Learning About Lester Pearson

I just finished another book in the Extraordinary Canadian series about former Prime Minister Lester Pearson. I have to confess, and this is very embarrassing, but I had never heard of Lester Pearson before. In fact, the only reason I looked him up was that Michael Ignatieff mentioned that he was his political inspiration. So I looked him up and got very excited. Pearson was of course a man of his time. He was born at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria. He was raised in the Edwardian period and fought like so many during WWI. He found nothing romantic about the war; he just saw the horror of it. When someone talked about his distinguished record later in life, he said that there was nothing distinguished about it. He just got lucky and was injured before he was able to be killed! His real gift was in the diplomatic field. He was there at both the beginnings of NATO and the UN and some credit the beginning of NATO to him. Although he had really hoped that NATO would have become a political community rather than just the military alliance that it had become. He seemed to have a magical career in that posts just sort of opened up for him, and twice he was elected to the top position of the UN, however both times his candidacy was vetoed by the Soviets. Eventually he became opposition leader and prime minister. As prime minister he was not perfect and had many difficulties, but what he did do was define what modern Canada is for many people. Pearson's vision was rooted in gently affirming Canadian independence from Imperial Great Britain which is symbolized most forcefully in the creation of the Canadian Flag. No longer was it to be a symbol of a former colony; after Pearson it would be the symbol of a confident, independent country. His vision of Canada was also infectious; it was a vision of a "compassionate, progressive, bilingual country. A modern Canada. Pearson's Canada." He was also the one behind the respect so many abroad have had in Canada's reputation for diplomacy and peacemaking. It is a reputation that has withered, but is still there to a degree. My embarrassment is that these were the characteristics of Canada that I had always thought of, but had never realized they had only been achieved with great struggle, and much of the struggle came from one man: Lester Pearson.

What I Like about the Canadian Experiment

There is a trend in the air. Even as politics seems to become more divided than ever, more and more people that I meet seem to reject being put easily in one party category or the other. Like me, people are finding much to value in both the liberal and conservative perspectives. You can see this in the Christian church also.  More and more people are no longer seeing their denominational less as a tribal affiliation. In other words, people like Baptists for instance are also finding treasures in the liturgical traditions and vise versa. As an Anglican I found found spiritual nourishment in the Franciscan, Celtic, Anabaptist, Eastern Orthodox and Monastic traditions. And I am not alone. This is a strong mark of the emerging church. However, tt seems to me that this is less of an intentional project as it is an attitude, an attitude that is comprehensive as opposed to an attitude that easily partitions and categorizes. I think that it reflects an appreciation of complexity that is not easily reducible.

It is my interest in this comprehensive attitude that I think attracts me to the Canadian project so much. Because of the unique history of Canada and the different interests competing for recognition, the Canadian project seems to have built into it this comprehensive attitude. This comprehensive attitude really seems to be apparent after the tenure of Pierre Trudeau and his patriation of the Canadian Constitution. His favourite achievement in that move was of course the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As biographer John English observes, "because of Trudeau's view that you station rights in individuals to counter the collective forces of what he would see as tribal nationalism." Trudeau was one of the strongest federalists that this country has known, and he wanted to play down the regional and linguistic identities in order to promote a stronger national identity. But there is an obvious tension here that makes Canada so interesting. Trudeau was a strong prime minister, but not strong enough to pull people out of their regional identities in the way you might find in the United States where there is regional difference to be sure, but definitely subordinated to the American identity. In Canada it does not seem to be so straight forward; there is both an embrace of Trudeau's passion for individual rights and a very strong emphasis on linguistic, ethnic and regional identity.

You can see this most strongly in questions around the French language laws in Quebec and in debates about Aboriginal group rights, but in many other places as well. In the United States one would see these as contradictory positions. But Canadians don't seem willing to agree. It is not that it is easy to resolve the tensions, and the tensions are quite strong and the problems quite thorny. However, Canadians seem to think that there is something essential that would be lost if one position was simply subordinated to the other. We see this in the commitment to multi-culturalism and pluralism as well as the historic decision to create a political system that is both democratic and monarchical. This should be profoundly contradictory, and yet the Canadians seem to make it work. It is what I appreciate about the Canadian system.

History of the Anglican Church of Canada

Chapter Four: The Second American War

This chapter of the ACC takes place during a time of great uncertainty in the Western World. It was the time of revolution: the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Of the two of course the French was the more radical. In that conflict the “ancient order” of church and monarchy came down and was replaced with a militantly secular republic. Out of this of course rose Napoleon, and once again all of Europe was at war.

