UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Limits on Deliberative Democracy in Canada:
A Study of Political Culture and How Attitudes Towards the
United States Shape Canadian Public Policy Debates
by
Mark Milke
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF
PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
CALGARY, ALBERTA
SEPTEMBER, 2008
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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT
Theorists of deliberative democracy point to a number of factors that can affect the potential for deliberation: lack of wealth, marginalization of one sort or another, and insufficient interest in the public good. However, such theorists have ignored another possible influence on deliberation: political culture, itself a result of various factors including historical events, political leadership, and elite and popular discourse. That political culture, including a dominant narrative, will have an effect upon whether a polity is open to a wide-ranging deliberative discussion. If the discourse is self-limiting in some way, say for reasons of a religious taboo on a subject, then deliberation is circumscribed from the outset.
In this thesis, I add to the literature on deliberative democracy in four ways: first,
I show that the existing literature mistakenly posits private interest as opposite to public interest when the latter is instead a continuum of the former; second, I note how discourse in Canada is rife with references to the United States (often negative) and how that prevents more thorough deliberation of an issue or policy; third, the narratives of Ontario and Alberta are examined and explored for the possibility that the dominant Canadian narrative (Ontario's survivalist-garrison narrative) was triumphant in the past due to historical events, the subsequent reality of a significant population base and the attendant advantages that brought vis-a-vis the rest of Canada, and political considerations; fourth,
I note the prevalence of anti-American discourse in Canada both in history and in the present but conclude that while chronic references to the United States will likely always be part of Canadian discourse, a weakening of the dominant Ontario narrative may
iii produce two results: less consequential anti-American policy (in contrast to past actions), and a more deliberative national discourse as ideas and policies are considered on their merits.
iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Tom Flanagan, who patiently whittled away at multiple drafts of this manuscript. Also, a thank you to those who served on my various committees: Dr. Rainer Knopff, Dr. James Keeley, Dr. Geoffrey Hale, Dr. Holger
Herwig, and to Judi Powell in Graduate Studies at the department of Political Science at the University of Calgary for tips on dealing with inexorable Word document problems.
v DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to my parents, to whom I owe everything. It is also dedicated to my friend Darren Baptist who died while I was completing this thesis: Forty years was too brief a time.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Approval Page ii Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Dedication vi Table of Contents vii List of Tables ix List of Charts x
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW—DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY 5 Deliberative Democracy as a Concept: Origins 5 Foundational Thinkers 7 Recent Theorists 8 Analysis of the Proceduralist and Consequentialist Schools 23 A Third Approach: Return to Practical Debates 26 Framework of My Definition of Deliberative Democracy 31
CHAPTER TWO: "PUBLIC INTEREST" V. PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY 37 A False Dichotomy in the Deliberative Democracy Debate 37 Implications for Deliberative Democracy Theory 44 Relevance to This Dissertation 47
CHAPTER THREE: INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS OF REFERENCES 50 Quantitative Analysis: American References 1984-2007 50 Quantitative Analysis: Findings 53
CHAPTER FOUR: DISCOURSE IN FOUR POLICY AREAS 75 Qualitative Analysis: Seven Policy Areas 1984-2007 82 HealthCare 86 Foreign Policy 97 The Courts and Judicial Appointment Reform 128 Economic Issues 137
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCOURSE IN THREE POLICY AREAS 159 Adoption of the Charter and Subsequent Interpretation 161 Affirmative Action 171 Environment 180
vii CHAPTER SIX: TWO REGIONAL NARRATIVES 188 Sources and Definitions of Anti-Americanism at Home and Abroad 188 Early Canadian-American Events and Ontario's Narrative 198 The Alberta Narrative: A Frontier 213
CHAPTER SEVEN: DISCUSSION OF THE DISCOURSE AND CONCLUSION 232 Summary of the Discourse in Seven Policy Areas 232 A Comparison to Deliberative Democracy's Essentials 235 The Results: The Nature of American References 239 Strategic and Opportunistic 240 More Common on the Political Left 241 Eternal in the Discourse 244 Regionalism May Help Deliberation 245
BIBLIOGRAPHY 253
viii LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1: U.S. References by Year 65
TABLE 2: Seven-Newspaper Sampling of References to the United States 66
TABLE 3: Number of References by Region 67
TABLE 4: The Stockwell Day Syndrome 68
TABLE 5: Day Citations at Non-Chain Dailies 68
TABLE 6: September 11 Effect on References? 69
TABLE 7: Key Policy Concepts 69
TABLE 8: U.S. References Tied to Party Leaders 70
ix LIST OF CHARTS
CHART 1: U.S. References by Year 71
CHART 2: Seven-Newspaper Sampling of References to the United States 71
CHART 3: Number of References by Region 72
CHART 4: The Stockwell Day Syndrome 72
CHART 5: Day Citations at Non-Chain Dailies 73
CHART 6: September 11 Effect on References? 73
CHART 7: Key Policy Concepts 74
CHART 8: U.S. References Tied to Party Leaders 74
x 1
INTRODUCTION
"Deliberation is not concerned with those branches of knowledge that have precise rules of their own.. ..The effects about which we deliberate are those which are produced by our agency but not always in the same way; e.g., the practice of medicine and of finance, and of navigation.. ..Thus the field of deliberation is 'that which happens for the most part, where the result is obscure and the right course not clearly defined'; and for important decisions we call in advisers, distrusting our own ability to reach a decision." —Aristotle in Ethics (1976,118-119)
In a democracy where participation in the political process is a right assumed if not always exercised, most citizens properly care about who can speak and the effect such participants will have on the polity and the lives of the people within it. If the concern is not immediate and obvious, it inevitably reveals itself when an issue, policy, or development begins to significantly affect one's own person, family or interests.
Citizens are natural deliberative democrats even if unaware of the term.
In Canada, a significant part of public deliberation involves references to the
United States. A casual observer will note such references frequently appear in media reporting and editorials, in political debates including political party speeches, party platforms and parliamentary debates, occasionally in scholarly research, and in policy issues such as health care, foreign affairs, social policy and the environment, to name but a few. As a result, to properly assess whether a particular policy is sensible for
Canadians, one must look at how policy is arrived at, i.e., the deliberation involved before any particular policy is formulated and decisions taken. In Canada, it also helps to discover whether continual references to the United States short-circuit that deliberation.
This thesis will examine how deliberative Canadian discourse is, given the reality of constant references to (real or imagined) American positions, references often used to 2 support or defeat a particular public policy proposal. Insofar as such references act as a
"talisman," to ward off assumed undesirable policy, the chronic references are problematic on their own for deliberation. However, three other hindrances to greater deliberation also exist and they are contained within the existing theories and literature on deliberative democracy itself.
First, much attention is given in existing deliberative democracy theory to concepts such as gender, race, and class and any role they might play in hindering deliberation; in contrast, the issue of culture is overlooked and this constitutes a significant omission, a point I elaborate on in the first chapter.
While this thesis focuses on the possible interference with deliberation in
Canadian discourse and thus does not attempt to construct a perfect institutional model of deliberative democracy, a second gap in the literature exists and concerns one possible aid to a better informed and thoughtful citizenry — direct democracy, a point I also expand on briefly in chapter 1.
A third significant problem for deliberative democracy theory is that much of the existing literature assumes a "public interest" approach, i.e., a general assumption that private interests are a hindrance to the public interest. In the context of deliberative democracy, this produces a plethora of proposals to "level the playing field" between a variety of private interests and identities before deliberation can even begin. In many cases, the suggestions offered by existing theorists would actually handicap deliberation.
Thus, I will explain in chapter 2 and assert how - contra most theorists in this area - deliberative democracy need not be defined as inherently opposed to individual interest but rather is a continuum of the same. I will argue public choice theory is compatible 3 with and supportive of deliberative democracy. This is a new argument in deliberative democracy theory as most of the literature assumes the opposite to be true.
After noting the literature on deliberative democracy and its omissions, I then offer up a simple, defensible, and practical definition of deliberation by which to measure current Canadian discourse. After that, to show how frequent references are to the United
States in Canadian discourse, I offer up a quantitative analysis by noting the frequency of
American references when certain key search terms ("U.S.-style" and "American-style") are combined with certain policy terms or with personalities, e.g., "American-style" with
"health-care" or "U.S.-style" with "Stephen Harper." The results reveal consistent patterns. In general, the use of such links can usually be broken down according to ideological or partisan attachments; in other cases, the analysis reveals the strategic and opportunistic nature of some of those U.S. references.
Beyond the raw data, I will turn to a qualitative analysis in order to give concrete examples of how American references are used (or not) in the discourse in seven policy areas: health care, foreign policy, judicial appointment reform, balanced budgets/deficits, environmental policy, affirmative action, the introduction of the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms (and subsequent theoretical interpretation of the same). As will be shown, the references are often intentional, repetitive, and tied to ideological, political, or economic agendas.
The impact of references to the United States on the potential for a more deliberative democracy will then be discussed, followed by a conclusion. The conclusion notes the effect of culture upon historical anti-Americanism in Canada, the modern variety of anti-Americanism, the effect continual references to the United States have 4 upon deliberative democracy in Canada, and the potential that differences within regional culture in Canada may have upon receptivity to such discourse, and how such differences may affect future potential for greater deliberation. 5
CHAPTER ONE
A LITERATURE REVIEW OF DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY
"Come now, let us reason together" is the injunction attributed to God by the author of the Old Testament book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:18). Those who reflect on how to improve democracy do not have the lofty goal of communing with the divine; rather, they hope to improve on how men and women reason with one another and subsequently, how to improve governance of themselves. In this chapter, I review the literature on deliberative democracy in order to give the reader an understanding of the thinking on this subject, including disputes over what constitutes legitimate public reasoning. I then summarize the critical components of a useful theory of deliberative democracy so as to compare to a routine Canadian practice - chronic and often negative references to the
United States - that may handicap such discourse.
Deliberative Democracy as a Concept: Origins
The philosophical concept of deliberative democracy grows out of the work of
Aristotle, Jiirgen Habermas and John Rawls, who were concerned with deliberation, discourse, and public reasoning respectively. The actual term, deliberative democracy, was first coined by Joseph Bessette (1980). Bessette argued against what he termed elitist or "aristocratic" interpretations of the American Constitution, and instead called for a more participatory understanding.
As outlined by James Bohman and William Rehg (1997, xii-xiii), Bessette and others assert that assumptions beneath earlier economic and pluralist models of 6 democracy were flawed. Specifically, many deliberative democracy theorists argue it is a mistake to:
• look at politics mainly as sets of conflicting competing interests;
• assume rational-choice frameworks are the sole model for rational
decision making;
• assume that legitimate government is minimalist;
• define democratic participation as limited to or mainly about voting.
Thus, many deliberative democracy theorists downplay competitive models of politics and decision-making governed by bargaining and aggregation (Bohman and Rehg
1997, xiii). They eschew market-based models of citizen behaviour in favour of an assumption that most citizens have an orientation towards the common good.
In present approaches to deliberative democracy, many theorists debate the proper means of deliberation in support of the end assumption that thoughtful democracy is inherently worthwhile. Even critics of democracy and of deliberation unwittingly and implicitly admit both concepts are desirable as their criticism itself constitutes deliberation. Further, their willingness to voice criticism assumes an equality of right in participation that is at the heart of a democracy.
In general, there are two broad schools within present-day theories of deliberative democracy. (A third contingent sides with the first school but attempts to take into account the criticisms of the second.) The first school supports the proceduralist approach to deliberative democracy—deliberation can be justified on its own merits by virtue of the fact that people participate. A second school, which I label "consequentialist," dismisses "mere" proceduralism on the grounds that for true deliberation to occur, certain 7 minorities (as defined by these critics) must be represented, otherwise the ostensible deliberation leads only to the same power elites talking about the same means and ends that concern them in particular. The third contingent argues deliberation is useful on its own merits but justifies it beyond just the basis of procedure; they argue deliberative democracy accords well with basic tenets of democracy, such as the right of self- referencing, the right to decide for oneself one's own priorities.
Foundational Thinkers
Before plunging into modern debates over deliberation, it is useful to examine deliberative democracy's foundational thinkers in political theory. In Aristotle's discussion of moral responsibility in Ethics, he posits that moral conduct implies choice and ipso facto it follows that choice is a "voluntary thing." Choice, he observes, is what distinguishes man from brutes, the irrational creatures such as animals with whom we share desire and temper. Further, Aristotle asks if choice involves deliberation (as it necessarily must as a choice implies at least two alternatives), what then is the proper sphere for such deliberation?
The question is relevant as there is an endless array of topics about which one may deliberate but which are of little value or about which it is counter-productive to do so. Aristotle lists eternal facts such as the order of the universe or the incommensurability of the diagonal with the side of the square, those things with natural causes that cannot be changed (the rising of the sun or the solstice), and occurrences which befall one by chance (finding treasure). Also, notes Aristotle, we deliberate about those "practical measures" that are within in our power to change and whose method and ends are not always sure (Aristotle 1976,111-118). 8
Deliberation is not concerned with those branches of knowledge that have precise rules of their own.. ..The effects about which we deliberate are those which are produced by our agency but not always in the same way; e.g., the practice of medicine and of finance, and of navigation....Thus the field of deliberation is "that which happens for the most part, where the result is obscure and the right course not clearly defined"; and for important decisions we call in advisers, distrusting our own ability to reach a decision (118-119).
Thus, Aristotle argues that "we deliberate not about ends but about means," i.e., a doctor does not ponder on whether to cure his patient, only how.
Recent Theorists
Moving from the classical world to more recent theorists, John Uhr (1998, 4) contends the majority of the recent work on deliberation takes place in the shadow of
Jtirgen Habermas and John Rawls (both of whom credit Aristotle as foundational for the analysis of political deliberation).
Habermas (1996) rejects the classical, primarily Aristotelian approach to law and democracy, and instead offers a discourse theory. His discourse principle posits as valid only those laws to which all affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourse. Thus, Habermas rejects both the liberal view of democracy ("democratic will- formation has the exclusive function of legitimating the exercise of political power") and the republican view ("constituting society as a political community and keeping the memory of this founding act alive with each election").
Instead, Habermas see discourse politics as somewhat removed from the political system with its cause-and-effect/public opinion-leads-to-political action mode of operation. For example, he writes, "The public opinion that is worked up via democratic procedures into communicative power cannot 'rule' of itself but can only point the use of administrative power in specific directions" (300). For Habermas, his discourse theory of 9
democracy is one in which "the political public sphere has been differentiated as an arena
for the perception, identification and treatment of problems affecting the whole of
society" (301). Habermas argues, "This is not to denounce the intuition connected with the idea of popular sovereignty but to interpret it intersubjectively" (301).
None of this is necessarily anti-democratic. Every democratic political process with a decision-making component and which extends beyond straight up-and-down votes for citizens in a town hall meeting has some "buffer," some layer of representation between citizens and final political decisions taken on their behalf. However, to grasp
Habermas' conception of deliberative democracy, it is critical to note key words in his
explanation. When Habermas suggests "treatment" for societal problems and desires to
interpret popular sovereignty "intersubjectively," he advocates a process which is
arguably additionally removed from routine decision-making (and from accountability mechanisms which are part of the same). For Habermas, representative government does not in itself constitute deliberative democracy.
Instead, for Habermas, procedurally correct decisions draw their legitimacy from
"the core structure in a separate, constitutionally organized political system" (305).
Further, what he labels as democratically constituted opinion-and will-formation is
dependent "on the supply of informal public opinions that, ideally, develop in structures
of an unsubverted political public sphere" (308). The "unsubverted" for Habermas is
defined as an informal public sphere where an "egalitarian public of citizens" has
"emerged from the confines of class and thrown off the millennia-old shackles of social
stratification and exploitation" (308). 10
The reference to "informal" is telling in that it's a euphemism for a more
accurately descriptive word—unelected. Also, there are a number of assumptions in
Habermas' definition of "unsubverted" which one may question. Beyond a challenge to that definition which need not concern us here, Habermas admits that his approach is, in general, "sketchy" and that the only question is what it all means in the present context.
To answer, he points to how his discourse theory "reckons with the higher-level
inter subjectivity of processes of reaching understanding that take place through
democratic procedures or in the communicative network of public spheres" (299) (my
emphasis). This network of public spheres is at the heart of his theory of how deliberative
democracy would work in practice.
Habermas claims his discourse theory respects the boundaries between "state" and
"society," though the fact that he places both terms in quotation marks his claim as tenuous. He argues the "socially integrating force of solidarity" must develop through
"more or less autonomous public spheres" and be able to hold its own against "the other two mechanisms of social integration, money and administrative power" (299).
In short, Habermas makes a pitch for what others have labeled the "embedded
state" a vis-a-vis private interests ("money") and existing representative institutions and their bureaucracies ("administrative power"). That this is how Habermas envisions a
deliberative democracy becomes clear when he argues that the procedural concept of
democracy takes shape "through the shape of a self-organizing legal community"
a The "embedded state" refers to the notion that specific state organizations develop ties (official and unofficial) to equally specific non-state interest groups (Pal, 1993). An example is where the federal environment ministry may fund specific environmental groups to further the goals of the department, and not necessarily the elected government's, goals. 11
(emphasis his) and that "the discursive mode of sociation is to be implemented through the medium of law alone."
Habermas envisions such public spheres as the arena for "perception, identification and treatment of problems affecting the whole of society" (301). The language implies not mere participatory status but elevated rank above the other participants in deliberation and ultimately the role of guides, guardians, and arbiters in such a process, i.e., "treatment for societal problems."
This approach is problematic for deliberative democracy as such Platonic guardians may short-circuit the process. For example, many theorists are opposed to direct democracy (referendums and plebiscites) on the grounds that many citizens are uninformed. Perhaps, however, broad public questions of the sort debated by citizens of
Switzerland - the desirability of an army or whether or not to join the European Union - can be and are debated by Swiss citizens. The looming deadline of a referendum concentrates the mind and creates a deliberative approach of the sort sought by many theorists (though referendums and their potential are ignored in the literature). Citizens are given an incentive to ponder matters that previously were the exclusive preserve of those who regularly engage in fields of public policy, political governance and law, i.e., political representatives and bureaucratic elites. However, the existence of guardians as described by Habermas would lead away from democratic deliberation, not to it.
In fact, Habermas' guardians and the opposition to direct democracy in the literature reveal a major gap in the thinking on deliberative democracy: the absence of suggestions on how to encourage and improve deliberation in any practical manner for the majority of citizens. To posit political, bureaucratic, interest-group, or judicial 12 guardians as possible remedies to an existing lack of deliberation is to ignore the reality that such actors may already be the more deliberative actors within a society. However, to give more power (institutional or quasi-institutional) to such actors will only entrench their existing advantage vis-a-vis the general population.
My work is focused on discourse and its possible effect on policy, thus the creation of a more desirable institutional structure for deeper deliberation is not a matter addressed by this thesis; beyond direct democracy, there may well be other ways to also deepen deliberation. The focus of this work is on rhetoric's effect on discourse and its possible effect on policy. But the inattention to practical remedies such as direct democracy or outright opposition to the same by theorists is a major omission in the literature. It leads to a focus on solutions that are more of a technocratic "tinkering" with existing institutions; it does not create a process that would give more people direct input and thus incentives to more carefully ponder policy.
Rawls and public reasoning
Another foundational voice in deliberative democracy theory is John Rawls. For
Rawls (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 93-141), public reason is public in three ways. First, it is the reasoning of citizens as such; second, its subject is the good of the public and matters of fundamental justice; third, the nature and content of reasoning is public and conducted openly.
Rawls outlines the essence of public reasoning and what makes it distinct from private reasoning. To do so, he notes the principle of political liberalism. This principle, he explains, is connected with two special features of the political relationship among democratic citizens: "First, it is a relationship of persons within the basic structure of the 13 society into which they are born and in which they normally lead a complete life. Second, in a democracy, political power which is always coercive power, is the power of the public, that is, of free and equal citizens as a collective body" (96).
For Rawls, the proper exercise of coercive political power is not merely for various groups to "split the difference" on matters which concern them all. Instead, they should be "ready to explain the basis of their actions to one another in terms each could reasonably expect that others might endorse as consistent with their freedom and equality" (97). It is, asserts Rawls, akin to the rules of evidence in a criminal case. There are boundaries on what can be introduced into a trial in order to ensure the accused has a fair trial. For example, evidence collected under torture or extreme duress cannot be introduced as it impairs the possibility of a fair trial.
Similarly, while there are arguments and reasons that matter in a non-public arena
- church bishops may disagree on certain theological tenets and do so based on their appeal to scripture - such appeals are irrelevant to those who do not accept such authorities. Such reasoning, while legitimate in its own context, is part of what Rawls labels the "background culture" which contrasts with the public political culture (99).
This "background culture" has relevance to Canadian discourse. As will be noted in subsequent chapters, consider the frequency of American references in popular, media, and political circles - for example, "American-style health care" is now a cliche. That much-used reference can combine with historic anti-Americanism within Canada to produce a background culture that can easily de-legitimatize an idea when it is tagged as
"American." This has the potential to injure deliberation in Canada by substituting guilt- by-association for considered thought on a matter. 14
Rawls is aware of the limitations of public reason and on a pragmatic basis suggests making room for less-than-ideal public reasoning in society. He notes two cases that depart from the exclusive, public reason-only ideal. The first is where a dispute exists in a well-ordered society. For example, one group sees public funding of state schools only as the true public model; another argues that funding of religious schools in addition to public schools is a public model, a sort of "diversity within the public whole" approach. Rawls argues the solution may well be to allow both sides to present their arguments publicly and explain how their various approaches and reasons in fact support the political conception of public reason. At the very least, it would be a practical example of honouring the ideal of public reason (121).
A second case of less-than-ideal reasoning involves a case where society is not well-ordered, where there is profound disagreement and division on constitutional essentials, such as abolitionists who argued against southern slavery and did so strongly
(and arguably mainly) influenced by religious sentiments. Rawls notes that "the nonpublic reason of certain Christian churches supported the clear conclusions of public reason" (121), i.e., that they supported the values of freedom and equality.
In Rawls' argument, the ideal of public reason allows for the inclusion of such appeals providing they are at least supportive of the structures for the ideal of public reason. In such conditions, the ideal of public reason can be said to be inclusive of such comprehensive non-public doctrines, just not subservient to or subsumed by them.
To follow up on the example from Canadian discourse, reference to American health care is a legitimate subject in deliberation about desirable Canadian policy, providing the reference alone does not act as a veto on further discussion. But a reference 15 is not a reason; it is only a starting point to begin the process of reasoning. When the reference by its appearance undermines the structures of public reason, then the background culture - which in this case automatically discounts real or presumed
American policy - has undermined the public culture of reason.
John Uhr (1998) notes that deliberative democracy is about the means of public discussion, not an attempt to define the end goal. It assumes deliberative reflection on the part of individuals who have their own rational plan and with that assumption deliberative democracy then becomes possible. Deliberative democracy assumes public deliberation, "a political activity of shared consensual reasoning under conditions where law and policy can be formulated through principles which attract agreement on the basis of values" (Uhr 1998, 6). It is closely related to and overlaps with discursive democracy and communicative democracy in that it focuses on the discourse which occurs in a democracy.
Uhr focuses on the reconstruction of deliberative assemblies and "sifts" the concept of deliberative democracy until he arrives at this tighter definition:
At its simplest, deliberative democracy rests on a republican belief that law and public policy should be fashioned and justified through an open exchange of what Sunstein terms "public-regarding reasons" as distinct from a trade or deal over competing "private-regarding reasons" (Uhr 1998,15).
Uhr refines the particulars. Deliberation refers to that process of mental inquiry and calculation which precedes choice, especially choice as to the expedient course of action. Further, deliberative democracy is about concrete options in public policy rather than abstract choices about the common good (22). Deliberation is a "phase of argument in which a properly deliberative process is understood as part of a political argument with agreed rules for determining politically acceptable outcomes" (24). Integral to this is a 16 regime which guarantees a fair hearing for deliberation, a democratic regime; deliberative democracy is about proper means and not "proper" ends. "Deliberation," writes Uhr,
"protects rights of participation, not right solutions" (24), and thus a properly constituted deliberative assembly promotes political debate, not policy consensus (26).
Joseph Bessette (1994,1) draws on the American republic as an example of deliberative democracy and quotes Publius, who sums up the necessary component for successful lawmaking as "the cool and deliberate sense of the community." The core of this sort of democracy for Bessette is reasoning on the merits of public policy (46). Mave
Cooke (2000, 947) defines deliberative democracy as "a conception of democratic government that secures a central place for reasoned discussion in political life.
In an overview of deliberation, James Bohman notes that deliberative theories share four features:
(1) they emphasize the importance of deliberation to political decision-making; (2) they are strongly normative, in the sense that "they all reject the reduction of politics and decision-making to strategic rationality"; (3) they are proceduralist; and (4) they are universalist (Owen 2001, 118).
James Fearon (Elster 1998, 44-68) favours deliberation on the grounds that it foments discussion. This, he asserts, produces six effects: it reveals private information; lessens or overcomes the impact of bounded rationality; forces or encourages a particular mode of justifying demands or claims; helps render the ultimate choice legitimate in the eyes of the group so as to improve the likely implementation of the decision; improves the moral or intellectual qualities of the participants; and prompts a desire to "do the right thing" regardless of the consequences of the decision. 17
The consequentialist school
For some political theorists, the term deliberative democracy originates in a philosophical observation of majority government and in subsequent concerns about the possibility of majoritarian voices overwhelming minority ones. As a result, this concern and remedies to it are frequently discussed in the literature, especially as to whether the procedural approach is fair to minorities.
David Owen (1996) notes that in recent debates over deliberative theories, some theories (which I label "consequentialist") call for more deliberation in the process of political decision-making and in so doing embrace a strong normative ideal. "In contrast to majoritarian models of democracy in which citizens vote on the basis of their interests, the deliberative model emphasizes the importance of public discourse about those interests prior to any decision-making procedure" (118). (Owen's view assumes that citizens have not deliberated about their interest prior to public discourse or in another public arena prior to the deliberative models preferred by these authors.)
Frank Michelman (Bohman 1997, 145-171) is critical of the procedural aspect in deliberative democracy and his objections center on the problem of infinite regression.
To assert that fundamental legal resolutions have undergone a valid, right, actual and proper debate, i.e., that ideal democratic discourse has taken place, could be subject to infinite questioning of the same:
If it takes a legally constituted democratic procedure to bring forth valid fundamental laws, then the (valid) laws that frame this lawmaking event must themselves be the product of a conceptually prior event that was itself framed by (valid) laws that must, as such, have issued in their turn from a still prior (properly) legally constituted event. And so on, it would appear, without end (Bohman 1997, 164). 18
Thus, while Michelman wants to avoid a purely procedural approach to deliberative democracy, he also wishes to avoid a purely normative approach. His strategy is to avoid anchoring the ideal democratic discourse in some "comprehensive" truth. He instead urges us to accept "political" truth as morally binding after what amounts to a good-faith effort to honestly judge whether we are being honest and reasonable in our justice-seeking. "We cannot here try to settle whether proceeding in that way truly is what anyone morally ought to do. What we can say, though, is for the sake of deep-blue-democratic political thought, it had better be" (166).
Bohman (1997, 321-348) is also concerned about minorities and asserts that the proper criterion for deliberative democracy is equality of social freedom. Bohman defines such equality as the "equal capability for public functioning" (322). He writes:
"Proceduralist accounts of deliberative democracy are guided by an inadequate and incomplete conception of political opportunity, namely, equality of opportunity," (323).
Bohman gives the example of India's constitutional abolition of the caste system and notes the constitutional and legal reality does not yet translate into actual political or public power.
Citizens can neither have influence nor achieve their goals, if they are unable to function adequately in the public arena.... It may well be that some citizens develop particular interests in public life generally or in particular issues, acquiring special abilities and even expert knowledge. But if deliberative politics is to remain democratic, it cannot simply favour those who are most educated, who have access to special information, who possess the greatest resources and privileged social positions—its procedures ought not invariably to favour the reasons of advantaged persons or groups (325-326).
Instead, Bohman recommends a "capabilities" approach to deepening public deliberation, though his definition of the same and institutional recommendations on how to remedy what he views as a problem are unclear. He dismisses self-reporting of 19 satisfaction with one's state as "hardly a measure of deliberative equality" (326) and akin to being a "happy slave." Also, persistently unequal citizens labour under a double burden according to Bohman, as they must challenge "not only the prevailing public reasons, but also the prevailing definition of adequate public functioning" (336).
For Bohman, a deliberative ideal includes not only material redistribution and equality in voting but also "the ability to participate in joint activities and achieve one's goals in them" (343). He asserts that inequalities of race, class, and gender persist and can be rectified not merely by material redistribution but also by redistribution of
"political resources," including public funding for "multiple public spheres, in which disadvantaged groups develop political capabilities and public expression, as well as the advantages of organization" (344). "Such reform," writes Bohman, "seeks to ensure legitimacy by making it a condition of deliberation that all citizens possess equal capabilities to make effective use of deliberative resources" (345).
Diego Gambetta (Elster 1998, 19-43) outlines the risks and advantages of deliberative democracy. The risks include being duped by eloquence, the promotion of conformism, manipulation of information by lobbies, and the paralyzing effect of discussion (deliberation takes place but never ends in a decision). Gambetta's analysis is in the context of Latin American "machismo" culture, though the risks may exist anywhere where rhetoric can influence decision-making. Advantages of deliberative democracy include the possibility that outcomes are superior by fostering better solutions, that outcomes are fairer in terms of distributional justice, that weaker parties are better protected, that a larger consensus may result on any one decision, and that decisions are generated that are more legitimate by virtue of the fact that more people are involved in
the process.
Susan Stokes (Elster 1998,123-239) argues deliberation can be either salutary or
pathological, the latter being a result of special-interest-driven policy. She allows that the
effects of deliberative democracy might be salutary if "resource-poor" associations are
funded and if trade associations and other lobbies are made to conform to "truth in
labeling" rules so their funding sources are clear.
Joshua Cohen (Elster 1998, 185-231) argues that the virtues of deliberative
democracy are collective choice and the articulation of shared values, and that more than just interests are considered. A deliberative approach also creates a form of political
community, where the bases of collective decisions are acceptable even if the details of
the decision may be disagreeable. For Cohen, an ideal deliberative procedure is one
where participants regard one another as free, i.e., they recognize the fact of reasonable
pluralism and no comprehensive moral or religious condition of participation can act as a
test of the acceptability of arguments in support of the exercise of political power. In
common parlance, there should be no "litmus test."
In addition to banning moral and religious conditions as suggested by Cohen, a
list of to-be-banned litmus tests could be endless. It might be easier to note that at a
minimum, participants must accept democracy as a means to settle disputes (there's no
point in "deliberating" with a terrorist who wishes to injure a polity or a revolutionary
who desires to overthrow it). For the purpose of my analysis, I would add country-of-
origin arguments to the list of proscribed litmus test categories. That an idea or position is 21
perceived as American, British, French or Indian cannot constitute a serious argument
against it being considered as a precursor to law or public policy.
Consequentialists and argument of "domination "
For many consequentialists, deliberation can even be a form of domination. Adam
Przeworski (Elster 1998, 140-160) suspects that deliberation can be a form of ideological
domination, that "deliberation may lead people to hold beliefs that are not in their best
interests." People, argues Przeworski, are indoctrinated - "duped" - into false beliefs and
there is the "vulgar fact that under democracy deliberation ends in voting." Przeworski
asserts that "deliberation can only occur if someone pays for it" (148). He uses the
example of a Mobil advertisement in the New York Times which argued against certain
economic policies of the Carter administration. (Przeworski disagrees with the views
expressed by Mobil and argues they are economically flawed.)
Roberto Gargarella (Elster 1998, 260-280) is similarly concerned about
domination, specifically, the representation of minorities in current institutions. He notes
the example of the U.S. Supreme Court: "If we want our judges to be especially sensitive
to the claims of minorities, and especially motivated to protect their interests, we need judges who are directly connected to minorities" (273). He grants that the existing court
has minorities (as he defines them: by race and gender) but argues that there "are no
guarantees at all that a woman judge or a judge of color will adequately protect the
interests of the minorities they appear to represent (as seems to be confirmed by the
current examples in the U.S. Supreme Court)" (273).
