Whoa, you mean we really are like Americans?
By Matt Bufton
Lance Writer
October 21, 2009
The question of just what it means to be a Canadian has stumped our nation for decades. While just about everyone has an opinion, it’s difficult to find any real consensus.
According to the most common narrative, to be Canadian is to “not be American.” In contrast with our individualistic neighbours to the south we’re a kinder, gentler people who believe in generous social programs and universal health care.
The biggest problem with this story is that isn’t true. At least that’s the argument put forward by Brian Lee Crowley in his new book Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada’s Founding Values.
The first part of this book is dedicated to making the case that for much of our history, until about 1960, it was Canada rather than the U.S. that had the best claim to be the land of individualism, hard work, and limited government. Crowley uses statistics and a range of historical and contemporary sources to make a convincing case that it was more than just nationalist rhetoric when former Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier said “Canada is free and freedom is its nationality.”
In the late 1950s, government expenditure as a percentage of GDP in Canada and the US was roughly equal. But, soon after government spending began to grow far more rapidly in the true north strong and free. So, if Canada was the land of freedom for our first century, how did we become the home of big government?
Crowley’s search for an answer begins with demographics. In the early 1960s the first of the baby boomers began to enter the workforce. Concerned by this dramatic increase in the pool of workers, we reacted by creating a mass of government programs that encouraged people not to work. Unemployment insurance, welfare, pension plans, and early retirement all helped to reduce the number of working age men and women in the workforce and opened places for the flood of boomers.
Yet the demographic tale is only part of the story Crowley tells us. The rise of Quebec nationalism in the wake of the Quiet Revolution also helps to explain the change in our society. Concern over the alienation felt by young francophone Quebeckers moved the federal government to expand the number of jobs in the federal civil service in order to encourage the Quebecois to identify more closely with Canada. In the decades that followed, a succession of Quebec politicians used the threat of separatism to extract an astonishing amount of federal money from Ottawa.
These programs required increasing taxation and the heavy hand of government steadily eroded productivity in Quebec and Canada, leading to calls for yet more programs and spending to help make up for the lost income that went with lower productivity.
Crowley also devotes significant space to concerns about the effects of poorly-designed social programs on the character and work ethic of Canadians. The two nations of Canada’s future, he argues, will not be the French and English, but rather makers (those who are economically productive) and takers (those who are a drain on government resources).
While he equates Ontario and the western provinces with making and Quebec with taking, Crowley expresses hope that we’ll be able to escape this pattern. It’s no mistake that this book is subtitled the fall and rise of Canada’s founding values.
As the baby boomers begin to retire en masse, Crowley predicts that more and more Canadians will choose productive employment over government social programs. As the demand for the most destructive programs diminishes, taking Canada will be overshadowed by making Canada, even Quebec will join in a renaissance of our national character and the 21st Century will indeed belong to Canada.
This book is an important contribution to the public policy debate in Canada. Crowley mixes economic analysis with big ideas and enjoyable prose in a style that is all too rare.
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