So what did Charles Inglis do? Bless his soul, he started founding educational institutions. He realized early on that the people of Canada would have to educated themselves in order to become a mature country. While his undertaking encountered political problems by and large he was successful and some of them are still with us today. In the rest of the ACC the institution was really starting to come together. Over these years Bishops were consecrated in Quebec and Toronto. Part of the problem for the Bishop in Quebec is that while the Anglican church was in theory the Establishment Church, in fact the governor of the province was really courting the Roman Catholic church as it was the dominant church in Quebec.

It was also at this time that the first Anglican cathedral outside of the British Isles. King George was generous to this new church in Quebec by donating books, hangings, vessels for communion and two great silver candlesticks for the altar. And in all of this the population was steadily growing through the influx of British settlers and through the influx of American settlers. New parishes were being built. It all looked good until the beginning of the Second American War in 1812. It is interesting to note that once again the Americans expected the Canadians to rise up and join them which “was not unreasonable since nine-tenths of the new settlers had come from the States, and only about a quarter of these were Loyalists.” However, they joined together to repulse the Americans

Except for the war this was not a time of dramatic activity. In some ways it seems very mundane. And yet it strikes me that this is really the work of the church. Much of it is mundane. We wake up every morning, eat breakfast and go out to labour for the kingdom of God. It is not necessarily heroic but it is our calling, and we have done it for centuries.

Edmonton Politics and Incarnational Living

Tonight I went to the Ward 7 political forum tonight to watch the debates. I am not actually a resident of Ward 7 but I am a political junkie. Many of the issues discussed were ones of many big cities:

1) The blight of urban sprawl

2) The funding of athletic arenas

3) Issue of the density of social housing

4) Issues of crime and drugs

Though there was a couple of issues were specific to Edmonton

5) Development of the Municipal Airport

6) LRT expansion and the funding of it.

But what struck me about the discussions was the importance of residency and place to the candidates and the audience. It was extremely important that the candidates lived in the community or were from the community. The reason is obvious of course, it seems to resonate that only someone who has lengthy experience in the neighbourhood can really represent the neighbourhood. They understand the challenges because they have lived through them in the same way. The reason I bring it up on the blog is that it got me to thinking about the role of a priest in the community. Does the same need for place for a politician also apply to a priest? Would the priest who would be the most effective  be the one who has been in the community for a long time, who has lived through many of the same issues his or her parishioners, who understands the needs, the customs, and the rhythms of life? 

There is not an obvious yes to the question as there have been many effective priests who have come from outside a community and done wonderful things. And yet I can't let go of a nagging suspicion that there is something important about localness. Do you love both the people and the place? I can't but think that this makes a difference.  For me, while I was parachuted in, I have now lived in my neighbourhood awhile: seven years. My kids go to the local school; I am on the school council; I participate in things around the neighbourhood. And it is only now really that I feel that I really understand the community of which my church is a part of. 

Lengthy tenure in the Anglican church however seems to be changing. Most people would say that the days of a parish priest who was in the parish for 20 or 30 years is long gone. The reason of course is the danger that with such a long tenure the parish can go stale. But do you lose something in not being local for a long time, like most of the parishioners? True incarnational living.

Why do Canadians act like they do?

One of the books that I enjoyed reading and which helped me quite a bit to articulate the differences between Canadians and Americans is Pierre Berton’s little book called Why We Act Like Canadians. It is a little dated in that events have obviously moved on since the early 80’s but the core is still very relevant. Each of the chapters is a letter written to a person named Sam who is supposed to be an American. Obviously the reference is to Uncle Sam. Each of the letters outlines a particular difference between the two peoples. It is helpful because Americans often have difficulty understanding that Canadians are different with some very different values.

In the first two chapters Berton takes us on a long tour of the North West Mounted Police which in time would come to be known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For Berton, it seems hard to overstate the place the RCMP has in the mythology of the Canadian psyche. In fact they mark the main difference between the Wild West of the United States and the peaceful West of Canada. He argues that in fact there was nothing wild about the West in Canada because of the NWMP who kept the peace. In fact, they were really a military unit disguised as police in order not to offend the Americans. But their purpose was to keep the Americans in line.  There is a great story he tells in which there is a famous gunslinger in Western town who is carrying a gun which was illegal. A NWM Policeman approached him and asked for the gun. The gunslinger replied “no man alive has ever taken my gun.” To which the mountie replied that may well be, but I am taking it. It was then that Berton tells us the gunslinger realized that he was no longer in the States. The point for Burton is that whereas for Americans the central virtues are freedom and liberty, for Canadians these are subordinated to a passion for “peace, order and strong government.” This is not to say that freedom and liberty are not values for Canadians but rather they are only valuable in a peaceful context. He writes, “the respect for authority, the hunger for security, the yearning for peace, order and good, strong government, the rejection of the permissive and the ‘libertine’ – are national qualities that unite us all.”