Jack Knight and James Johnson (Bohman, 1997, 279-319) assert that deliberative
democracy "requires a particular, relatively complex sort of equality," including 22
necessarily, equal opportunity of access to political influence (280), that asymmetries not
give unfair advantage to participants (293), and that political institutions should even
"place significant constraints on the nonpolitical use of material resources" (295).
Knight and Johnson admit that measuring the equal opportunity of political influence or the capacity to influence others (beyond the immediate political arena) or politically
relevant capacities or political equality is difficult. Nonetheless, Knight and Johnson
recommend certain mechanisms to "foster equality of opportunity of political influence"
(304). To do so, they follow up on John Roemer (1995, 4) who recommends such
fostering insofar as disadvantages are the consequence of causes beyond a person's
control, but who would "allow differential outcomes insofar as they result from
autonomous choice."
Knight and Johnson affirm the proposals by Iris Young and Lani Guinier for
policies to incorporate veto power for politically disadvantaged groups and the
suggestion by Will Kymlicka for "threshold representation" for particular minorities, i.e.,
a certain share of seats in a legislature. This, assert the authors, would help
institutionalize political equality (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 308). A further example is
Carl Lebeck (2002,193) who notes the views of Young and John Dryzek, who "reject the
separation of different branches of government in the tradition of Montesquieu and
Madison and prefer a participationist model of democracy."
Thus, for these theorists of deliberative democracy, the consequentialists, the
concept is more about institutional reform than deliberation. In this model of deliberative
democracy, the focus is not Aristotelian or participatory in the sense that Uhr and
Bessette define the term, i.e., ensuring "rights of participation" in actual policy debates. 23
Rather, for Young and Dryzek, the focus is on institutional representation of voices they consider marginalized, i.e., women and ethnic minorities. Young and Dryzek assume institutional reform is necessary before voices can be heard.
Analysis of the Proceduralist and Consequentialist Schools
Theorists from the consequentialist school note possible social, racial, and economic barriers to deliberation. What is left unnoticed and unmentioned is any possible cultural barrier to deliberation, a barrier that is more relevant in the context of my discussion of ongoing American references in Canadian discourse.
In Canada, chronic references to the United States are a significant part of the political culture and might well have a negative effect upon deliberation. Importantly for deliberation, but also for a country with strong regional identities, chronic referencing might also be exacerbated or ameliorated in part depending on local culture.
To fill in such omissions in the literature, I review two regional narratives later in this work (Ontario's and Alberta's) in part to note how a particular culture may provide more (or less) fertile ground for certain rhetoric, i.e., negative references to the United
States, and how that has an effect upon deliberation. After all, if a proposed policy can
(by its opponents) be linked to a disliked personality, or an unpopular political actor, or even to a country, and if that link serves as the "clincher" argument for some, deliberation suffers. Thus, to remedy the deficiency in the literature, I examine culture as another way in which deliberation can be hindered.
With that omission from the literature noted, and with reference to the above discussion, Owen (2001, 118) notes that skeptics of democratic deliberation argue social inequalities, community-wide biases, and ideologies are barriers to deliberative 24 democracy. Owen's response to this is that theorists such as Bohman at least begin only with the normative assumptions necessary for deliberation and that starting point does not presuppose an agreement on ends.
Bohman's account of deliberative success is significantly different from those of procedural accounts. Procedural theories of deliberative democracy define success as an outcome that all participants can agree with. Bohman's weaker standard of success requires only ongoing cooperation of the participants (Owen 2001, 120).
Owen may be correct that Bohman's weaker standard requires only ongoing cooperation of the participants, though Bohman problematically handicaps the process from the beginning by his emphasis on guarantees of "social freedom." With that caveat in mind, and assuming the process can somehow begin, Owen critiques Bohman and argues that "clarifying the conditions for successful deliberation does not tell us anything about the legitimacy of those deliberative outcomes" (121). True, but nor do they need to merely for the sake of an initial discourse. That places a weight upon deliberation that would prevent any discussion from moving forward.
In their analyses, Young and Przeworski have in common the assumption that unequal circumstances are enduring. That is problematic as noted previously as it assumes an economic classifier is the prime manner in which to identify divisions in a society and that movement between income groups does not occur. The first assumption is unproven and the authors make no attempt to furnish proof; the second assumption is statistically and historically inaccurate.
Even if one asserts that some economic circumstances such as poverty are long- lasting for some people (as is indeed selectively but only selectively the case), the demanded link to solving enduring poverty is problematic; it predicates a discussion
(deliberative democracy) upon first solving the identified ill (poverty). By placing the 25 condition of a solved predicament before the deliberative discussion, such authors place their assumed remedy above possible remedies suggested by others, remedies which might be superior to their own. By setting such preconditions, they obviate the need for deliberative democracy: The authors already know the answers to problems about which they are concerned.
On Gambetta's fear of eloquence, conformism, and manipulation, such concern over rhetoric has implications for how discourse is approached in Canada. For example, conformism is evident when politicians, lobbyists, or media commentators posit public health care as "Canadian." Also, manipulation of information by lobbyists and skillful rhetoric is as problematic in Canadian discourse as in any society.
In contrast to restrictive preconditions from Bohman, Knight and Johnson,
Michelman, Young and Dryzek, and Przeworski, Roberto Gargarella sees practical benefits in deliberative democracy. It helps modify arguments to make them acceptable, an educative power exists within it which helps people act impartially, and such deliberation helps clarify and "purify" positions, i.e., so there can be a discovery of logical errors.
That noted, Gargarella is skeptical of the possibility of a modern representative system adequately representing a multiplicity of viewpoints. Also, he assumes that political actors are motivated by personal interest and absent compelling reasons will not act in the public interest (Elster 1998, 271). In that assumption, Gargarella departs from the assumptions found in much of the literature, namely, that a magical transformation occurs in the minds, motivations and hearts of public officials, and that the greater public good is automatically and preferentially considered by such actors. 26
A Third Approach: Return to Practical Debates, Remedies, and Acceptable Reasons
Joshua Cohen (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 407-437), attempts to round out discussions of deliberative democracy by adding practical suggestions for how it might be strengthened. As with many other theorists, Cohen is critical of a "mere" aggregative conception of democracy. In his view, the aggregative conception leads to proceduralism instead of deliberation (409).
Cohen argues that "to justify the exercise of collective political power is to proceed on the basis of a free public reasoning among equals" (412). For Cohen, pubic reasoning cannot amount to just a hearing. It must be related to the conception of a political community and one that requires justification on terms acceptable to others. That political community is not necessarily based on shared ethical values. It is based on "a requirement of providing acceptable reasons for the exercise of political power to those who are governed by it" (416), a requirement Cohen argues is absent from the aggregative view.
A further attempt to reconcile proceduralism and consequentialism
The question of proceduralism and whether it is a sufficient basis for deliberative democracy looms large in the theoretical discussions. For David Estlund (Bohman 1997,
173-204), the difference between "mere" proceduralism and his model is that his model
(labeled Epistemic Proceduralism) does not abolish the idea of moral reasoning, i.e., the idea that one of the parties (or more) involved in the deliberation may have a correct opinion. Epistemic Proceduralism is merely impartial among individual opinions. It doesn't, in any moral sense, assume they are equivalent. In essence, Estlund asserts that 27 as long as deliberation exists, the possibility for a more correct opinion is yet possible and could be translated into law, policy, or the constitution.
Also, Estlund's theoretical model does not require the minority to adjust their opinion to that of the majority. The majority can be legitimate without necessarily being correct (187). However, Estlund's attempt to differentiate his Epistemic Proceduralism from routine proceduralism is a distinction without a difference. After all, the defense of a proceduralist approach in deliberative democracy is not akin to a denial of the possibility of truth, morally superior opinions, laws or policy, but an attempt to initiate the deliberative discussion without preconditions so as to not hamper that initiative.
Estlund's allowance for minority dissent constitutes rudimentary respect for democratic outcomes and the rule of law. It is not a clever or a new theory of deliberative democracy that successfully rebuts critics of proceduralism.
A return to Aristotle: The problem with consensus
To show the undesirability of consequentialist models of deliberative democracy, it helps to reconsider the principle asserted as integral to such theories: the end goal of consensus. Uhr notes that the reigning model of deliberation is less about participation and more about this notion of consensus: "[It] takes inspiration from a picture of the deliberative process as a search for the ideal of 'a rationally motivated consensus, modeled on the mode of rational inquiry in which the only reasons that are persuasive to all' generate political acceptance" (Uhr 1998, 25).
In contrast, Uhr objects to such a search and notes how Aristotle possessed a cautious realism which approaches deliberation "as a consultation process but not necessarily a consensual process (Uhr 1998,25). Deliberation for Aristotle is the 28
"defining feature of political citizenship, and every decent regime should have a political institution serving as a deliberative assembly focusing the energies of citizenship on public discussion of community affairs" (Uhr 1998, 26).
As for why, consider Aristotle's review of ideal states in The Politics, which includes a charge against the Socratic claim that the "greatest possible unity of the whole polis is the greatest good." Aristotle points to several problems with such a project: first, the logical end of the greatest possible unity is a one-man state; second, such a project overlooks the differentiation necessary in a polis; third, such unity would make self- sufficiency impossible as sameness interferes with the development of individual skills, all of which are necessary to a well-functioning state (Aristotle 1969, 40). "Not only is the polis composed of a number of men: it is also composed of different kinds of men, for similars cannot bring it into existence" (41).
Gaus, Christiano, and Young: Why deliberative democracy leads away from consensus
Following on the desirability of differences but to gain an understanding of why deliberative democracy will lead away from consensus and not to it as some theorists assert, and why that may be beneficial, consider three key elements of deliberative democracy identified by Gerald Gaus (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 205-242). First, the ideal of public reason; second, public justification; and third, the regulative ideal of real political consensus.
Gaus quotes Postema in explanation of this third ideal: "Agreement among members of the community is set as the open-ended task or project of.. .the exercise of practical reason and judgment," and "the aim of the regulative idea is agreement of conviction ...." (206). Gaus observes that many deliberative democrats follow in the footsteps of Jean-
Jacques Rousseau, who held that a breakdown of consensus is evidence of corruption in the body politic (207). Indeed, Gaus is correct: Rousseau's conception of the ideal polity was that it was possible only where division was absent. For Rousseau, the individual will is not only of less importance than the general will, it must be subsumed into the general will, or at least not defy it or question it in any effective public way. While
Rousseau rhetorically admits to the possibility of a private individual will, his political order in practice does not allow for one. For Rousseau, the sovereign is "formed solely by the private individuals composing it, does not and cannot have any interest contrary to theirs" (Rousseau 1978, 55).
If Rousseau's conception of the sovereign were merely the aggregation of individual preferences brokered in some manner to produce governments, he could claim that there is yet room for the individual will. However, the general will for Rousseau is the final arbiter: "The general will is always right and always tends toward the public utility" (61), and also not subject to division, at least not by factions. "It is therefore important that there be no partial society in the State, and that each citizen give only his own opinion" (61). Thus, Rousseau's conception of the Sovereign brooks no opposition, faction, or dissent beyond what an individual alone might be able to express. For
Rousseau, the concentration of power is at one with the general will, with the sovereign, and thus factions are corrosive and undermine an effective polity. For Rousseau, factions are problematic as the general will cannot be divided because it could not function and thus any organized opposition is by definition anti-Republic and cannot be allowed. 30
In contrast, Gaus argues that the first two ideals of deliberative democracy, public reason and justification, lead away from the third presumed necessary component, the regulative ideal of real political consensus (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 207). In Gaus's view, such a movement away from political consensus is desirable given the reality of diversity of opinion including deeply held beliefs that one's "competitors" are misguided.
Thus, for Gaus, it is a mistake to hope that "politics ought - even ideally - to aim at actual consensus" (215). After all, reasons Gaus, sincere reasoning will prevent us from securing agreement.
The choice in deliberative politics is not between complete consensus or division of the sort that can become dangerous and which is feared by Hobbes. Gaus notes how
Hobbes would have sacrificed private reason to the sovereign (233). In contrast, Gaus also notes how Locke would appoint an umpire, which allows us to reconcile two necessary features of practical politics: to sincerely justify and to act (233). As Gaus explains, umpiring is based on this supposition: there is an intractable difference of opinion; to proceed, there must be a practical resolution of the dispute; the practical resolution need not be accepted by all the parties as the correct solution; and the umpire's decision requires that it seeks to arrive at the best answer. Democracy is just such an umpiring mechanism. Gaus's analysis then is helpful in avoiding the either-or aspect of many deliberative democracy theorists and their tendency to propose solutions that restrict freedoms in search of their desired consensus.
Similarly, Thomas Christiano (Bohman 1997, 243-277) argues that, contrary to the assertion that deliberation increases the tendency for citizens to agree on political matters, such an outcome is unlikely in a pluralistic society. Discussion and deliberation 31 may eliminate raw prejudice, superstition, and opinions based on the same. It might also bring to light new opinions and create new divisions. He argues the goal of deliberative democrats should not be consensus but an understanding of justice and the common good by means of trial and error, and with a diversity of views present to test any particular view. After all, he reasons, "disagreement and diversity are among the most fertile conditions for the realization of the justice and virtue effects" (249-250).
Framework of My Definition of Deliberative Democracy
With the previous discussion in mind, the following then serves as my framework for a definition of deliberative democracy and its necessary components.
1. The necessity of reciprocal objection
Rainer Forst (2001) contrasts three models of deliberative democracy: liberal, communitarian and his alternative to both. In the liberal conception, the most important institution is a constitution. In the communitarian model, there is an a priori assumption that virtues such as patriotism or solidarity are inherently valuable. In that sense, communitarian deliberative democracy assumes more shared values as necessary before the discourse has even begun.
Forst's own and third model of deliberative democracy places more importance on procedural criteria for legitimacy in the definition of the model as opposed to substantive ones, i.e., a determination in advance of what constitutes normative priorities about the principles of justice (371) or the good life (373). Such normative priorities
"turn into political values and reasons that are alone legitimate in matters of 32 constitutional essentials and the basic question of justice and thus determine the 'content' of public reason" (371).
For Forst, the possibility of a reciprocal objection (and thus a justification) is most important in the institutional design of a deliberative democracy (370).
2. The necessity of self-referencing
Mave Cooke notes that five arguments are given in favour of deliberative democracy: its educative power, community-generating power, the fairness of the procedure of public deliberation, the epistemic quality of its outcomes, and the congruence of the deliberative democratic ideal "with who we are" (2000, 947).
The first four arguments are unsatisfactory in Cooke's view because some (such as the educative benefit) are mere byproducts of deliberative democracy and cannot in themselves be used as justifications for deliberative democracy. (Time spent in deliberative democracy may or may not be the most efficient way of promoting one's educative progress.)
Another argument - the procedure of public deliberation improves the fairness of democratic outcomes - cannot be proven, as there are no non-procedural standards of fairness on which everyone can agree. Cooke argues that justification for deliberative democracy amounts to a claim that "if the procedure is fair, then the outcome is fair"
(950). Instead, Cooke prefers the fifth argument because it accepts the view that "there are no authoritative standards" and thus self-referencing is paramount.
If, as I have argued, the ideal of autonomy with its core value of rational accountability is a key normative conception within Western modernity, then a model of politics that places value on its maximal exercise in all areas of social life fits best with "who we are." This constitutes one reason for preferring Habermas's conception of political autonomy to Rawls's.... Rawls's conception 33
of political autonomy has no explicitly deliberative component. As we have seen, the normative ideal of self-authorship requires citizens to be able to endorse the reasonableness of a law or political proposal (966).
Further, Cooke, drawing on Habermas, argues that political autonomy as
conceived by Habermas aims for the closest possible convergence of legitimacy with justification. "Public deliberation is necessary in order to maximize such convergence
for it is an attempt to find the laws, principles and public policies that can be justified as
the most appropriate" (967).
Cooke overlooks the tendency of Habermas to prefer the "unsubverted public
sphere" which can translate into practical elite control of the deliberative process.
Nonetheless, Cooke's own emphasis (self-referencing) forms a useful and necessary
component for a simple and elegant definition of deliberative democracy.
3. The necessity of individualized popular sovereignty
Henry Richardson (Bohman and Rehg 1997, 349-382) aims to show how a
deliberative ideal of democracy can be combined with an approach to citizens as a self-
originating source of claims. He distinguishes between democracy built on beliefs or
preferences, a base he thinks inadequate for deliberative democracy, versus one built on
will or intention (will-formation). His deliberative ideal is open to both the cognitive
aspect of a deliberative democracy and its commitment to individualized popular
sovereignty.
Richardson also disagrees with Rousseau's conception of the popular will, though
not because he has a philosophical disagreement with the concept of a collective or
institutional will. The disagreement exists because he believes Rousseau's conception has
a moral or normative flaw; it expects citizens to be more civic-minded than they can be. 34
(Indeed, and this is also a flaw in the assumption that public-spiritedness can overpower self-interest regardless of the effect the former has upon the latter.) As Richardson writes,
Rousseau "tended to hypostatize the general will and gave it a life too independent of the wills of citizens" (358).
However, in Richard's view, the idea of a popular will is not itself mistaken. His version is merely more narrowly defined (and he would argue, realistic) as the will of the government in a duly constituted democracy (357). Richardson argues that will-formation allows theorists of deliberative democracy to avoid crashing deliberative democracy on the shoals of theories that either rely on Habermas' "pre-existing ethical substance of a given community" or on moral rules that are asserted to be universal. Both are potential problems for deliberative democracy.
If on the one hand, true deliberation requires the existence of standards that are independent of the democratic process, such standards implicitly condemn deliberation as a sufficient justification for a subsequent political decision. The standards exist and mere deliberation cannot and should not change them; deliberation is merely a process to ascertain truth and deliberation might be downgraded if a better means to find truth is found.
Conversely, if there is no universal truth and the process of deliberation is all that matters (it is sufficient justification for subsequent political decisions), then "there seems to be no room within the process for a deliberative orientation toward figuring out what ought to be done" (359). After all, "ought" implies a standard outside of the process and in fact provides a reason for the process. Why deliberate - which necessarily involves some question of the "ought" - if the procedure is all there is? 35
A way through the thicket: Combining the search for truth and process
Richardson's path through this either-or dilemma is to create a middle path. In essence, he steps back and asserts the importance of both the search for truth and "the importance in this process of the fact that citizens are self-originating sources of claims"
(360). Richardson can be criticized for stating as fact that which he attempts to prove: citizens are the self-originating sources of claims. They may or may not be. However, in his defense, such a statement of fact is self-evident and is mere recognition of the reality that citizens and self-originating claims are superior grounds on which to build deliberation in contrast to the attempt to divine a more ethereal "general will" as proposed by Rousseau. The search for truth need not be given up but it is attached to the individual in that process; their own deliberation forms part of the greater deliberative democratic community.
For Richardson, this avoids the mistake of thinking there exists a general will to be discovered as theorized by Rousseau or the necessity of first uncovering a common ethical, cultural, or religious ground before deliberation can proceed. The ground upon which deliberative democrats can proceed is the stated proposals of citizens, who, if the project is to succeed, must possess modesty in both the pursuit of truth and in their efforts to create a better polity. This also avoids the idealization of perfect economic or social conditions, an approach practiced by many theorists who demand such perfection as a pre-condition to deliberation.
Four necessary conditions of democratic deliberation
Thus, the four necessary components of my definition of deliberative democracy are as follows: the necessity of reciprocal objection, self-referencing, individualized 36 popular sovereignty, and combining the search for truth and process. They are foundational for a deliberative democracy that does not require an impossible and undesirable Rousseau-like desire for overwhelming consensus. Also, these four essentials do not handicap deliberation in the manner many theorists do when they shoehorn political results into deliberation, thus putting the "cart," the results of deliberation, far in advance of the "horse," the deliberation.
However, one further discussion of deliberation is necessary, that of the presumed dichotomy between public and private interest. I begin that discussion in chapter 2. 37
CHAPTER TWO
"PUBLIC INTEREST" V. PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY
A False Dichotomy in the Deliberative Democracy Debate
In this chapter, I critique the various approaches and add what I believe to be a novel approach to deliberative democracy theory by showing how public choice theory coincides with and buttresses deliberative democracy. I argue that the public choice model (or rational choice as it also called) is not incompatible with deliberative democracy theory and in fact provides a more solid foundation for it. I then end with a definition of deliberative democracy that is intended to be simple, elegant, defensible and practical. First though, a rough sketch of the two approaches (public interest and public choice) is necessary.
Public interest theories of public policy and governance models have their roots in the U.S. progressive era, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, and in the British Keynesian equivalent. Positively stated from Richard Musgrave, one adherent to that school of thought, Musgrave gives this summary of public interest's basic orientation:
In a world of private goods, the market and individual exchange offer the efficient mode, but this is only part of the problem. Social coexistence also involves externalities that are not met by the market but instead require a political process - call it the state - for efficient resolution. Public policy enters, not as an aberration from the "natural order" of private markets but as an equally valid or natural means of addressing a different set of problems (Buchanan and Musgrave 1999,31).
Musgrave asserts decision-making in economic policy (how governments will tax spend, regulate, and legislate) cannot be analyzed by assuming decisions are made in the public sector akin to how they occur in the private sector where individuals are engaged in "maximizing their self-interests in the market" (Buchanan and Musgrave 1999, 32). 38
"Individuals, in the last resort, are the acting agents, and not the state or groups 'as such,'" he writes, "but it does not follow that they may not also value membership in their community and the sharing of common concerns (Buchanan and Musgrave 1999,
33). Musgrave also describes more subtle influences and origins of and influences on what later developed as public interest with reference to the views of David Hume, Adam
Smith, and John Stuart Mill on the necessity for some public works (Buchanan and
Musgrave 1999, 37-38).
Musgrave buttresses public interest theory by arguing that the state and its public sector is an "integral part of a multifaceted socioeconomic order"; simultaneously, he argues that the "wishes and concerns of individuals are what matters" but that both entities and their appropriate modes of interaction differ "with the nature of their separate and mutual concerns" (Buchanan and Musgrave 1999, 31).
More skeptically, James Buchanan describes what he argues are contradictory elements within public interest theory in this manner. Writing of public interest theorists, he asserts, "They seemed, somehow, to place positive value on the existence of some internally consistent and coherent 'public interest' or 'social welfare,' quite independent of any relationship to the preferences of individuals who are members of the community"
(Buchanan and Musgrave 1999,19).
Buchanan asserts that in contrast to the assumptions in public interest theory, public choice theory makes no such assumption that self-interest disappears or is weakened upon entry into the public sector or politics:
Public choice, as an inclusive research program, incorporates the presumption that persons do not readily become economic eunuchs as they shift from market to political participation. The person who responds predictably to ordinary incentives in the marketplace does not fail to respond at all when his role is 39
shifted to collective choice.... Persons in political roles may, indeed, act to a degree in terms of what they consider to be the general interest. Such acknowledgment does not, however, in any way imply that the basic explanatory model loses all of its predictive potential or that ordinary incentives no longer matter (Buchanan 2002, 9).
In deliberative democracy theory, it is the assumptions of the public interest model which are dominant; many deliberative democracy theorists presume a stark division between public and private interests, that the two are almost always at odds.
Thus, Joseph Bessette (1994, xi) notes that while interest in deliberative democracy attracts renewed attention in the literature, scholars (beyond those engaged in deliberative democracy theory) are otherwise tempted by a model influenced by public choice:
Scholars of American government and politics seem increasingly drawn to an analytical framework that sees lawmaking and policymaking as the aggregation of individual interests and preferences - the rational actor, or self-interest model - and not the result of argument, reasoning, and persuasion about common ends or goals (xi).
Bessette argues that models predicated on self-interest fail to capture the "real world of government and politics [which] is a complex mix of public-spiritedness and private interest, of reasoned persuasion and hard bargaining" (xiii). As a personal illustration, he notes that in three-and-a-half years with the State Attorney's Office in
Cook County, Illinois, he observed the above mix of motivations. There was the personal
(Richard M. Daley wanted to be mayor) but also the public (Daley wanted to serve the community) and in a way that Bessette argues is not accounted for in reigning models of political science:
Daley wanted, for example, more prosecutions, more convictions, and more sentences to prison than his predecessors not only because he thought this would "play well" with the voters but also because he genuinely believed that too many criminals in Chicago were slipping through the cracks of the criminal justice system and too many innocent people were paying the price (xiv). 40
Similarly, John Elster (1998) argues that deliberative democracy is useful because
"generally speaking, the effect of an audience is to replace the language of interest by the language of reason and to replace impartial motives by passionate ones" (111). As noted earlier, Owen (1996) claimed deliberative theories were in contrast "to majoritarian models of democracy in which citizens vote on the basis of their interests," while "the deliberative model emphasizes the importance of public discourse about those interests prior to any decision-making procedure" (118).
With reference to Canadian discourse, chronic references to the United States have the potential to harm public reasoning in Canada not only because such references are often obvious, naked attempts to end debate, but also because such references often also assume a public interest conception of Canadian society and politics vis-a-vis an assumed private interest conception of American social and political life. Whether the authors of such references know it or intend it, they assume both a model of deliberative democracy similar to most theorists (public interest-based) and also assume political life in Canada must necessarily be predicated on a public interest model. The effect of this dual assumption is reinforcement of stereotypes about the United States and injury to public reason in Canada, all the while believing such an approach is deliberative. It's a self-enclosed feedback loop both theoretically and in Canadian public discourse. But there is no necessary reason for either assumption, and insofar as it concerns deliberative democracy theory, no reason to assume that deliberation must be predicated on the negation of private interest.
In contrast to Bessette and Elster, who are skeptical of public choice-type models of strategic rationality applied to political science, Gerry Mackie argues that "rational 41 choice models more fully capture aspects of the characteristic structure of the democratic forum - recurrent public interaction about knowable information among multiple senders and multiple receivers - and are closer to our common sense notions of democratic life.
Truth may not triumph in the marketplace of ideas, but it does survive in the public forum" (Elster 1998, 89).
But Mackie is in the minority. Most deliberative democracy theorists assume that private interests are opposite that of the public interest. James Buchanan and Gordon
Tullock (1965) observe this tendency when they note that "the conceptions of rationalist democracy have been based on the assumptions that individual conflict of interest will, and should, vanish once the electorate becomes fully informed" (4). They further note that political theory often assumes the replacement of private gain by social good (20), and also that some scholars assume that state action takes place as if there were unanimous consent (83).
The problem with the claimed private versus public interest conflict is that it can be a straw man based upon real-life outliers or extreme characterizations of non-existent positions. Buchanan and Tullock note their theory is occasionally characterized in the following manner:
The man of fiction, who is motivated solely by individual self interest in all aspects of his behaviour represented a caricature designed by those who sought to criticize rather than appreciate the genuine contribution that economic analysis can make, and has made, toward a better understanding of organized human activity (17).
In fact, in its simplest form, public choice theory asserts that people are mostly alike in their responses to incentives, regardless of whether they work in the public or private sector. Public choice employs traditional economic methods and principles to 42 analyze government and behaviour within politics and bureaucracies. This matters to a proper analysis of deliberative democracy because an assumption that political actors or civil servants always desire the wider public interest will skate past actual human behaviour. It neglects a critical combination of forces and interests that act upon and compel decision-makers. Thus, Tullock asserts that,
given that the same people engage in market activities and in politics, assuming that their behaviour has the same motivation in both of these areas seems simpler.... The businessperson designs, let us say, the latest automobile so as to attract customers, the politician selects policies with the idea that the customer, who is the voter, will reward the politician in the next election Tullock (2002, 5- 6).
Tullock remarks that no one considers this activity absolutely wicked as delivering what people desire is not usually seen as a negative in a business or in a democracy. Even where businesspeople and politicians occasionally sacrifice customers/support for high principle, the rule is that both seek to obtain enough of the relevant currency - profits or votes respectively - in order to achieve their other goals.
Motivations: self-interest and small group preferences
Mancur Olson (1965) dissects the notion whereby some assume "a curious dichotomy in the human psyche such that self-interest rules supreme in all transactions among individuals whereas self-sacrifice knows no bounds in the individual's relationship to the state..." (101). Olson also notes the problem of assuming individuals in large groups (i.e., a bureaucracy or in a political party) act to further the larger group interest. (He allows that individual behaviour in very small groups may be different.)
The assumption that those in large groups will act for the group interest is problematic for a variety of reasons: the smaller the fractional interest of any one 43 member, the less incentive he has to provide additional amounts of the collective good; also, the greater number of members in any one group, the less influence any one member feels he has on the outcome. This is so even with the acknowledgment that economic incentives are not the only ones that matter. Olson frankly admits that others include "the desire to win prestige, respect, friendship and other social and psychological objectives" (1965, 61).
In fact, the recognition of other desires supports the Olson thesis (and public choice theory which extrapolates from Olson) because social status and acceptance are individual, non-collective goods. In government, those responsible for oversight are colleagues and social acquaintances and thus the desire to "move on" with a minimum of social sanction is strong in such situations. The motivation to work for the distant and vaguely defined public good is weak, just as the motivation to work for immediate "small group" approval and self-interest is compelling, even when it may be counter to the greater public good.
Even Elster (1998, 111), who argues for deliberative democracy and does so on the basis that private motives would be replaced by public ones, acknowledges that
"Publicity does not eliminate base motives, but forces or induces speakers to hide them."
But this admits that individual or special interests are at play and merely disguised in the rhetorical public arena.
The public choice model assumes human motivation as a constant. That prevents a "pure" public interest-only approach in deliberative democracy theory and in political theory in general. Critically, for this analysis, self- interest is not assumed, as a rule, to be opposite the public interest. Insofar as some actors in the discourse in Canada assume 44
"public" is Canadian (and which is often shorthand for "public good") and "private" is
American (and in a wide variety of policy areas), the assertion, with its assumptions and rhetoric derived from public interest, should be questioned. The assumptions in such discourse are both idealistic in origin and rhetorical in purpose; they serve the double aim of trapping Canadian deliberation in a discourse preferred by its advocates while such assumptions also ward off any real or presumed American influence in that discourse.
Implications for Deliberative Democracy Theory: Public Interest is a Continuum of Private Interest
It is critical to be clear on the implications of a theory which assumes human beings give up individual desires and interests the more they become fully informed and/or that such individual interests are by definition contra the public interest. Such assumptions, insofar as they animate what Buchanan and Tullock label rationalist democracy, undermine the deliberative democracy project both as theory and in practice.
The assumption of an automatic dichotomy between individual interest and public interest is not proven by mere assertion. The wider public good may be a continuum of private interest in as many circumstances as which it is not. For example, a family that desires safe public streets at least in part for individual reasons—safety of their own persons and their children—is not an interest at odds with the greater public good. That desire buttresses concern for public safety and thus firms up attention to the wider public good. Individual interest and aggregate individual interest (to use the phrasing from critics of public choice) is identical in at least some cases with the greater public good.
The same could be said for the provision of taxpayer-financed fire protection, health services, primary and secondary education, or any number of public goods. That the 45 motivation for support of public activities may partly or wholly originate in individual concerns is not ipso facto at odds with public benefits.
Some critics may accept as much but assert that most individuals do desire such public goods for others in addition to themselves. But this would be an unremarkable observation. This is true insofar as human beings are sociable animals and have empathy.
This too is not denied by public choice theories of how and why human beings cooperate.
Any sort of strict private versus public interest dichotomy is unnecessary.
Another objection to public choice theory is that rational choice cannot explain public service (the Daley example). But this is a straw man. Insofar as public choice examines incentives in the public sphere, it posits that actors must respond to the incentives relative to the goals appropriate for that arena. Thus, a businessman seeks a profit to remain in business, the wage-earner seeks a wage to pay his mortgage, and a politician seeks votes in order to obtain power or stay in power. Those are the means to a desired end.
