The Great Canadian Awakening

Recognizing Our Eternal Struggle

For unless we know why we exist, unless we know what we are trying to build here in Canada, unless we make a conscious effort to build it—we will inevitably be shaped by the Republic. There always has been and always will be an alternative to building a Canadian nation. And that is the submerging of our nation in the U.S.A. This is a perpetual challenge to us who believe deeply in the importance of the Canadian nation. Have we within our nation enough depth, sufficient resources, to build something of our own?

-George Grant, “Have We a Canadian Nation?”

Bonnyville, Alberta

Canada is one of the few nations on earth for whom its own existence is a problem.

In many senses, we inhabit an artificial country. The Fathers of Confederation did not found Canada out of necessity. Indeed, it would have been far easier to remain a group of British colonies, or fall into the welcoming arms of the burgeoning Republic to the south. Rather, Canada came into existence because such great spirits as John A. Macdonald and George Étienne-Cartier thought that it would be good and had the tremendous will to make it so. The existence of a unique nation on the northern half of this continent is not necessary, but contingent, and continues to be contingent with each passing day. It has been said with some truth that each Canadian region has more natural latitudinal ties than longitudinal ones. Canada only persists because we will it to. Subsumption into the American Empire is a recurring possibility, one which has been variably suggested and desired at every point in history. Today, with the American Empire opening its gaping maw before us, is no different—it is only making explicit what we have known all along.

But this has prompted more perennial questions which we have faced through our history. Why does Canada exist? Why is it good for Canada to exist? And, perhaps most importantly, what distinguishes us from Americans? The final question proves to be the most crucial, as if we cannot meaningfully distinguish ourselves from Americans, then we can hardly be said to have a country at all.

If you asked most other peoples on the face of the earth why they have a nation, they would laugh in your face, even if they couldn’t provide a satisfactory reason. It is obvious that Germany exists as a nation, if only for its particular… German-ness. People treat this fact as self-evident, and rightfully so, for the German-ness of Germany is palpable.

Not so for Canada.

We have an identity problem. Too often we rely on the narcissism of small differences to differentiate ourselves, pointing to our idioms, accents, and love of hockey. Our national angst and insecurity has forced us to deploy our greatest thinkers in attempting to understand what a nation is, so as to find out whether we have one at all. George Grant, Frank Underhill, W.L. Morton, John Ralston Saul, Charles Taylor, and Will Kymlicka are all notable examples.

George Grant—in my mind, the greatest thinker our nation has produced.

Because of this, there is a myriad of competing images of Canada. I will highlight two of the most common founding mythologies.

On one side, there is the conception of Canada as an ethnostate, formed as a pact between its two founding peoples—the British and the French. This conception is identitarian, static, and exclusive. Such arguments paint a portrait of Canada which is hardly recognizable when compared with the country we inhabit now. This is because Canada, like all countries, has changed over time. The British and French now barely comprise a majority of all inhabitants. One can resent this change, but resentment is futile against the hand of time. If one clings to the conception of Canada as an ethnostate, they must concede that the Canada in their minds does not exist, as there is no room in this view for the accommodation of groups besides the British and French. As such, we no longer have a country.

On the other hand, there are the theorists who consider Canada an imagined nation,¹ an eternal and universal proposition, or even a “postnational state” to use Justin Trudeau’s hollow phrase. This position, supposing that Canada exists purely by fiat, is one that exists purely in one’s mind. As such, there is no necessary correspondence with the reality of our country. One can think anything they want about what Canada is, and this has to be accommodated in the grand mosaic of the Canadian identity. But if Canada is everything to everyone, it is nothing to anyone. Such a conception entails a country uprooted from its past, with no teleology. Under the forces of globalism, ushering us towards participation the universal and homogeneous state, Canada loses its particularity, becoming grey, shapeless matter.

As I hope to demonstrate, both conceptions are deeply flawed. There is, however, a middle way between the Scylla of identitarianism and the Charybdis of homogenizing liberalism.

There are few other nation I can think of whose existence does not seem natural and necessary. France exists because it is a land inhabited by Frenchmen. Argentina is inhabited by Argentines. To say that Canada is inhabited by ethnic Canadians may be technically true, but not for long. Nor is this a convincing argument to most. Canada was initially a pact between its two founding peoples—the British and French—however, this fact alone would not be enough to create and sustain a country. These unlikely allies could never build anything constructive unless they were unified in a common goal. Those who claim that Canada exists essentially as an ethnostate miss this point. The United States features many peoples who live together in an uneasy harmony. There is nothing inherently Canadian about the coexistence of ethic groups.

It is, rather, what these two peoples have done together which is significant.

