Canada still vulnerable to global woes

There are many things that make Canada special even among the great democracies; if only any one of these things could ensure we will not become like the rest.

Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, the United Kingdom, the United States: Unlike us, the institutions, culture and discourse of each are being wrestled to the ground. Unlike us, punchdrunk bigotry has spread quickly and widely, from the people to many of the people’s representatives. And unlike us, these countries are being attacked by the most dangerous kind of actors: dangerous because they are weak, and wish to be venerated as strong, and — believing themselves to have been thus robbed of their natural entitlements — feel they have nothing to lose.

Racists at home and Russians abroad; thugs on the inside and thugs at the door. In either case and in every democracy, cultural supremacists offer conspiracy theories in place of truth and violence in place of argument, using chaos, deception and freefloating malevolence to sabotage any competition they cannot win with fair play.

But what would we know of this? We are safe, it is supposed. Not only safe — we are strong. We make our own safety; our cleverness has created our own luck. This is the compliment paid to us not only by ourselves, but by those less fortunate wishing to understand the dire circumstances of their own countries. Even if their understanding leads to their self-reproach; even if their understanding is wrong.

We integrate refugees into our communities through a sponsorship system, and good for us. We attract the best and the brightest immigrants through a points system; good for us some more. We use phrases such as mosaic instead of melting pot, and humility instead of exceptionalism. Aren’t we so very good.

There is no point claiming these things are not good, of course, or that the position we are in is not good. But nor is there any point in celebrating our different fortune this Canada Day weekend if we put our good fortune in jeopardy by exaggerating the differences that sustain it.

First, we might consider evidence that we are also vulnerable to hostile, anti-liberal strains of domestic populism; then, we might consider evidence that we are vulnerable to attacks from hostile, anti-liberal foreign actors.

Our own culture may not be as strong as it looks. In February, Ekos Research and The Canadian Press released a poll measuring Canadian populist sentiment. It was a most enlightening look at our country’s precarious state of enlightenment: fewer than half expressed open-mindedness to the world and other people; nearly a full third felt economically and culturally insecure. These are two acknowledged predictors of a country’s propensity for stupid. Already, Canada’s largest province has elected a known thug with a drug dealer-history and a chip on his shoulder for the kind of “maggots” who reported it.

This only makes us more susceptible to adversaries who would benefit from Canada’s decline. CSIS has warned of “total information warfare” from foreign actors such as Russia, and has said it is “very likely” some will try to influence our elections.

In Canada, more than strong institutions, more than a healthy culture, indeed more than anything else, what we have on our side is time. We have had time to observe. We have observed that democracy is fragile. We have observed that what was expected of political leaders yesterday can be rare among them tomorrow. We have observed that many seemingly honourable people put party over country to advance their own pet causes or their own political status. We have observed that political rhetoric against immigrants, visible minorities and journalists can incite violence against them, that if we don’t wisely manage the shifting patterns of human migration, fearmongers will exploit them, and that if we do not steer our own democracy, others will take the wheel.

But we have also learned that skilled politicians who avoid the temptation to drift to the extremes can appeal to enough voters that they hold the centre.

If we wish to remain different, we must recognize the ways in which we could be very nearly the same.