That any or all politicians are motivated by a mixture of private, charitable, and communal impulses in their pursuit of power is not to assert that such impulses must always and necessarily be in conflict with policy that benefits the general public. Public choice theory merely recognizes that institutional constraints and personal goals must be accounted for in any analysis of human behaviour.
To use the Daley example, a caricature of public choice theory would be that the
Chicago mayor is self-interested and that his public spiritedness as identified by Bessette is at best a disguised impulse (perhaps even to him). But such a caricature is not asserted by public choice. The theory merely assumes that while public spiritedness can and does exist, individuals are constrained first by institutional factors (politicians need to win votes before they can implement their plans) and that their actions must also be linked to their own individual preferences, considerations, and motivations. For example, individuals with large personal fortunes may care about re-election but not for reasons of personal financial security and may be willing to take more unpopular positions as a result; those highly dependent on their salary from political service may be even more solicitous of voter approval and risk-averse.
Thus, Daley could be the political equivalent of Mother Teresa but he yet needs to win votes in order to win office if he is to enact a program he believes to be best for
Chicago: crime reduction strategies, public parks, and the like. The identification of a prime motivating factor for individual political actors (the need to win votes) is not a comment on the undesirability of such a motivating factor. In a democracy, most people reasonably think that heeding voters is not only a sensible reflex in a politician but a desirable one: the public should be heeded by their representatives.
Lastly, Buchanan and Tullock's observation that men cooperate through trade because they are different is useful in an analysis of any political theory that posits differences as inherently unhelpful or likely to be eliminated once people become more informed. On the contrary, it is those individual differences which provide the spark for later cooperation and for the "hard work" of the creation of agreements and institutions which facilitate cooperation, cooperation which is desirable and necessary as part of a civil society. Contrary to the critics of public choice, Buchanan and Tullock's work is a continuation of the arguments made by Aristotle on the reality of differences and the positive effect they bring to the polity: People have incentives to cooperate because they 47 are diverse and possess occasionally conflicting interests and desires. Cooperation and compromise may in many instances be the only way in which everyone will, to some degree, receive some of the "goods" they desire for themselves and for others.
Relevance to This Dissertation
For the purposes of this dissertation, I will use an approach with elements drawn from Bohman, Bessette, Uhr, and Buchanan and Tullock. Thus, deliberative democracy includes "political activity of shared consensual reasoning under conditions where law and policy can be formulated through principles which attract agreement on the basis of values;" it includes an open exchange and public-regarding reasons; it can include
"concrete options in public policy" and it can be defined "most simply as reasoning on the merits of public policy." All of those elements or definitions emphasize a public discourse, an exchange of ideas, and attention to the importance of debates.
Uhr is properly cautious about the attempt by other theorists to downplay the importance of deliberative democracy on the arguably mistaken grounds that the deliberation does not automatically lead to a predetermined outcome in law or policy. I am sympathetic to the simpler approach because it begins with a bare minimum of necessary agreement: ideas should be considered on their own, there should be a willingness to learn, to make and to consider a fair argument, to debate, and to ensure that other voices are heard.
With that basic level of agreed-upon discourse in the public square, unhampered by eventual goals such as a certain ethnic or gender representation or institutional reform, one can more clearly analyze discourse with this question in mind: Are certain ideas a priori dismissed? If they are, the attempt to build a deliberative democracy is hampered 48 at the very beginning. The attempt to build a theory of democratic deliberation (never mind a deliberative democratic polity) without deliberation, i.e., the accounting for alternate ideas, is not coherent.
This is also why the debates over public or private interest or public-regarding or private-regarding reasons are unnecessary diversions in a definition of deliberative democracy: because they presume a debate that has not yet taken place. So too Bessette's criticism that many scholars see "lawmaking and policymaking as the aggregation of individual interests and preferences - the rational actor, or self-interest model - and not the result of argument, reasoning, and persuasion about common ends or goals." It is not an either-or proposition as implied by Bessette's criticism of attention paid to the aggregation of individual interests and preferences. An assumption of individual interest is possible in conjunction with a debate over common ends or goals; citizens may well see the latter as part of the continuum of the former. This is so, even when citizens can be persuaded that on occasion, something not in their personal interest might still be good for others.
The Aristotelian approach to deliberation, outlined by Uhr as consultative but not necessarily consensual, is optimal because it introduces elegance and simplicity into the definition of deliberative democracy. It allows for the skeptical view of Cooke where self-authorship and self-referencing provide the best foundation for a basic definition of deliberative democracy (and regardless of one's own view as to the good life): it allows for the maximum discourse as is practically possible in the public square.
Lastly, deliberative democracy requires an open mind. The majority of deliberative democracy theorists are concerned about socio-economic conditions as a 49 possible barrier to deliberation. They assert that money and status result in power, influence, or both; none address the possibility that cultural norms, whether religious, nationalistic, or other, might damage deliberation by closing minds in advance of reasoned arguments. The latter is a more likely possibility in Canada and other liberal, democratic, middle-class countries. In such nations, the majority of the population is beyond a subsistence level existence and has at least some time and resources to actively organize in a myriad of non-governmental ways (unions, charities, lobby groups) and to directly engage in politics. In Canada, it is unquestioned cultural biases combined with a consensus culture that can affect deliberation by assuming the answers to questions in advance.
Thus, my main research question is as follows: When the United States exists as a factor in discourse, are the possibilities for reciprocal objections, openness to the facts, arguments and proposals limited? In order to answer that question, a review of the prevalence of references to the United States is analyzed next. 50
CHAPTER THREE
INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS OF REFERENCES
Quantitative Analysis: American References 1984-2007
One way to observe discourse in Canada is to tally the number of references to the
United States using key search words to identify trends in public discourse over time. The phrases "U.S.-style" and "American-style" were keyed into two media search engines to obtain:
• The number of references ("hits") to "U.S.-style" and "American-style" by
year in total for the 1984 and 2007 period (Table 1);
• The number of references by year for seven major Canadian daily
newspapers (Table 2);
• The number of newspaper count references by region (Table 3);
• A detailed look at the 1998-2002 period to identify why an unusually large
number of references appeared in 2000—the "Stockwell Day Syndrome"
(Table 4);
• A specific look at the 1998-2002 period for the "Stockwell Day
Syndrome" for the two major Canadian non-chain dailies (the Globe and
Mail and the Toronto Star) (Table 5);
• A breakdown by month in 2001 to see whether the 9/11 terrorist attacks
changed the monthly frequency of references to "U.S.-style" or
"American-style" before and after September 11 (Table 6); 51
• The number of references to "U.S.-style" and "American-style" between
1984 and 2007 when keyed in with key policy concepts: affirmative
action, constitution, economic, economic policy, employment equity,
environmentalism, foreign policy, free trade, judicial activism, military,
politics, quotas, and trade (Table 7);
• U.S. references ("U.S.-style" and "American-style") tied to individual
party leaders, i.e., "American-style" and "Brian Mulroney" (Table 8).
Infomart and ProQuest were used to search Canadian media for the number of phrase references ("U.S.-style" or "American-style") in Canadian newspapers, newswires, magazines, TV and radio broadcast transcripts. Parameters were set to exclude U.S. and international media and online news from Canadian newspapers (given that references would have already appeared in the print edition). "Blogging" was also excluded (to avoid skewing figures higher in years where online news and blogging became widespread).
ProQuest and Infomart were used instead of Google in order to guard against hit- count estimates that could be dramatically skewed, given how general search engines resort to estimates of hits once such hits surpass one thousand (Nunberg, 2006/2007).
Also, the use of a general search engine such as Google would produce a plethora of references to the United States that did not necessarily originate in Canadian discourse but could have originated anywhere in the English-speaking world.
In the case of ProQuest and Infomart, the use of archived media accounts with search restrictions limited to Canadian media could still bring up references that originated outside of Canada - a newspaper account might quote a European politician 52 who refers to "U.S.-style health care" for example - but the possibility for such non-
Canadian issue references is at least reduced when only Canadian media are surveyed.
Note that not all newspapers have electronically archived material prior to 1989, so pre-1989 word counts may give an incorrect picture of how often references to the
U.S. occurred. For example, ProQuest notes the Globe and Mail is available from 1984 while the Edmonton Journal dates back to only 1989. The Calgary Herald is available from 1988. Thus, while Infomart archives date from 1985 and ProQuest results are available from 1984, readers should be cautioned about drawing inferences from pre-
1989 search results. For example, in a ProQuest search, it appears references to the
United States picked up significantly between 1984 (71 references) and 1988 (333 references). But it may be that the number of newspapers with electronic records displayed in 1988 was significantly higher than four years previously.
To obtain word counts for the number of American references between 1989 and
2007 inclusive and for two phrases - "U.S.-style" and "American-style" - six Canadian newspapers were searched via ProQuest for the 1989-1997 period with a seventh newspaper, the National Post which began publishing in 1998, added for the 1998-2007 period. The seven newspapers chosen were thus the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail,
National Post, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun and the Province
(Vancouver). All are broadsheets with the exception of the Province.
Note a significant caveat: newspaper circulations vary widely. Thus, it is possible that the more pages in a newspaper, the more possibilities there are for references to the
United States, negative, positive or neutral. Also, the appearance of more references does not necessarily indicate a bias for or against an American position; it does indicate 53 referencing of the United States in public discourse. A page count versus word count analysis would be required and even then would be of limited value as there would be no indication of the tone of the references.
Quantitative Analysis: Findings
"American-style " or "U.S.-style " references by year, all Canadian media:
• The 1984-2007 search for Canadian media references to "American-style" or
"U.S.-style" revealed just 71 references in 1984 in ProQuest and 56 in Infomart
(in 1985); both grew to 333 and 281 respectively by 1988, and continued to grow
throughout the 1990s (Table 1). A dramatic spike in references occurred in 1999
and 2000, with a significant decline in 2001, with references again resuming an
upward trajectory after that year with a significant reduction only notable between
2006 and 2007. Note that because some media sources may have limited archives
before the late 1980s, the rise throughout that decade is not necessarily indicative
of a trend in the discourse.
"American-style " or "U.S.-style " references by year, seven Canadian newspapers:
• Newspaper comparisons were made for the period 1989 to 2007, with the
National Post added into the mix after its publication start in 1998. The results
mirror the trend found in the ProQuest and Infomart master searches: steady
growth in U.S. references using the two search terms, a dramatic rise and fall in
the 1999-2001 period, followed by resumed growth and a drop-off in 2007
compared with 2006 (Table 2). Curiously and counter-intuitively, in the ten-year period in which the National
Post has been in publication, it outranks all other newspapers surveyed in mentions of "U.S.-style" or "American-style" references. Between 1998 and
2007, the National Post had 1,040 references to "American-style" or "U.S.-style" while the Globe and Mail followed second with 962 references, and the Toronto
Star was third with 850 references. In order from highest to lowest, the other newspapers were: Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, and the
Province.
That the National Post had the highest number of "U.S.-style" or "American- style" references during that period should not lead one to conclude that the Post was somehow drenched in reflexive U.S. references with a presumed anti-
American bent. It might be that the Post reported and editorialized on the phenomenon of constant Canadian references to the United States, thus boosting the number of references caught by a search engine. Without a content analysis, it is impossible to say with certainty (Table 2).
The seven newspaper phrase search appears to reveal that references to
"American-style" or "U.S.-style" reveal a slight uptrend in references over time.
In contrast, while the ProQuest and Infomart general media searches (all newspapers, magazines, and available television media) reveal a more dramatic uptrend in references over the 1984 to 2007 period, it may well be that results from more newspapers and other media online in recent years caused what 55
appears to be a continual rise in references rather than any increase in American
references (Table 2).
The results from the seven newspaper survey seem to indicate this consistent
annual referencing of the United States, rather than a dramatic rise. The average
annual reference to "American-style" or "U.S.-style" is 321 in the 1989-1997
period. That compares to 360 average annual references in the 1998-2007 period.
So there was a slight increase, on an annual average basis, in the latter period.
However, remove the outlier year of 2000 and the annual average for the 1998-
2007 period is 297 hits. Thus, while including 2000 is fair to do in the analysis of
averages and especially in discussions of the discourse in Canada and how it can
affect deliberation - that year demonstrates how rhetorical "hot buttons" are
pushed repeatedly when electoral "push" comes to rhetorical "shove" - it is also
useful to note that with the exception of 2000, references to the United States are
generally constant over the period surveyed between 1989 and 2007.
References by Region
• Infomart allowed for a search by regions: Pacific, Prairie, Ontario and the
Maritimes. This search included not only major dailies but smaller dailies,
weeklies and all varieties of regional newspapers. Table 3 thus contained a high
component of regional newspapers and in many cases non-chain newspapers or
smaller-chain newspapers. My hypothesis was that this search might reveal
regional distinctions in references to the United States. 56
The greatest number of references occurs in Ontario but that should be expected.
Ontario is the country's most populous province with the greatest number of
newspapers.
Contrary to my hypothesis, the trend in each region appears similar: a rising
number of references culminating in the "mother of all" references to the United
States in 2000, followed by a relative decline after that year only to spike up again
in 2004.
There are some minor differences between the regions. The Pacific region follows
the pattern just described with one exception: American references spike up again
in 2006, an election year. This contrasts with Ontario where such references
decrease slightly in 2006 compared with 2005. The prairie region shows a slight
up-tick in 2006; the Maritimes follows the Pacific pattern.
• It is possible that regional newspapers are reliant on wire services for their
reporting on national issues, if not also commentary. Thus, it may be that there
would be little indication of regional preferences if much of the wire copy in
regional newspapers is from a national source such as Can West or the Canadian
Press.
The spike in American references in 2000: Stockwell Day and the Alliance party
• As for why there is a noticeable spike in U.S. references in the year 2000 (Tables
1 and 2), my hypothesis was that the elevation of Stockwell Day to national
prominence as leader of the newly created Canadian Alliance party was 57
connected with the increased American references in the media. A breakdown of
American references bears this out. Table 4 (all media) reveals a dramatic spike
in "American-style" or "U.S.-style" references in 2000 when paired with
"Stockwell Day" or "Alliance."
• In the years before 2000 (1998 and 1999) and directly following (2001 and
2002), the number of references to "American-style" or "U.S.-style" and Day are
substantially lower. Thus, it appears the overall boost in such references in 2000
when compared with 1999 - a 56.2 percent increase in the case of Pro-Quest and
a 72.1% increase in the case of Infomart - were caused in large part by references
to Stockwell Day and the Alliance party as American-style" or "U.S.-style." That
such references took place in 2000 and not 1999 is unsurprising; it was in 2000
that the former Alberta treasurer appeared on the national scene. Also, increased
American references may have resulted from the fact that 2000 was an election
year; one would expect rhetoric of all varieties then to pick up including and
perhaps especially references that label right-leaning leaders or parties as
"American."
• Table 2, which surveys Canadian newspapers from 1989 to 2007 (six between
1989 and 1997 and seven between 1998 and 2007), also reveals the 2000 spike.
Importantly, unlike a reference search in all media where multiple newspapers
might reprint the same article or column with the same reference, the newspaper-
specific search is not as amenable to double-counting. It may still occur,
however. For example, columnist Don Martin's column is reprinted in the 58
Calgary Herald and the National Post. But the survey of seven major dailies at
least excludes the other and smaller newspapers which are most likely to reprint
columns and news stories rather than rely on in-house reporters and columnists,
and thus partly increase the overall hits in 2000 by virtue of reprinted copy.
• To gain a further confirmation as to whether 2000 did see a rise in such
references, consider the results from two national newspapers where select wire
service reports might be used but where most news copy originates in-house with
exclusive reporters and columnists. (This is not the case with the National Post,
which relies more heavily on wire copy from its parent company, Can West; I
have excluded the Post in Table 4 for that reason.), When the Globe and Mail
and the Toronto Star are isolated for the 1998-2002 period, and the search terms
"U.S.-style" or "American-style" are combined with either Stockwell Day or
Alliance, both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star show a dramatic rise in
hits in 2000 (Table 5).
The Globe's hits rose from nine in 1998 and one in 1999 to 57 in 2000. The Star's
hits on "U.S.-style" or "American-style" combined with either Stockwell Day or
Alliance, rose from one in 1998 and three in 1999 to 87 in 2000 (Table 5). In
some cases, not every reference was about Stockwell Day and/or the Alliance
party; in some cases, the reference was to another event. One Star reference from
2002 concerned how the Alliance Atlantis film company was engaged in a "U.S.-
style marketing effort" for a film about Canadian curling (Gombu, 2002). Still,
such occasional errant hits are the exception: The other nine hits in the Star that 59
year concerned either Stockwell Day or the Alliance party, not men with curling
brooms.
• In terms of the decrease in American references between 2000 and 2001, Day
was still leader of the Alliance party until he resigned in autumn 2001 to contest
the later leadership contest of the Alliance (in March 2002). That 2001 was not
an election year also explains part of the decrease in U.S. references.
• Another possible reason for the decrease in American references in 2001 was
investigated, the possibility that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
("9/11") might have dampened references to the U.S. after that date, glib
references to the United States perhaps being temporarily out of favour.
The data indicates otherwise (Table 6). In a month-by-month breakdown in 2001
using both ProQuest and Infomart, there is no decline between pre-attack August
and the subsequent months. In fact, an increase in references to "American-style"
and "U.S.-style show up in October 2001 when compared to September 2001.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most American of them all? " Results of American references paired with potential "hot button" terms in Canadian discourse
• When a search for "U.S.-style" and "American-style" was combined with various
key words (health care, environment, trade, and others) certain "hot-button"
issues in Canadian discourse appeared far more often than did other topics. For
example, the pairing of "U.S.-style" or "American-style" with "health care"
resulted in 3,673 ProQuest hits between 1984 and 2007. In comparison, just 15 60 hits resulted from pairing the key word references with "environmentalism," i.e.,
"American-style environmentalism" or "U.S.-style environmentalism" (Table 6)
Similarly, other hot button-issues for Canada's political left such as "trade" and
"free trade" resulted in hits of 2,545 and 778 respectively when paired with the two U.S. references. Conversely, the words "judicial activism" or "employment equity" turned up only 54 and 32 references respectively between 1984 and 2007 when combined with the two U.S. references. "Affirmative action" brought up 63 hits. If many Canadians were bothered by judicial activism or affirmative action which originated in the United States, it barely registered in recorded public discourse.
The key-word "constitution" produced 635 ProQuest hits. Unlike the other terms, which may be more easily attributed to originating on a particular side of the political spectrum when tagged as American (health care in the case of the left, judicial activism in the case of the right), "constitution" is less easy to place in terms of a particular partisan or ideological weapon of choice. In reference to
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's attempt to reform the judicial appointment process, Liberals or New Democrats may refer to an ostensible "U.S.-style" attempt to thwart the constitution by stacking of the bench; a political conservative may refer to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an "American- style" document. Thus, this particular pairing is less easily the prerogative of one side of the political spectrum. At the very least, its relatively high score shows 61
that it is part of the ongoing use of American reference points in Canadian
discourse.
Party leaders and tied U.S. references
• When political party leader names were keyed in with the two American
references ("U.S.-style" and "American-style"), Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, and
Stephen Harper garnered the most hits, 1,329,1,199, and 1,109 respectively (all
figures listed from the ProQuest search). There are a number of possible
explanations: first, insofar as a story brings up Chretien or Martin, it may be that
those two leaders used references to American policy or personalities in
arguments for or against policy (more likely the latter according to what the
qualitative survey reveals); second, both Chretien and Martin were involved in
budget cuts in the 1990s and may have been "tarred" as American by some
commentators and reporters on the assumption that fiscally parsimonious policy
was U.S.-derived.
• The party leader survey reveals a number of useful trends.
First, Stockwell Day has a large number of references for a leader who only had
national prominence for a short time. This survey confirms the results of other
searches.
Second, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper are almost equal in linked
American references despite the fact the former Liberal prime ministers had
significantly lengthier political careers. Chretien was in and out of politics for 40 years, from 1963 when he was first elected to the House of Commons and until
2003, when he retired. He was out of elected office for just eight of those 40 years. For the purposes of media references here which date back to 1984,
Chretien was highly visible since at least 1990 when he became Liberal leader and Prime Minister between 1993 and 2003. Paul Martin entered Parliament in
1988, was a high-profile opposition critic and then Finance Minister from 1993 to
2003 and then prime minister for three years. Harper, in comparison, served in
Parliament between 1993 and 1997, and again from 2002 to the present with 23 months as prime minister as of the end of 2007. Despite the significantly longer time served by Chretien and Martin, Harper's score, 1,109 hits, almost equals
Martin's at 1,199 and is not far behind Chretien at 1,329. The tendency of a right- leaning leader to be pegged as "American" may be showing up in public discourse much the way it did in the 1980s with Brian Mulroney as prime minister.
Third, Harper and NDP leader Jack Layton have been national party leaders for roughly the same amount of time but there are also significant differences in the number of tied references when those two leaders are compared. Harper became
Alliance leader in March 2002; Layton became NDP leader in January 2003. Both men had previous public careers and profiles, Harper as a 1990s-era Member of
Parliament and Layton as a Toronto city councilor. The 1,109 tied references scored by Harper (Harper AND "U.S.-style" OR "American-style") roughly triples that of the 372 scored by Layton despite roughly similar time periods as high-profile, party leaders. Also, as the qualitative analysis will show, the tied 63
American references scored by Layton are usually an indication of rhetoric used
by Layton, whereas Harper's tied references are more often references made
about him (by Layton among others).
Fourth, this political divide becomes obvious with the qualitative analysis but
even the quantitative analysis provides clues. Tied American references for Brian
Mulroney are thirteen times (520) those of NDP leader Ed Broadbent (41).
Broadbent was party leader between 1975 and 1989 while Mulroney was party
leader between 1983 and 1993. Thus, one might expect marginally fewer
references for Broadbent given the 1984 start date of the ProQuest search, all else
being equal. However, the numbers are significantly higher for Mulroney. As the
qualitative analysis will show, the reasons had much to do with an American label
often applied to the Progressive Conservative leader and prime minister by his
opponents.
Fifth, it is noteworthy that Harper, a leader for less than five years at the time this
survey ended in December 2007, scored more than twice as many hits as Prime
Minister Mulroney did despite having served in public life for ten years as party
leader with nine of those as prime minister and with an occasional public profile
even after leaving politics in 1993.
American references: Summary of the discourse
When measured by "American-style" or "U.S.-style" markers, the word-count results show that the number of annual references to the United States has been roughly constant for two decades, especially if the outlier year of 2000 is removed from the data 64 set. However, as the example of the year 2000 reveals, the American angle in Canadian discourse can be quickly "stoked" for political and ideological ends. Also, the highest numbers of hits are found when "health care" is combined with an American reference; key words such as economic, military, and politics also result in high numbers of hits.
As the results from party leaders linked to "U.S.-style" or "American-style" indicate, the use of hot-button topics combined with American references originates more often from the left side of the political spectrum (and directed towards the right); for whatever reason, those on the right choose not to engage nearly as often in such rhetoric.
