Last week Adam Radwanski penned a thoughtful and poignant piece on how the rest-of-Canada (ROC) should react to another Quebec referendum. According to recent polls, at least half of us no longer think it’s a big deal if the province decides to separate. While Radwanski finds this unsettling, in the end, he too is at a loss for what to say and dolefully concludes that this time around complacency may send the best signal.
If the Parti Québécois is elected, I think the real question for the ROC is not what we should say to Quebec, but what we should say to ourselves.
Not all failing marriages — personal or political — can or should be saved. If this one is in serious trouble, the best way we in the ROC can respond is to get clear on who we think we are as Canadians and what we believe Canada should be. I’d like to suggest a couple of ideas.
First, let me say something about what Canadians are not. Canada is not a classical nation-state. We do not have a national identity the way it might be argued the Japanese or, perhaps, the French do — or at least once did.
National identities are based on blood and/or ethnicity. They evolve over time and are passed from generation to generation, like an inheritance. As a result, they are also exclusive. If you don’t share the inheritance, you don’t belong. Joining is rarely an option.
Canadians lack such an identity because we are culturally too diverse. Further, in the coming decades we will rely even more on immigration, so even if a national identify was once an option, it is not now.
Nevertheless, identity is vitally important. It is about belonging, and belonging is a basic human good. It not only gives people a sense of shared meaning and purpose, it creates the resilience they need to stick together as a community in the face of change and adversity.
So how should we in the ROC define who we are as Canadians?
I think this is a natural spot for the Council of the Federation to play a leadership role. As Canada grows and diversifies, our Canadian identity is increasingly intertwined with our provincial ones in a way that needs to be explored and better articulated.
This is not about sidelining the federal government or making it “headwaiter to the provinces.” The federal government has its own role here. Rather, it is about recognizing that our Canadian identity is now defined as much from the bottom-up as the top-down.
From a bottom-up perspective, we are highly diverse. Our identities are increasingly shaped by life at the provincial/territorial and even local levels. Thus someone from Iqaluit may see Canada as a vast open space where people still hunt and fish to live, while someone in Toronto feels connected to the country through hockey. From this perspective, Canadians’ identities are highly complex and layered.
But there is also a top-down aspect. Canadians across the ROC may be different, but we share a number of values (beyond democratic and human rights) that are central to how we define ourselves as Canadians and that wind their way through our provincial/territorial identities:
Respect for Diversity: Canadians are regionally, culturally and linguistically diverse. These differences need lots of room for expression and development. Federalism and recognition of the rights of Aboriginal peoples are two key aspects of our respect for diversity.
Inclusiveness is the counterpart to diversity. Our shared identity is not something that is inherited, but that emerges from participation in different provincial/territorial communities, which all Canadians are free to join.
Personal Mobility allows Canadians to move freely about the country, which, in turn, shapes and reshapes our personal identity as we come to know different communities.
Bilingualism supports mobility by ensuring the development of French- and English-speaking communities and access to key services.
Sustainable development underlines Canadians’ respect for the environment.
The Sharing Community embodies a commitment to share risk and promote equality of opportunity for all Canadians.
There are, of course, real differences of opinion on the scope of these values and on how they fit together. This is a topic for ongoing discussion and debate. Still, the twelve premiers from the ROC could use this framework as a starting point for developing a broad vision of Canada along these lines. Doing so would likely lead to some important insights about our political culture.
For example, I think the premiers would find that, although Canadians still use the language of the 19th century nation-state to discuss identity, increasingly it fails to correspond with our lived experience. The premiers would be pushed to search for new images, metaphors and concepts to describe and define the kind of identity that is emerging in large, culturally and regionally diverse countries like Canada — and that would be a good thing.
Where would this leave Quebec?
I believe Quebec and the ROC are not only on the same path here, but that we share many of the same values. Personally, I believe the tensions between Canadians outside Quebec and ordinary Québécois are less over constitutional powers than outdated conceptions of identity.
In part, this is because the debate over Quebec’s place in Canada has been framed in the language of the nation-state. The PQ has been particularly effective at using this to cast the federal government as the voice of the ROC — a cultural monolith that stands in opposition to Quebec. The result has been frustration and misunderstanding on both sides.
