Taking the Canadian Flag OFF Our Knapsacks

Canadians born in the Baby Boomer generation, and even Generation Xers, know that traveling around the globe was a lot easier for us than it was for our American brethren. This was the result of our good standing throughout the world and our reputation as a sane and progressive country on almost all issues, both international and domestic.

So many of us who traveled around other countries considered it wise to sew a Canadian flag on our knapsacks and show it proudly. Indeed, there were countless stories of Americans traveling with a Canadian flag on their backpacks so as not to incur the wrath of the locals who held anti-American sentiments.

Why were we so popular?

Well, for a variety of reasons. Of course, the courage and fighting spirit of our soldiers in both World Wars was a large reason for our popularity, especially in Europe. So was our reputation as a peace loving nation, which undoubtedly was enhanced by the role that Lester Pearson played in the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts and soon afterward became our Prime Minister. Shortly after this, our troops became known as “peace keepers”, a term that does not engender the warm reception in our current era that it did only a short time ago.

From what I have been told by several young Canadians who have traveled abroad in recent years, the reception is not as warm when locals hear that the backpacker in front of them is from Canada.

What happened?

Well, clearly something was amiss when the United Nations rejected Canada’s bid for a seat on the Security Council in 2010. The United Nations has been an organization that Canadians took seriously from its inception right after World War II. Most Canadians were proud to be connected to the UN in such a positive way. Since the 2010 rejection of the Canadian bid, it amazes me to read and hear from conservatives that the UN is a “joke” of an organization, that it supports corrupt regimes, that it is anti-Semitic, that it is too “leftist.”

Well, I for one preferred it when Canada was a proud member of the United Nations, and lament what has become of our country’s relationship to this global umbrella entity that past Canadian leaders and citizens valued so much.

I must ask why did the UN reject our bid. By corollary, I must also ponder just why it is that Canadians are not as warmly embraced when they travel abroad.

My speculations have led to a few conjectures.

First, Canadians by and large used to be concerned with the state of our environment and the state of the planet itself. It should come as no surprise, even to conservatives, that our federal government has not presented itself as a leader in preserving the environment. In Copenhagen, as well as at other international summits on climate change, Canada has come across as either a backward nation with its head in the sand, or as a representative of Big Oil interests. Indeed, conservative commentators on the blogosphere paint anyone concerned with the degradation of our environment as either naïve or a socialist wanting to shut down resource extraction or some other nonsense. Of course, this situation was exacerbated when Prime Minister Harper and other Conservative cabinet ministers began the discourse that environmentalists are “eco-terrorists” funded by radical foreign entities.

Oddly enough, the support that Big Oil has given conservative governments across the land gives credence to the argument that foreign radical entities have been supporting the contemporary conservative-corporate agenda for several years now. Canada does not have a member of the Big Oil companies. Harper’s Conservatives sold off the remaining publicly-owned shares of PetroCanada to SunCor a few years ago.

And in the last budget bill, the Conservative government weakened our commitment to force industry to abide by environmental assessments. Many assessments have now been tossed aside across the entire country.

So Canada is now seen as a having a very regressive position on environmental issues. This is clearly a change from even less than a decade ago.

What else could be fuelling Canada’s fall from grace on the international stage?

Israel. Since forming government, the federal Conservatives have come to be seen as the biggest international supporter for anything the Israeli government does. Anything! Many of us can recall the words of Prime Minister Harper hours after the Israeli government indiscriminately bombarded neighbourhoods in Beirut in response to Hezbollah capturing two Israeli soldiers. “This is a fair and measured response,” Harper said, even as the bombs continued to fall on innocent civilians.

Since that episode, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, has trumpeted nothing but unwavering support for Israeli actions against Palestinians, such as the construction of new settlements on Palestinian lands. There are many people, in Europe but even here in Canada, that do not appreciate Baird’s unconditional support for the Israeli government no matter what the circumstances. This is not an anti-Israeli position. It is a perspective on how best to reach a negotiated peace settlement in the area. A strong argument can be made that such a position is anti-racist and supportive of social justice initiatives.

Moving along.

Is Canada still seen as a peace keeping nation? Hardly. Witness our federal government’s declarations around Libya, Afghanistan, and Syria. This past winter, Mr. Harper even went so far as to say he is “frightened” by the regime in Iran. We can only speculate as to why he said this when he did. 

Doing nothing positive about the environment. Furthering the interests of Big Oil in an era of Climate Change. Supporting any Israeli action against the Palestinian people unconditionally. Presenting to the international community as a hawkish nation rather than as a peace loving nation. These are the actions taken by the Harper Conservatives since coming to power in 2006.