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IO N -4 J (A -k -k 03 ^ cn cn O) cn cn cn 8 1 Is 4v A CO O § I a> 0\ Table 3 Number of References by Region 1989-2007 - Total Newspaper Count by Region Pacific Prairie Ontario Maritime Newspapers Newspapers Newspapers Newspapers "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" Infomart 1989 46 57 152 0 1990 48 89 134 6 1991 58 90 189 7 1992 59 111 260 19 1993 75 111 243 29 1994 78 93 229 22 1995 101 130 347 26 1996 127 153 318 32 1997 101 153 325 20 1998 83 135 326 80 1999 143 239 653 81 2000 316 462 907 152 2001 215 235 448 72 2002 231 296 612 103 2003 176 271 570 62 2004 392 384 791 94 2005 377 294 719 65 2006 503 321 683 96 2007 360 249 476 68 68 Table 4 The Stockwell Day Syndrome 1998-2002-All Media "American-style" AND "Stockwell Day" (or Alliance) OR U.S.-style AND "Stockwell Day" (or Alliance) ProQuest Infomart 1998 34 21 1999 63 38 2000 1105 1,577 2001 144 177 2002 131 120 Table 5 Day Citations at Non-Chain Dailies 1998-2002 "American-style" AND "Stockwell Day" (or Alliance) OR U.S.-style AND "Stockwell Day" (or Alliance) ProQuest Globe and Mail Toronto Star 1998 9 1 1999 1 3 2000 57 87 2001 15 9 2002 15 13 69 Table 6-9/11 Analysis September 11 Effect on References? January-December 2001 by Month "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" ProQuest Infomart January 76 109 February 110 151 March 76 122 April 83 118 May 80 125 June 58 78 July 94 121 August 73 104 September 75 114 October 92 140 November 61 110 December 80 128 958 1420 Numbers in bold followed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Table 7 Key Policy Concepts "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" AND subject area ProQuest* Infomart** 1984-2007 1985-2007 Affirmative Action 63 101 Constitution 635 900 Economic 2,471 3,619 Economic Policy 146 132 Employment Equity 32 63 Environmentalism 15 17 Foreign Policy 228 359 Free Trade 778 1,102 Health Care 3,673 5,759 Judicial Activism 54 74 Military 1,162 1,764 Politics 2,195 3,946 Quotas 188 166 Trade 2,545 3,657 *ProQuest search available from Jan. 1,1984 to December 31, 2007. "Infomart search available from Jan. 1,1985 to December 31, 2007. Table 8 U.S. References Tied to Party Leaders "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" AND Party Leaders Party Leaders Infomart* ProQuest 1985-2007 1984-2007 References Brian Mulroney 701 520 Kim Campbell 254 163 Jean Charest 259 156 Joe Clark 592 387 Preston Manning 640 403 Stockwell Day 1101 671 Stephen Harper 1903 1109 Pierre Trudeau 359 248 John Turner 175 98 Jean Chretien 2054 1329 Paul Martin 1986 1199 Ed Broadbent 65 41 Audrey McLaughlin 104 53 Alexa McDonough 343 213 Jack Layton 556 372 "Infomart search available from Jan. 1,1985 to December 31 2007 71 Chart 1: U.S. References by Year • ProQuest 1984-2007 "American-style" or "U.S.-style" • Infomart 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 ., | | | | | | | | N«F ^ •$?> N# #* •?* &> N#> ^ N«S» N# N# N# s# N# ^ ^ rfP ^ ^ ^?> ,& Chart 2: Seven-Newspaper Sampling 1989-2007 "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" • Toronto Star —•—Globe and Mail —A— National Post • Edmonton Journal —«—Calgary Herald —#. -Vancouver Sun —•— Province Chart 3: Number of References by Region 1989-2007 -•— Pacific "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" -•—Prairie r*—Ontario 1000 -Maritime 900 Chart 4: The Stockwell Day Syndrome 1988-2002 All Media: References to Day (OR Alliance party) AND "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 H ProQuest 800 • Infomart 600 400 200 0 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 73 Chart 5: Day Citations at Non-Chain Dailies 1998-2002: References to Day OR Alliance party AND "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" 100 90 80 70 60 • Globe and Mail 50 • Toronto Star 40 30 20 10 0 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 Chart 6:9/11 Analysis: September 11 Effect on References? 2001 by month: "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" -ProQuest - Infomart 40 20 * >»*« * S s * + s * J J „/ / / 74 Chart 7: Key Policy Concepts BProQuest "American-style OR "U.S.-style" AND subject area • Infomart 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 affirmative action constitution economic economic policy m employment equity environmentalism foreign policy free trade health care judicial activism military politics quotas trade Hgs Chart 8: U.S. References Tied to Party Leaders m ProQuest "American-style" OR "U.S.-style" AND Party Leaders 1984-2007 • Infomart Jack Layton Alexa McDonough Audrey Ed Broadbent Paul Martin Jean Chretien John Turner Pierre Trudeau Stephen Harper Stockwell Day Preston Manning Joe Clark Jean Charest Kim Campbell Brian Mulroney 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200 75 CHAPTER FOUR DISCOURSE IN FOUR POLICY AREAS Creating and influencing policy paradigms: power shifts and limitations on power Discourse among and rhetoric from Canadian political actors, other elites, and those in the media can have an effect upon public attitudes and public policy. Those in positions of authority and influence often have access to mass media, which allows for a dissemination and amplification of their views; that in turn has an effect upon the wider, more "pedestrian" discourse including public opinion. In addition, those in positions of authority such as political elites have direct influence on public policy, given that governments exist to make decisions about such matters. The result is that "soft" influence (rhetoric) can add to the existing "hard" influence (direct input if not control over public policy and legislation) already possessed by such actors. None of this is necessarily illegitimate. The nature of mass media allows politicians and others to reach millions of people; meanwhile, influence is a by-product of leadership: Leaders "lead" and rhetoric is part of the "job description" and the attempt to persuade is part of leadership and is part of discourse. There is nothing illicit about such realities. However, the possibility exists that public discourse, especially that which occurs in the media, whether the reported comments of political actors and others, or reporting and editorializing, is significantly more powerful now than it once was and in part because of the weakening of other checks on power. The result is that those who are able to widely disseminate their views may well have their influence magnified. On the change in power and on who now wields it, Donald Savoie has famously noted how primus inter pares - "first among equals" - no longer applies in Canadian federal politics, insofar as "first" represents the prime minister and "equals" are defined as his cabinet colleagues. Savoie traces the development of what he calls "the centre" - shorthand for the prime minister, his office, and the power he now exercises through a variety of means - back to both pre-Trudeau and Trudeau-era developments which ultimately concentrated significantly more power in the prime ministerial circle. For example, Savoie notes how Keynesian economics favoured a shift to central planning and direction and how Keynes himself urged prime ministers and presidents to take the lead in formulating economic policy which also helped lead to centralization (Savoie 1999, 34). This had consequences for Canada given the observation of Keynes' disciple, John Kenneth Galbraith, who remarked that Canada "was perhaps the first country to commit itself to a firmly Keynesian economy policy" (Savoie 1999, 33). Savoie also cites the war effort and its assumptions about organization (i.e., the simplistic belief that if countries and their economies could be organized to defeat Adolf Hitler, perhaps they could also be "organized" to defeat social problems such as poverty), Franklin Roosevelt's modernization of the American bureaucracy and subsequent copying in Canada, and reform of the early 20th century "spoils system" (to ensure hiring and contracts were based more on merit and not connections) all contributed to strengthen the role of the centre of government (Savoie 1999,46). Later forces in the increasing centralization of power included Pierre Trudeau's conclusion that Cabinet had become too large for proper decision making on critical issues. The result was an increasing use of cabinet committees and a shift of power to 77 those who appointed such committees—the prime minister's office. In addition, the threat of Quebec separation further intensified the need for power at the apex of the prime minister's office. Savoie writes, "For this reason, if for no other, prime ministers, at least since Trudeau, have all established a capacity at the centre to intervene directly on national unity or federal-provincial issues" (Savoie 1999, 10). The scope of that capacity is now vast, something recognized by Savoie when he dryly notes that "National unity in Canada can mean anything and everything" (Savoie 1999, 10). The power of the prime minister and his office is relevant for the question of discourse because of the centre's power, how and what it responds to, and the limitations to which it is presently subject, especially as regards policy. Savoie argues that in general, coherent policy across the federal government is now impossible for a variety of reasons, but that policy can be driven by "bolts of electricity" from the prime minister. "Whenever the prime minister wishes to focus on an issue, he or she will get their way," writes Savoie (1999, 317). But the prime minister is not omnipotent. So in considering the interplay of discourse and its possible affect upon policy, one must also look at other forces that have historically served as a check on the prime minister and would also compete for a voice in the discourse and in some instances in the formation of policy. Five forces are immediately relevant: Parliament, caucus, Cabinet, the bureaucracy, and the media. Savoie argues that the first three no longer serve as significant checks on power (at least not as applied to a majority government). He blames that state of affairs on the power possessed by the prime minister. The historical reasons for such a wide accumulation of power have been noted above but as regards Parliament, 78 caucus and cabinet, the power can be summarized by anyone familiar with the centre's power: the ability of the prime minister to sign or deny a candidate's nomination papers in his party, the power of appointments including to committees and to Cabinet among others, and the concurrent power over parliamentarians in the prime minister's own party who do not wish to fall out of favour with the centre. That leaves two other forces. One is the bureaucracy and its influence on policy, Savoie argues that institution is divided into "villages" where a variety of priorities are in constant competition (Savoie 1999, 315). Still, the bureaucracy cannot be underestimated as a force in selected cases given its own organization culture, institutional resistance to change, the monopolistic nature of government and its associated agencies, and outright "stonewalling" on occasion by individual ministries or powerful civil servants within the same. In a related observation on the power of bureaucracies and those they favour, which demonstrates how aspects of the bureaucracy are still potent, Leslie Pal (1993), contra Savoie, identifies what he calls the "embedded state" (interest groups, intra- government ministry interests, and others) as also now more influential than in the past. In that sense, while the bureaucracy cannot necessarily act with one voice, individual ministries, government agencies, deputy ministers and other bureaucrats can act as restraint on the centre, as a negative force which may stop policy initiatives from the centre. That may be welcome or unwelcome depending on whether one agrees with the centre, or asserts the elected government should trump the wishes of the civil service, but the result is that policy development and execution can be negatively affected by such a force. 79 Still, given the reality of a divided bureaucracy, we are led back to the power of the centre vis-a-vis other significant competitors for space in the public discourse. If Savoie is correct in his analysis of potent prime ministerial power, albeit within a selected few areas a prime minister chooses to focus on, then what occurs in the public discourse may matter more than ever. On one such competitor, the media, Savoie asserts it has become an important political actor in its own right (1999, 339). "Virtually every current or former Cabinet minister I consulted made at least one reference to the fact that governments are defeated by sounds bites, not major policy issues," writes Savoie (1999, 314). He also notes how such intense media scrutiny, along with access to information (through legislative disclosure laws), have had a crucial impact on governing (Savoie 1999, 350). To further clarify the nature of public discourse and how it may (or may not) contribute to policy change, Peter Hall (1989) discusses the interaction between ideas, interests, and institutions and how their interplay can affect the likelihood of a set of ideas succeeding or failing. He posits that the success of economic ideas will rise or fall based on three factors: economic viability (the relationship of the ideas to existing theory, to the national economy, and to international constraints); political viability (how the ideas relate to the overall goals of ruling political parties, and to the interests of coalition partners either in the legislature or public associations outside that institution); and administrative viability (where the ideas are linked to the administrative biases and relative power of relevant agencies and their structural capacities to generate information). 80 Hall asserts that a set of ideas - policy - is more likely to succeed when such ideas are more viable in the three senses just described: economically, politically, and administratively. An example of this occurred in the battle over the federal deficit in the 1990s: the deficit was seen as economically problematic and unsustainable in an international context (foreign bondholders might stop buying Canadian debt); in addition, the governing Liberals, the new Reform party, and multiple associations outside of Parliament were convinced of the necessity of fighting the deficit; lastly, the department of Finance was also on-side and capable of producing reams of data to press the case publicly and within the corridors of power. If Hall's analysis is correct, then discourse alone (which can often be about an idea or set of ideas) is not enough to affect policy. Discourse might "set the stage" for what becomes possible; it might help expand the options available to a government that wishes to act in one fashion or another, but discourse alone is not sufficient to generate a policy change. Of further relevance are two other factors, both of which relate to and can impact discourse: the media and public opinion polling. Both have the potential to "hem in" government actions or help a government in debates leading up to, during, and after policymaking. On polls, Christopher Page dismisses the notion that governments govern in some Pavlovian response to opinion polling and construct policy in response to polls. He asserts polling is more often used to shape a government's communication strategy— after a policy decision is made. He argues more active public opinion (such as focus groups), officials' own instincts about citizens' preferences and their interpretation of 81 election results are more influential in policy formation. In an analysis of three case studies, he argues late 1981 polls helped to reinforce the federal government's position on the constitution, contributed modestly to details surrounding the GST, and were cited to defend the Chretien government's policy on gun control (Page 2006,184-185). Public opinion polling can also be used to buttress existing priorities of the centre. Savoie notes how public opinion surveys can serve to strengthen the prime minister and his advisors. Should a government minister from Nova Scotia, for example, claim that government cuts are hurting his province, "PMO staffers can point to a public opinion survey suggesting that the majority of Nova Scotians support the government's effort to deal with the deficit and debt problem" (Savoie 1999,107). Similarly, Savoie notes the centre usually gets its own way, save when "a powerful outside element comes into play which forces it to act" (338). He notes an example of this occurred in the early 1990s in the case of the federal deficit. If Page and Savoie are correct, this then heightens the importance of discourse— not necessarily to affect policy directly and immediately in most cases, but as part of a strategy to either prepare the ground for changed policy eventually or to have policy implemented which has already been chosen by government. Where discourse might overwhelm elite and administrative power In rare circumstances, appeals to a strong consensus of public opinion may prove either an effective impetus to policy change (as with the shift in public opinion to deficit reduction between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s) or an effective check on policy change. Overwhelming consensus may "cut off' other options. In the case of the deficit battles of the 1990s, convinced public opinion might well have made a dramatic attack on 82 the deficit inevitable by "roping in" in the political actors who were heretofore latecomers (the Liberal party before it became government in 1993) and the rest of the administrative sector in addition to those already convinced of the need for changed policy (those in the department of Finance). If discourse can have such an effect, either in part by bringing the three sectors (political, economic, and administrative) together on rare occasion, by melding all three together by courtesy of an overwhelming public consensus, this highlights the reality that those with access to the media, those in the media, and the discourse which takes place— matter. Qualitative Analysis of Seven Policy Areas 1984-2007 Seven policy areas - health care, foreign policy, economic-related issues, judicial appointment reform, environment, affirmative action (employment equity), adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and subsequent theoretical interpretation - were chosen to obtain a cross-section of public policy areas. One or two policy areas would reveal media and political discourse only about that single or second policy area; in contrast, seven policy areas is a large enough sample to reveal trends where they exist. To find references to the United States in each subject area, three online media databases, ProQuest, Infomart, and Factiva, were used to find references to each subject area along with key words. For example, on foreign policy, key words or phrases included "foreign policy," "military," "American-style," "American," "U.S.-style" and "America OR U.S." Search terms were then paired with the names of party leaders from each respective English federal political party between 1984 and 2007. (This survey did not investigate French language references to the United States.) Factiva's range was 83 worldwide. However, Factiva was used only to find examples of articles which mentioned references to the United States in Canadian newspapers and not for the number of phrase references (unlike the quantitative analysis). Thus, in the case of the New Democratic Party, the key words would be paired with Ed Broadbent, then Audrey McLaughlin, Alexa McDonough, and Jack Layton. Similar searches were performed with the leaders of the other English federal parties between 1984 and 2007. The time period was chosen so as to allow an analysis that would span two eras in which different political parties held power for extended periods: the Liberal party briefly at the beginning of the survey in the early part of 1984 and again between 1993 and 2006, and then the Progressive Conservative/Conservative party between 1984 and 1993, and again in 2006 and 2007 (this survey ends on December 31, 2007). Also, readers should be aware that there are differences between partisan debates and policy debates and the effect such differences might have on discourse. The goal of partisan debates is often, if not always, to win power. To that end, political actors will use symbols and language which they believe will connect with the values, sympathies, antipathies and even prejudices of selected voter groups. Thus, if a prejudice against the United States exists in Canadian political culture, it is to be expected that such a sentiment will be revealed in the discourse, in the appeals and rhetoric from political actors. In contrast, policy debates (which rarely take place during elections) are often focused on the most appropriate means to a desired end; they are often conducted by 84 elites without an immediate electoral stake in the outcome: political actors between elections or those in the Senate, or actors in think tanks, the civil service and elsewhere. The difference between the two focuses would explain why the first four policy areas are so "contaminated" by invalid arguments and references, i.e., allusions to some issue as "American-style", and why in the latter three one finds far fewer of those references. After all, with the exception of Paul Martin's dip into the matter of the notwithstanding clause in the 2005-06 election, or the subject of quotas during the 1995 provincial election in Ontario, the Charter and affirmative action are not usually fodder for election campaigns; they are more often the preserve of "policy wonks," academics, the civil service and on occasion some in the media. In contrast, the economy, health care, foreign policy (when soldiers are dying or at risk), and the courts are regularly part of election-time discourse. The difference in how partisan debates play out in contrast to policy debates might explain why political actors reference various policy issues; it does not explain why certain elites not constrained by electoral concerns (academics, some in the media, or those in think tanks and advocacy groups) take a very different approach in their rhetoric in the seven issue areas. It also does not explain the contradictory positions taken by some of the same actors on the supposed danger of American influence. Thus, the difference in partisan and policy goals and the subsequent difference in rhetoric can only explain so much. To explain the change in the discourse from one issue to another, one must look for additional reasons. 85 The discourse What is revealed in the discourse and how debate occurs is not insignificant for its relevance to eventual policy possibilities. In terms of the discourse and persuasion, as Aristotle argued in The Art of Rhetoric, true (or perhaps full) persuasion of an audience requires three proofs: from character (trust), from disposition or "feeling," and from argument—i.e., reason, also referred to as ethos, pathos and logos respectively (Aristotle 1991, 1356a). Insofar as a political actor makes use of only the first two, (the public's trust in a leader's own character (ethos) and the leader's persuasive oratory (pathos) to sway the audience), the leader does the public and true persuasion a disservice, as a comprehensive proof ought to include reason (logos). That many leaders use only the first two rhetorical tools and ignore reason will shock no one. But in terms of deliberative democracy, attempts which employ ad hominem arguments or straw-man examples detract from deliberation. A clear example of such discourse occurs when references to a potential Canadian policy, proposal, idea or piece of legislation are laced with references to the United States. The attempt to advance support for one's own policies and to undermine potential support for one's political or ideological opponent's policies is not - when combined with guilt-by-association U.S. references - a reasoned appeal. It is a rhetorical gambit designed to identify one's opponent with assumed undesirable policy south of the border. There is no mystery as to why discourse in Canada often references American matters or personalities. For political actors, there is the incentive to win votes or gain support for their own policies. Polling evidence suggests "dust-ups" with Americans have a positive effect on a politician's popularity. After Prime Minister Paul Martin stated he 86 would "not be dictated to" by the U.S. in a December 2005 election speech (this after the U.S. ambassador to Canada criticized anti-Americanism), an online Decima poll found twice as many respondents were more inclined to vote Liberal after Martin's comments as planned to vote Conservative (O'Hanlon 2005). As a practical matter, one way to lessen the power of incomplete and misleading rhetoric is to call attention to such methods and deepen deliberation in the effort. Thus, in this chapter, I will survey discourse in the first four policy areas for references to the United States: health care; foreign policy; courts and judicial reform; and the economy, which includes issues such as trade, taxation and balanced budgets/deficits. In the next chapter, I survey the environment, affirmative action, and the initial adoption of Canada's 1982 constitution and Charter of Rights and subsequent theoretical interpretation. Health Care The first year of this qualitative survey coincided with the introduction of the federal Canada Health Act (CHA), which in addition to previous requirements placed on the provinces to receive federal transfers for health care (universality, portability, comprehensive, and publicly administered), imposed another requirement: accessibility. Provinces were to have transfers reduced, dollar-for-dollar, for any user fee charged by hospitals or doctors for medically insured services (MacArthur, Ramsey and Walker 1996,115). During the period examined in this dissertation (mainly between 1984 and 2007), the debate over health care in Canada can be divided into four stages: pre-1995, where administrative reforms in health care such as regionalization took place at provincial level (MacArthur, Ramsey and Walker 1996, ix); the 1995-99 period and debates over funding 87 where any reform to Medicare was portrayed as a stalking horse for the alleged dismantling of the welfare state (Riga 1995, Crawford 1999); and the 1999-2000 period where Medicare served as an election issue (the "Stockwell Day syndrome" noted in the quantitative analysis and also in the qualitative survey in this chapter (Milnes and Crosbie 2000, O'Neil 2000a)). Lastly, the 2001-2005 period saw detailed prescriptions for health care reform offered from a variety of sources including a Senate report from Senator Michael Kirby; a Royal Commission report from former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow; Don Mazankowski's report for the province of Alberta government; Ken Fyke's report for the province of Saskatchewan; Michael Clair's report for the province of Quebec; and Michael Leger's report for the province of New Brunswick (Woodford 2004). All the studies addressed the problem of sustainability. More selectively, the studies addressed foreign models (Kirby), the role of the federal government in delivering health care (Kirby), the role of regional health authorities and/or organization of the system (Mazankowski, Clair, and Leger), and how to stay true to the principles of publicly funded health care (Fyke and Romanow). That noted, deliberation in Canada is perhaps short-circuited most often when it comes to the issue of health care. In this policy area, public statements in defense of the existing policy approach are inevitably accompanied by references to the United States. The Canada-U.S. comparisons are made by public personalities and by political party leaders across the spectrum, though conservative parties often differ in how they phrase their American references; in their case, the approach taken is more defensive, in essence an affirmation that they too want to avoid any "American-style" health care. 88 New Democrats In July 1988, Ed Broadbent, then leader of the New Democratic Party, argued in Parliament that if the pending U.S.-Canada free trade deal was approved, the choice on health care in Canada would replicate the choices he asserted existed in the United States: private insurance companies, charity, or nothing. Broadbent intimated that Canadians would become Americanized in this area if the free trade deal succeeded. "This debate is really about whether what I would call the 'Canadian way' or the 'American way' will prevail in our country," said Broadbent (Cohn 1988a). In October that year, Broadbent claimed that the free trade deal would open the door to American for-profit health care companies (Windsor Star 1988). In November, Broadbent linked the health care theme to U.S. president Ronald Reagan in an Edmonton campaign speech; his partisan audience booed at the mention of Reagan (Cohn 1988b). In 1993, NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin appeared in the border city of Windsor, Ontario, to contrast the American and Canadian health care systems. She claimed that Reform leader Preston Manning intended to "gut" Medicare and establish a two-tier system of health care in Canada (Harper 1993a). Alexa McDonough, leader of the New Democratic Party after McLaughlin, also made such comparisons. In 1995, she argued that "Canadians want to be sure that universal health care - different from the Americanized, two-tier system - isn't only a proud achievement of the past" (Riga 1995). In reference to a 1999 federal budget which restored some federal transfers for provincial health care, McDonough argued that previous budget cutbacks had led to a "dangerous and sickening slide into an American, for-profit system of health care" (Crawford 1999). She continued this theme in 2000. 89 That year, McDonough argued that "American-style, two-tier health care is the inevitable result" of the federal budget, which she alleged lacked financial support for health care (Walker 2000). During the federal election in 2000, McDonough appeared in front of a private Toronto clinic accused of fraud and said, "What the King's Health Centre absolutely demonstrates is the steady slide toward Americanized, two-tier health care" (Hunter 2000). The NDP's most recent leader has continued the pattern of referencing U.S. health care in Canadian discourse. In 2004, when the Fraser Institute proposed a reform to Canada's health care system authored by former Ontario premier Mike Harris and former federal opposition leader Preston Manning, Layton accused the think tank of only ever wanting to impose American health care on Canadians (Gunter 2004). In December 2005, at the start of the 2005-06 election campaign, Layton asserted that Conservatives and Liberals were driving Canada toward a profit-based system of "American-style medicine" (Fowlie 2005). He repeated the car analogy in Vancouver one month later, though he wouldn't promise to close private sector clinics which delivered health care services (Weeks 2006). Liberals In 1995, Prime Minister Jean Chretien visited Saskatoon to release a policy document on health care, Agenda for Action; Preserving Medicare, which reaffirmed his party's fealty to the existing system. It did so with reference to the United States: "Medicare is not only a proud Canadian invention—it's one of the best health care systems in the world. Canadians are healthier overall than Americans, even though we spend less on health care" (Hoy 1995). 90 In 2000, in a somewhat confusing defense of Canada's health care system, Chretien argued that "GM in the United States spends more money for the health care program of GM's employees than they spend on steel, so that means that when you are in car (sic) and part (sic) producing of cars in Canada, you have the steel free" (Windsor Star, 2000). In 2002, in a wide-ranging interview on Canada-U.S. relations, the Prime Minister obliquely referenced the United States with his comment that "of course, some people would like to spend more, but Canadians prefer us to spend more money on health care than defence," (Aubry 2002a). Defending himself from political attacks from the left in 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin hinted it was the NDP which was less protective of Canadian health care. "If Jack Layton wants to join with us to protect health care, he is more than welcome," said Martin. In the same speech, designed to highlight differences with Americans, Harper, and himself, Martin buttressed his claim as a defender of Canada in all policy files vis-a-vis Americans by referencing a dispute over exports of softwood lumber to the United States (where the U.S. had applied punitive duties). "That's what standing up to the Americans on softwood is all about, and that's what I'm going to do" (Wood and Dawson 2005). Conservative parties Health care references to the United States from New Democrats and Liberals are usually offered to deter Canadians from considering any and all aspects of the model assumed to exist south of the border. Conservative parties demonstrate a slightly different response in the discourse. Some, such as the Progressive Conservative party under Joe Clark, referred to the United States in a manner similar to New Democrats and Liberals. Others, such as Stockwell Day or Stephen Harper, more recently fought off accusations 91 they would bring American health care north of the 49 parallel; Harper did so by turning the accusation back on their opponents and labeling them as "American" in some fashion. One example of the first approach is from Bobbie Sparrow, the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament in Calgary in 1993 (whose riding Reform leader Preston Manning would capture that year). Sparrow claimed Canada had "the very, very best health-care system," and that "Preston Manning said the other day he wants the American system" (Cernetig and Makin 1993). In response, after a debate at a Calgary high school, Manning responded, "People have said we are pitching and promoting an American style of health care. We are not promoting or pitching that at all" (Harper 1993b). Another source quotes Manning in this manner, "This idea that we are promoting American-style health care or deductibles or user fees is not correct" (Cunningham 1993). Several days later, Manning asserted that other political party leaders were "scare-mongering." He sought to reassure voters by stating that "no province in their right mind would initiate an American-style health care system" (Jonathan Ferguson 1993). This conservative-on-conservative theme repeated itself during the 2000 election campaign. Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark told a Kingston crowd that the Alliance party under Stockwell Day desired an American-style healthcare system (Milnes and Crosbie 2000). In a televised leaders' debate, Alliance leader Stockwell Day held a sign aloft which declared his position: "No two-tier health care," two-tier being shorthand in Canada for "American." During the debate, Day demanded the Liberal party retract ads that claimed the Alliance supported an American-style health care system. Day attempted to deal the American card back to the Liberals: "Call me a liar or pull those 92 U.S.-style negative ads," he informed Prime Minister Chretien in front of a nationwide television audience (O'Neil 2000a). The strategy by conservative leaders - turn the American charge back on the critics - was evident again in the 2004 campaign. Prime Minister Paul Martin accused the Conservative leader of advocating "American-style health care" and "U.S.-style tax cuts." In response, Stephen Harper accused the Liberals of running "U.S.-style attack ads" (Tibbetts 2004). In this instance, a Liberal M.P. agreed with the Conservative leader—by referencing the United States. Sarmite Bulte said it was a "fair debate to quote what a person has said or written. It's another thing to go the American way of black ads" (Dawson and Curry 2004). Others References to the United States and the assumed negative association are not restricted to political party leaders in search of votes. Reporters, columnists, opinion- editorial pages of major dailies, advocacy groups and others also seek to sway public opinion on health care with U.S. references. Historian Desmond Morton warned Toronto readers in 1986 to "beware U.S.-style free enterprise health care"(Morton 1986). During the 1988 free trade debates, The Montreal Gazette's Terrance Wills asked rhetorically, "How would Canadians like to see their medicare harmonized with U.S.-style medicare and medicaid?" (Wills 1988). Richard Gwyn criticized even any Canadian imitation of United Kingdom reforms by bringing the United States into his argument. Gwyn asserted copying UK reforms would allow "doctors to opt out and set up U.S.-style health maintenance organizations (Gwyn 1988). The Edmonton Journal editorial board criticized proposed provincial government 93 reforms that year because they would lead to the "Americanization of Alberta's medicare" {Edmonton Journal 1993). In 1994, Toronto columnist Michael Valpy wrote that the "grass wasn't greener on the U.S. side" and that American big business "is taking over more and more of [American] health care" (Valpy 1994). In 1995, the Montreal Gazette editorialized that "it is in the ultimate interests of all Canadians that Ottawa find a way to prevent Medicare's erosion into a nightmarish, U.S.-style system" (Gazette 1995). The Windsor Star criticized a 1995 Ontario bill on health care, claiming it allowed for the possibility of "U.S.-style clinics" (Windsor Star 1995). The Toronto Star editorialized that reforms which permitted more private care would lead to two-tier health care and thus take Canada "down the American road" (Toronto Star 1995a). In 1997, Dr. Robert Evans, a professor at the University of British Columbia and member of the National Forum on Health, argued that "the U.S. system is probably the least successful ever conceived, in terms of organization and funding." He urged delegates at a Vancouver nursing conference not to emulate it (Globe and Mail 1997). Janet Parry, of the Ottawa-Carleton Health Coalition, urged readers to avoid "U.S.-style ambulance" services, i.e., private ambulance services, on the grounds that Canada should not imitate "the worst health service in the developed world—the U.S. system" (Parry 1999). Linda McQuaig argued any private delivery of government-funded health care in Canada was just a stalking horse for a fully privatized system. "Knowing Canadians don't want a U.S.-style system, the privatizers here concentrate on making the case for private clinics and hospitals operating within a universal public system," wrote McQuaig (2002). Maude Barlow from the Council of Canadians, representative of nationalism for the Canadian left, asserted that any politician who refused to wholly endorse the 2002 Roy Romanow report on health care wanted "a U.S.-style corporate health- care system for Canada" (Barlow 2002). Shirley Douglas, daughter of Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas, the provincial politician most responsible for Canada's move to universal, government-delivered health care, argued that Canada was headed for American-style health-care system if private clinics were allowed to continue (Tropea 2006). Even Dr. Brian Day, president of Canadian Medical Association in 2007, owner of a private surgical clinic in Vancouver, and oft-cited proponent of more private medical involvement in Canada's health care system, felt it necessary to eschew any association with things American. In a 2007 newspaper interview, Day said the public had the mistaken impression he wanted Canada to adopt a U.S.-style system. "No doctor in Canada I know wants a U.S. system" said Dr. Day (Munro 2007). Discourse, deliberation, and policy Three questions in the health care debate during this period are relevant: First, what were the core problems or issues addressed in the debate? Second, to what extent did "privatization" or "U.S.-style health care" become a proxy for any structural reforms to the health care system and did the two terms become synonymous? Third, did the rhetoric and U.S. references impact deliberation and perhaps policy on health care? The quantitative and qualitative results show a significant amount of reference to the United States in the public debate. While the post-2000 studies addressed issues of sustainability, organization, or how other countries approach health care, the quantitative 95 analysis show more rhetoric about the United States than on any other issue; the public (non-elite) discourse was affected. Even Jeffrey Simpson, in a late 2003 speech, noted the health care debate in the previous years centered on a comparison between two health care systems - Canadian or American - and ignored Europe and Australasia (Simpson 2004). On the question of whether privatization" or "U.S.-style health care" became a proxy for any structural reforms to the health care system and did the two terms become synonymous - the answer appears to be "yes," and despite the reality of Canada's existing health care system as noted by Gregory Marchildon et al (2006) when he observed what any casual observer would notice, that public, private, and mixed health care systems exist in Canada—and always have. Howard Chodos and Jeffrey MacLeod (2004) argue and warn that it is a mistake to simplify the debate as one between two polarized ideological positions, "private" (for the Mazankowski report) versus "public" (the Romanow report), as often happened. Instead, the authors questioned the accuracy of how such terms are used in the public policy debates and whether they actually represent the reality of the funding and delivery mechanisms in the Canadian healthcare system. Still on question number two, it should be noted that while the qualitative references to health care and the United States are derived mainly from the national debate, as this dissertation focuses on the national discourse by national actors, the combination of privatization and "U.S.-style" health care as a proxy for any reform did occur regularly. That conclusion was borne out by the data in the quantitative analysis when "health care" and either "U.S.