Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:42, 25 May 2006

Anti-Canadianism represents a consistent hostility towards the government, culture, or people of Canada.

History

One person commonly thought of as an anti-Canadian thinker was Voltaire, who is generally misquoted as saying Canada is "a few acres of snow." He was in fact referring to Acadia as it existed in the eighteenth century. The quote meant that Acadia, which was outside of Canada at that time, was economically worthless and the French Empire thus did not need to keep it. It is not clear from the full quote whether Voltaire was truly anti-Canadian or not. In fact, many believe Voltaire's statement to be more an indictment of war in general, that no piece of land was worth the trouble.

Historical instances of anti-Canadianism never seem to have lasted long enough to persist in any given society. Even American anti-Canadianism (arguably the strongest example of historical anti-Canadianism) was due chiefly to Canada's willing participation in the British Commonwealth, and not necessarily to any attribute of Canada proper. American anti-Canadianism was most prominent surrounding the failure of attempted American invasions during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Modern perceptions

Generally speaking, where people have formed opinions of Canada they tend to be quite positive. Dislike for Canada may rise for two reasons: a general dislike for "the West", in which Canada is included, or a specific objection to policies and attitudes of Canada and Canadians. The latter type is generally limited to the few countries who have a history of important disputes with Canada.

United States

In the United States, Canada is often a target of conservative and right-wing commentators who hold the northern nation up as an example of what a government and society that are too liberal would look like.

"Soviet Canuckistan" is one unflattering epithet for Canada, used by Pat Buchanan on October 31, 2002, on his television show on MSNBC in which he denounced Canadians as anti-American and the country as a haven for terrorists. He was reacting to a warning that had been issued by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs that Canadians born in Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Syria should be cautious travelling to the United States.

Buchanan has a history of unflattering references to Canada, having said in 1990 that if Canada were to break apart due to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, "America would pick up the pieces." He said two years after that "for most Americans, Canada is sort of like a case of latent arthritis. We really don't think about it, unless it acts up."

In the wake of Canada's refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as its turning down of the Missile Defense Plan, Ann Coulter has recently become another prominent anti-Canadian American. She has often proposed (semi-humourous) extreme solutions to "Canadian dissent", such as a military invasion of Canada.

In 2006, right-wing American strategist Paul Weyrich said Canadians are "so liberal and hedonistic" that they have a philosophy of "cultural Marxism".

Brazil

One place where anti-Canadian sentiment has been observed is Brazil where people boycotted Canadian goods and burned them in the streets to protest a Canadian ban of Brazilian beef imports, reportedly because of fears of mad-cow disease, but which many Brazilians believed were motivated by an unrelated trade dispute between the two nations. Canada's subsidies to aircraft manufacturer Bombardier have been a source of much tension with Brazil because they are said to interfere with the business of Bombardier's Brazillian rival Embraer.

Anti-Canadian Canadians

From the right

During the 1990s, there was a controversial brain drain of well-educated Canadians to the US. Many prominent Canadian conservatives have expressed dismay at recent liberal trends in society and point to places like the United States and Britain as far superior to Canada. Many, like Conrad Black or David Frum have chosen to leave the country feeling that Canada is unsalvageable. Even among those who have stayed there is often more admiration for US conservative policies, personalities and history, than for the Canadian equivalents. Even current Prime Minister Stephen Harper at one point denounced Canada to an audience of American conservatives saying:

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

The Liberal Party of Canada tried unsuccessfully to use this quote against Harper to stop him from being elected in the 2006 election.

From the left

In Quebec, some people within the sovereignty movement harbour feelings of deep-seated mistrust towards English Canada. Former Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard famously said that “Canada is not a real country”, and author Norman Lester published a Black Book of English Canada detailing events of Canadian history he saw as being crimes perpetrated by the majority on the minority. As well similarly loud and forceful denunciations of Canadian government and businesses have traditionally come from the far-left of the Canadian political spectrum, for example the Communist Party of Canada. Often the criticism is that Canada too closely follows the United States lead and is acting like a 51st State.

Anti-Canadianism and humour

Humourous anti-Canadianism often focuses on broadly-known attributes of Canada and Canadians (such as cold weather or public health care), as the finer details of Canadian culture and politics are generally not well known outside Canada. Consequently, such humour is often made at the expense of accuracy outside Canada. However, these broad targets are more accurately caricatured within Canada itself. Such self-deprecating humour is nearly universal among Canadian humourists. In keeping with this attitude, some genuinely critical anti-Canadianisms (such as "Soviet Canuckistan") are embraced by Canadians as humourous, in defiance of the original intent.

In popular culture

• In 1995, American director Michael Moore parodied anti-Canadianism in his film Canadian Bacon, in which the United States stages a cold war with its northern neighbour, inadvertently inspiring border raids.

• In 1999, the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut also featured a fictional war between Americans and Canadians, including an anti-Canadian song, "Blame Canada."

• The television sitcom The Simpsons regularly parodies Canada and Canadians.

External links

• Toronto Star article by Dimitry Anastakis
• Simpsons, Eh?

References

1. Full text of Stephen Harper's 1997 speech, CTV.ca, 14 December 2005; Susan Riley, "Harper's suspect evolution", 16 December 2005, A18.

• Anti-national sentiment
• Canada and the United States