The holy trinity of federalism and patriotism that’s from here
What a week, my lack of god. It’s been difficult to focus on what’s happening here given the excitement of the big convention in Chicago and the sense that finally we’re getting over the doom and gloom of having two very old white dudes fighting for a very old white house. I’m far from the only one who’s spent the last five years tearing their hair out and asking why, in a country of nearly 400 million people including some of the smartest humans on earth, those two guys are the best candidates to lead. Not anymore. I’m just one outsider who can’t vote but I spend inordinate amounts of time in that country and I have grown to love America and its people, warts and all. At last I’m excited about its short-term future.
But canuckian affairs beckon, starting with politicians of all levels and all stripes trying to pull the blanket over to their side and only stretching us. In the Ottawa Citizen I wrote about how me, myself and I form the holy trinity of Canadian federalism in that we are separately federal taxpayer, provincial taxpayer and also municipal taxpayer but we’re just one person with just one bank account and wouldn’t it be nice if politicians remembered that. I even got to talk about my 2004 book on the old Canada Infrastructure Works Program to show that when various levels of government get together to do things, we don’t get what we asked for and we totally lose accountability as not one level of government is fully responsible for anything.
I also have a very off feeling about Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s use of his personal website to host a petition asking Ottawa residents to help him get more cash out of the other levels of government. I’ve been asking his office about that and so far I can’t say it’s an especially rewarding conversation but I’m going to keep trying until I have something resembling answers. There is no doubt that the mayor (and councillors) have the right to continue using their personal websites to trumpet their achievements while they’re in office, as several have been doing for a while. It’s in the Municial Act (section 226.1, the staffer mentioned, twice) and so far so zzzz. The issue, however, is that he’s collecting people’s personal information and there is nowhere I can find on his website that says where the data is stored (this has privacy implications), who has control of and access to the data and what this personal information can be used for in the future outside of this specific petition. Which is a city-wide issue, not a one man show. It’s especially strange given that the city of Ottawa website is already set up for public engagement. Finally, I asked Sutcliffe’s office if we could get a sense of how many people have signed this petition so far and I may have used invisible ink for that part of my email because I have not yet been given a number.
Mostly though this week, my attention and guffaws were reserved for the Conservative party that had to quickly delete a video (oh no, someone saved it!) that contained way too many embarrassing non-Canadian stock images. And that’s on top of another Conservative MP having to delete a tweet accusing cash-strapped parents of selling their children and a Conservative staffer (someone, it should be stressed, without any discernible accomplishment to his name) dissing the head of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario as a “wacko” expert because she‘s a health care expert and nobody hates experts like staffers with no discernible accomplishment to their name.
Anyhoo.
The Poilievre Canadian dream video wherein Canadians drive past Utah moutains on their way to kill their dinner after a day spent in a Serbian school watching Russian fighter jets buzz overhead had me thinking about what patriotism is, and what it really shouldn’t be.
(Oh, et pour mes lecteurs francophones, jetez un coup d’œil sur cette chronique délicieuse qui déconstruit et demolit la vidéo tellement poche de Poilievre.)
Patriotism. Conservatives (both the small- and big-C kind) are keen on it. And that’s their right. Me, I’ve always found patriotism profoundly weird. Pride in country? Why, have I done anything to make it great? I’m grateful to have won the geographical lottery by being born in a very good and peaceful country, for sure. But why would I be proud of that? I was a baby at the time, it wasn’t my decision.
In 2011 Stephen Harper’s campaign released a video that helped him cinch that majority he was so determined to get. It’s nowhere near as hilarious as Poilievre’s foreign-filmed bring-our-home-home clunker but then, Stephen Harper was never conspicuously into humour. Or, like, words that mean something.
You’ll notice similar images in pretty much all the conservative patriotic videos. The Rockies. Golden fields. Oceans. And for sure Canada is a majestic and profoundly beautiful place. But is this what makes us Canadian?
I’m truly not an expert on this and as previously noted I also don’t care all that much, but if I were trying to convince someone — say, millions of electors — that I was the person best suited to represent What Canada Means to Canadians and the world, I would speak about values held dear by Canadians, and character traits that distinguish Canadians from citizens of other countries. I wouldn’t hide behind mountains, no matter how awesome the American Rockies are.