-style" or "American-style" were combined in textual 96 searches and found more frequently than other pairings of an issue with the U.S. references. The qualitative analysis leads to a similar conclusion. Did the rhetoric and U.S. references impact deliberation and perhaps policy on health care? It appears policy was affected though it is impossible to make a clear cause- and-effect link between discourse and policy. As for deliberation, it does not appear that the rhetoric swayed as many people as might be assumed. The policy result of the plethora of studies post-2000 was, according to Jeffrey Simpson, that Canadians engaged in a national debate, expressed support for the existing Medicare system, wanted medicare to be expanded, and believed that if the system was unsustainable the blame lay "in waste, duplication, and poor management within the system" (Simpson 2004). In other words, they wanted more of the same. Simpson was correct about the policy result but perhaps mistaken about the desire of Canadians. A 2006 COMPAS poll in the midst of an election campaign found 61 per cent of Canadians would back the political party that permitted a blend of public and private health care. Only 28 per cent of respondents said they would support a party that prohibited "non-governmental care" (Patrick 2006). Thus, while discourse was affected by the rhetoric - references to "American- style" health care were rife - it appears a plurality of Canadians ignored such discourse, at least according to one poll. Health care may be the only subject area where the policy preference of a majority of Canadians was opposite of where the rhetoric in the discourse should have led if one posits a straight discourse-policy link. If the chronic tie-ins of American references to any reform of health care did have an effect, it was not upon majority public opinion but upon public policy decided by elites, which may further 97 prove Hall's contention that for policy reform to occur, it must be viable not only as an idea but politically and administratively as well. In the last chapter, I will further expand on where anti-American sentiment may block policy precisely by capturing the administrative part of this equation. Foreign Policy In 1958, Allan Gotlieb was a desk officer in the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa and assigned to matters concerning the Law of the Sea. In 1958, the United Nations, at the first Conference on the Law of the Sea, failed to secure agreement on international territorial boundaries. The United Nations General Assembly thus debated whether to call a second conference to address the unresolved issue of the breadth of the territorial sea. As Gotlieb wrote decades later, Canada strongly advocated a second conference and sent a delegate (a Senator) to the UN Committee where the issue was to be debated, "assisted by a young foreign service officer just off probation—myself (Gotlieb 2004). Gotlieb recounts the disparity between the resources assigned to his mission, which Canada had a concrete interest in, and that of other, more glamorous priorities: The loneliness of the Canada representative in the Legal Committee stood in contrast to the hordes of Canadian diplomats milling around the seat of the Canadian representative in the Political Committee, occupied by the estimable John Holmes. Canada was, of course, at the height of its popularity in the UN as a middle power, but the disproportionality of the focus on the discussions on disarmament and peacekeeping in relation to the Law of the Sea spoke volumes about the priorities of the foreign ministry at the time. The magnetic pull of Canada's international vocation was overwhelming; the bread-and-butter issues had no pull at all (Gotlieb 2004, 7). After several days of debates about the Law of the Seas conference began, the Senator-envoy and Gotlieb agreed they lacked technical expertise on the matter; they 98 requested of John Holmes, then the Canadian representative to the Political Committee, that he endorse Gotlieb's written request to send down an expert from the Department of Fisheries in Ottawa. "Holmes," writes Gotlieb, "rejected my written recommendations outright, without comment" (Gotlieb 2004, 8). He notes the best explanation he received arrived later from another senior member of the Canadian delegation: "It was not considered appropriate, he said, to deal with contentious issues of a domestic character at the General Assembly" (Gotlieb 2004, 8). Gotlieb served as Canada's ambassador to the U.S. in the 1980s but refers to that formative experience as "idealism-based diplomacy in a microcosm" (Gotlieb 2004, 8). Indeed it was, and such liberal idealism - Gotlieb calls it "romanticism" - is one strong strand in Canadian foreign policy, realism being the other.b In the example Gotlieb notes, it can be defined and demonstrated somewhat loosely as more immediate and definable interests, i.e., the ability to control fishing zones versus the idealized desire to bring peace to the world. Both conceptions compete for dominance in Canadian foreign policy and evidence of this struggle is revealed in the discourse in academic debates, official foreign policy documents, political pronouncements, and in media commentary. b Realism is the school of foreign policy rooted in the pursuit of national interest in a world of largely amoral state actors. Hans Morgenthau, the leading realist in the 20th century, gave a classic conception of realism when he wrote that "international politics is of necessity power politics" (Morgenthau 1950, 15). In contrast, liberal idealism posits an idealized international order as a major goal of foreign policy. Liberal idealism is arguably a highly idealized version of the international society school. Robert H. Jackson describes the views of the international society school as containing three conceptions of responsibility: national, international, and humanitarian. The last conception of responsibility would be especially relevant for and illustrative of liberal idealists as humanitarian intervention might well be urged even without any national interest or without international sanction (for example, through the United Nations) and might be seen as more "pure" as a result. Jackson describes it as Kantian and notes that, "This cosmopolitan criterion of responsible statecraft goes well beyond international responsibility. It derives not only from the fact that statesmen are human being themselves but also from the fact that they are in a better position than anyone else to help or hinder their fellow human beings in other countries" (Jackson in Booth and Smith 1995, 117). There is a third concept, multilateralism, defined as three or more states working towards some end (Keating 1993, 12). In a strict interpretation of multilateralism as a process, the concept could be used by either realists or idealists to reach their desired ends and often is in practice; it should not be seen as the exclusive preserve of either realists or liberal idealists. In practice, multilateralism is usually a subset of liberal internationalism - the development and use of international institutions as a means of promoting a stable, relatively just international order, consistent for the most part with the broader political and economic interests of the major Western democratic powers. However, in Canada, multilateralism is often asserted by those who wish to differentiate Canadian foreign policy from American versions. Thus, political scientist Thomas Keating argues that post-war, "multilateralism became a device for protecting the wide-ranging interests of a middle power, especially one sharing a continent with a superpower" (Keating 1993, 18). He notes the consensus on multilateralism began to break down in 1960s, in part because of the nuclear weapons debate and the American war in Vietnam. Not everyone identifies multilateralism as always in Canada's interest. Gotlieb, in asserting an example of realism from a political actor later known for peace missions and liberal idealism, notes Pierre Trudeau more explicitly tied foreign policy to national interest than previous prime ministers. In a six-booklet document published in 1970, Foreign Policy for Canadians, Canada's foreign policy was defined as "the product of the government's progressive definition and pursuit of national aims and interests in the national environment" (Gotlieb 2004, 15). Historian Jack Granatstein notes the Trudeau government fixed Canada's priorities in 1969 as "sovereignty, North America, the North 100 Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and peacekeeping—and in that order" (Granatstein 2003, 4). On the realism-liberal idealism debate, Gotlieb and Granatstein are probably two of the highest profile defenders of realism in Canadian foreign policy and consistently argue its application is proper, in the national interest, and where duplication of an American priority exists, it is because it is often in Canada's national interest and not mere "aping" of the U.S. position. For Gotlieb and Granatstein, that would be one definition of an independent foreign policy—one freely chosen by a Canadian government acting in what it perceives to be the national interest regardless of similarities (or not) to an American policy. That possibility is attested to by Keating, who in another part of his work notes that in the 1940s, Canadian positions were often close to those of the Americans, but "not so much out of deference to the emerging power of the United States as it was a recognition that Canadian interests were frequently more in tune with those in Washington" (Keating 1993, 37). Keating's observations are useful as they reveal the possibility that Canadian positions can be multilateralist and on occasion close to the American positions, precisely what he describes as the reality of Canadian foreign policy in the 1940s. In other words, even if one defines Canadian foreign policy as mostly multilateral - membership in the World Trade Organization or the United Nations for example - it need not be also asserted that such multilateralism precludes bilateral trade treaties (the 1988 Free Trade Agreement) or joint military defense organization with Americans (NORAD) when such bilateralism is in Canada's interest. It is not that similar Canadian and American positions are merely accidental; the reality is that both countries 101 are on the same continent and share similar histories (European settlement and institutions), influences, immigration and values, though with some distinctions. In contrast to Gotlieb and Granatstein, others who might be characterized as from the liberal idealist school often do interpret bilateral ties and similar positions to the Americans as evidence not only that realist-based foreign policy is incorrect in its application, but that it is fundamentally and reflexively pro-American. Thus, University of British Columbia law professor and New Democrat candidate for Parliament Michael Byers argues that "successive Canadian governments have failed to exercise leadership internationally... .content to stand in the shadows or - worse yet - to meekly follow the lead of a powerful but uneasy neighbour, the USA" (Byers 2007, 4). In a modern recitation of George Grant's Lament for a Nation, Byers asserts in his 2007 book, Intent for a Nation, that terrorism is not new to Canada (he cites the FLQ and Air India bombings) and that the USA has over-reacted (20); that Canadians have been at the forefront of efforts to protect human beings during times of both peace and war by advocacy against torture or in attempts to ban landmines; and that historically Canada established itself as "a leader on the softer side of international relations" (101). Byers' liberal idealism streak is also on display when he recommends that Canada exit Afghanistan on the justification that Canadian troops could do more good elsewhere—in Sudan, for example. He asserts a Western military force there could overwhelm the Sudanese military, "which pushes crude barrel bombs out of the back of cargo planes," and their mercenary allies, the Janjaweed, "who ride camels and horses" (Byers 2007, 63). He ignores the example of similar arguments once made about why the U.S. should intervene in Somalia in the early 1990s and with unhappy results. 102 In addition, the liberal idealism is evident with comments that it is the job of the Lebanese government (and not Israel) to rein in Hezbollah (55). That assertion also contradicts another liberal idealist notion expressed by Byers—that Canada missed a chance to intervene in Lebanon because it was otherwise occupied in Afghanistan (49). The latter advice again ignores an earlier American experience in 1982-1984, when Americans intervened only to see a suicide bomber attack their barracks in Beirut in 1983, a bombing which killed 241 U.S. servicemen. Beyond the advice and the arguably mistaken nature of it, Byers is a useful example of how Canadian political positions unlike his own are assumed to be the result of copying American policy or of obeisance to an American president. Thus, Prime Minister's Stephan Harper's position on Israel in the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon is dismissed in this fashion: "Most likely the prime minister just wanted to win points in Washington by aligning himself with the unequivocally pro- Israel position of George W. Bush" (59). When Harper flew to Afghanistan to visit Canadian troops in March 2006, Byers accuses Harper of similarities to Bush in photo opportunities and sound-bites (43). He questions the usefulness of interoperability (the ability of Canadian ships and airplanes to technologically communicate with American equivalents) on the basis that interoperability is "less important for humanitarian missions" and also prevents Canada from doing more peacekeeping and "sovereignty assertion" (182). Thus, on the two broad foreign policy assumptions - realism and liberal idealism- both streams in Canada have their adherents around the world. In Canada, however, both are also tangled up in questions and accusations of independence, i.e.—what constitutes 103 an independent foreign policy separate from that of the Americans. Inherent in that debate is also the question of the relationship of foreign policy to the national interest. Thus, foreign policy is another area where references to the United States are rife in public discourse. As with health care, the references are often couched in language which assumes the de facto undesirability of all U.S. policy. Often, the American tag brings with it links between Canadian and American politicians, i.e., the tie-in of Brian Mulroney with Ronald Reagan or George H. Bush, or Stephen Harper with George W. Bush. The Discourse New Democrats In 1984, when the governing Conservatives and opposition Liberals defeated a parliamentary motion from New Democrats which called on Canada to support a United Nations motion to freeze U.S. and U.S.S.R. nuclear arsenals, NDP leader Ed Broadbent accused the Tory government of eagerness to "waltz with (U.S. President) Ronald Reagan" as the real reason Canada voted against the United Nations resolution. Broadbent also asserted that External Affairs Minister Joe Clark's approach to foreign policy was "not the course of an independent ally—it's the easy acquiescence of the timid," an obvious reference to the United States {Globe and Mail 1984a). In a mid-1980s debate over U.S. research into missile defence and possible Canadian collaboration, Broadbent asserted (incorrectly) that any research was a violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. He then compared Mulroney's government to Pierre Trudeau's. The NDP leader, neglecting the reality that it was Trudeau who first accepted the American request to test cruise missiles in Canada, claimed the Liberal Prime Minister had been more independent in its foreign policy. "He (Trudeau) had an appropriate sense of the role Canada could be playing. I wish we had that kind of independent thought functioning on foreign policy, especially on disarmament, today" (Toronto Star 1986a). Similarly, in the lead-up to the first Gulf War, NDP leader Audrey McLaughlin informed reporters that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's action of committing three warships to the Gulf in August 1990, before UN approval was given for an armed blockade, was evidence that Mulroney had been "directing Canadian foreign policy with 105 President Bush instead of the Canadian people and the United Nations" (Howard 1990). McLaughlin claimed that Canada's Middle East policy was formulated by George Bush (Harper 1990). That the NDP's stated desire to work through multilateral institutions may not have been entirely sincere later became clear. The initial NDP position, which supported military action if authorized through the United Nations was reversed after several months, when the world body authorized force to remove Iraq from Kuwait. After the UN fired that warning shot across Saddam Hussein's bow, McLaughlin forswore NDP support for military action due to U.S. leadership in the coalition. McLaughlin argued that her policy was not anti-American; she asserted that Canada must seek independence from U.S. foreign policy in a manner that is "not unfriendly" (Roche 1991). In 1992, NDP Foreign Affairs critic Svend Robinson, in an attempt to link two policy issues with fear of the American behemoth, said he was worried "an even more intense institutional relationship with an economy that's failing" would limit Canada's freedom to exercise its independence on foreign policy (Todd 1992). Steve Lee, director of international affairs for the federal New Democrats, echoed the economic-foreign policy link when he told the Ottawa Citizen that "Mulroney has put all of Canada's eggs in the U.S. corporate basket. He believes that what's good for American corporations is good for Canadian foreign policy" (Crosby 1992). The political usefulness of discourse which references the United States can also tie partisan opponents to an unpopular American politician. It was illustrated by Jack Layton's linkage of Paul Martin and Stephen Harper to American president George W. Bush. In 2004, Layton accused both Martin and Harper of desiring to pull Canada closer to the Bush administration on matters of security, trade, and ballistic missile defence. The claim was not necessarily untrue; the question was whether such closeness was anything new or undesirable in its own right as a matter of Canada's own national interest. But Layton claimed that "Stephen Harper wants to reverse the core principles of Canadian foreign policy" (Mary Gordon 2004a). Occasionally, the allegations became silly. In a 2004 Calgary Herald column in which Layton argued against possible Canadian participation in the U.S. missile defence system, he argued that the federal government should spend money elsewhere. Layton then wrote, "We will pursue expensive Star Wars missile defence, to say nothing of contracting out our next census to its chief manufacturer, U.S. arms giant Lockheed Martin" (Layton 2004). In 2006, the NDP leader claimed Canada had drifted from a mission to provide security in Kabul, the Afghanistan capital, to "a combat role side by side with the Americans," a combat role apparently all the more undesirable if it was anywhere near American troops (Cohen 2006a). Later that same year, Layton accused the Harper government of "blindly following" the lead of U.S. President Bush on foreign policy in Afghanistan: "It's time once again for a made-in-Canada foreign policy that reflects the values and the dreams of Canadians" said Layton (Fitzpatrick 2006). After November 2006 congressional election results handed Republicans a defeat in the House of Representatives, Layton used the outcome to again make the Harper- Bush connection. The NDP leader expressed doubt about whether the new Prime Minister would heed the lessons Layton thought evident from south of the border. Mr. Harper is so intent on following a George-Bush-designed foreign policy and now a George-Bush-designed environmental policy that it is really hard to see 107 how - why - he is going to change his direction. Many Canadians have rejected the politics and policies of George Bush and they are thinking about how they are going to put a stop to that the next time we get an election here (Delacourt 2006a). In 2006, former NDP leader Alexa McDonough, now the party's foreign affairs critic, asserted the Conservative government's foreign policy was simply pro-American policy. The charge came in reference to NORAD's new involvement in the surveillance of Canada's coastlines, similar to how the bilateral defence agency traditionally tracked air traffic over North America. "Canadians are truly astounded to realize that we are now looking at an agreement that clearly deepens the integration militarily in terms of foreign policy between Canada and the U.S.," said McDonough (Campion-Smith 2006a). Liberals Liberal party leaders often have stood betwixt the NDP and right-of-centre parties in their public discourse on American foreign policy. They occasionally discourage more extreme references, note the position of the U.S. as a useful ally and trading partner, but still occasionally resort to using tags of "American-style" and "U.S.-style" when useful for political ends. In 1984, Liberal leader John Turner told a fundraising audience that the Liberal party "stands for an independent foreign policy voice for Canada. We must, of course, have close relationships with our friends and allies and keep our NATO commitment, but we must never simply mimic American policy." Turner argued that Mulroney's Statements about goodwill and "fruitful co-operation" with the United States were laudable, "but this must not be done at the expense of Canadian political sovereignty or the independence of our foreign policy, or our cultural or economic integrity" (Winsor 1984). In 1985, Turner informed a Vancouver audience that the Conservative government followed U.S. policy too closely and demanded that they create more distance on economic and foreign policy issues (Gazette 1985). In 1986, Turner suggested Canada's foreign policy had been muzzled to avoid offending the Americans. Turner noted the Conservative government's support for U.S. president Ronald Reagan's air strike against Libya as proof. "Have we got ourselves where the Prime Minister is in the president's pocket?" Turner queried rhetorically in the House of Commons (Conn 1986a). Two years later, the Liberal leader played "good cop" to his own "bad cop" when it came to Canadian foreign policy and the United States. Turner presided over a revised Liberal defence policy paper and said he rejected "the New Democratic Party view that we in Canada should be neutralist in our commitments, isolationist in our policies, and anti-American in our rhetoric. I also reject the Conservative view that we must blindly follow the dictates of the largest member of the Alliance," a clear reference to the United States (Cohen 1988). In October 1990, Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Lloyd Axworthy urged that in light of the approaching Gulf War, the federal government should send emissaries to Iraq to help free Canadian detainees in that country. Axworthy asserted the reason the Mulroney government declined was due to instructions from U.S. president George H. Bush. Mulroney rejected the accusation, "I think a special envoy is a ploy of Saddam Hussein for publicity purposes, for propaganda purposes, to destabilize the solidarity of the alliance" (Harper 1990). 109 In 1992, Axworthy again linked Canadian foreign policy decisions under Progressive Conservatives to U.S. influence. He claimed the reason for the Canadian government's foreign policy stance was that it was in general tied closely to American foreign policy. "They [the Conservative government] have to zig when the Americans zag" said Axworthy (Todd 1992). In another interview in 1992, the Foreign Affairs critic decried Canada's involvement in the Gulf War the year previous and argued that instead of "saluting and snapping to attention," Canada should have opposed force and supported further negotiations. Axworthy claimed the Tories made major foreign policy decisions only after consulting with "George or Maggie or Francois" on the phone, a first-name reference to the American, British and French leaders (Crosby 1992). In 1993, the newest Liberal leader, Jean Chretien, remarked that Canadians didn't care to be "camp followers" of the Americans nor want a prime minister whose "great ambition in life is to go fishing" with the U.S. president (Trickey 2002). The reference was to Brian Mulroney's personal friendship with George Bush. Chretien also claimed that "nothing better illustrates the differences between the Liberals and the Conservatives than foreign policy. We want a very proud and independent Canada. We do not want to be a junior partner of the United States" (Todd 1993). In a Liberal foreign policy document released before the 1993 election, the party charged that it was necessary to redress what it labeled as Mulroney's record of favouring "political stability and his personal relations with successive U.S. presidents over a coherent policy of promoting Canadian interests" (Todd 1993). In 1997, in a candid comment on the balancing act between the political usefulness of anti-American rhetoric and Canada's national interest in keeping American 110 administrations mostly friendly, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told Belgium's Prime Minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene, "I like to stand up to the Americans. It's popular." The remarks, made at the 1997 NATO expansion conference in Madrid, were given when Chretien believed his microphone to be off. The prime minister continued and gave the example of Cuba, where he opposed tighter U.S. sanctions: "I was the first one to stand up. And people like that." But he added the caveat that, "you have to be very careful because [the Americans are] our friends" (Rempel 2006). In 1998, Lloyd Axworthy, now Foreign Affairs Minister, defended himself against the charge he was anti-American. In his denial, however, he again painted the former Conservative government as too pro-American: "Maybe it's that with the previous government, they [the U.S.] were used to the 'ready, aye ready' response. The problem I always had with Mulroney was that everything that came out of Washington was right" (Trickey 1998). In 2003, Axworthy stoked latent survivalist fears by asserting the U.S. could gain control of Canada's military budget if it cooperated on missile defence. "Once you get tied into that, you surrender your ability to have a command and control system for your own military. At that point, you're really part of their (Washington's) military machine," (Sudbury Star 2003). In the 2003 Liberal leadership, Axworthy's colleague on the left of the party, one time cabinet minister Sheila Copps, argued her position was to be "in favour of a sovereign Canadian military and a sovereign Canadian foreign policy—where our decisions are not tied to those of the United States," (Panetta 2003). One-time Liberal Foreign Affairs critic, Paul Martin, later Finance Minister and then Prime Minister, was another high-profile example of the tendency of Liberal party Ill leaders to straddle and use negative rhetoric about the United States when politically advantageous—and this despite previous comments by Martin that cautioned against such discourse. In 2002, Martin told students in Kingston that the Canadian government should improve its relations with the United States and stop being "shrinking violets" on the world stage. "We have to manage relations much better," said Martin (Aubry 2002b). In April 2004, with Martin now the Prime Minister and several months before an election he would soon call and just before a summit with U.S. President Bush, Martin told media assembled in Washington D.C. that "we're not looking to the Americans to defend the northern half of North America. We will defend ourselves and we're not going to ask anybody else to do it for us" (Delacourt and Harper 2004). More critical comments of the United States were in evidence with higher political stakes. In 2005, with Martin now in a minority position in Parliament, the Prime Minister made a comment rich with Canadian literary symbolism, given Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid's Tale, an apocalyptic account of an America republic captured by fundamentalists. (It's not an uncommon Canadian reference in its own right as a possible or already-arrived outcome in the United States). Martin declared that Canada was no country's "handmaiden" (The Record 2005). In the midst of the 2005-06 election campaign, and speaking from Montreal, Martin again played on historic Canadian fears of absorption into the American policy orbit. Canada needs and has an independent foreign policy. I will not allow the foreign policy of this country, with our unique values, to be decided anywhere else but in Ottawa. It will not be decided in Washington and Stephen Harper better understand that (Kennedy et al 2006). The Liberal strategy of linking Harper and Bush continued after the Liberals' 2006 election defeat. In response to Prime Minister Harper's planned visits to Latin 112 America in July 2007, Liberal Foreign Affairs critic Ujjal Dosanjh argued that "Mr. Harper has essentially acted as a messenger boy for Bush" (Whittington 2007). In September 2007, the new Liberal leader, Stephane Dion, characterized Harper's foreign policy as "mediocre, unambitious, American-driven and out of touch with public sentiment in this country" (Toronto Star 2007a). Conservative parties On matters of foreign policy, right-of-centre parties are generally less prone to engage in rhetorical admonitions of the U.S. or its leaders for domestic political gain. However, to blunt the charge of being either too sympathetic to American policy, if not themselves "American" in policy, ideology, and preference, responses from conservative parties and their leaders include verbal counter-attacks which call into question whether opponents picked the proper battles with Americans. In some instances, conservative leaders throw back the same charge at their critics—their political opponent is acting "American." At other times, right-of-centre leaders frankly acknowledge they will support an ally on selected matters. Thus in 1983, after the U.S. invasion of Grenada, Brian Mulroney, then opposition leader, informed a fundraising dinner in Toronto he would have supported the invasion had he been in power. "If this means giving our friends the benefit of the doubt from time to time, so be it, I'm going to do it" (Globe and Mail 1983). Mulroney's desire to maintain good relations with the United States while heeding the political reality of anti-American sentiment in Canada was evident after he took office in 1984; the new prime minister noted that under Pierre Trudeau, "our largest trading partner, friend and ally" was treated like an enemy and "barraged . .. with insults, 113 and never [given] the benefit of the doubt." Tellingly, Mulroney felt it necessary to add a caveat before finishing his criticism of U.S. critics: "All I'm saying is that we will defend Canadian autonomy and integrity at all times and in all circumstances, but that doesn't mean that we have to harass and heap vitriol on our neighbour." While Mulroney argued that he would risk U.S. wrath if taking an independent stand was determined to be in the Canadian interest, he argued that "flag waving and the nonsense did nothing for Canadian jobs, did nothing for Canadian strength, did nothing for our role in the world, or very little" {Globe and Mail 1984b). That same year, Mulroney made it clear that he would take a different path than the one followed by Trudeau. In a 1984 interview with Wall Street Journal, Mulroney told the New York-based financial newspaper that "good relations, super relations with the United States will be the cornerstone of our foreign policy." It was a sentiment later backed up by External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, who said that "Canada must pursue its foreign policy within the confines of its alliances.. .That means that there is some limitation on our independent action" (Cruickshank 1990). While Mulroney asserted a closer relationship with the Americans was in Canada's national interest and a matter of political maturity, he felt the need to rebut charges that Canadian foreign policy merely "aped" U.S. varieties. The Prime Minister noted the variety of instances where Canada's policy diverged from that of the Americans. In a 1986 MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (PBS) interview, Mulroney said Canada could not support U.S. intervention in Nicaragua (Cohn 1986b). In 1988, the Mulroney government refused to follow the U.S. lead and upgrade its relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization (Harper 1988). Almost a decade 114 later, in 1997, the newest Progressive Conservative leader also felt a need to distance his party from the Americans on foreign policy. Leader Jean Charest noted his opposition Helms-Burton legislation on Cuba (Handelman 1997). In 1998, with the Tories out of power for five years, Senator Marjory LeBreton displayed the right-of-centre approach in an ongoing debate over their foreign policy record while in government. On the accusation that small or large-c conservatives were too close to Americans on foreign policy, LeBreton pointed out where the Tories differed with the Americans during the Mulroney period in power; she offered 1984-93 Conservative policies on South Africa, Central America, and the Rio Summit on the Environment. LaBreton also fired back at the centre-right's political opponents and noted where governing Liberals either followed U.S. policy themselves and/or displayed less than a purist commitment to human rights over trade. She noted Jean Chretien's visits to Indonesia and China despite their human rights atrocities in 1975 and 1989 respectively. LeBreton recounted how Chretien allowed Indonesian security forces free reign during a 1997 Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vancouver. The Senator summarized and defended the Mulroney years in this manner: [T]he Chretien foreign policy seems to hinge on a two-part shell game directed by Mr. Axworthy. One is Mr. Axworthy thumbing his nose at the United States for domestic consumption, and the other is money. It is Mr. Axworthy who hides behind a moral facade in foreign policy, while in substance pursuing pecuniary international objectives and cynical self-interest (LeBreton 1998). In a 2002 television interview, Mulroney reaffirmed his policy differences with the Americans during his time in power and noted he disagreed with former U.S. president Ronald Reagan on some "foreign policy dearest to his [Reagan's] heart," such 115 as South Africa, Cuba, Central America and the Star Wars defence initiative, without damaging U.S. Canada relations. And why? Because we didn't showboat about it. We didn't say "we're going to go down" and tell [Americans] "you're a bunch of nitwits and we're going to show you how to, how to do this. We're going to kick you in the shins." We're going to get a cheap thrill back home in Canada by convincing people how virile we are by kicking sand in the Americans' face and trying to humiliate them. If you do that, you go nowhere (Vienneau 2002). In 2003 in a speech at a Progressive Conservative leadership convention which would see Peter Mackay soon lead the party, Mulroney asserted that his foreign policy had been far more internationalist than that of the Liberals. Mulroney complimented his former External Affairs minister, outgoing party leader Joe Clark, and asked the crowd to "compare the Clark record with the Liberal withdrawal from the world." Mulroney remarked that Clark helped bring Canada into the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, the Organization of American States, the acid rain treaty with the United States and La Francophonie, and led international support for Nelson Mandela in the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Mulroney asserted Chretien weakened the military and devastated Canada's peacekeeping capacity (Fraser 2003). The other conservative party in existence at the turn of the millennium, the Alliance, also countered charges from their critics that they were too pro-American with a similar two-pronged strategy: first, critics pressed Americans on the wrong issues, and second, the paths prescribed by the critics would actually make Canada more dependent on American power. In 2002, Alliance leader Stephen Harper argued that the Liberal government had it backwards, that they should have been more supportive of Americans on defence and foreign relations but more willing to stand up to the Americans on trade matters 116 (Galloway 2002). Harper also employed a novel rhetorical strategy and turned the fear of American influence on its head when he argued that budget cuts to the military at home made Canada more and not less dependent on the United States (Harper 2002). The exception to the rule of how conservative leaders generally spoke about the United States was Joe Clark. In 2007, and in contrast to his earlier criticism of Lloyd Axworthy's reflexive disdain for the U.S., Clark echoed Axworthy. The former prime minister argued that the Harper government had become too close to the United States at the expense of Canada's influence in the rest of the world. Clark, critical of the Reform and Alliance parties while he was leader of the Progressive Conservative party, and opposed to the merger of the Alliance and P.C.'s, was publicly critical of the Harper government on the matter of U.S.-Canada relations. In contrast to his own criticism of former Liberal governments, Clark now portrayed the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals as having been broadly similar in their approach to foreign policy: "I believe Mr. Harper and his colleagues are moving away from the central elements of the foreign policy that has been a strength of Canada under both Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments" {Calgary Herald 2007). As proof, Clark alleged the "remarkable closeness" of the Conservative government to U.S. foreign policy, including a seeming absence of priorities for the developing world, deterioration in Canada-China relations, an erosion of the status of Canada's foreign service, and the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. The comments were similar to 1980s and 1990s era comments from the former Liberal foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, about both Mulroney and Clark. Was Clark correct? It's debatable. The Harper government is not as openly friendly with the second Bush administration as the Mulroney government - the 117 government of which Clark was part - was with the first Bush administration or with Ronald Reagan's White House. Nor has Harper been as personally "chummy" with the younger Bush as Mulroney was with Reagan and the senior Bush. But Harper has taken an approach more consistent with deliberation. He informed senior staff in 2006 in the department of Foreign Affairs that historic Canadian positions would not necessarily be continued because they were considered to be historic Canadian positions. When a career civil servant, Peter Harder, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, began to explain a multilateral issue with the words "The longstanding Canadian position..." the Prime Minister reportedly interrupted to say "Stop right there. We are going to look at every issue on its merits" (Fraser 2006). Others Fear of Canadian imitation of American initiatives is also a constant among many in Canada's media, think tanks and academia. A constant theme is the notion of Canada as an "honest broker," as independent, or even as a mediator as having been "lost." In 1985, Jeffrey Simpson claimed Canada's ostensible mediator role had disappeared after the "Shamrock Summit," where Ronald Reagan and Brian Mulroney were openly cordial, including singing Irish songs for the cameras. Simpson wrote the price paid for such a summit was "the diminution of independence in Canadian foreign policy" (Simpson, 1985). In 1987, the Council of Canadians labeled a federal government White Paper on defence policy as "too American-directed" (MacKenzie 1987). A 1988 Globe and Mail profile on the Conservative government's foreign policy complimented Prime Minister Mulroney's position on South Africa and the appointment of New Democrat Stephen Lewis as Canada's representative to the United Nations. But the 118 newspaper critiqued the Conservative leader as ostensibly possessing a "dated U.S.-style Cold War tone" (Montgomery, 1988). Meanwhile, NDP and Liberal defence critics criticized the planned Tory purchase of submarines for the military as part of "aggressive American policy of seeking to intercept Soviet submarines in their home waters" (Mackenzie 1987). When federal Conservatives created the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development and later even appointed partisan opponent former New Democrat leader Ed Broadbent as president, the fear of American imitation continued. Despite Mulroney's transparent desire to placate Canada's left on foreign policy with such appointments, this newspaper account from 1990 notes the initial trepidation from some on what the Conservative-created government institute might turn into: The cynicism that surrounded the Progressive Conservative government's announcement, nearly four years ago, of its intention to set up the centre has dissipated. The fear, initially, was that a Tory institution, created under a prime minister who admired a right-wing U.S. president, would be modeled on U.S. agencies that promoted Ronald Reagan's notion of "freedom fighters"—groups funded by the CIA and functioning as death squads in Latin America, collaborating with the long arm of American foreign policy (Steed 1990). On occasion, even foreign emissaries and leaders recognized the utility of a well- placed reference that might paint a Canadian government as too pro-U.S. In 1986, the Palestine Liberation Organization lobbied for diplomatic recognition in Canada and when it was not forthcoming, the PLO's deputy commander, Abu Jihad, told Southam News, "We hope they (the Canadians) can analyze and study the facts in the Middle East and act accordingly and not see the facts through the eyes of the U.S. and the spectacles of (former U.S. Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger" (Travers 1986). In 2001, after the Liberal government pushed for human rights improvements in Cuba, Fidel Castro gave a 119 speech in which he castigated Prime Minister Jean Chretien and accused him of being a "tool" of U.S. foreign policy {Spectator 2006). Gulf War commentary In the lead-up to the first Gulf War, media commentary routinely engaged in the discourse of American comparisons. The United Nations had not yet sanctioned a multilateral invasion force to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait and Prime Minister Mulroney did commit Canadian troops to the coalition before an official UN resolution in November. The editorial side of the Toronto Star thought the Conservative government's action proved "how far the Mulroney cabinet is willing to go in letting the U.S. hijack Canadian foreign policy" (Toronto Star 1990). In a front-page column in the same newspaper emblazoned with the headline "Mulroney thinks American on most foreign policy issues," Richard Gwyn wrote that Canadian foreign policy had become a "mirror image" of the American variety except when specifically Canadian interests were at stake. Gwyn's note that the Mulroney government differed from the Americans where specific interests were at stake would seem to undercut his main assertion; after all, there is little to be gained by spending international political capital on matters not in the national interest. Nevertheless, in a tenuous connection, Gwyn argued the evidence for such "mirroring" (in addition to the prime minister's decision to send three ships to the Gulf) was found in Mulroney's recent refusal to send money to the Soviet Union. The Prime Minister's stated reason - that the Soviets still subsidized Cuba and Vietnam - was for Gwyn, "mean" and evidence that Canada was "tagging along behind the Americans" (Gwyn 1990). On the same matter, columnist Don McGillivray argued that "the danger 120 under Mulroney is that Canada has nothing but a me-too foreign policy" (McGillivray 1990). Mulroney, in what may be labeled a third conservative strategy of dealing with accusation of being too close to the American colossus - remind critics of Canadian history - said his decision was within Canada's historic approach, citing the tradition of Vimy Ridge and Dieppe {Edmonton Journal 1990). The 1993 change of guard After the Liberal election win in 1993, the Toronto Star editorialized that the last time Jean Chretien had responsibility for foreign policy in 1984 was under Pierre Trudeau. The newspaper welcomed the restored control, given that "nine years of Tory kowtowing to Washington has diminished Ottawa's independent outlook on the world" (Toronto Star 1993). Lawrence Martin wrote that "foreign policy under Mulroney hawkishly twinned Washington's to a degree unseen in Canadian history" (Lawrence Martin 1993). Liberals did not entirely escape the criticism that they were too close to the United States. A Star columnist surveyed the Liberals in 1994 and labeled their foreign policy "supine." Carol Goar noted they'd missed several opportunities to "stand up to the Americans." Goar produced a laundry list of such opportunities where action or inaction was to her disliking, including the sale of a Canadian textbook publisher to the Americans, keeping the North American Free Trade Agreement unchanged, allowing the U.S. to test missiles over the Beaufort Sea, Chretien's change of position on NATO air strikes in Bosnia, and Canada's decision to stay in the U.S. space station project (Goar 1994). 