The third letter explores the theme of loyalism and the early Canadian reaction to the Americans. One of the things that has struck me as I have read various histories is the fact that for years Americans just could not understand why the Canadians did not want to join the United States. The assumption at the time of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 is that the Canadians would jump right in. Berton argues that there are two reasons for this. First, there was a strong trust and loyalty to the institutions of church and crown even if there was not always a love. He writes about his own father who close to the present time that he was, “loyal to the Church of England, which he saw as a bulwark against radical and un-British nonconformist; loyal to the British connection – life the others, he called himself a United Empire Loyalist; and loyal to the Conservative party, which we Canadians still dub the Tory party.” The other aspect was a horror at the American way of life which was seen as chaotic, irreligious and materialistic. It was common to see the Americans as caring for nothing but money. (This is still a common view!) Berton has a humorous theory for this. In the War of 1812 he writes that for the first time the Canadians saw a different kind of American: “These were not the easy-going farmers who lived as neighbours… These were Southerners – Indian fighters, backwoodsmen, brawlers and eye-gougers – individuals all… Thus, in the years that followed, when Canadians heard the word “British,” they could not help seeing a line of disciplined men, uniformed, marching in perfect order. But the word “American” conjured up a different vision: a horde of ragged frontiersmen, slipping like phantoms through the trees, squirrel rifles at the alert, each acting on his own – a mob of wild men, perfectly prepared to take a scalp or burn a house in defiance of orders.” There has always been a wariness of the Americans partly because there were so many of them and their economy so large, and in the Canadian mind there has always been a vigilance against the encroaching influence. One of the interesting parts of Berton’s book which is obviously dated is his assumption that Canadians “have shunned commercialism in our culture.” Unfortunately, I don’t think that one could say this today.

The next letter is about the difference in which Canadians think about ethnic diversity. Rather than being an American melting pot, the Canadians talk about a mosaic in which the ethnic groups who settled were encouraged to keep their own cultures and identities (Aboriginals obviously excepted). He argues that Canada is the richer for it. The point here is multi-culturalism. However, it was not born of idealism but by the harsh realities of history. Canada as a country started out as two different nations, one French and one English. (Again, the Aboriginal nations don’t really make it into Berton’s book.)  Accommodation had to be made for the two groups to live together. Then the government wanted “proper-thinking Brits” to settle here but got Slavic peasants instead. So he writes, the made a virtue of ethnicity. What came out of all of this was something very interesting: a much different way of thinking about national identity.

The final letters are about the geography of Canada. One cannot stress enough how the geography of Canada has affected the history. Canada is vast; the distances are mind boggling. It is also a northern country in which the weather can be brutally harsh. As well there is a huge sheet of un-farmable rock that spans the majority of the country called the Canadian Shield. To connect the country the railroad had to blast through parts of it. It is a very dramatic story.

I enjoyed this book very much. I almost wish that it were current. I would enjoy his impressions of Canadian society almost thirty years later. Would he still see Canadian identity as strong as it was, or has it become more Americanized through commercialism and common cultural tastes?

Book Study: Pierre Elliott Trudeau by Nino Ricci

I think that this series of books called Extraordinary Canadians is going to be really interesting. It is a series edited by John Ralston Saul in 18 volumes. The first one I read was the one about Pierre Trudeau. I saw it on the shelf at the library and picked it right up. Having come from the US, I didn’t know much about Trudeau except for the fact that a lot of people near where I live don’t think very highly of him. Actually that is a bit of an understatement. J But I picked up the book because I wanted to read more about this iconic character.

The book actually turned out to be really helpful in highlighting many of the internal debates about what it means to be a Canadian, because if there was one person in the middle of the debates it was Trudeau. In this look I am not so much interested in looking at Trudeau as I am at trying to understand two defining Canadian issues that Trudeau was at the heart of: multiculturalism and federalism.