As seen in the Confederation debates of 1865, the primary motivation for the British North American colonies to unite was the threat of an American invasion. Already, during the War of 1812, the Fenian raids, and the American Civil War, annexation had been attempted. But this was not just national pride which resented this threat of annexation—for as of yet, there was no nation. The resistance to American annexation was essentially borne with the thought that there was something good about the role of the British Empire in North America.

The French and British saw that their peoples’ continued existence and self-determination rested upon their continued participation in the British Commonwealth, not in the liberal melting pot to the south. In the 1774 Québec Act, Britain had demonstrated its commitment to accommodating the customs and laws of the French within the British Empire in the form of collective rights, whereas this same accommodation was not offered by the United States, which instead upheld the primacy of the individual, leading to the homogenizing of people groups. Consequently, French Canadians formed an uneasy alliance with the British to preserve their way of life, recognizing that the only way to do so was under the protection of the Crown. It is for these reasons that George Étienne-Cartier, one of the greatest patriots in our history, declared that “The last cannon fired in defense of the Crown in Canada will be fired by the hand of a French Canadian.” Anglo-Canadians, reasoning similarly, were loyal to the Crown, their laws, and traditions, and so elected to remain a part of the Empire.

It is this history which leads some to conclude that Canada’s essence then, as now, is as an ethnostate for our two founding peoples. But such a quick conclusion fails to recognize what is universal in our founding.

Unlike the American Founding Fathers, the Fathers of Confederation were generally not enlightened by the liberal political philosophy of the Continent. Aside from a few passing references to Shakespeare and Goethe, the 1865 Confederation debates reveal a pervasive pragmatism, an unfailing loyalty to the Crown, and a desire to resist the homogenizing forces of Americanism. This manifested as a desire to preserve the particularity of the two founding peoples, but extended much further than that. What is universal in these events is a rejection of the homogenizing forces of liberalism, an allegiance to one’s own historical tradition, rather than to universal and eternal ideals, and the notion that a nation must be guided by its history, not blind progress. In other words, the idea of Canada, so to speak, is British Conservatism.

British Conservatism entails a reverence of tradition, collective stability, gradual change over time, and a large central government to guide the state in its goals. The state is unashamed to adhere to central values derived from its history, and to enforce strict adherence to them. It is wary of the unbridled free market, instead allowing the state to play a role in economic development.

This is opposed to the tradition of Classical Liberalism, which holds progress as the ultimate goal, features the recognition of individual rights, and prioritizes freedom over order. It entails a small and neutral state, allowing for the utmost individual self-determination, and champions free trade and free markets. Classical Liberalism, referred to hereafter as liberalism, proves to be the guiding doctrine of the United States.

When Justin Trudeau alleges that Canada is a mosaic, rather than a melting pot, he is asserting something true and, ironically, something exceptionally illiberal. In Canada, historically, people groups were granted the means to determine their own ends collectively, rather than having individual rights thrust upon them. Significantly, this paradigm seemed to change with Pierre Trudeau and the 1982 Constitution, though it has not been erased entirely. Liberalism, which treats all people as equal individuals, contrasts with British Conservatism, which treats people as inextricably bound up in a collective with a particular historical tradition.

Perhaps our greatest mistake.

British Conservatism entails more focus on the collective than the individual, and as such, allows for the preservation of identity groups and encourages their loyalty to their own history. However, it does not merely dissolve into a chaotic plurality of groups, for a strong central government is able to maintain order at the national level through a policy of assimilation to national values. It is only through the neutrality of the liberal state that a plurality of groups may descend into civil strife. British Conservatism privileges order above liberty—hence, the Canadian motto “Peace, Order, and Good Government,” in contrast to the American “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” George Grant writes,

In 1929 the U.S.A. saw the results of complete freedom. Yet that nation still, more than anywhere else, deifies the right of the individual to do as he likes. In the U.S.S.R. the other extreme has been tried, wherein the individual has been subordinated to the good of society as a whole, and his acts are ruthlessly curbed for the sake of general order. The whole tradition of the British nations has been to effect a compromise between the two extremes of liberty and order.²

This doctrine of British Conservatism may not be perfect—it may have drawbacks, and it may manifest in unwholesome ways—but it is ours. It is this which differentiates us from Americans, who prize liberalism and individualism above all.

In this way, we are an anti-American nation not in a trivial, but a profound way. It is not the narcissism of small differences which makes us Canadian, rather than American, but the fact that the doctrine underlying our regime is irreconcilable with that underlying America. It is British Conservatism against liberalism. If our fundamental doctrine is erased, and liberalism is allowed to infiltrate our institutions, then, plainly put, we no longer have a nation; there is nothing which meaningfully differentiates us from our southern neighbour. The eternal struggle of our nation is to resist the spread of liberalism, what George Grant called “capitalist imperialism,” and what Henri Bourassa called “l’americanisme saxonisant.” But the mere resistance to liberalism cannot build a country. We must have a positive vision of some sort. British Conservatism offers one such positive vision, whereas our contemporary “Conservative” party in Canada does not.