If I were still one of those young Canadians backpacking around the globe, I would take the Canadian flag off of my backpack, too.

Beyond Ayn Rand

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was quite aware of how my own family benefited from the social welfare state as I was growing up in the 1960s. The notion of a society set up to allow those with initiative to flourish while giving a helping hand to those who needed it seemed so obviously sane that I took it for granted that this would be the way Canada would always operate. I was wrong.

As a high school student in the early 1970s, I came into contact with the writings of Ayn Rand. I even read a short novel called Anthem, and have to admit that I did not like the cold style of the writing, nor did I like Rand's message: "I expect help from nobody, and nobody should expect help from me."  I cringed at the thought of a society based on Rand’s main thesis, one that seemed to be based on selfishness as much as anything else. Rand may have had difficulty living in the former Soviet Union, and I have no doubt that I would have come to hate that system, as well. But that is no reason to discard the entire notion of the government or other well-off people helping out from time to time. I consider the Canada of my youth to have been all about that. Am I my brother or sister's keeper? Should I be? One thing I know is that I really do not mind the idea.

As the years have gone on, I have come into contact with Ayn Rand followers, most of them American, and none of them impressing me with their compassion, or lack thereof, nor their intelligence. Ayn Rand followers, who call themselves libertarians, often want the government to tax them as little as possible. They might even equate this to freedom, or some other nonsense.

Witness the recent brouhaha over the posturing of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan. (This is the same guy who wants to turn the US Medicare system into a voucher system, which would leave American seniors to fend for themselves in their old age.) Back in 2005, Ryan spoke at an Ayn Rand Tribute event in Washington DC, stating that Rand was the major reason he got involved in politics, and that he often gives Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged as a Christmas present. At the same event, Ryan called Social Security a “collectivist system” that impedes American workers from becoming capitalists because they had fewer dollars to play the stock market. Yeah, right.

A few months ago, some Catholic leaders in Wisconsin explained to Ryan, who is a Catholic, that Rand was an avowed atheist. Now he is trying his hand at revisionist history, saying that he rejects Rand’s philosophy. Yet this guy’s recent state budget smacks of the same mean spiritedness that was at the basis of Rand’s writing: tax cuts, attacks on public sector workers and government social programs.

Okay, that is enough of this Paul Ryan guy from Wisconsin. (Americans can worry about him and his policies if he does actually become the Vice President of the United States.) Let’s focus on what has been happening on the Canadian prairies. To me, the dominant political discourses are beyond Ayn Rand. I will explain why through two examples.

Up until 1969, Alberta was a have-not province, receiving transfer payments from better-off provinces. Once Peter Lougheed got the oil patch developed, Alberta no longer needed help from elsewhere. A few years later, the dominant refrain from Alberta was that it resented having to help out the have-not provinces through the equalization program. This, of course, led to the now famous rallying cry from Alberta: “Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark!” Apparently, they considered the oil resource to be theirs alone, and other Canadians should just forget about looking for any energy help from them. Much of the recent debate over the petro-dollar between the Conservative Premiers from Alberta and Saskatchewan and federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has emanated out of this same attitude from 1970s Alberta.

Speaking of Saskatchewan, the provincial election last November returned the conservative Saskatchewan Party to government with an even bigger majority. Rural voters in particular supported the tax cut policies of Premier Brad Wall. Apparently, most farmers in Saskatchewan resent having to pay taxes on their income. Yet, for the past few years every time there has been some serious flooding that makes it difficult for the crops to grow, we hear the farmers’ chorus demanding the provincial government send some of our tax dollars to them as fast as possible.

I wonder what Ayn Rand would think of these prairie “libertarians.”

When Alberta needed help, they had their hands open and received equalization payments. When they got on their own two feet, they almost immediately resented sending money to other provinces. To me, this is beyond Ayn Rand.

The Saskatchewan farmers, for the most part, resent having to pay taxes on their income. But whenever they get into some trouble, they are very quick to demand that the government send them public funds to help them out. To me, this is also beyond Ayn Rand.

I consider the actions I have described here, one by the province of Alberta, and one by the majority of farmers in Saskatchewan, to be even beyond the selfishness of Ayn Rand. This philosophy can be summed up as follows: "No one should expect help from me, but if I need help, you can better believe that I expect you to come through and help me!"

I thought that Ayn Rand was a very weak writer of novels. Her hypocrisy has always disgusted me. (What is not very well known is that despite her philosophy, Rand also collected welfare checks from the American government when needed.) Her politics continue to enrage me, especially as expressed by that extremely selfish and myopic Tea Party movement. But as a resident of the Canadian prairies, I am astonished and saddened by these selfish attitudes that even go beyond Ayn Rand.