1) Multiculturalism: to help get ready for my citizenship test I have a little booklet entitled Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. It is a document that goes through Canadian history, geography and values. One of the central values of Canada the booklet tells us is Multiculturalism: “A fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity. Canadians celebrate the gift of one another’s presence and work hard to respect pluralism and live in harmony.” These values are, of course, enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the document which was the passion of Trudeau and which he worked so hard to put into the constitution when he had it repatriated in 1982.

Looking at Canada’s history, this actually would not be an obvious value. At best, most of the emphasis seems to be on biculturalism. At the beginning of the book, the author, who is of Italian origin, reflects that when he thought of Canada as a child, it meant something to do with being English which he was not a part of. Or for a French Canadian it had to do with French heritage. And it is worth noting that the Aboriginal identity of Canada did not seem to be taken seriously before the 1960’s.

Trudeau expanded this into multiculturalism, but for paradoxical reasons. Usually when we think of cultural identity, we think of shared history and blood, and loyalty to a particular place and time. But Trudeau was suspicious about such bonds. From his experience in Quebec, he felt that this kind of nationalistic tie was ultimately destructive and parochial. He was more interested in universal values that would trump local identity. His real desire seemed to be to become a citizen of the world and to create Canada something along those lines. The Charter was the grand piece moving toward this goal. As Ricci reflects, “However much a charter would protect the right to difference, it would ultimately be assimilationist in its emphasis on universality and on the individual…”

Was Trudeau successful? It is hard to tell. On one level it is clear that Canada is very multicultural in a profoundly interesting way. One of my favourite festivals here in Edmonton is Heritage Days, which is a three day celebration of culture, food, arts and dance.  I love every minute. To me it seems that the trends is that, as people become Canadian, they are not throwing off their cultural heritage and becoming universal people. I have my suspicions that it is difficult or impossible to be a universal person cut off from shared history and story. But on the other hand, people from differing parts of the world that I have spoken to love being Canadian. Perhaps not in every case, but it seems to me that on the whole they embrace their Canadian citizenship as compatible with their various cultural inheritances. At the very least Trudeau was successful in changing the landscape. I don’t think Canada could ever go back to a pure emphasis on Englishness or even biculturalism.  Canada has changed.

2) Federalism: If Trudeau had an overriding passion it was for federalism. I was not sure what he meant by it until I read about the mockery with which he treated Joe Clark’s definition of Canada as “a community of communities.” Trudeau joked that this meant that Canada would just become a community of different shopping centres. But jokes aside, it points to an important issue of identity.  It is clear that a common identity has not come easy to Canadians. From the beginning, Canada was at least two European heritage nations and several Aboriginal nations brought together under a single government but not a central identity.  This shared identity then had to be hammered out. And of course for many Canadians there is a strong attachment and loyalty to region rather than country. And so there does seem to be a lot to say for Clark’s assessment of Canada. At its heart, Canada is a group of communities that choose to stay together.

But this wasn’t enough for Trudeau. He thought that there had to be more to being a Canadian. There was more than just regional identity; there was such a thing as Canadian identity. He found this in the universal ideals mentioned earlier and in federalism. Trudeau wrote this about federalism:

Federalism has all along been a product of reason in politics. It was born of a decision by pragmatic politicians to face facts as they are, particularly by the fact of the heterogeneity of the world’s population.  It is an attempt to find a rational compromise between the divergent interest groups which history has thrown together; but it is a compromise based on the will of the people.

For Trudeau, Canadian identity could not be about ethnicity or common history. If it was, then the Canadian experiment would fail along ethnic and linguistic lines. He was convinced that there had to be something stronger and more universal which would hold the differing groups together. This was at the heart of his appeal to federalism and a much stronger central government than many were comfortable with. Was he successful? Again, it is hard to tell. The government is definitely more centralized. And it does seem to me in talking to people that they do think that there is such a thing as a Canadian identity. However, there are often a lot of laughs as people try to figure out exactly what that is.

Canadian Anglican First

Today the Canadian church calendar commemorates the first Eucharist celebrated in Canada. It was in 1578 at Frobisher Bay. It was part of the English exploration of the area when the captain of the ship Judith noted that they celebrated Communion together:

Tewsdaie, the xxiiith daie: we did receave the Communion altogether, contynewing that daie in prayer and thanks giving to god." 


The odd thing about the commemoration is that it was celebrated on the 23rd of July. Not exactly sure why we are celebrating on the 4th of September.