Keeping with the New York theme, here is literally a New Yorker view of the Canadian election. Adam Gopnick is just possibly the best of the New Yorker regulars (and that’s saying a lot) – but he also has the perspective that comes from being born a Canadian.
Here’s an excerpt from his commentary:
Here’s an excerpt from his commentary:
The peculiarly Canadian habit of splitting differences and finding accommodations is the essence of its historic task. John Ralston Saul, in his twin biography of two nineteenth-century visionaries of a unified Canada, Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine, emphasizes how much the country owes to its tradition of avoiding conflict, at times refusing violence even when it means allowing a building to be burned down instead of having the military fire on a crowd.
Canada’s makers were seeking the “sunny ways” that Justin—in an oddly dated and touching turn of phrase, for a twenty-first-century politician—chose to mention in his victory speech. Harper’s politics, however they understandably resonated in the West as a reaction against the insularity of the Ontario and Quebec corridor, were increasingly those of division, nastiness, and fear.
For much of its history, Canadian liberalism and its Liberals were instruments of a ceaseless search for intelligent accommodation, splitting differences instead of splitting heads. In the hands of Trudeau, Sr., this was far from a passive or timid credo, but it still largely sought the bright side of the street, where people of different backgrounds and languages stroll along in reasonable harmony. It would be nice if we could walk that walk in the snows again.
While I thought there was indeed a possibility of a Liberal majority, if the collective consciousness made a last-minute leap to the red side (which it did), I was steeling myself for a less optimistic outcome.
I was struck today by what a different mood most of us would be in if we had turned blue, as we tried to reconcile the image described above with a new reality: that nastiness works, that meanness is the new norm, that minorities are vulnerable targets and that Canadian is no longer what I thought it was, or what I am.
I don’t have to think that now. And I’m very grateful.
Justin Trudeau’s father Pierre did a very educational thing when he was young. He backpacked around the world and visited many cultures at a time when most Canadians didn’t travel much. What he saw around the world, and added to his bilingual family upbringing influenced his views on things. It’s now pretty normal, especially among young people, to consider multiple points of view and to work with those to find a solution instead of the old way of choosing one point of view and using dominance over others to have a solution.
Many people have noticed that despite our national beliefs, the U.S. is more of a mosaic and Canada is more of a melting pot when it comes to multiple cultures.