The fundamental tension in this struggle is between universality and particularity. Canada is the battleground in which this tension is borne out. It is hardly an accident that the two dominant conceptions of Canada I noted at the beginning of this essay are emblematic of the two sides. The idea of Canada as an ethnostate belies a desperate attempt to preserve one’s particularity at all costs—to exclude any other and resist any change. On the other hand, to conceive Canada as a mere proposition is to forego all parochial attachments and embrace the homogenizing universality of American liberalism. The tension between universality and particularity is one which the world feels with every creak and groan, and which we feel most intimately in Canada. Put in more concrete terms, this is the battle between internationalism and nationalism, between the globalists fighting for the universal and homogeneous state and the populists who preach blood and soil. But we are in a special place to understand this tension because our country aims neither at universality nor particularity, but features these twin impulses simultaneously. Consequently, I suggest that we are in a uniquely advantageous place to chart a middle way between these poles. This middle way is the very doctrine underpinning our country—British Conservatism, and an accompanying reverence for our history.

British Conservatism does not resolve the tension between universality and particularity, but effects an uneasy balance. It dictates, somewhat paradoxically, that the preservation of a particular nation and its people is a universal good. This prevents the particular from being subsumed into the universal, for a nation’s values and goals are rooted in an inalienable historical tradition. As has been demonstrated in the Canadian experience, it is through this British Conservatism that the preservation of the French-Canadian people was possible at all. It also prevents particular factions from dominating, so long as all within society may be unified in a common goal.

We must not forget that British Conservatism is only viable where there exists a rich historical continuity to draw from. Happily, Canada has this in spades—even more so if one correctly understands our history as an extension of British history.

What some forget about history is that we are living it. History is not merely what happened a century ago, but what happened ten years ago, and what happened yesterday. History is not stagnant, but ever-changing—it is less being, more becoming. As such, ethnonationalists err by ignoring the degree to which Canada has changed. Our country is no longer filled merely with Anglo- and French-Canadians, but myriad others who deserve as much credit for building this country. To ignore this fact is to insult many groups who want to be, and rightfully are, proud Canadians.

We could hardly in good conscience ignore the many groups that settled in Western Canada to consolidate the empty and harsh prairies so as to prevent an easy American invasion. The Ukrainians are one prominent group to settle these lands. At first, they were met with rightful suspicion, as the Ukrainian community was a hotbed of socialist sentiment. Over time, however, they proved their loyalty to our nation, and more importantly, their prowess as farmers. None, however, were more able farmers than the persecuted religious sects who fled Eastern Europe to farm in Western Canada: the Mennonites, Hutterites, and Doukhobors. These groups, too, were met with suspicion, facing discrimination due to their communal way of living in an 1919 amendment to the Immigration Act, excluding those with “peculiar customs, habits, modes of life and methods of holding property . . . because of their probable inability to become readily assimilated.” And yet, they proved to be an essential part of Western settlement, with most integrating seamlessly into society in the present day. Where not, they are grateful for our country respecting their way of life.

We could look to Italian Canadians as another example, who came to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, and who became greatly prosperous despite suspicion and exclusion. Or, in the modern day, the recent influx of Filipino immigrants to Canada has been a net boon, with them occupying many high-demand jobs, such as in our healthcare and service sectors, and many high-skill jobs also, as well as being under-represented in the criminal justice system as per their population. My experience confirms what is suggested by data, as I find them to be exceptionally hardworking, humble, respectful of our customs, and patriotic.

People groups who come to Canada, respect our way of life, embrace our values, and work hard, deserve a place in our evolving historical tradition.

Call me woke or whatever but these people seem happy to be Canadian citizens.

If allegiance to the British Crown was powerful enough to unify the British and French, mortal enemies until the last two centuries, it must be powerful enough to unify a number of other peoples erstwhile deemed incompatible. This is not to say, however, that Canada is able to assimilate all people. We must be highly selective, as there are many peoples in the world for whom chances of assimilation into Canada are slim. Nor is this to excuse the Trudeau government’s recent mass immigration program, which has been disastrous for Canada by every metric. Prior to the last decade, our immigration program was looked upon the world over as a shining example, precisely because it was meritocratic and highly selective.

To view Canada essentially as a particular historical tradition rooted in British Conservatism provides room to venerate Canada’s two founding peoples, to preserve their particularity against the homogenizing current of modernity, but also allows enough flexibility to accommodate many other peoples who have built this nation. It provides a map to assimilate peoples into full participation in Canada, while not forcing them into a liberal melting pot. This conception of Canada is a middle way—between ethnostate and proposition nation, between particularity and universality—which allows for Canada to grow and change within a continuous historical tradition, while charting a positive course for the future.