121 In 1995, the Toronto Star's editorial board repeated its 1993 charge against the Conservatives with a contrast to the Liberals and Jean Chretien. The Star argued the latter's approach was preferable, "as opposed to Brian Mulroney's policy of taking dictation from the American president" (Toronto Star 1995b). Former Tory strategist Dalton Camp was not as gentle with the Liberals. Writing that same year, Camp said the NATO mission in Bosnia was not "Canada's line of work." He blamed Canada's participation on "our genuflective response to every invitation to support American foreign policy." Camp thought Chretien was "only about to do what his predecessor, Brian Mulroney, did nearly to a fault." Camp continued: NATO participation only meant that "it will be run by our Great Neighbor, the Americans" (Camp 1995a). Lawrence Martin, a columnist with various Canadian newspapers over the years, and author of a 1993 book entitled Pledge of Allegiance: The Americanization of Canada in the Mulroney Years, regularly used American comparisons as a cudgel against government policy he disliked. In 1984, Martin argued that in contrast to Brian Mulroney, past Canadian prime ministers had "often shown a gutsy willingness to speak out against the presidents, clamoring for a more Canadian-styled conciliatory approach." Martin gave examples of the "peace mission of Mr. Trudeau, the Pearson stop-the- bombing speech, the keep-your-nuclear-weapons-out-of-here tirades of Mr. Diefenbaker," "early warnings on the Southeast Asia quagmire from Louis St. Laurent to Dwight D. Eisenhower" and St. Laurent's "pressure on Ike to get out of Korea" (Lawrence Martin 1984). Nine years later, Martin argued Mulroney's foreign legacy pleased the Americans, especially Republicans who "delighted in Brian Mulroney's repudiation of Canadian nationalism." Martin asserted proof was in the dismantling of the National Energy Policy and the Foreign Investment Review Agency and securing the 1988 Free Trade Agreement (Lawrence Martin 1993). In 1999, the Toronto Star described a new Reform party foreign policy document, Canada and the Millennium, as a "feckless, Washington-centric vision [which] claims to be realpolitik" and "envisages Canada creeping into 2000 with our head held low, tugging a forelock to American power, and cautious about not stepping in anything nasty" (1999c). That same year, in a rare exception, the Globe and Mail noted in an essay that contra many pundits and editorial pages, that Canada had become less like the United States. The Globe and Mail noted Canada's continuing opposition to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba (as well as American attempts to strengthen it) and argued that it was "unlikely that Canada will ever adopt American-style trade embargoes" (Globe and Mail 1999). Similar discourse in the new century: Afghanistan and Iraq Similar American references showed up in Canadian discourse in the new millennium, this time over Afghanistan and Iraq. In a paragraph reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's portrayal of her political foes as part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy, the left- leaning Canadian Dimension magazine argued in 2003 that a "fierce campaign" was waged in Canada to support the U.S. position on Iraq by: Stephen Harper and his "American" Alliance—together with the monolithically pro-war media led by the "American" Post, the gushing Friends of America and their full-page ads and rallies, Imperial America's other chums Don Cherry, Allan Gotlieb and Tom Aquino (sic)(Canadian Dimension 2003). Perhaps forgetting the long-established New Democrat foreign policy positions espoused by past NDP leaders Broadbent, McLaughlin and McDonough, James Travers at the Toronto Star thought the 2003 ascension of Jack Layton as NDP leader would be good for party supporters "concerned about everything from the Liberal drift toward neo- conservatism to Canada's support for bellicose U.S. foreign policy" (Travers 2003). In 2004, Waterloo political scientist Thomas Hueglin asserted that Canadians preferred the United Nations to U.S.-led efforts, given the former was a "better insurance policy." Huegelin argued that while "the Liberal government of Martin seems to understand this," it was unclear whether Stephen Harper did. Huegelin asserted that the "foreign policy concept of the former Alliance party seemed to be that all that is American is good" (Huegelin 2004). In a column entitled "Harper's plan to Americanize Canada," the Toronto Star's editorial page emeritus, Haroon Siddiqui, accused Conservative leader Stephen Harper and previous Alliance leader Stockwell Day of turning away from Canada's "traditional role as a neutral peace-broker" as regards Israel. Siddiqui alleged that "Harper's pro- Americanism is ideological, even theological," a charge often also leveled against the American president, and whom the columnist often linked with conservatives in Canada (Siddiqui 2004). It was a two-for-one critique of Harper: claim that the Conservative leader had reversed Canadian policy on Israel, and suggest Harper was somehow influenced by end-time theology a la accusations against George Bush. Two years later, Siddiqui also tied the unpopular Iraq War to the new Conservative Prime Minister. In 2006, Siddiqui wrote of the "great divide" between the U.S. and the rest of the world and between, "those Americans and Canadians, like 124 Stephen Harper, who support George W. Bush's geopolitics and those who don't, namely, the majority of Americans and Canadians." Siddiqui argued that even rhetorical similarities were evidence of Harper's Americanization and constituted a "Bushification" of Canada (Siddiqui 2006). This narrative - if the Canadian military was involved in a country where Americans forces were also present, it must mean the Prime Minister gave the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the keys to 24 Sussex - was popular. In an essay against Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, the Canadian Dimension argued that Canada's armed forces served as a "proxy" for the United States where the latter might not be accepted, including on peacekeeping missions (Canadian Dimension 2006). Similarly, Paul Heinbecker, a one-time foreign policy adviser to Jean Chretien and Brian Mulroney, thought the decision to send troops to Afghanistan identified Canada with American foreign policy. He wrote that sending troops to Kandahar was the result of "pleasing the Americans and earning our spurs" (Schiller 2006). When in 2006 the Canadian Armed Forces banned the media from filming coffins returning from Afghanistan to its air force base in Trenton, Ontario, the Toronto Star editorialized that Prime Minister Harper had adopted "American-style" tactics (Campion- Smith 2006b). In its 2006 endorsement of the Liberals for re-election, the Toronto Star editorial board noted its endorsement came in part from the fear of a Canada governed by a party which it surmised was too pro-American. It was a classic restatement of Atwood's survivalist narrative in modern rhetoric: Already Harper is promising a more U.S.-oriented foreign policy, threatening to pull out of the Kyoto accord and considering joining missile defence. He wants a U.S.-style two-chamber Parliament, in which the Commons would have a more 125 powerful legislative rival in an elected Senate. And, like U.S. conservatives, Harper favours a less progressive Supreme Court... (Toronto Star 2006a). Not all references to the United States on foreign policy assumed a reflexive disdain. Toronto Star columnist Richard Gwyn, usually critical of Canadian governments he thought too closely aligned with the U.S., took Lloyd Axworthy to task in 2003 on the subject of American relations. Gwyn reviewed the former Foreign Minister's memoirs on Canadian foreign policy in this manner: It's therefore at times hard not to get exceedingly exasperated with Axworthy. For extended periods, his feet simply don't touch the ground. He harbours an ill- concealed anti-Americanism, constantly denouncing its militarism while never acknowledging that, as no one else, or indeed all the rest combined not could have done, that its military capability ended the slaughter in Bosnia and the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo—and further, as an additional side benefit, protects Canada. For free. His constantly chanted mantra - Canadian foreign policy good; U.S bad - feeds our natural inclination to smugness, and plays blatantly to the gallery (Gwyn 2003). Writing in 2004, historian Jack Granatstein, in an admitted reversal of an earlier, more critical stance of Americans, wrote that the view of Canada as mostly a peacekeeping nation ignored large portions of our past and present history. In response to columns from New Democrat leader Jack Layton and Alexa McDonough, Granatstein accused the pair of "overt and shrill anti-Americanism." Moreover, Granatstein asserted that the politicians' references to un-Canadian policies "smacks of nothing less than the McCarthyite witch hunts of the 1950s for those unfortunates whose thoughts and actions someone deemed 'un-American'" (Granatstein 2004). Granatstein had a point: There was delicious and unconscious irony in how two Canadian politicians aped tactics from a 1950s-era American Republican senator to rhetorically try to undermine historic Canadian foreign policy. But Granatstein himself became the target of an assertion that he was too sympathetic to Americans. In reviewing 126 Granatstein's 2004 book on the Canadian military, an Edmonton Journal editorial board member argued historian "Granatstein's pro-American stance is clear from the outset, as is his disdain for any independent policy (Pratt 2004). Discourse, deliberation, and policy References to the United States, even oppositional ones, are not anti-American by virtue of being oppositional. That would be an errant conclusion to draw from the discourse. Opposition to U.S. policy can be grounded in situational disagreements. In the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003, any argument that committing Canadian troops would be a mistake as the Canadian Armed Forces would be stretched too thin, or that the U.S. would make a mistake by diverting needed attention away from Afghanistan and the developing nuclear problems in Iran and North Korea, are examples of disagreements without being anti-American. So too Canadian (and plenty of American) criticism in the 1960s that U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a strategic mistake, an argument given by leading realists of the time including Hans Morgenthau. Similarly, to use an example from another policy sphere, an argument that Canada should not adopt the American approach on guns (where guns are lightly regulated) given Canada has no equivalent of the U.S. Second Amendment is not an anti-American position; it is a mere statement of an un-American constitutional reality in Canada. One might even argue that Byers' arguments on why Canada should withdraw from Afghanistan are examples of un-American assertions as opposed to anti-American sentiments, except that ultimately his attempt fails because it is tied the need to differentiate for the sake of differentiation, which betrays the essential "anti" position inherent in his analysis. 127 The anti-Americanism arrives with the generalities and the snubs, whether Diefenbaker's refusal to cooperate in 1962 over the Cuban Missile crisis, or Dalton Camp's claim that Bosnia was not Canada's line of work, just because it was a NATO mission with the U.S. providing most of the heavy lifting as it inevitably does given it has the largest and best-funded military in the alliance. The assumed political need to differentiate domestic foreign policy from American policy is clear in political discourse across the spectrum. Conservative parties reveal this impulse to justify their policy as independent of the Americans even if the policy same could be justified as historically Canadian or in Canada's interest, or when they make much noise about protecting Canada's Arctic from a NATO ally. Liberal and left-of-centre actors routinely make U.S. references on matters of military intervention on Iraq, some on Afghanistan, but then call for Canadian and American intervention in Sudan or Lebanon when the reality on the ground would be little different between any of the four examples. The result is that among the major parties Canada's foreign policy discourse is drenched in American references. Lastly, did discourse influence policy? With the caveat that straight cause-and- effect correlations are difficult to establish, one might theorize that the reason Conservatives talk loudly (but carry a small stick) on Arctic sovereignty is precisely because they are concerned that conservative-leaning politicians are the ones most likely to be tarred as too close to Americans. So they over-emphasize what is a minor policy, a Potemkin policy, and one that could never ultimately be robustly defended in the event that Americans indeed did want to claim the Arctic and were prepared to do so with force. Thus, the discourse may have an effect upon policies enacted by Conservative governments because they are the most vulnerable to the effects produced by the anti- Americanism in the discourse. The less a politician or party is to assumed to have natural or secret sympathies for the United States, the less that political actor may need to worry about the discourse, and the less effect it may have upon his or her policies. The Courts and Judicial Appointment Reform Unlike some countries where justices may be elected at some level (the United States) or part of the civil service concerned with the administration of justice before an appointment (France), Canada's judges are appointed from the ranks of practicing lawyers. Peter McCormick notes that in the past, "that was all there was to it," though for much of Canada's history, provincial judges, "magistrates," were not even required to be lawyers (1994, 105); such judges also served at the pleasure of the government of the day. McCormick notes that for provincial and federal appointees alike, patronage was assumed, open, "and accepted as a matter of course by both government and opposition, and accepted without visible revulsion by the politically concerned public" (105). McCormick asserts that since the 1960s, that casual acceptance of patronage changed and it became increasingly common for provincial governments to move to a more impartial selection process; judges were also required to have five to ten years experience in the profession before their appointment. Presently, some provinces have committees comprised of judges, lawyers, and lay-persons to screen potential judges; in others, the attorney general conducts the initial recruitment and then refers his or her candidate to an independent body for assessment (Morton 2002,118). McCormick observes that the reforms have not ended patronage—"Conservative governments will 129 still prefer to appoint lawyers who supported that party, and Liberal governments, lawyers who supported them" (McCormick 1994, 106). At the level of federal appointments, the federal Cabinet appoints justices on the advice provided by the Minister of Justice, who in turn relies on names provided by the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs, a result of 1988 reforms to the appointment process. The commissioner's role is significant, to understate the matter. As F.L Morton writes, "The commissioner solicits suggestions from a nationwide network of contacts. Judges, bar associations, law schools, members of Parliament, and provincial office holders are all encouraged to recommend individuals for judicial appointment (Morton 2002,117). For the Supreme Court of Canada, McCormick asserted in 1994 that appointments to the highest court were "ironically.. .the most open and 'freewheeling' of the appointment processes" (McCormick 1994,106). There, the Prime Minister has sole authority to appoint a Supreme Court justice, and select the Chief Justice. The only formal requirements include that he or she be a practicing lawyer and that the selection fit into the necessary balance of regional appointments. In 2006, the new Conservative government led by Stephen Harper introduced a minor change: a parliamentary committee was allowed to spend three hours to question, though not vet, a Supreme Court nominee. Is the process of appointing judges politicized and partisan? Opinions vary. McCormick argues this freedom and flexibility has not been seriously abused (1994, 107). He argues that patronage is an inherent part of the judicial selection process: "The history of judicial appointment in Canada is the history of political patronage" (108). McCormick asserts patronage is not a negative, necessary evil "but an essential and functional part of the way the system operates" (108). While McCormick is generally supportive of the status quo and unconcerned about patronage, he does wonder aloud about the question of judicial accountability. He queries, "Who is going to protect us from the judges?" (116). Morton asserts ideological partisanship is now more prevalent than mere political patronage. Morton points to how Ontario's early 1990s NDP government replaced professor Peter Russell as head of the Ontario Judicial Appointments Advisory Committee with feminist activist Judy Rebick, as one example (Morton 2002,119). Morton asserts patronage has declined in importance as a factor in the appointment of Supreme Court appointments but that group affiliation (i.e., belonging to the right gender or ethnicity) and ideological affiliation has increased in importance (120). The question of the Charter's influence has been the subject of debate. Christopher Manfredi (2001, ix) argues the growth injudicial power has been driven by the Charter and that impact has been noticeable. Manfredi points out that between 1984, when the first Charter decision was handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada, and 2001 when the second edition of his book Judicial Power and the Charter was released, over 350 judgments concerning Charter provisions were handed down, including crucial decisions in the areas of equality rights, democratic rights and Aboriginal rights. Others, including several Supreme Court of Canada justices, as will be noted in the next chapter, have argued the very existence of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms compels the court to be activist, i.e., to strike down laws where they conflict with the Charter. Manfredi, who argues that a tension exists between liberal constitutionalism and judicial review, asserts 131 the latter has occurred too often and without sufficient justification and that judicial supremacy has overtaken constitutional supremacy, especially with the legitimacy of the "notwithstanding" clause (Section 33) increasingly called into question. The downgrading of the notwithstanding clause, at least by some, has continued since 2001. In the 2005-06 election campaign, Prime Minister Paul Martin promised to permanently remove the federal government's ability to use the notwithstanding clause (Greenaway and McCabe 2006). Martin's promise fell flat in that campaign and was made irrelevant by his election loss. But there was some irony in a promise to remove a distinctively Canadian mechanism to overrule the courts. In contrast, any suggested reform to how Canadian justices are appointed to the bench results in regular references to the United States in the discourse despite, as will be seen in the next chapter, the very real influence of United States legal and constitutional thinking in the creation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There are regular references to the former - concern over possible Americanization of the judicial selection process - but little concern over the latter, to the actual Americanization of Canada's constitution with the introduction of the Charter and its subsequent effect upon judicial power, a point dealt with in more detail in chapter 5. The discourse In terms of the discourse and partisan positions on judicial reform, there were exceptions to the rule that liberal and left-of-centre parties follow on health care, foreign affairs or economic matters, i.e., a tendency to reference the United States as a reason not to adopt a particular policy. Unlike foreign policy, where references to the United States often and predictably follow partisan hues, U.S. references to court reform occasionally 132 reveal a willingness to dispense with the standard rhetoric. However, the trend to label proposals to reform the appointment process as "American" still remains prominent in the discourse, even if response is not absolutely predictable according to party affiliation. Thus, in a reversal of the usual pattern in Canadian discourse where liberal or left- of-centre politicians and media are more skeptical of American-influenced judicial reforms, Liberal Senate Leader Royce Firth argued there was little to fear from such hearings. Firth thought the American example of the highly-charged Clarence Thomas hearing in 1991 was an anomaly. Firth asserted that reform was preferable to the danger of parliamentary majorities continuing to act as a four or five-year "dictatorship" (Bryden 1991). In 2002, Member of Parliament Bill Blaikie used an American reference and did so in a rare New Democrat endorsement of an American process. While disagreeing with the preference of a poll which showed two-thirds of Canadians desired elected judges, Blaikie suggested U.S.-style confirmation hearings would give judges an opportunity to "give an account of their view of the world so people have some notion of what they're getting" (Chwialkowska 2002). Exceptions aside, more predictable voices of consistency vis-a-vis the American empire showed up in the discourse. In 1991, Constitutional Affairs Minister Joe Clark commented on possible reforms to the appointment process forjudges and said safeguards would need to be built in so as to avoid American-style hearings (Bryden 1991). In 1999, a Toronto Star editorial queried, "Why move to an American-style confirmation system when Canada's Supreme Court has been free of the controversy and partisan politics that have characterized the U.S. Supreme Court?" The editorial was a response to the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), which argued for an 133 overhaul of the appointment process, including either an independent nominating committee to recommend Supreme Court judges, or parliamentary committee hearings to confirm judicial appointments. In its objection, the Star wrote that Canada's selection process has "been free of the controversy and partisan politics that have characterized the U.S. Supreme Court" {Toronto Star 1999a). The Star appeared not to consider the possibility that previous court appointments had been partisan, but just not public. In 2002, the Star characterized any change to the appointment process as "demands for reform that hinge on Parliament holding bruising American-style public hearings" {Toronto Star 2002). The Star, a reliable source of American references over the years, revisited the issue again in 2004 in columns from two writers. David Olive claimed Harper's reforms amounted to "a U.S.-style politicization of the selection process" (Olive 2004). Harron Siddiqui was also critical of possible reforms to the judiciary. "There's also a whiff of Americana to Harper's proposed politicization of the judiciary" (Siddiqui 2004). Others in public life also opposed the reforms with fear of Americanization always the stated reason. William Johnson, president of the Canadian Bar Association, argued in 2004 for a more open process but not confirmation hearings. He cited the country south of the border: At the end of the day, we say public scrutiny in the American-style is wrong- headed. It risks undermining the independence of the judiciary, tarring a particular nominee with a political stripe, arguable, in the eyes and minds of the public and also discouraging nominees from running the gauntlet, so to speak (Mulgrew 2004). David Taras, a University of Calgary political scientist, expressed concern over Stephen Harper's statement that he wanted judges "committed to understanding the role 134 of the judiciary, which is to interpret and apply the law, not to rewrite it." Taras alleged Harper's comment "smacks of American-style judicial politics" (Brown 2004). In early 2006, when the new Conservative government allowed a parliamentary committee to take three hours to question, though not vet, a Supreme Court nominee, views of this new attempt at transparency were mixed. Liberal Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant argued hearings would "Americanize and politicize" the judicial system. Irwin Cotler, the former federal Justice Minister in the Paul Martin government, disagreed: "It's not an American-style hearing in the sense that this committee doesn't have the veto power" (Galloway and Blackwell 2006). Jamie Cameron, a law professor at York University, supported the new process: "We seem to think that we'll behave the same way the Americans do when we borrow any of their processes" (Galloway and Blackwell 2006). The Toronto Star broached the topic and again referenced the United States. "Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems determined to plunge Canada's Supreme Court into an American-style circus of politicking, by letting Members of Parliament grill nominees before they are confirmed," wrote the Star's editorial board (Toronto Star 2006b). In dissent, one political scientist argued the critics had created a cartoonish interpretation of the proposals. University of Lethbridge political scientist Peter McCormick described the parliamentary review committee this way: "From a caricature of a U.S.-style legislative ratification.. .we have progressed to a caricature of a nomination commission" (Kopala 2006). 135 When in 2007, governing Conservatives proposed the inclusion of those with a police background on review committees for possible judicial nominees, Liberal leader Stephane Dion dealt the American card in his public response: "The Conservatives have set out on a divisive, American-style campaign to stack the bench" (Delacourt 2007). Constitutional scholar Peter Russell made a more detailed 10-point case against the proposed reforms but nevertheless argued that "the changes made by the Harper government in appointing the federal judiciary constitute a move to Americanize the Canadian judicial system without the checks and balances that operate at the U.S. federal level" (Russell 2007). Other legal reforms While any possible reform of even the hearing process to precede judicial appointments was tagged as American, other proposed changes to laws and punishments likewise attracted "Made in the USA" stickers from critics. In a discussion of the increasing tendency within Canada to sue, a Globe and Mail headline chalked it up to a "U.S.-style culture change" (Anderssen 1998). When in 2000, the Alliance party proposed reforms to the justice system, including lifetime jail for those convicted of two sexual crimes, Prime Minister Jean Chretien argued that a move toward an "American- style" approach to law and order would not work (Aubry et al 2000). On the West coast, on plans to dismantle the gun registry, the Vancouver Sun's Stephen Hume accused Prime Minister Harper of "American-style rhetoric and political opportunism" (Hume, 2006). Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, argued the "[Stephen Harper] government favours a U.S.-style approach to drug problems, which is to lock more people up and don't treat it as a health problem, treat it 136 as a criminal law problem of morality" (O'Neil 2006). The Ottawa Citizen's Dan Gardner, perhaps missing the link between reduced American crime rates and the means to such an end, argued in 2007 that the "great American crime drop is over. So why are conservative commentators still pointing to U.S.-style incarceration as the cure for the common criminal?" (Gardner 2007). Discourse, deliberation, and policy Discourse in this policy area revealed a difference in predictable partisan alignment on the matter of American references, though the deliberation was still peppered with references to "U.S.-style" or "American-style" forms of argumentation. As to any possible effect of discourse on policy, major policy shifts would have been unlikely and for two reasons. First, there is little evidence that the Progressive Conservative party under Brian Mulroney and the Liberal party under Jean Chretien were ideologically unhappy with the direction of the Supreme Court or other, lower courts. Had either government been dissatisfied, the possibility of using the "notwithstanding" clause (section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) existed and could have been used. Second, while modest reforms were introduced, in 1988 under Mulroney and in 2006 under Stephen Harper's new Conservative government, the latter was constrained by his party's minority status within Parliament. Even if Prime Minister Stephen Harper had wanted to enact more significant reforms, he could not do so, not if the Liberal leader had already served notice with comments on minor reforms that they constituted an "attack on the bench." Thus, the effect of discourse on policy is unclear. 137 Economic issues In general, three broad areas are covered in this section and were high-profile issues in the time period surveyed: the politics of trade policy, the politics of deficits, and the politics of tax reform and tax reduction. On trade policy, G. Bruce Doern and Brian Tomlin argue the national debate over free trade in the lead-up to the 1988 federal election vote exposed stark divisions in the political fabric of Canada, including and especially over the role of markets and governments in Canadian society: The political wars over the issue were fought under the banners of heaven and hell with supporters promising a nirvana of economic expansion and increased national self-assurance, and opponents warning of an inferno of socio-economic decay and continental absorption (Doern and Tomlin 1991, 3-4) The authors do not identify the struggle as one between the garrison-survivalist narrative, (a theme expanded on in chapter 6 as one way to interpret a variety of policy debates and discourse within Canada, especially those which possess negative references to the United States). But the political wars over free trade spoken of by Doern and Tomlin and the accompanying rhetoric were not new in Canadian history; they were very much in line with historical discourse in Canada. But political wars over trade were not the only battles to be fought on the economic front. Equally divisive and sharp were debates over federal and provincial deficits. For example, on the right, many suburban Ontario and Western Liberal Members of Parliament elected in 1993 were fiscally conservative, business-friendly, and supported Finance Minister Paul Martin's drive to reduce the deficit (Greenspon and Wilson-Smith 1996, 280). Reform leader Preston Manning, who pushed for control and elimination of the deficit, was able to advocate for that agenda and point out in late 2003 that the Liberal party never actually ran on a platform of reining in spending; it allowed Manning to pursue his agenda and also squeeze the Liberals from the right while inviting the left to take notice of the Liberal about-face (66). That happened and on more than one occasion. Lloyd Axworthy faced attacks from former allies when, after Jean Chretien chose him as his Human Resources and Development minister, formerly friendly social policy groups turned on him when budget cuts were enacted. Such groups dismissed Axworthy as a "stalking horse" for the department of Finance and what they argued was just another attack on social spending (146). In an odd pairing, economist John Crispo, normally associated with the right- leaning Fraser Institute, came to Axworthy's defense (184-185). Evidence of the sharpness of the 1990s debates was also in evidence when the director of one immigration group, the Canadian Council for Refugees, criticized Citizenship and Immigration Minister Sergio Marchi for introducing a $975 landing fee for immigrants. The fee was portrayed as the modern version of the racist 19th and early 20* -century "head tax" on Chinese immigrants who arrived in Canada. On the new $975 immigration fee, Nancy Worsfold from the Council shot at the Liberals in this manner: "I'd like to know whether Sergio Marchi's father could have paid that much money when he came to Canada" (281). With the perspective of the rearview mirror, Tim Lewis (2004) notes the "objectivist" consensus that developed in the 1990s over the deficit, the claim that it was objectively necessary to rein in the deficit and quickly. Lewis argues "'reality' does not speak for itself but is politically mediated" (7 and 11); he also cites "ideological change" or "embedded liberalism," (5) including neo-liberalism and globalization. These, he asserts, are different from classical liberalism, in which power was not so intimately intertwined with capital. Lewis also presents a unique view of demands for deficit elimination and tax reduction as representing parallel ends of a desire to control government in some fashion (163). He observes it was a desire exploited most successfully by the Reform party, conservative governments in Alberta and Ontario in the 1990s, and to a lesser degree, the federal Liberals. "Only Nixon Can Go to China," argues Lewis in the title of one chapter in his 2004 book, In the Long Run, We 're All Dead, the title taken from the famous John Maynard Keynes quip. Lewis notes how only the federal Liberals, who campaigned against Brian Mulroney's government and against his ostensible budget cuts, could later enact even deeper cuts. With Lewis' point about China in mind and with reference to the discourse noted here on regular accusations of American associations, the earlier over- the-top rhetoric from the Liberals including the chronic references to the U.S. served a purpose: it mostly inoculated the Liberals in advance from the same accusations and later allowed them room to dramatically reshape public finances without the sort of fear a Progressive Conservative prime minister such as Mulroney always had to contend with: being labeled American and suffering politically as a result. In very broad terms, the discourse on the deficit (or surplus) can be summarized as having three distinct phases. The first phase was between 1984 and 1993, which not coincidentally coincided with two Tory majorities in Parliament, and where Liberals and New Democrats dismissed concerns over budget deficits. The second phase occurred between 1993 and 1998, which might be neatly summarized as the "consensus" period where virtually all major actors, partisan and non-partisan alike, recognized the severe 140 downside of continual deficit spending; in this second phase, insofar as some actors were critical of harsh measures to shrink the annual deficit, they most often were quick to note they were not against deficit controls per se but disagreed with only a specific aspect of how the deficit was to be eliminated. The third phase, the post-1998 surplus years, revealed how with the deficit now vanquished, former critics of deficit control now touted surpluses as uniquely Canadian (and thus unlike mostly chronic American deficits). That phase revealed the how rhetoric on an economic matter and concurrent American references could shift according to the budgetary reality on the ground. The politics of tax reform, tax reduction, and tax increases (when they occurred) were equally rancorous. Geoffrey Hale notes the prevalence of arguments from "make the rich pay," to "run government more like a business," which illustrates the divide among Canadians. "These issues have often been the subject of vigorous debate and, occasionally, bitter political and ideological conflict since the mid-1960s," wrote Hale in 2001 (14). While he notes a broad consensus developed in the early 1990s on the need to control the federal and provincial deficits, taxation has never been the subject of such a broad consensus. As evidence, Hale notes even the design of the tax system reflects a hybrid model based on two fundamentally different concepts of taxation, "income-based" and "consumption-based." Hale points out how "[c]ompeting economic interests and political outlooks make it virtually impossible for government to impose either system in anything resembling its "pure" form without massive political conflict" (25). An example of such massive conflict occurred in the lead-up to the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax in 1991. Technically, the GST was a replacement tax for a hidden tax on 141 manufacturer's goods (the Federal Sales Tax), one which was detrimental to Canada's export capacity because it made goods more expensive. But, as Hale writes, few tax measures in recent years have evoked as much public anger or sustained dislike as the introduction of the GST (207). The discourse Beginning with trade matters, two elections have been fought in Canada on free trade with the United States, in 1911 and 1988. That contrasts with health care or constitutional matters, where although politicians and elite commentators often reference the United States, no federal elections has ever been contested over specific reforms and fears of possible Americanization. Similarly, foreign policy and legal/constitutional/court issues, while in the background, have never been the axis upon which partisan advantage in an election has pivoted one way or another. Matters of trade, budgets, taxation, unemployment and the economy in general do figure prominently in elections. This should be expected. Pocketbook issues affect most voters more directly than ethereal concerns over the proper foreign policy for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. Even health care is unlikely to have the same resonance unless it is tied to personal finances, such as the fear of a loss in health coverage if reforms were to be made in the manner critics suggest, i.e., if Canadians were de-insured by government action. It appears from the public utterances of politicians, commentators, and others that the "trick" to accepting or rejecting real or perceived American economic influence, i.e., free trade, is tied to whether voters think the policy will benefit them. In short, "Will free trade with the United States benefit or harm me?" is the simple, direct question a voter can and did ask in the 1988 free trade election. That question possessed additional resonance because it was tied to conceptions of the Canadian identity; fears of American absorption of all things Canadian were ratcheted up in a manner unknown since at least 1911, the last time free trade played such a prominent role in an election. That made it inevitable that references to the other country in the free trade agreement, the United States, would be plentiful. Pre-election rhetoric in the mid-1980s In a 1985 speech before a partisan crowd of 1,400 Liberals in Halifax, Liberal leader John Turner combined an appeal to the country's realistic economic interest - Canada needs foreign business investment - with the fear of going too far in any potential trade agreement with the Americans: "Canada may be open for business again but Canada is not for sale" (Globe and Mail 1985) said Turner. Given the context of the speech, the reference to the United States was clear. In 1986, Trudeau-era cabinet minister and future Liberal leader Jean Chretien asked rhetorically whether agreeing to free trade with the Americans would mean previous attempts to hold Canada together would prove to be irrelevant. The error of the Parti Quebecois was to hold a referendum. I wonder if the problem is now being presented exactly the other way: if the links that this Government is trying to create with the United States won't mean that we will become Americans without ever giving our consent (Fraser 1986). In an attempt to differentiate Liberal trade policy from the Progressive Conservative government's approach - a sought-after free trade deal with the United States - Turner tried the "more-is-more" approach on trade when he wrote in 1987, "The Liberal Party has always supported freer trade—yes, with the U.S., but also with the rest 143 of the world. We have also argued that the best way to do this is through a strong global trading system, not by negotiating the all-inclusive bilateral deal struck by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney" (Turner 1987). In early 1988, Turner asserted that his concern about a specific free trade deal with Americans was linked to Canada's sovereignty and survival. Speaking in Vancouver to a Liberal policy convention and in an awkward metaphor, Turner claimed free trade would make Canada the "stalking horse" of the United States. He also claimed such a pact would prevent Canada from pursuing independent policies on the Arctic, on nuclear arms and towards South Africa. "It is not a free trade deal; it's the Sale of Canada Act," claimed Turner (Vancouver Sun 1988). The Liberal leader elaborated and claimed that the U.S. was the winner in the then unsigned trade agreement. He said Canada failed to gain protection from American trade laws and thus would lose control over foreign investment and energy pricing. "This country was built east and west and north in a resistance to continental market forces," said Turner, who gave examples of where free trade would limit state intervention of the sort which had occurred in the past: Medicare, Air Canada, the Canadian National Railway, and public housing (Vancouver Sun 1988). Simplistic rhetoric: The U.S. and Canada, private and public, black and white In what would become the free trade election year, NDP leader Ed Broadbent delivered a speech in September 1988 characterized by the attending Toronto Star columnist as "a philosophical discourse on the virtues of a mix of public and private enterprise, as opposed to a U.S.