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.

The Anglican Church of Canada by Philip Carrington

Chapter Two: The French Wars

An essential part of the history of Canada is the story of the efforts of both the French and the English to increase their dominance in North America. For decades these two powers were at war continually capturing, losing and re-capturing various pieces of Canadian real-estate. Into all of this the Anglican Church in Canada started in fits and starts. It is notable that during one of the several short times of peace a new religious associated was formed in 1698 called The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. This was an organization that was going to become very important and whose important work was the distribution of religious literature through libraries and book stores. This group in turn formed another society that was to be hugely influential called the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Both of these were under the patronage of the Crown and the Archbishops in England.

It was at this time that the first church buildings were being built in Canada. There is an interesting emphasis on communion vessels given to various churches by Queen Anne. These vessels are interesting because they will come up a few times in the next generation. These royal gifts are now in the care of St. Paul’s church in Halifax, the oldest Anglican church in Canada still running.

In some sense the beginning of a stable Anglican church was the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This ended the French wars for a full thirty years and gave some stability to the frontier. It was during this time that with the help of the SPG “clergy were appointed, churches were build, and schools started.” The rest of the period is kind of a dreary repetition of war, peace, war breaks out again, peace, more war, a little peace, some more war… It was during this time that the Acadians were expelled and finally the Battle of the Plains in 1759 which effectively ended the French wars on this continent.

As I said earlier there is a real sense here that the Anglican church came in fits and starts depending of British interests and the state of the wars. I would like to end this post with a quote I enjoyed from the book. It is about different groups working together to create the Canadian experiment:

“We pause to make a point which will often appear in our history, the ability of Canadians of different races and religions to work together in unity without surrendering their native loyalties or culture. It is a kind of national partnership which calls for sympathetic imagination, Christian character, and realistic thinking.” P.35

The Anglican Church of Canada by Philip Carrington

Chapter 1: The First Canadians

The history of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) obviously starts quite late in the overall history of Canada. Carrington begins his history observing the fact that obviously the first Canadians, the first nations and Inuit, had been navigating these shores for centuries, as well there are various encounters with Europeans from 1000AD on. However, the ACC starts with the focused explorations of European sailors such as John Cabot and Jacques Cartier.

(As a bit of a side note, it is hard not to react against the arrogance of a man like Cartier who claims entire lands without consultation and who kidnaps men and takes them to France against their will. However, for the purposes of these notes I think that I have to first learn the story as it played out. It is interesting to note that it is at least partly in reaction to such arrogance that the ACC just repudiated the doctrine of discovery that these early explorers operated under. How that effects the way that we tell the story of Canada is yet to be worked out. Needless to say this book was written before such a conversation had taken place.)

What is notable about the early history of the ACC is how closely it is caught up in British imperial interests in North America. All of the early religious services are part of early explorations or early colonies that were settled for economic reasons. As well the conversion of the first nations that the Europeans encountered had much to do with the alliances that were formed. Carrington writes,

The Huron and Algonquin Indians to the north were friendly with the French, and became Roman Catholic; the Mohawk and Iroquois to the south were friendly with the Dutch, and later on with the English, and ultimately became Anglicans. (23)

Carrington observes that there were no signs of any conscious or organized effort on the part of the church of England “to bring the influence of religion to bear on the new world.” Rather, most of the credit for the introduction for the introduction of Anglicanism he gives to laymen who used the prayer book to bolster the religious faith aboard ships or in early colonies. It was not until 1649 that England created the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, and since this was the year after Charles lost his head this was not a Prayer Book organization!

What was interesting to me which I didn’t know was that the 1662 BCP was created with the needs of New England in mind.

First Forays

One of the surprising things that I have discovered in doing some of my initial research to gather a reading list is the lack of readily available materials on the history of the Anglican Church of Canada. There are some books to be sure, but many of them are out of print which I have had to order. It has been a bit of a treasure hunt. Any suggestions for great materials would be much appreciated!

The first two books that I will be blogging through are a general history of the ACC up to the second world war called The Anglican Church in Canada by Philip Carrington and a study commissioned by the ACC in 2002 called Stained Glass, Sweet Grass, Hosannas and Songs by Sally Edmonds Preiner. My plan will be to blog the main points of each chapter and then some of my own comments.

The first book is helpful as a general introduction although it is a bit dated. It came out in the early 60’s and tracks general Canadian history while commenting on what is going on at the time in the ACC. It seems a bit more triumphalistic than one would write today but it is interesting in identifying the major themes that come up again and again in the history of the ACC. Carrington seems to be an interesting fellow. He was a bishop of the Diocese of Quebec as well as the Metropolitan of Canada. He wrote several books other than this one including The Boy Scouts Camp Book in 1918. That seems very well rounded!

The second book is obviously more current and it looks like a study initiated by the ACC to look at the issues facing the church today. Topics covered include declining congregations, youth involvement, multicultural interpretations of Anglicanism, styles of worship (BCP/BAS), local outreach, social justice, residential schools, homosexuality, and even what it means to be an Anglican. The issue that it seems to raise from a cursory glance is the fact that our diversity is quite plain, which raises the question of what it is that keeps us together. Obviously this is one of the questions that I am interested in exploring in quite some depth: what is it about Anglicanism that keeps us together.

Together, the two books seem like a good place to start, one historical and one more current; one looking at historical themes and threads and the other looking at current themes and threads. It will be interesting to see if they mesh or clash!