
from all the world we have added their virtues and talents
and skills to those we already had.
We have not withdrawn from the great issues stirring the
world, though our efforts have been steadily designed to stop
the stirring or to keep it from spilling over. Our contribution
to the maintenance of world peace has been distinguished,
and a maintained peace is our surest defence against aggression.
Changing times require rethinking of old thoughts. An imaginative
leadership in government at all levels is needed to cope with
problems of our time. Lord Hailsham told a convocation of
the Fund for the Republic that "there is no political theory
at present canvassed which is not implicitly pre-Darwinian
in character, and therefore in need of drastic revision."
Government must be dynamic, thorough and speedy. The way
of working is this: locate a problem, validate it, awaken
public concern about it, set up research, collect information,
and get busy to solve the problem. An example of dilatoriness
was given when someone praised an Egyptian king for keeping
his army and himself in an admirable state of discipline and
exercise. A critic remarked: "always preparing, and never
performing."
There is little that is purely technical about government.
Much is dependent upon basic human attitudes, much is governed
by human dictates, much is guided by human dignity. For these
reasons political life demands high standards of conduct in
its practitioners, carried out in the interests of the people
and not of self-interest.
Canada's second century
It is un-Canadian to be satisfied with stagnation, or to
be content to look at ourselves and think: "We are all right".
In the ruins of Pompeii may be seen a wall painting of a
youth who did just that. Narcissus is pictured as a beautiful
young man admiring his image reflected in a pool. He became
enamoured of it, and his self-love led to his death.
All the fine words spoken by visiting dignitaries, all the
splendid structures erected, all the birthday parades and
shows and celebrations, should not lure us into narcissism.
We should enter our second century as self-confident Canadians,
not dazzled by our past, not dismayed by our present, and
not afraid of our future.
The prospect before Canada is one to command enthusiasm.
We can paraphrase a saying of the Athenians: "We have extolled
our ancestors, now let us behave as valiant men."
In our second century we might set ourselves to provide
widened scope for the exercise of human potentialities and
human excellences, and for recognition of them. We might improve
ourselves as Canadian human beings, without ethnic hyphens.
We do not need to fix our eyes unblinkingly upon what is
remotely ultimate, but we do need a sense of direction, to
see clearly the trend of events so as to make the best of
them. While we debate about ends, we need to put the means
toward them into action.
The future is ours
We do not merely hope for a bright future in Canada, but
we perceive that it is there for our making and taking.
It would be wrong not to lay the examples of the past before
the future, and we have done that in 1967. We have looked
at and lauded the people who had the initiative, tenacity,
courage and good sense to deal with fortune and all its changes,
and who had the gifts of compromise and tolerance in getting
on with one another. It is the opportunity of second-century
Canadians to bring it all to fruition. There is nothing in
the massive structure of the oak tree that was not potentially
in the acorn.
Though Canada is not such a place as is famed in song and
story, she can be great in the hearts of those who live here.
Everyone cherishes a desire to belong to something big.
This half continent that is Canada, with its political federation
that retains cultural freedom, regional variety and individual
opportunity, is surely big enough to challenge anyone's creative
power.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
[ Return to RBC Letter
home page ]
|