-style free market economy" (Goar 1988). In another address, in the House of Commons in July 1988, Broadbent asserted that if the free trade agreement secured parliamentary approval, the harsh market forces 144 of the "American way" would overwhelm what he believed to be Canada's unique way of life. The NDP leader proclaimed that the NDP "decided that we don't have to become Americans in order to succeed." In an interview published the day before voters cast their ballots in November 1988, the New Democrat leader warned the free trade deal "will radically change Canadian life" and that free trade meant Canada would be ruled by the powers on Wall Street and in Washington (Walker 1988). Post-election and after the free trade treaty was signed, the Canadian political left would regularly cite the agreement and other conservative economic policies as evidence that Canada had become or was becoming Americanized. In a 1989 speech to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, New Democrat Stephen Lewis urged the defeat of the Conservatives in the next election over their now-passed free trade deal. Lewis told CUPE delegates that free trade, the goods and services tax, budget cuts to (the Crown Corporation) VIA Rail, privatization, and shrunken foreign aid budgets were evidence that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney wanted a Canada built on the free-market model of the United States {Toronto Star 1989). Lewis assumed certain economic policies were inherently Canadian or American; he also never elaborated on how the Americans, without a national sales tax, could be assigned blame for the GST. In 1993, Gerald Caplan, a former national secretary of the NDP, tied the Canadian prime minister to the American president when he wrote that "Reagan-Bush and Reagan- Mulroney" years left both the economy and the political left in ruins. It was, he claimed, ironic that the political left was now weakened, when in his opinion, those leaders had produced "the greatest economic mess in half a century" (Caplan 1993). 145 In the lead-up to the 1995 Quebec referendum on separation, NDP leader Alexa McDonough knitted government spending cuts, Quebec separation, and Americanization together in a previously unheard of political troika of cause-and-effect. Unlike the traditional view that some Quebecois desired to separate from Canada, McDonough seemed to argue that Quebec voters wanted to separate from the United States, i.e., a Canada that was in the process of becoming Americanized. McDonough argued that cuts to social programs in Canada were one reason Quebecois were considering separating from Canada. "People are saying, 'I really do care about Canada.' They aren't talking about Canada as defined on the map, they're talking about what Canada stands for and how Canada is distinct from our American neighbors" (Riga 1995). Reversals in rhetoric The use of political rhetoric and reversals in the same is a common and unremarkable feature of political discourse: the purpose is rarely to clarify a position or to advance a principle. More often, the aim is the "stuff of democratic politics: to win votes, form coalitions, and govern a society. The result is that a policy opposed yesterday might today be favoured if a policy change supports the goal of the politician: winning votes. Jean Chretien, prime minister from 1993 to 2003, was no exception. Eleven years after professing doubts about free trade and also having cited Quebec separation in the context of free trade (that the latter almost made separation superfluous), Chretien reversed his position and his rhetoric by the later 1990s. "I was skeptical like many others about the free-trade agreement, (particularly) when it was a bilateral one with America. We're afraid of you guys; you're big and we're small," said Chretien in his speech to the National Press Club in Ottawa. In his new discourse on fiscal policy and free trade, the prime minister trumpeted Liberal economic achievements which resulted from both budget cuts and increased trade. Chretien remarked on how Canada (among G-7 nations) had the worst fiscal record next to Italy when he came to office in 1993 and had the best in 1997; the prime minister also pointed to the absence of a federal deficit (Beltrame 1997). Six years later, Chretien crowed about his balanced budget and compared it with the U.S. national deficit. "We still have surpluses. The Americans will have a $500-billion deficit this year and it is a right-wing government. If we were to equal that we would have to have a $75-billion deficit. Imagine!" (Gordon 2003). The Liberal leader boasted he showed the world how to reach prosperity by imposing deep spending cuts to eliminate a $42-billion deficit, this in a warning to American president George W. Bush on the dangers of deficits. Chretien warned that "savings that will go to pay the deficits of all the nations will be money that will not be available for investments in the private sector and so on" (Fife and Naumetz 2003). The 2003 Chretien crowing and advice to Americans was a stark reversal of 1980s-era Liberal pronouncements and rhetoric, including that which emanated from the Liberal leader. As with trade, spending cuts, and deficits, Chretien was similarly flexible on whether tax relief was an American policy to be opposed or a Canadian virtue to be embraced. His discourse here depended largely on the year in question, his opponent's position, and the state of the matter south of the border. In 1999, the Prime Minister told a Toronto audience of Liberal supporters, "We have a better quality of life here. Yes, we pay more taxes, and we will reduce them. But we won't do it at the cost of our social safety net. It is not the Canadian way" (Toronto Star 1999b). It was a clear reference to the United States. In 2001, fighting off charges from Alliance leader Stockwell Day that Canada was uncompetitive in any tax comparisons with the U.S., Chretien argued that the tax cuts so desired by the opposition leader had already arrived and were part of what now made Canada distinctive from the United States. In reference to tax changes announced in the 2000 federal budget, Chretien told his audience, "Reality is that the tax cuts the Americans are dreaming for at this moment were implemented in Canada as of January 2001" (McNulty 2001). In the fall of 2002, to add to the confusion about whether imitation of Americans was desirable or not, Chretien echoed a well-known, early 20th century remark of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. the famous American Supreme Court justice. He did so to head off demands for more tax relief beyond what was already delivered earlier by his own government. In the House of Commons, a Canadian prime minister used an American judge to argue against a further reduction in Canada's taxes. Chretien remarked that "It has been said before and we on this side of the House agree that, like it or not, taxes are the price one pays to live in a civilized society" (Bryden 2002). Paul Martin followed a similar path on political rhetoric, castigating conservative economic policies on budget cuts and later on tax relief only to then praise the same after Liberals adopted such policies. For example, in 1989, the then new parliamentarian Martin was visceral in his attack on the governing Conservatives: This administration claims that its hands are tied by the deficit. This is garbage. Its objectives are not economic, they are ideological, an ideology that went out with the potato famine of the 1840s. The deficit is a problem, and it is a very real 148 one, but its solution does not lie in taking a broad axe to our social safety net (Curry 2002). In 1990, Martin substituted the country responsible for economic woes from one on the edge of the north Atlantic to one south of the border; he now tarred the Conservative Prime Minister with an American brush: "Brian Mulroney very much wants to follow the American line" (Vienneau 1990). That year, while running for the leadership of the Liberal party, Martin described the ruling Conservatives as "scaly, reptilian" and "narrow," and asserted they possessed a preoccupation with the deficit which ignored a far-reaching problem, "and that's the human deficit" (Burnside and Brennan 1990). Five years later, as Finance Minister, Martin argued budget cuts were a matter of pragmatism: "The fact is that chronic deficits threaten to put the social conscience of government out of business. If we are to keep that from happening, and we must, we simply have to put the deficit behind us" (Paul Martin 1995). In 1996, Martin reverted to his earlier rhetoric on the economy and painted the United States as an example to be feared. Martin told an Edmonton audience that the Reform party's proposed budget cuts would "create an American kind of society where vast segments of the population are simply shoved off into a corner and ghettoized," which Martin called "essentially irresponsible, if not immoral, politics" (Henton and Vienneau 1996). Similarly, in 2004, the call for tax relief from his Conservative opponents brought charges from Prime Minister Martin that the Conservative party's proposals would result in slashed social programs, including health care, and a U.S.-style society. "We are different from the United States. We want to be different than the United States. We are Canadians," said Martin in campaign speeches in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick (Clark and Scofield 2004). This warning was in marked contrast to his 1999 comments that "I want to see us reduce taxes every single year for the next 20 years" (Beauchesne, 1999) and that "We are going to bring taxes down with the same fervour we applied to the deficit" (Canadian Press 1999). The "us-versus-U.S." theme was displayed again during the 2005-06 election campaign. "There's a fundamental difference in the way we work to build this country," said Martin in early January 2006. The Prime Minister claimed the choices between the two parties [Liberals and Conservatives] had never been so distinct. "If someone says we don't believe that the federal government has a role to play in economic development, it doesn't have any role in child care, nor any responsibility in foreign policy and should simply follow the American thrust, then obviously Stephen Harper is the way they'll look" (Hamilton-McCharles 2006). Conservative parties on economic differences with the United States Over the last two decades, right-of-centre parties have not been immune to the temptation to reach for negative American references for electoral advantage. This was especially true in the 1990s when the federal conservative movement was split between the Progressive Conservative and Reform (later the Alliance) parties. While defenders of free trade since at least the 1980s (the Progressive Conservatives), conservative partisans applied the American label to others if rhetorically and politically useful. This was evident among Progressive Conservatives who delighted in targeting the Reform and Alliance parties as more to the right and thus presumably more American. 150 In a column entitled "Let's have enterprise without U.S. greed," Hugh Segal, a backroom Progressive Conservative strategist and later a Senator, asserted that while Canada had problems, "our gaps lack the meanness and jagged indifference found elsewhere" (Segal 1989). An explicit U.S. reference was unnecessary given his Canadian audience; Canadians were long familiar with implicit references to the United States, structured in comparisons which assumed Canadian superiority. More directly, in his 1997 book Beyond Greed, Segal accused U.S. neoconservatives of considering issues of race, demographics, civil rights and social organization "in a narrow economic context of costs, efficiencies, productivity, and yield." He wrote that this "shortsightedness clearly infects neoconservatism in Canada" (Segal 1997). Brian Mulroney was critical of the United States on occasion, though careful to target the U.S. Congress or speak in more general terms when he disagreed with U.S. policies or personalities. In 1992, the Conservative prime minister said the United States was a "deadbeat" for not keeping up with its financial obligations to the United Nations. Mulroney also argued that free trade meant Canada should be free from "vexatious harassment" from the United States, which he blamed on "low-level functionaries" {Hamilton Spectator 1992). Years later, as leader of the Progressive Conservatives for the second time during the 2000 election campaign, Joe Clark told a Vancouver interviewer that on health care, the Reform party had "an attraction to the American system, and what they see in the American system is that there are high levels of service for the wealthy" (McNulty 2000). Yet, in a Globe and Mail column that year, Clark reasserted his conservative economic credentials vis-a-vis his Reform party critics, and in a manner that anyone to Clark's 151 political left would likely label American economic thinking. Clark wrote that "I proved my credentials in practice, as the prime minister who started the idea of privatization, with PetroCanada, and introduced a budget honestly proffering 'short-term pain for long- term gain'" (Clark 2000). Others Popular commentary often references real or presumed U.S. influence or origins as a reason why a policy should not be adopted in Canada or why a politician is un- Canadian. Some commentators frequently make use of this rhetorical device through implicit or explicit references to the United States. In 1984, in an endorsement of economic nationalism through government intervention, Lawrence Martin argued that the National Energy Program "brought short- term economic pain for the long-term gain of Canadian control of Canadian energy resources" (Martin 1984). Six years later, Martin reversed course and opined that there might be virtue in free trade, the dismantling of the Foreign Review Investment Agency and the National Energy Program, as well as the Tory government's decision to join the Organization of American States. However, Martin asserted there was a warning from Canadian history about Mulroney's opening of Canada to the United States: Why? Because such an approach runs counter to the very definition of this country. What there is of a Canadian identity springs largely, since Canada's birth, from the sense of being, if not anti-American, then at least un-American (Lawrence Martin 1990). In Martin's column, which forecast the decline of the United States, the columnist repeated the standard survivalist line in reference to Mulroney-era policies. He asserted that "throughout Canadian history, a chief source of nationalism - the glue of nations - 152 has come from standing up to the Americans, not jumping through their hoops" (Martin 1990). One year later, Martin reinforced this theme when he wrote that Mulroney was "slick, conservative, entrepreneurial, hawkish ...about as American as Canadians come. Standing up to the Americans is not part of his thinking" (Lawrence Martin 1991). For Martin, the "standing up" part was particularly necessary. "Throughout our history being Canadian has meant being un-American. It is one of our only defining traits.... We can stand shoulder to shoulder, one thin but unbroken line facing Washington and proclaim, 'No surrender!'" (Lawrence Martin 1991). It was a classic recitation of a Loyalist/garrison/survivalist instinct, a conception described in detail in the early 1970s by Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood when discussing early upper Canadian settlement during and after the American Revolution (and noted in more detail here in chapter 6). For Martin, the idea of Canada as a garrison culture was apparently as relevant in 1991 as in 1776 or 1812. Martin was trapped in the Loyalist conception and definition of Canadian identity even though he possessed an off-again, on-again preference for free trade. Martin's argument seemed to be that even though it would be useful to dismantle policies that were no longer (or never were) in Canada's interest, poor policy might be retained if only to prove Canadians were not Americans. By 1993, Martin again changed his mind on economic matters when he wrote that Mulroney "loved the American way, he was up front about it, and he defiantly moved Canada in that direction." The columnist, often critical of Canadian relations with the United States if he thought them too friendly, complained that Mulroney "opened 153 Canada's energy vault to the Americans" while the "American deregulation bug swept Mulroney's Ottawa in major areas such as transportation and telecommunications." He alleged such an approach was in "the small-government tradition of the Republican party." Martin glimpsed some salvation for Canada if the U.S. one day turned protectionist and thus forced Canada "out of the American grip" (Lawrence Martin 1993). This was unstable terrain in which to plant economic policy. If the Americans turned protectionist (instead of Canada as he earlier favoured), then Canada would have less trade with the United States and thus Canada (in Martin's thinking) would be more "independent." But if the Americans turned protectionist, it then would have been acceptable for Canadians to more robustly embrace free trade. The only constant in Martin's writings was revulsion for the American policy position—whatever it happened to be in the present. Assuming Canadian politicians ever took Martin's advice, Canadian policymakers would always know what their position should be: opposite that of the Americans, much in the way one side of a teeter-totter would always be in the inverse position of the seat opposite. Martin failed to notice that his advice actually tightly linked Canadian policy to American positions, except as a constantly changing mirror opposite one. When Americans said "white," Canadians were supposed to say "black." In 1999, Martin continued his theme of ever-creeping Americanization: The litany of Americanization is all too familiar. At the time of [U.S. President Ulysses S.] Grant, trade dependence on the United States was about 10 percent. Now it's 85 percent and rising. Canada's former east-west infrastructure is now north-south. For Canada, globalization is Americanization....Regionalism, deregulation, the privatization of Crown corporations and the rise of the right carved away at the old statist image" (Lawrence Martin 1999a). 154 Martin's point was perhaps that Canada had become too dependent on the U.S. market in trade. But the flipside, which he didn't consider, was that Canada was fortunate to have a mostly easy market into which it could exports products and services, a nearby country which shared the same dominant language and had a similar cultural background. Or that Canadian trade, which was 85 percent dependent on the U.S., was positive for Canadian living standards. The columnist sent out yet another confusing and contradictory signal to readers when he turned from reflexive criticism of the 1980s-era Mulroney-Reagan closeness to unconcern about what he labeled the "cozy relationship" between Clinton and Chretien in the 1990s (Lawrence Martin 1999b). Bizarrely, given his previous rhetoric, Martin even hinted that perhaps the Americans might have the better country, contrary to Chretien's boast at a Canada-U.S. summit between the two leaders. Martin noted the economic differences. There is the business of gaps between the two countries. There's the standard of living gap, some stats showing that we're 24 percent behind. There's the tax gap, the productivity gap, the unemployment gap, the dollar gap, all in America's favour (Lawrence Martin 1999b). That Martin's policy prescriptions were based on the perceived need to demonstrate Canadians were un-American, even if that meant continually flipping from open trade to protectionism and back, was clear. Martin's positions were perhaps the most inconsistent of any national columnist and were premised not on a reasoned analysis of Canada's national interest, including her economic interest, but in making Canadian policy distinctive from American policy for the sake of distinctions. Over the years, it led to the spectacle of dizzying reversals. Other public figures more consistently referenced the Americans to support their political and ideological goals, or to address Canadian problems they believed to be 155 exacerbated by more market-friendly economic policies. In 1987, book publisher and economic nationalist Mel Hurtig blamed a growing disparity of incomes between rich and poor on "an embrace of American-style public policy." Hurtig, as with many nationalists on the left, feared that Canada was "progressively moving towards American standards whether you look at the erosion in health care or the erosion in education or unemployment insurance" (Andrew Duffy 1997). In 1993, Toronto Star columnist Michelle Landsberg critiqued Reform leader Preston Manning and Kim Campbell, the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, both of whom urged cuts to budgets in order to control deficits. Landsberg linked Reform and Progressive Conservative policy to U.S. influence and recited what she thought were obvious failures of the American republic: We do know about the disaster caused by the American worship of the "marketplace." We're aware of the deepening racial divide, crumbling cities, pathetically inadequate health care, sinking productivity and the fact that 20 percent of American children live in poverty. Every country that followed the American lead in those critical years of the 1980s continues to pay a heavy price for its economic adventurism (Landsberg 1993). Out west in 1994, the Calgary Herald's Robert Bragg argued that Canadian neo- conservatives wanted an "abandonment of the welfare state in favor of a market-driven, American-style economy" (Bragg 1994). In Toronto, former Progressive Conservative backroom organizer Dalton Camp asserted "the heroes of the Canadian political right are almost all American, Lady Thatcher aside" (Camp 1995b). On the Reform party and its opposition to tax increases in favour of tax relief and program spending reductions, Camp asserted that "the Reform party and its leader seem to get most of their inspiration and ideas from next door, in the Great Republic." Camp asserted that the "concept of no-tax- increases-ever is American, born out of populism and wedded to oligarchic self-interest" 156 (Camp 1995c). Camp extended the American comparisons beyond just the Reform party. Two years later, he penned eight American references in just one column, entitled "A made-in-America Tory manifesto." Camp asserted that the 1997 policy statement from the Progressive Conservative party was American on economics and in proposed reforms to appointment processes; Camp described other aspects of the P.C. party platform as "American fantasy and the American way" (Camp 1997). In 2001, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson equated economic conservatism with American policy and American imitation. He referenced past debates on foreign policy and allegations that Canada had fallen into the American orbit. Simpson thought the same pattern was now repeating itself in the economic sphere where he asserted more of Canada was falling under U.S. influence: A Crown corporation is privatized or a previously regulated company is deregulated, and Canadian private companies are then partially or wholly bought by U.S. capital. What happened in other industries now beckons in the airline business. Soon, the government will have to respond to demands from telecommunications companies to lift restrictions on foreign entry (Simpson 2001). Simpson noted the example of softwood lumber, then a matter of some dispute between the Canadian and American governments as well as their populations, where American pressure was leading provincial governments to consider what Simpson labeled "U.S.-style auctioning of cutting rights." This, he alleged, contradicted the "essentials of the Canadian system." Protestations to the contrary, Simpson asserted that developments in Canada's "economy, foreign policy, monetary affairs and cultural policy .. .all point to further integration" (Simpson 2001).° c The comment on "U.S.-style" cutting rights was another example of where market processes were assumed to be American while government ownership and setting of stumpage rates (cutting fees) were considered Canadian. The reality was that some province such as British Columbia did indeed set rates for 157 In the ongoing debate between elements of Canadian conservatism institutionally split between two parties, columnist Charles Gordon used Joe Clark to portray other conservatives as American. In 2002, in response to conservative critics who saw little difference between the Progressive Conservative leader and liberalism, Gordon argued that "the so-called 'conservatism' Clark has supposedly betrayed is a fairly recent phenomenon, the product of wishful thinking in American think-tanks mixed with Thatcherite mean-spiritedness brought over from the U.K." (Charles Gordon 2002). It was safe to assume Gordon never read Clark's 1970s-era speeches on privatization. The next year, Gordon spied conservative opposition to Jean Chretien as indicative of a desire to be more like Americans (Charles Gordon 2003). Discourse, deliberation, and policy It is often difficult to establish a tight correlation between discourse and subsequent policy. As noted earlier, at least some evidence suggest polling is used more to determine how to properly communicate an existing policy position than it is to set the machinery of government aflutter in an attempt to respond to the latest survey of Canadians' opinions. The debates over trade, taxes, and deficits, and the oft-used references to U.S. positions, real or imagined, are no exception to that rule. What one might be able discern is whether the negative rhetoric, the positions opposed to free trade, the GST, and cuts to deficits, had any measurable impact on policy. The answer to that query appears to be "no." Despite links to catastrophic ends and to a takeover of Canada by the Americans, free trade survived not only the 1988 the cutting of timber, but others, such as in Atlantic Canada where most land was private and not Crown- owned, auctioned cutting rights. The market approach was neither American nor Canadian, it was merely the market approach. 158 election but also the election in 1993 of the Liberal party, the party that had been in 1988 implacably opposed to free trade, at least in rhetoric. Similarly, while cuts to government spending were similarly tagged with American labels during the deficit debate in the 1990s, the Liberals were re-elected in 1997. Likewise, tax reductions have been delivered in successive budgets since the end of the deficit era in the 1990s, most notably Paul Martin's 2000 budget which claimed to reduce taxes by $100 billion over five years (Lewis 2004, 202). Again, critics of tax relief compared such policy to supposed priorities in the United States but again, Canadian policy here appeared impervious to the rhetoric. While not all policy areas give such consistent examples of where strong and consistent rhetoric failed, on economic issues at least, the chronic attempts to link policies undesired by some to the U.S. as a negative talisman, failed. 159 CHAPTER FIVE DISCOURSE IN THREE POLICY AREAS "Perhaps the most important step that Canada has taken to Americanize itself- far greater in its implications than the signing of the free trade treaty - has been the incorporation into its constitution of a bill of rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms." —Seymour Martin Lipset (quoted in Robert Martin 2003, 70) Several policy areas in Canadian political discourse appear to be largely unaffected by American references, or at least, unencumbered by references to the United States. In comparison to health care, foreign policy, economic issues and the possible reform of judicial appointments, three other areas - affirmative action (also labeled employment equity), the environment, adoption of a Charter of Rights and its subsequent theoretical interpretation - are not regularly referenced in Canada for their American origins. On the rare occasion when a U.S. position or American politician is noted, the reference is often used as rhetorical support for someone's preferred Canadian policy. In such areas, and even when acknowledged as American-created, American-led, or American-influenced, the issues, policies, and U.S. personalities are often notable for the lack of negative references in Canadian discourse. In those three areas, there is rarely more logos in the discourse - reason - due to a lack of negative American references; in a similar negation of reason, political and public commentary positions are often advanced on the grounds that the political actor or personality in question is trustworthy {ethos) or charismatic (a joint form of pathos and ethos). That approach is never wholly persuasive. Aristotle thought all three - ethos, pathos and logos- were necessary to definitively persuade the hearer, though he singled out character (ethos) as the strongest proof, especially where the public observed two 160 conflicting arguments from reason. One's reputation and ability to frame the debate matter tremendously in winning arguments and this is as true now as it was in ancient Athens. The three subject areas surveyed in this chapter are novel in that some of the political and others actors engaged in discourse provide supportive reference to American positions or personalities. It is the mirror opposite approach of guilt-by-association; it is instead an appeal to authority and it still reveals a lack of reason, of deliberation, in Canadian public discourse. Also, the political actors and commentators are often the very same people who, on other matters, use U.S. personalities and positions as a justification not to adopt an American example. But on the environment, for example, the same personalities make great use of American references as a justification to support a particular approach. Actual reasoned arguments - "this policy is in Canada's national interests," or "this is smart policy" - appear occasionally as they might in any of the previous four policy areas. But insofar as a position is put forward because Al Gore might favour it, the political calculation is transparent: any rhetorical device, anti-or pro-American, is fair game so long as it might move the public closer to the desired policy position. It should also be noted that the issue-sets in the previous chapter are distinguished from the issue-sets examined in chapter 5 by virtue of fewer references to the United States in this chapter (with one notable exception). Thus, one significant focus in chapter 5 is on the provable American origins of those two issues (affirmative action and the Charter), and how many elite actors (be they political actors or columnists and editorial boards or advocacy groups and think tanks) generally ignore such origins even though they are otherwise disturbed by American influence in Canada on other matters. As a result, the investigation into the American roots of affirmative action and the Charter draws more on academic and elite explanations of those American origins; simultaneously, the contradictory position of some elite opinion (actors who are otherwise concerned about American influence except where it shows up in the two issues noted) is also explored. One explanation for the dichotomy can be found in the public interest/public choice debate noted in chapter 2. For example, if elites largely favour affirmative action despite its initial creation and advocacy in the United States, one would expect to see fewer political actors, academics, and commentators referencing its "U.S.-style" origins. This is in fact what occurred and it has implications for discourse and deliberation; significantly fewer elite references (at least fewer public elite references) will mean that many Canadians are likely not aware of the historical origins of either affirmative action or the legal and philosophical origins of Canada's Charter Adoption of the Charter and Subsequent Interpretation The adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 is an example how a thoroughly American approach has been grafted onto Canada's political and societal regime with little controversy. The 1982 Charter fundamentally changed the institutional underpinnings of the power balance between the country's political and judicial institutions. It has, as its inspiration, the 1789 American Bill of Rights. The potential problem of liberal constitutionalism - how to increase state power where desired to make it effective yet at the same time constrain it - was answered in the United States with a republican solution: a separation of powers between the executive, 162 legislative and judicial branches. In contrast, pre-1982, Canada's approach to the liberal constitutional dilemma was closely modeled on that of the United Kingdom, which relied on majority rule as the antidote to excessive executive power; Canada's founding fathers also placed specific powers within provincial jurisdiction as a parallel solution. Canada's 1982 adoption of a charter of rights was based on the two-century old American model, along with subsequent approaches to the same and ongoing theoretical interpretation drawn from similar U.S. influences; such realities have not provoked nationalist opposition in the manner as has expanded free trade or other issues. It is thus a glaring exception within Canadian discourse where American influence is routinely flagged and warned against. The analysis of the issues surrounding the Charter here include its American origins (just noted and soon to be expanded), questions of "interpretivist" versus "non- interpretivist" theories of how to approach a document such as the Bill of Rights or the Charter and where such theories originate, as well the notable absence of many references to the United States. The last reality also constrains any comment on whether such discourse could then have any effect on policy. Not only would American- referenced discourse be irrelevant to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it is not mere policy or legislation easily changed or abolished, but relative to other policy areas, there are few references to the document as "U.S.-style" or "American-style." Thus, analysis of whether such discourse had any effect would be superfluous. The reality is such discourse is largely absent. 163 Still, debates over the Charter might be seen as an example of where public interest notions of elite rule on behalf of the public are accepted by many without much dissent, in the belief that the actual public good is adequately served on such matters. Discourse and origins That the Charter was a departure from historic Canadian orientation cemented in a British understanding of laws, rights, and the role of institutions, was noted by some before it became part of Canada's constitutional fabric. As early as 1969, political scientist Donald Smiley wrote "The Case Against the Charter of Human Rights" in the Canadian Journal of Political Science (Smiley 1969). In 1980, Historian Michael Bliss was critical of Ontario Premier Bill Davis and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau for the then proposed Charter, calling it "American-style" and arguing it represented "an abandonment of our tradition of parliamentary sovereignty." Bliss labeled it a "reckless leap in the dark opening the way for massive, unpredictable, and undemocratic social changes as judges give meaning to the vague phrasing of the proposed charter" (Bliss 1980). Sixteen years after the Charter was enacted, an American professor of government, Charles Epp, noted that "the Charter marked a significant departure from the Westminster style of parliamentary sovereignty" (1998, 16). University of Lethbridge professor Peter McCormick (2000) described the 1982 Charter as "an American style interventionist court with a traditionally English style of appointing judges" and was "simply bad institutional design." An example of the bad institutional design, or at least a juxtaposition of liberal and collectivist concepts, is found in Section 15 of the Charter. There, Section 15(1) guarantees that "every individual is equal before and under the law" 164 without regard to race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. However, such a guarantee to individuals is hollowed out by Section 15(2), the Charter's "affirmative action" clause, which then allows for any law, program, or activity to be enacted by governments and in the very categories enunciated in Section 15(1). It might be why political scientist Walter Newell argued in 2006 that "Trudeau's constitution adopted U.S.-style judicial review without the U.S. constitution's checks and balances" (Newell 2006). That Bliss, Epp, McCormick, and Newell were correct about American influence was attested to by the architect of Canada's repatriation of the Constitution and the prime minister present at the creation of the Charter, Pierre Trudeau. William Thorsell notes the former prime minister boasted at a 1991 dinner party that he was proud to have transferred sovereignty from legislatures to the people (American-style) in the form of his repatriation of the constitution (Thorsell 1991). A subsequent prime minister, though not necessarily overly critical of the American influence, also recognized the American origins in Canada's Charter. In 2000, Brian Mulroney commented that "American-style arrangements were adopted under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (Mulroney 2000). Speaking that same year in a retrospective defense of attempts to change the Constitution in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mulroney noted that "Canada's constitutional protections for linguistic minorities were "set aside to some extent... for the American-style arrangement we now have under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (Fraser 2000). The tone of Mulroney's commentary left little doubt that the other-country influence on Canada's Charter was, to him, unremarkable. 165 In addition to the more well-known U.S. inspiration for the Charter, subsequent Canadian approaches to interpretation of and uses of the Charter have been deeply influenced by American examples. University of Western Ontario law professor Robert Martin notes the pervasive U.S. influence on Canadian legal thought, which grew more dramatically beginning in the 1960s. Then, the International Legal Center, an arm of the Ford Foundation, played what Martin labels a "major role in spreading U.S. legal approaches to legal education throughout the world" (Robert Martin 2003, 71). Martin also notes the influence of Professor William Black, who served in the U.S. Peace Corps. Black moved to the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia in the late 1960s, and was subsequently director of the Court Challenges Program and Human Rights Education Centre at the University of Ottawa (Robert Martin 2003, 72). The Court Challenges Program, initially government-funded, was used extensively by those who challenged legislation across Canada. The Court Challenges Program was used first by minority language groups in Quebec and later by feminist and gay rights advocates. On Canada's law schools, Martin argues that "modern Canadian university legal education began in imitation of U.S. models and is, today, a pathetic parody of American legal education" (Robert Martin 2003, 72). American influence also shows up in Canadian copying of U.S. litigation tactics. Then University of Western Ontario political science professor Ian Brodie, later chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, drew attention to the American origins of the concept of "disadvantaged" groups as inspiration in Canadian legal and academic circles (Brodie 2002, 15-16). Another academic, Christopher Manfredi, points out how Canadian 166 women's groups availed themselves of U.S. legal strategies including the amicus curiae (friend of the court) mechanism (Manfredi 2001,121-123). Beyond imitation of American legal strategies, Manfredi notes the deep influence of American legal theories of constitutional interpretation on Canadian courts, particularly on the Supreme Court. However, to understand the effect, it is first necessary to distinguish between two broad theories of interpretation of a constitution, interpretivist versus non-interpretivist. (The two approaches are also known as judicial restraint and judicial activism respectively.) Interpretivist theories hold that "judges deciding constitutional issues should confine themselves to enforcing norms that are stated or clearly implicit in the written Constitution." Non-interpretivist theories, by contrast, encourage judges to "enforce norms that cannot be discovered within the four corners" of a constitution and view constitutional adjudication as a creative task of identifying and applying novel rights or novel interpretation of existing rights, to determine the validity of legislation (Manfredi 2001, 25.) Defenders of non-interpretivist theories assert that the 1982 Constitution almost mandates an activist role forjudges. That might be partly accurate; the reality of a written-down set of rights necessitates some interpretation as to what those rights mean in practice and how they can be addressed and enforced. Defenders of the Supreme Court, including several justices, have argued just that point. Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that even before the Charter, judges would occasionally strike down a law, but that "the Charter, by putting people's rights up front and centre, has accelerated the process" (Howe and Russell 2001, 67). Former Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson, writing in 2001, also asserted that the existence of the Charter necessitated activism. In an essay entitled "We Didn't Volunteer," Justice Wilson argued that elected representatives who enacted the Charter conferred the right of courts to "frustrate the will of the people's 167 representatives" - or expressed more positively - created a "duty of judicial review" (Howe and Russell 2001, 75). Former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Lamer wholeheartedly endorsed the Charter of Rights and Freedoms along with unapologetic judicial activism but rejected public questioning of judicial nominees to the bench, even though all three have their origins in American theory and practice (Grey 1999). Others, such as Kansas professor of government Charles Epp, argue that pre-1982 actions in Canada developed a "support structure which constitutes a democratization of access to the Supreme Court," which presumably justified the activism despite the American origins of the same (Epp 1998, 171). Agree or disagree with the notion that the Canadian high court was, by design of the Charter, obliged to be activist, as activist as it has become, or that such activism in practice constitutes democratization of the court, the debate over what constitutes fair interpretation need not concern us here. For the purpose of this analysis, the useful question is to what degree are Canadian legal theories and subsequent court applications influenced by the U.S. academic, legal and judicial community? Manfredi argues the American influence has been significant. In a concerted effort to escape the criticism of narrow legalism that greeted its Bill of Rights jurisprudence, the [Canadian Supreme] Court enthusiastically embraced non-interpretivism by relying on key elements of both US and domestic jurisprudence. This trend began in the Supreme Court's first Charter decision, Law Society of Upper Canada v. Skapinker (1984), when Justice Willard Estey sought guidance from "the techniques of interpretation to be applied in construing a Constitution" that US Chief Justice John Marshall had articulated in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).. ..Chief Justice Dickson later relied on the "classical principles of American constitutional construction" to declare in Hunter v. Southam (1984) that the Charter calls for a "broad, purposive analysis, which interprets specific provisions of a constitutional document in the light of its larger objects" (Manfredi 2001, 31-32). 