The decline and fall of Canada
National pride takes hit during Trudeau years
In his classic A Short History of the World, H.G. Wells asked why the Roman Empire grew, and why it so completely decayed.
He concluded that it grew because the idea of citizenship held it together, creating a sense of privilege and obligation and a willingness to make sacrifices in the name of Rome.
However, the failure to explain itself to its increasing multitude of citizens, or invite their co-operation, led to the demise of its collective mission.
“The sense of citizenship died of starvation,” Wells said. “All empires, all states, all organizations of human society are, in the ultimate, things of understanding and will. There remained no will for the Roman Empire in the world, and so it came to an end.”
That passage came to mind as I read a column this weekend by the Washington Post's David Ignatius, based on a new report from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, written by the Rand Corporation.
“The Sources of Renewed National Dynamism” report assesses the U.S. competitive position as it faces a rising China. According to Ignatius, who received an early copy, it makes grim reading. America is stumbling toward a decline from which few great powers ever recover, the report concludes.
Competitive pressures from within include slowing productivity growth, an aging population, a polarized political system and a corrupted information environment. Does any of that sound familiar to Canadian readers?
External pressures include a direct rising challenge from China and declining deference to U.S. power from developing nations.
Problems are exacerbated by an addiction to luxury, failure to keep pace with technology, an ossified bureaucracy, an overstretched military and “self-interested and warring elites.”
Unless Americans can unite to identify and fix these problems, it risks falling into a downward spiral, the report concludes — just as the Roman, Ottoman and Austro-hungarian empires crumbled before it.
This is clearly not a malaise that stops at the 49th parallel.
Poll after poll suggests Canadians are bearing witness to their relative decline. In a Postmedia-leger survey released last month, 70 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that “Canada is broken.”
An Environics poll last year said 58 per cent of Canadians are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, with discontent across all regions and all age groups.
An Angus Reid Institute survey on life satisfaction in 2023 said 51 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with life in general.
Not surprisingly, younger, poorer and visible minority Canadians were the least satisfied.
Pride in being Canadian is falling in some regions and age groups compared to five years ago — particularly in Western Canada and among millennials.
When the majority of citizens don't believe the status quo is working for them, it produces demands for alternative arrangements.
Alberta's government seems intent on de facto separation, pushing back on federal legislation and regulations through its Sovereignty Act; musing about creating a provincial police force and tax collection agency; and proposing to opt out of the Canada Pension Plan. Saskatchewan is already refusing to collect the carbon tax, as a challenge to federal authority.
In Quebec, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-pierre Plamondon would likely head up a majority separatist government if an election were held tomorrow.
He has pledged that the province will hold a third independence referendum, should his party take power. He calls Ottawa “an existential threat” and said Canada is no longer a federation “but an increasingly unitary state, where (Quebec's) political weight will be less than onefifth.”
As prime minister for the past eight-and-a-half years, much of the blame for this diminishment of national pride rests with Justin Trudeau. His activist agenda aims to impose more egalitarian outcomes by government fiat — and to condemn those who don't buy into the vision as being uninformed, irresponsible or motivated by ulterior purpose. Arguably, it is the reason why his Liberal party is trailing by 20 points in most polls.
Albertans and Quebecers share a common resentment about federal intrusion into areas that are clearly provincial jurisdiction. As André Pratte pointed out, the new renters' bill of rights interferes with the Civil Code of Quebec, which has been recognized as the province's civil law since 1774. Such “arrogance” provides fuel for the province's resurging separatist movement, Pratte argued.
Trudeau promised to be the great unifier after the Harper years but it has not worked out like that.
The increase in the capital gains inclusion rate in this month's budget was the latest example of the baked-in hostility toward anyone deemed “wealthy” or “privileged.”
Trudeau has repeatedly engaged in wedge politics for partisan advantage, rather than trying to bridge the divides.
His likely successor, Pierre Poilievre, has the advantage of not being Trudeau, which, along with promising to make life a little bit easier, is all he needs to be right now.
But he has his own track record of stoking divisions for political gain: expressing his animus toward the media, courts, the central bank and all “experts” and fixating on urgent trivia, while promising to solve complex problems with simple solutions.
In his Washington Post column, Ignatius concluded: “If we can't find new leaders and agree on a solution that works for everyone, we're sunk.”
The same could be said of Canada.
The lesson of history is that no state has a divine right to prosper. Its citizens must have the will for it to exist in the world. Has there been any moment in Canada's history when that will has been weaker?