It is Perfectly All Right that a country should be entirely unable, on the anniversary of its founding as a state, to think of a single reason to celebrate it. It is Perfectly All Right, likewise, that it should be so devoid of fellow-feeling amongst its citizens that its government does not dare mention the reason for the generic celebrations it has ordered up, for fear of alienating one section of the population or another.
The reasons for this bouncy nihilism vary: either because nationalism is icky, or because Canada’s lack of nationalism is in fact a kind of inverted nationalism, a way of distinguishing ourselves from other nations. Anomie is part of our unique cultural identity. Yadda yadda yadda never had a civil war blah blah blah we’re a shy, diffident country yadda yadda something about the wilderness, and we’re done.
It’s interesting that this anti-nationalism, mostly on the left, should coincide with the rise of nationalism — mostly imported, in one of the many ironies of this debate — on the right. The ur-text among the latter is that interview Justin Trudeau gave the New York Times Magazine, in which he referred to Canada as the world’s “first post-national state,” inasmuch as it has no “core identity, no mainstream,” thus confirming populist suspicions of him as a treasonous stooge of globalist elites.
Andrew Coyne, “On Canada Day let us remind ourselves we have done well, even as we strive to do better”, National Post, 2017-07-01.
July 1, 2019
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