If the Council of the Federation were to take on the task of defining a Canadian identity, this time the dynamic might be very different. As the 13th member of this ensemble, the PQ would have a hard time casting its 12 colleagues as either a monolith or a threat to Quebec’s identity. The chorus of voices from Nunavut in the north to BC in the west would testify to the ROC’s deep diversity and, hopefully, to its willingness to find ways to accommodate one another as Canadians.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Don Lenihan
If the Parti Québécois is elected, I think the real question for the ROC is not what we should say to Quebec, but what we should say to ourselves.
Not all failing marriages — personal or political — can or should be saved. If this one is in serious trouble, the best way we in the ROC can respond is to get clear on who we think we are as Canadians and what we believe Canada should be. I’d like to suggest a couple of ideas.
First, let me say something about what Canadians are not. Canada is not a classical nation-state. We do not have a national identity the way it might be argued the Japanese or, perhaps, the French do — or at least once did.
National identities are based on blood and/or ethnicity. They evolve over time and are passed from generation to generation, like an inheritance. As a result, they are also exclusive. If you don’t share the inheritance, you don’t belong. Joining is rarely an option.
Canadians lack such an identity because we are culturally too diverse. Further, in the coming decades we will rely even more on immigration, so even if a national identify was once an option, it is not now.
Nevertheless, identity is vitally important. It is about belonging, and belonging is a basic human good. It not only gives people a sense of shared meaning and purpose, it creates the resilience they need to stick together as a community in the face of change and adversity.
So how should we in the ROC define who we are as Canadians?
I think this is a natural spot for the Council of the Federation to play a leadership role. As Canada grows and diversifies, our Canadian identity is increasingly intertwined with our provincial ones in a way that needs to be explored and better articulated.
This is not about sidelining the federal government or making it “headwaiter to the provinces.” The federal government has its own role here. Rather, it is about recognizing that our Canadian identity is now defined as much from the bottom-up as the top-down.
From a bottom-up perspective, we are highly diverse. Our identities are increasingly shaped by life at the provincial/territorial and even local levels. Thus someone from Iqaluit may see Canada as a vast open space where people still hunt and fish to live, while someone in Toronto feels connected to the country through hockey. From this perspective, Canadians’ identities are highly complex and layered.
But there is also a top-down aspect. Canadians across the ROC may be different, but we share a number of values (beyond democratic and human rights) that are central to how we define ourselves as Canadians and that wind their way through our provincial/territorial identities:
Respect for Diversity: Canadians are regionally, culturally and linguistically diverse. These differences need lots of room for expression and development. Federalism and recognition of the rights of Aboriginal peoples are two key aspects of our respect for diversity.
Inclusiveness is the counterpart to diversity. Our shared identity is not something that is inherited, but that emerges from participation in different provincial/territorial communities, which all Canadians are free to join.
Personal Mobility allows Canadians to move freely about the country, which, in turn, shapes and reshapes our personal identity as we come to know different communities.
Bilingualism supports mobility by ensuring the development of French- and English-speaking communities and access to key services.
Sustainable development underlines Canadians’ respect for the environment.
The Sharing Community embodies a commitment to share risk and promote equality of opportunity for all Canadians.
There are, of course, real differences of opinion on the scope of these values and on how they fit together. This is a topic for ongoing discussion and debate. Still, the twelve premiers from the ROC could use this framework as a starting point for developing a broad vision of Canada along these lines. Doing so would likely lead to some important insights about our political culture.
For example, I think the premiers would find that, although Canadians still use the language of the 19th century nation-state to discuss identity, increasingly it fails to correspond with our lived experience. The premiers would be pushed to search for new images, metaphors and concepts to describe and define the kind of identity that is emerging in large, culturally and regionally diverse countries like Canada — and that would be a good thing.
Where would this leave Quebec?
I believe Quebec and the ROC are not only on the same path here, but that we share many of the same values. Personally, I believe the tensions between Canadians outside Quebec and ordinary Québécois are less over constitutional powers than outdated conceptions of identity.
In part, this is because the debate over Quebec’s place in Canada has been framed in the language of the nation-state. The PQ has been particularly effective at using this to cast the federal government as the voice of the ROC — a cultural monolith that stands in opposition to Quebec. The result has been frustration and misunderstanding on both sides.
If the Council of the Federation were to take on the task of defining a Canadian identity, this time the dynamic might be very different. As the 13th member of this ensemble, the PQ would have a hard time casting its 12 colleagues as either a monolith or a threat to Quebec’s identity. The chorus of voices from Nunavut in the north to BC in the west would testify to the ROC’s deep diversity and, hopefully, to its willingness to find ways to accommodate one another as Canadians.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: Don Lenihan
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