Frank Underhill once wrote that “A nation is a body of men who have done great things together in the past and who hope to do great things together in the future.”³ While I once dismissed this as a vacuous liberal platitude, there is a certain truth to it. A nation must understand its own history, but it must use this history as a thrust of intention into the future. Merely glorifying the past does nothing for us in the present. The proper response to our history is to understand ourselves as worthy of it, not to be crushed by its weight. We create history at every moment. Though we may use history to serve the present and the future, we must beware of letting ourselves be dwarfed before it. We are only worthy of the great tradition passed down to us if we work towards something even greater. This was surely what Nietzsche warned us about when he wrote, “History can be borne only by strong personalities. Weak ones are utterly extinguished by it.”⁴

The essential precondition for the existence of British Conservatism, however, is a people understanding and cherishing their own history. This component seems to be sorely missing in modern Canada, largely as a result of the propaganda campaign waged by Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliott Trudeau to efface Canada’s history and traditions, turning it into a vacuous proposition nation. Our flag, the Red Ensign, was replaced with our modern, sterile, maple leaf. Our anthem, prior to “O Canada” (adopted in 1980), was “God Save the King.” Our tradition of British common law, forming an evolving constitutional order, was replaced with an American-style constitution enshrining Rawlsian liberalism and individual rights in our polity. There is no understating how disastrous these changes have been for Canada. In the modern day, the Liberal Party even still effaces our history, turning a blind eye as statues are toppled and streets are renamed all but daily. A renewed study of our history is desperately needed. This must include a return to the symbols that once adorned our proud nation—especially the red ensign.

Any Canadian nationalism which is not grounded in history is superficial and useless. It is a patriotism planted in shallow soil, whose growth is hastened so that the roots remain brittle and are easily torn up.

But let us return to the present.

Donald Trump has threatened to make Canada the “51st state” and has ushered in the threat of a trade war. The vitriol of many Trump supporters towards Canada has seemingly come out of nowhere. I don’t think anyone can seriously say that these are flippant threats. This seems to have awakened Canadians from a stupor, inspiring patriotic sentiment across the country (except here in Alberta). We now seem acutely aware of the threat posed by our southern neighbour. This is hardly a new phenomenon—the past few decades, viewing America as a friendly and trustworthy ally, are the exception to the rule.

Note the overlap between the first and second row.

This has brought forth the potential for something positive. Not only are Canadians growing more anti-American by the day—we are also turning inwards to rediscover the spirit of our nation. I see many new and strong voices on this platform and others advocating for our country’s continued existence.

However, there have been naysayers also. I have been often hearing the sentiment that Canadians should not be incensed by threats of American annexation, given that we have other more pressing threats—be it Chinese and Russian election interference, or the dire state of our country as a result of Justin Trudeau’s leadership. This is, however, wrong. The greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty is, always has been, and always will be, the American Empire and its homogenizing liberalism. No matter how friendly we are with them, if we cannot meaningfully distinguish ourselves from Americans, then we no longer have a country.

This does not detract from our other problems, which are serious threats—but they are not existential threats in the same way as American encroachment. I admit that Canadians are mild. Our indifference to foreign interference and government corruption is staggering. But when we finally rise to action, with the threat of annexation, it is not hypocrisy—rather, it is the recognition of the eternal struggle of our nation.

The first election of Donald Trump portended, and the second confirmed, the death knell of classical liberalism in America. I suggest that this is good news for Canada, as American liberalism has always been our greatest threat. Donald Trump signified an end to the globalizing liberal order, instead ushering in a new age of Manifest Destiny. His newfound imperial ambitions may seem threatening, but these ambitions are at least set forth in plain sight, where they can be met and recognized by all. The spread of liberalism, on the other hand, is protean and covert. It festers gradually and discreetly, out of sight and out of mind. Whereas George Grant lamented the death of Canadian nationalism because of the spread of American liberalism, I am hopeful that Canada, having outlasted liberalism, has the opportunity to assert itself as a unique, sovereign nation once more.

The reader may think I am naively idealistic. I cannot deny that this is true. But I contend that this naive idealism is the exact same which has imbued the greatest Canadians from Confederation onward, who bravely attempted to build and sustain a sovereign nation on the harsh northern half of this continent, next to the world’s most powerful and dynamic empire—surely an impossible and ridiculous task.

1. The best articulation of this view is in Saul, John Ralston, Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century (1997).

2. Grant, George, “The Empire: Yes or No?” in The George Grant Reader (1998), pp. 43-50.

3. Underhill, Frank “The New Nationality” in The Image of Confederation (1964), pp. 2.

4. Nietzsche, Friedrich, R.J. Hollingdale trans. “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life” in Untimely Meditations (1997), pp. 86.