168 Manfredi also notes the source of interpretive justifications for Justice Bertha Wilson: Like Dickson, Justice Wilson also took account of American jurisprudence in developing her understanding of judicial review under the Charter. In Big MDrug Mart, for example, she relied on the US Supreme Court's decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1970) to argue that the Charter is "first and foremost an effects- oriented document" (Manfredi 2001, 33). Natural Charter-born effects Other than Smiley, Bliss, and Manfredi, who details the American origins, there have been few public critics ready to label the Charter as American-inspired or note American influences and dismiss it on that basis; most accept and acknowledge the American source and subsequent influences. Globe and Mail columnist Hugh Winsor noted, not necessarily critically, that Pierre Trudeau's creation fundamentally changed the Westminster style parliamentary system and also "opened the door to American-style judicial activism" (Winsor 2000). More critically, another Globe writer, Jeffrey Simpson, pointed out how the Supreme Court strayed south of the 49th parallel when it began to impose "U.S.-style oversight" of the implementation of its court orders—this as opposed to letting a plaintiff bring forward an action if compliance has not been forthcoming. It was akin, wrote Simpson, to "judge-made administration of judge-interpreted law" prevalent in the United States (Simpson 2003). Ottawa Citizen columnist John Robson wrote in 2007 that he was unsurprised by a poll which showed 63 percent of Canadians favoured electing judges. "If you have a U.S.-style constitution, eventually you will get most of its attributes, good or bad. And that's what we've had for a quarter-century now," wrote Robson (2007). 169 Such commentary is rare and rarely scathing, a distinct contrast to other real or imagined American imports or threatened imports into Canada's body politic. Despite its origins in American philosophy, theory, law, constitutional thought, and practice, Canadian political elites, reporters, and commentators usually endorse the Charter while they continue to use American references in public discourse to oppose proposals for other legal, procedural and constitutional reforms—the ones they oppose. Defending the Charter Thus, Michele Landsberg, writing in 1991, celebrated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without noting its American influence (Landsberg 1991). On other occasions, as noted in the previous chapter, Landsberg warned against other American imports including budget cuts, free markets, and private health care. Similarly, in a 1991 editorial, the Toronto Star argued against inclusion of property rights in the Canadian constitution on the justification that it was an "American idea of a constitutionally entrenched right to property [which] appeals to the Reform party and other right-wingers, mostly on the prairies." In a double-standard, the Star, in the same editorial, argued property rights might "threaten the equality rights of women by thwarting employment equity and affirmative action programs" (Toronto Star 1991). The Star saw no conflict in supporting American-in-origin affirmative action while simultaneously opposing American-in-origin property rights, a claim anyway incorrect given that the notion of property rights dates back to at least the Magna Carta, in 1215, in England. In 1995, Ottawa Citizen columnist Susan Delacourt noted that in their respective periods of influence both Pierre Trudeau and the Reform party were accused of "importing an American-style obsession with rights" (Delacourt 1995). In 1998, she urged the Reform party to drop "its American-style embrace of individual over collective rights" (Delacourt 1998). She recommended no such end to the Canadian love affair with an American constitutional mechanism. On the Charter, Delacourt reminisced over Jean Chretien and Roy Romanow's role in its 1982 creation and even recommended another one for health care, writing that "One good charter deserves another" (Delacourt 2002). Andrew Cohen, occasionally exercised about American influence on Canadian policy in foreign affairs, energy, trade, and even pharmaceutical issues (Cohen 1990), was undisturbed by what he labeled "the greatest single Americanizing influence on our lives...the Charter of Rights and Freedoms" (Cohen 2006b). On the issue of crime, Jim McNulty, a columnist with the Province in Vancouver, was concerned that a Harper government would imitate Americans and hire more police, create more prisoners, and eliminate the gun registry. On the Charter, McNulty defended it and took offence at proposals from an Alliance Member of Parliament, Randy White, to rewrite it (McNulty 2004). In another example of where some American initiatives were considered laudable (the Charter) while other U.S. reforms were disdained, the Toronto Star editorialized in 2004 that Prime Minister Paul Martin should "proceed with caution" in reforms to the appointment process forjudges. The Star asserted such appointments were of critical importance "especially in an era in which the Charter of Rights and Freedoms must be upheld." Thus, the editorialists defended an American-inspired document but then argued against "American-style Parliamentary hearings" for judicial nominees (Toronto Star 2004). 171 Discourse, deliberation, and policy If the Canadian public is bothered by the American origins of the Charter, such discomfort has not registered in public opinion polls, or, as noted in the review of discourse, in the discourse itself. In 1996, Gallup Canada asked Canadians, "Do you believe that your rights and freedoms are better protected, protected about the same, or not as well protected as they were before the Charter came into effect in 1982?" The response revealed that 34.5 percent answered "better protected" while 33.7 percent said "about the same;" 19.9 percent answered "not as well protected" (Gallup Canada 1996). Six years later, Ipsos Reid asked a similar question: "Do you feel that your rights and freedoms are better protected because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became law in 1982?" 74 percent answered "yes" while 17 percent said "no" (Ipsos Reid 2002). Overall, it appears the document Seymour Martin Lipset labeled as "the most important step that Canada has taken to Americanize itself (quoted in Robert Martin 2003, 70) has been widely embraced by Canadians. Affirmative Action Another area of Canadian public policy often affirmed by self-described Canadian progressives, liberals, and those on the political left is the issue of racial and gender quotas, also known as affirmative action or employment equity. The possibility for set- asides for a particular group based on a real or perceived disadvantage or discrimination is an entrenched constitutional right in Canada (Section 15.2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), though subject to limitations. This section will survey affirmative action's American roots, the change of language when that concept is discussed in Canada, and then, from a review of public comments, how it appears political and media elites 172 generally favour such set-asides, even where not constitutionally required (the Charter allows for affirmative action; it does not mandate it). Unlike other policies which might have originated in, or are perceived to have originated in the United States, the widespread elite and political support for quotas in all varieties is rarely dismissed on the basis that the policy of preferential treatment originated in the United States, even though it clearly did. Origins and discourse Thomas Sugrue notes that affirmative action found its roots in New Deal liberalism in the United States, followed by a number of American states which enacted fair employment practices laws in the 1950s. Sugrue chronicles how, after antidiscrimination laws failed to desegregate labour markets, many black activists demanded more radical changes, which led to federal government demands for racial preferences in the workplace in the mid-1960s (Sugrue 1998). More specifically, Hugh Graham (1992) delineates two phases of American affirmative action. The first concerned efforts by the presidency and Congress and emphasized non-discrimination under a "race-blind Constitution" and culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The second phase involved a shift to minority preferences during the Nixon administration and was shaped primarily by federal agencies and courts. It is this later phase of affirmative action which took root in Canada. (The first phase noted by Graham is not accurately characterized as affirmative action as it did not involve set-asides; it was an attempt to enforce equality of opportunity and not equality of result.) Nicholas Poulantzas (1985-1986) notes the American origin of the concept and practice before Canada adopted the same. Writing in 1986 about Canadian practices, 173 Carol Agocs observed that in the federal jurisdiction, '"special programs' are permitted under existing law, and employers are encouraged to initiate them, but very few have done so." Agocs noted the federal public service was only then developing an internal affirmative action strategy (Agocs 1986). The connection between American origins and later, widespread Canadian adoption came in part because of the concept's insertion into Canada's Charter. Jean Chretien, as Justice Minister under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1981, introduced a clause into the proposed Charter that allowed for affirmative action. Speaking to a parliamentary committee in January 1981, Chretien noted that his proposed Section 15 of the Charter should be seen as an affirmative action clause (Chretien 1981). This was contrary to later claims from proponents that "employment equity" was not the same as affirmative action.d Chretien noted that what he proposed was affirmative action and that it would authorize reverse discrimination. He testified that this was why he urged its inclusion in the Charter—so that even if a government action was discriminatory, it could not be struck down by a court. It [Section 15(2) of the draft resolution] is simply an assurance that an affirmative action program based on a recognized ground of non-discrimination will not be struck down only because it authorizes "reverse discrimination" for the purpose of achieving equality (Chretien 1981). Post-Charter, politicians from across Canada's political spectrum have often endorsed affirmative action. In a 1984 speech to the Progressive Conservative party's The change in language from affirmative action to "employment equity" was not accidental. In 1983, then Ontario family court judge Rosalie Abella was tasked by the federal government to look at hiring practices of eleven Crown corporations with the goal of increasing minority representation. It was Justice Abella who coined the term employment equity as a substitute for affirmative action. As the Toronto Star later reported, "Abella also invented the term employment equity, largely because she disliked the negative connotations of quotas and 'interventionist government policies' associated with the American term 'affirmative action'" (Sandra Martin 1995). Feminist writer Michelle Landsberg also credited Abella: "Judge Rosalie Abella decisively enlarged our understanding when she imagined the idea and the phrase 'employment equity' in her groundbreaking 1984 report" (Landsberg 2002). women's caucus, then opposition leader Brian Mulroney promised to push affirmative action in government contracts with the private sector. "We will ask those firms to show us, as part of their tendering responsibilities, how many women will be hired to fulfill those contracts. There's nothing alien about that. It's just good old business sense" (Montgomery 1984). Years later, in 1998, when the office of the Governor-General announced an Order of Canada award for Brian Mulroney, it noted Mulroney's support for employment equity, among other reasons for his selection (Stewart 1998). Later, in reflection upon his career in politics, Mulroney said he was a "one-man affirmative- action course" {Globe and Mail 2004). Support for racial and gender quotas crossed most party lines. While running for the leadership of the Liberal party in June 1984, former 1970s-era Finance Minister John Turner offered support for affirmative action in the public sector, though as with other supporters of the idea, he claimed that quotas were not the same as affirmative action. "I have rejected a quota system (for women in government) as being demeaning to the females of this country," said the soon-to-be Liberal leader in a candidate's debate on women's issues in Ottawa (Patrick Martin 1984). In a 1984 debate with NDP leader Ed Broadbent, Turner endorsed affirmative action in the public sector and argued it would need to be introduced in stages in the private sector (Cruickshank et al 1984). The next year, in a reversal of positions one might normally expect of liberal and conservative parties, a Liberal convention in Halifax in 1985 endorsed equality between men and women but rejected affirmative action programs as the means to achieve such an end (Howard 1985). 175 In 1986, Turner made a more explicit promise than previously offered and endorsed affirmative action. "I can tell you that we in the Liberal party will be relentless in ensuring that employment equity [and] pay equity is applied as part of the legislation and part of the practice and part of the philosophy of Canada and the philosophy of the Liberal party" (Toronto Star 1986b). The country's premiere business newspaper, the Financial Post, noted approvingly how far the Liberal leader had come and cited this issue as proof. The Post praised Turner by noting that "he has also convincingly demonstrated that his conversion to Liberal principles - especially on social matters such as affirmative action and day care - is complete (Financial Post 1986). New Democrat leader Ed Broadbent endorsed affirmative action on numerous occasions, including his 1984 campaign event in Vancouver, where at a day care centre he reaffirmed support for the policy (Mulgrew 1984). In 1990, a newer NDP leader, Audrey McLaughlin, in speaking to her party's National Council, urged Canadian governments to adopt more affirmative action programs (Bailey 1990). Federal New Democrats practiced what they preached on affirmative action. In 2004, party policy required that a nomination could not be approved until it could be proven the party had "actively searched for someone from a less highly represented group, such as women, the disabled, a racial minority or a gay or lesbian candidate" (Lowell Murray 2004). Support for quota policies extended beyond just political parties. In 1991, the Law Reform Commission of Canada argued that native Canadians should be the subject of affirmative action for recruitment, training, and promotions for careers as judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers, and police officers (Vienneau 1991). The Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom, usually no fan of most American-inspired ideas, endorsed the Ontario 176 provincial government's affirmative action program in 1991 and surmised that "perhaps these will stand out as monuments to the Rae government" (Walkom 1991). Linda McQuaig, also reactively skeptical of American-imported policy, looked at average income differences between men and women in 1992 and concluded that discrimination was the cause and affirmative action the remedy (McQuaig 1992). In 1995, Michelle Landsberg asserted that employment equity, which she favoured, was not the same as quotas or reverse discrimination (Landsberg 1995). In 1996, the Toronto Star editorial page applauded the Progressive Conservative party's national convention in Winnipeg when the party rejected a motion to end affirmative action {Toronto Star 1996). That same year, feminist Laura Sabio, the founder of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, died. Sabio was a useful contrast. As an adviser to Brian Mulroney before his 1984 election, she had always opposed affirmative action {Ottawa Citizen 1996). But she was one of the few public figures to do so.e In 1997, a former federal minister of employment and immigration in the Mulroney government, Flora MacDonald, said she hoped every legislature in the country would enact employment equity laws (Wright 1997). The Toronto Star's Andrew Cardozo argued opposition to affirmative action, among others policies, was a threat to "our values" (Cardozo 1997). In 2000, Judy Rebick, a former head of the National Action Committee, argued that affirmative action was a signal achievement of the woman's movement (Cobb, e Another exception was Ontario premier Bill Davis. When in 1997 critics accused the Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris of being "right-wing" on the issue of affirmative action, a Harris spokesman noted former Conservative premier Bill Davis, often described as a moderate, "didn't have employment equity or pay equity" (Walker 1997). 2000). The Toronto Star headlined a front page story on the federally regulated sector which includes airlines, banks, railways, and communication companies and announced that sector had an "abysmal record of hiring minorities" (Toronto Star 2000). Maude Barlow, whose raison d'etre was to oppose American encroachment into Canada, was profiled in the Star and applauded for her 1975 formation of a group that pushed for affirmative action (Steed 2000). In what ended up as an election year, Prime Minister Jean Chretien argued the newly formed Alliance party might "mistreat minorities"; he based his accusation in part on an Alliance candidate's stated opposition to employment equity (O'Neil 2000b). Michael Ignatieff, then a Canadian expatriate teaching at Harvard and later a Liberal Member of Parliament, argued a familiar refrain from Canadians who supported affirmative action. In a 2000 lecture broadcast on the CBC, Ignatieff noted that affirmative action was in Canada's constitution, claimed the policy did not discriminate against people in other groups, and asserted the manner in which Canada adjudicates rights claims between national minorities, aboriginal groups and individuals, made Canada "increasingly distinctive" (Ignatieff 2000). That there was nothing distinctively Canadian about a concept with American origins was overlooked by Ignatieff and other supporters of affirmative action. In his Toronto Star column after the Progressive Conservative and Alliance parties merged in 2004, Thomas Walkom asserted the new Conservative party would likely fail to gain traction in Toronto because of what Reformers (the predecessors to the Alliance) had to say about employment equity. Their views "might create shivers in the drawing rooms of Toronto," wrote Walkom (2004). That same year, Progressive 178 Conservative Member of the Senate Lowell Murray explained in an opinion piece in the Star why he wouldn't join the newly formed Conservative party. One reason given was that one of predecessor parties to the new Conservatives, the Alliance, had opposed affirmative action (Lowell Murray 2004). In what was a minority opinion among political and other elites, the first Reform Member of Parliament, Deborah Grey, disagreed with affirmative action and called it tokenism (Mary Gordon 2004b). Discourse, deliberation, and policy It might be asserted that affirmative action is so little practiced in Canada that such a reality forecloses the possibility of significant public attention to it, either with references to its U.S. origins or without it. For example the Ontario Conservatives won the provincial election in 1995 pledging to end racial quotas enacted by the previous New Democrat government. In response, the vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress argued that what was on the "chopping block" was not, in fact, racial quotas. Nancy Riche explained the NDP law in this manner: If faced with two qualified candidates - one from a designated group, and one not - the employer is required to hire or promote the qualified candidate from a designated group, only if the employer has an unrepresentative workforce (Riche 2005). The assertion is not convincing. Whether an employer must hire certain people due to an explicit quota or an implicit quota, the effect is the same. An example of the former is when the community has a minority population of 40 percent but a business with 100 employees only has 20 minority employees (or 20 percent) and must hire only minorities in order to address the imbalance. An example of the latter, noted by Riche, where an employer has an "unrepresentative" workforce and is required to hire a 179 "minority" all else being equal, has the same end result as in the first example. Whether affirmative action, employment equity, or racial quotas, the distinction is in words, not in practice. Moreover, while there may be in selected case less affirmative action as a result of the Ontario government's decision to end that requirement in law in 1995 (National Post 2002), that government action was rare, and still left the possibility for such quotas where voluntarily adopted by universities, public agencies, institutions, cities, other provincial governments and the federal government. Martin Loney asserts that the federal government expanded programs to confer benefits on specific identity groups and that the Multiculturalism Act has been transformed into a race-based policy. He notes a Canadian Heritage survey from 1997, two years after the Ontario government abolished racial preferences, that found a plethora of race-based initiatives offered in the federal government and "premised on the belief that race is central to the government's mission." The list included preferential hiring at CBC and Radio-Canada among others (Loney 1998, 330-331). In short, while the Ontario Conservatives dispatched affirmative action in 1995, similar critiques of federal legislation have not produced legislative changes at the federal level. My quantitative survey focused on references to "U.S.-style" and "American- style" as it concerned affirmative action; it did not seek to find evidence of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with affirmative action itself. What one can conclude is that if dissatisfaction exists with affirmative action, Canadians are not linking their dissatisfaction (or approval) to the policy's American roots. Also, similar to discourse on the Charter, and as evidence from the qualitative survey showed, there are few references 180 to "U.S.-style" or "American-style" affirmative action or racial quotas in Canadian discussion; thus, any discussion on how such discourse might have affected policy would be speculative. Also, it appears that at least some elite opinion - represented by columnists in newspapers, political actors, and selected activists - has no qualms about endorsing affirmative action as a policy despite its American roots. Affirmative action, American in origin, has thus not attracted the same degree of opprobrium - or any - from Canadians who otherwise disdain the import of American ideas and policies into the political and social fabric of Canada. Environment The environment is another area of Canadian discourse mostly unaffected by negative references to the United States. As the quantitative data revealed, rare is the reference to "U.S.-style" environmental law or "American-style" green policy. It would be unusual to find such citations and justifications in pursuit of a goal to avoid implementation of a similar law or policy in Canada. In fact, as will be seen by looking at two prominent American politicians known for their advocacy on the environment, Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a reversal of the discourse found in other subject areas occurs. In other policy areas, an American reference is given to discourage adoption of a real or perceived U.S. policy or idea. In this case, when American references are found on environmental topics, they are often made in an attempt to shame Canadian policymakers into adopting U.S. initiatives. In addition, in the case of politicians, it appears there is little reticence in using American politicians or personalities on green issues to attract voters. 181 Discourse One prominent example is the public and elite response to Al Gore, known for his embrace of environmental advocacy before and after his 1993-2001 service as U.S. vice- president under Bill Clinton. The reaction of some in Canada, otherwise more skeptical of American influence if spotted in foreign affairs, economics, health, or judicial reform, is benign or more often, enthusiastic, as it concerns Gore. In 1992, as Gore ran for the position of Democratic nominee for president, environmentalist David Suzuki wrote of his first-ever meeting with then Senator Al Gore in 1989. "I interviewed a politician who gave me goose bumps as he recited the dimensions and severity of the global ecocrisis and his commitment to doing something about it" (Suzuki 1992)/ Post-U.S. election, NDP External Affairs critic Svend Robinson also praised the American vice-president. Robinson remarked that, "The Clinton administration will be positive for Canada in a couple of critical areas... particularly the kind of leadership Al Gore has shown on environmental issues" (Toulin 1992). In the past, Robinson was less supportive of other American politicians. Robinson heckled Ronald Reagan during that president's 1987 speech to the House of Commons (Whittington 1987); in 2003, Robinson labeled George W. Bush a "war criminal" and threatened to disrupt any speech given by Bush in the House (O'Neil 2003). There were exceptions to the fulsome praise for the United States on the environmental portfolio. In 1992, then Liberal Environment Critic Paul Martin criticized the Conservative government, claiming it gave in to American pressure to water down a f Fifteen years later, David Suzuki crudely played the anti-American card by tying Harper to George Bush when he told the CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos that "He [Harper] is so far up George Bush's butt..." (Fletcher 2007). document on climate change at the United Nations conference the year before, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Curry 2002). The Martin criticism, however, was referenced to the previous administration of George H. Bush, not to the recently elected Bill Clinton. Al Gore is just all right with me: Canadian political and media endorsements Post-vice-presidency and after the release of his book and film about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, positive press and political endorsements accrued to Gore in a manner rare in Canadian history, and likely absent since Canadian popular and elite infatuation with John F. Kennedy over four decades previous. In June 2006 at conference for self-described progressives in Mt. Tremblant, Quebec, the former U.S. vice-president tagged the Canadian and U.S. governments the "Bush-Cheney-Harper administration" (Delacourt 2006b). The vice-president was praised by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley. Manley said the vice-president's message would be well received in Canada despite "where the Conservative government is going" (Taber 2006). During a provincial election in Quebec in February 2007, Gore told voters in Montreal that they shouldn't be satisfied with vague promises on the environment (Seguin et al 2007). In March, Liberal leader Stephane Dion introduced Gore to a conference of human resources executives in Toronto. Dion said Gore was "shaking the foundations of our complacency, smashing down the barricades of disbelief, and puncturing the smug confidence of denial" (Brean 2007). In April, Gore appeared in Toronto to screen An Inconvenient Truth and remarked that the Conservative government's environmental plan was "a complete and total fraud" (Alison Jones 2007). In defense of the American politician and his frequent remarks about Canadian public policy, Dion told reporters he agreed with Gore and that "Mr. Baird [the Environment minister who took issue with Gore's comments] is embarrassing Canada around the world." It was a rare defense of an American politician who had commented on internal Canadian matters. Such a defense would be unthinkable if the remark had been uttered by an American Republican critical of a Liberal government position on Canadian foreign or economic policy. NDP leader Jack Layton also came to Gore's defense and the American record on the environment: "Let me remind Mr. Baird and the Liberals before him that the U.S has done better in reducing their emissions than Canada has under the Liberals and the Conservatives" (Jones 2007). That same year, the provincial Liberal government in Ontario distributed Gore's film throughout that province's school system (DeSouza and Leong 2007). In British Columbia, New Democrat Member of Parliament Denise Savoie organized a Victoria screening of An Inconvenient Truth (Ward 2007). Some politicians went beyond enthusiastic endorsements of Gore's words. In Saskatchewan, the NDP government paid the former vice-president to give a speech in that province (Burton 2007). The message from such Canadian politicians was clear and without reservation: Canadians should listen to the American politician, Al Gore. Popular commentary was similarly positive. Fredericton's Daily Gleaner opinion page defended Gore's remarks about Canadian policy: "Gore acknowledged that he's not Canadian, but as a citizen of the world, he's comfortable expressing disappointment because the world looks to Canada for moral leadership." The Fredericton newspaper called Gore's words "music to Canadian ears" {Daily Gleaner 2007). The Toronto Star labeled the former politician the "Goracle" and noted his appearances attracted 5,000 people in Regma, 1,600 people in Calgary, and a sold-out event in Toronto at $240 per ticket {Toronto Star 2007b). Some commentators saw it all as a sign of new Canadian maturity. Toronto writer Geoffrey Stevens noted how Canadians used to get our "knickers in a knot when U.S. politicians made so bold as to express uncharitable thoughts about our government, our leaders or their policies." Stevens thought the response to Gore might even be evidence of humility, though Americans might have missed evidence of the latter when they read what he thought of as evidence of such humility: "We know that we can be as corrupt, as immoral or as misguided as the Americans" (Stevens 2007). That the approval of Gore might be related to a deep interest in environmental issues was probably a more likely explanation than a newfound equanimity about American influence. Stevens himself had referenced Americans in the past in a manner that made clear the fact of something's "American-ness" could be a good enough reason for Canadian disdain. In 1992, Stevens wrote that Canada needed "rules against U.S.- style campaign tactics" (Stevens 1992). The following year, he editorialized that "what's right for the U.S. is almost certainly not right for Canada," and that Canadians should "Stop hankering for a U.S.-style leader" (Stevens 1993). Favourable Canadian commentary about an American presence appeared again when a California governor and former movie star arrived to promote environmental initiatives. David Reevely, writing in the Province, advised federal Conservatives to learn from "conservatives who do take the environment seriously, like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger" (Reevely 2007). In the Hamilton Spectator, Toby Yull contrasted the California governor with Canadian politicians. Yull thought Harper and Dion full of 185 "doom and gloom." (Harper predicted a "crippling of the economy" if Kyoto protocol targets on greenhouse gas emissions were met; Dion forecast "catastrophic economic costs" if they were not met). The writer noted Schwarzenegger attracted 1,200 people to the Economic Club of Toronto with a more positive outlook on the environment and the economy (Yull 2007). In a reversal of the more common Canada-is-better-than-the-U.S. references found in health care and foreign policy discourse, Christopher Sun wrote in B.C.'s Alaska Highway News to compare Harper's 2007 green plan to Schwarzenegger's. Sun noted California "has stronger environmental laws than we do" (Sun 2007). The National Post's Don Martin encouraged the Prime Minister to "be a bit more like upbeat Arnold and a lot less like dour Dubya" (Don Martin 2007). Jim McNulty of the Province pointed out that "Schwarzenegger's climate-change celebrity status has everyone from B.C.'s Gordon Campbell to Ottawa's Stephen Harper to Ontario's Dalton McGuinty lined up for Hollywood mugshots to impress voters" (McNulty 2007). McNulty, concerned about claimed Conservative imitation of U.S. policies on crime reduction in 2004, saw no contradiction in urging the same party to imitate American Republicans in 2007, only this time on green issues. Michael Byers, a Vancouver professor and feted critic of many aspects of the American republic, called Schwarzenegger his "hero" for the governor's approach to climate change. (Kennedy 2007). One dissenting critique came from Alan Ferguson. The Province columnist pointed out that the American government, Gore along with Bill Clinton and Congress, kept the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol. Ferguson noted the double-standard: If any other American busybody dared to meddle in Canadian affairs, he'd be dismissed as an interfering, imperialist bully. But since Gore claimed to have discovered the secrets of a doomed universe, he's become the darling of hand- wringers everywhere (Alan Ferguson 2007). Still, while some politicians and pundits praised Gore, the same personalities reverted to type when necessary and would use the United States as a convenient foil for suitable domestic purposes. In 2007, Liberal leader Stephane Dion argued the Conservatives made unhealthy concessions to Americans on the environment. "We learned recently that to please the Americans, Canada has relaxed its regulations on pesticides. Those pesticides can bring about serious illnesses," said Dion, while attending a Toronto screening of the American filmmaker Michael Moore's film on health care, Sicko (Maughan 2007). Discourse, deliberation, and policy In contrast to the first four policy areas, where the review of discourse reveals consistent, often negative references to the United States, or in the last two realms where citation of the U.S. was rare and the fact of American origins not at all troublesome for supporters, the discourse on the environment revealed a different phenomenon: admitted U.S. influence and admired U.S. personalities were used in attempts to shame opponents into adopting a desired policy. As for such policy and a discourse-policy link, despite the prevalence of American references (this time positively cited), any attempt to determine a cause-and- effect link suffers from a correlation-causation problem. It is possible that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government became more "green" as a result of the pressure emanating from the discourse and the role that Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger had in it; it is also possible and perhaps more likely that domestic voter preferences in a 187 country that is amenable and sympathetic to environmental activism and proposals were at least as responsible if not wholly to account for government policies. 188 CHAPTER SIX TWO REGIONAL NARRATIVES "The free life of the West appeals to us. The Country is being opened up in all directions, and has a bright future before it. A person does not require a great deal of practical experience to enable him to take up the kind of farming that is carried on in the West." —Arthur Cotter, in 1908, to his brother Teedie (David Jones 1998,47) Sources of Anti-Americanism at Home and Abroad As the quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals, references to the United States are rife in Canadian discourse. It is useful to consider whether such references might have a greater or lesser effect upon deliberation depending on the pre-existing culture, especially the political culture. Also, it is worth examining whether regional cultures in Canada might be more open or more impervious to such references depending on their own pre-existing culture, including political culture. To that end, in this chapter, I examine two narratives, Ontario's and Alberta's. I examine both because the first is an example of a regional narrative that has often been assumed to be the national narrative, an assumption I will show to be faulty outside the realm of politics. The second serves as an example of an alternative narrative within Canada, and how other regions, with differing histories and experiences, hold out the possibility that the character of democratic deliberation may change if such narratives grow in influence relative to the Ontario version. Before embarking on that analysis, a review of sources or strands of anti- Americanism in Canada and abroad is helpful as antipathy to the United States is not a theme limited only to Canada. While this dissertation is not primarily focused on anti- Americanism per se but on how references (positive or negative) in Canadian discourse 189 affect the possibility for greater deliberation, an understanding of sources of anti- Americanism in Canada and abroad may provide clues as to how impervious certain attitudes are to change and thus what the potential is for a deeper, less reactionary discourse. Definitions of anti-Americanism will also be helpful here. Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohane defines anti-Americanism as a "psychological tendency to hold negative views of the United States and of American society in general." They note such views draw on cognitive, emotional and normative elements (2007,12). Paul Hollander describes it as "an attitude of distaste, aversion, or intense hostility the roots of which may be found in matters unrelated to the actual qualities or attributes of American society or the foreign policies of the United States (1992, viii). Canadian historian Jack Granatstein offers this more detailed definition which he believes to more accurately grasp the distinct Canadian version of anti-Americanism: It is a distaste for and a fear of American military, political, cultural and economic activities that while widespread in the population, is usually benign unless it is exploited by business, political or cultural groups for their own ends. Added to this is a snippet - and sometimes more - of envy at the greatness, wealth, and power of the Republic and its citizens, and a dash of discomfort at the excesses that mar American life (Granatstein 1996, 4). Each of the authors make a useful and proper distinction between reasoned opposition to U.S. policies and anti-Americanism; the former is not the latter. As noted earlier, "un-Americanism" is not anti-Americanism. One can prefer one's own culture, economic system, approach to matters of war and peace, and not be anti-American. The difference between un-Americanism and anti-Americanism occurs when preferences become prejudices; it is then where anti-Americanism is in play even though which phenomenon is occurring is often debated. 190 Thus, Jean-Frarnjois Revel (2003) argues some French anti-Americanism is in part due to "old socialism and anti-liberalism" (31), fallacies about the United States, exaggerations about America's faults, fear of cultural extinction, and opportunism by social and political elites. In opposition, Sophie Meunier argues that French actions in the case of opposition to the Iraq War, criticism of the U.S. tsunami relief effort in Indonesia, and protectionist actions on culture, have alternative explanations: geopolitical interests, economic interests, and cultural competition. Meunier asserts that while there is pronounced French opposition to the United States in France, "it is on whole better explained by French policy principles, overall wariness of unilateralism, and by a defense of French culture in the face of globalization, than by anti-American bias" (in Katzenstein 2007, 139). If Meunier is correct, such un-Americanism is consistent with a deliberative approach to a nation's social, economic, cultural and political life. Alternately, if Revel is correct, then much of French discourse might well be affected by the strains of anti- Americanism similar to those which exist in Canada. Language may be helpful in making a distinction between un-Americanism and reasoned opposition to American policy, culture, or some other aspect of the United States. Epithets, references framed in hyperbole, or discourse where one could insert a race or creed in place of "American" and be seen as obviously prejudicial, may be ways in which to be clear about the distinction. The same is true of guilt-by-association tactics in discourse without any supportive reasoning. However, even reasoned criticism may hide anti-Americanism. Meunier notes that "What is often portrayed in shorthand as anti- Americanism may actually be reasoned criticism, and what is passed off as reasoned criticism may mask real prejudices (in Katzenstein 2007, 130). In broad "brush strokes," Peter Katzenstein and Robert Keohane (2007) offer six typologies of anti-Americanism: liberal, social, sovereign-nationalist, radical, elite and legacy. Liberal anti-Americanism includes those who are sympathetic to the economic liberalism of the United States and its public stance on human rights for example, but think it hypocritical on such matters; examples are prevalent in offshoots of Great Britain including former colonies. Social anti-Americanism is based on value conflicts, including the proper role of the state versus markets; varieties include social-democratic preferences in Europe and elsewhere vis-a-vis American models, or anti-globalization opposition to the United States, where the U.S. is seen as the model which encompasses everything one dislikes on such matters. The sovereigntist-nationalist variety focuses not on economics but on political power. Katzenstein and Keohane note the example of Germany-British rivalry before World War One where some Germans saw Britain as blocking what they believed to be Germany's "rightful place in the sun" (2007, 32). Modern varieties include China, many countries in the Middle East, and in Latin America, among others. "Sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism resonates well in polities that have sovereign state traditions and in which U.S. actions are perceived as detrimental to nationalism, sovereignty, or the exercise of state power," write Katzenstein and Keohane (2007, 32). Radical anti-Americanism is built on the belief that America's identity, reflected in various institutions and practices in economic and political realms, is detrimental to the advancement of good values, practices and institutions elsewhere. For such progress to occur, it is assumed the United States must be transformed from either the inside or the outside (33). Examples includes Marxist-Leninist critiques, especially historically, or radicalized version of Islam now, Al-Qaeda and 9/11 as the most notorious example. Elitist anti-Americanism is a variety that arises in countries with a long tradition and history of looking down on American culture (36). Katzenstein and Keohane note the example of France, a point also made by Jean-Francois Revel Paul (2003), Meunier (in Katzenstein 2007), and Anthony Daniels (in Hollander 2004). Canada is no exception to this variety. Granatstein (1996) notes the prevalence of elite anti-Americanism in Canada from artists, writers, and academics. The last variety is that of legacy anti-Americanism (Katzenstein and Keohane (2007, 37). Here, this typology stems from resentment connected to past wrongs committed by the United States. Mexican anti-Americanism, prompted by the historical experience of U.S. attacks on Mexico is one example; U.S. support for a repressive dictator such as occurred in Iran where the United States supported the Shah is another and formed part of the subsequent narrative after the 1979 Iranian Revolution is another. All types of anti-Americanism exist within Canada though with significant differences in strength and influence. Radical anti-Americanism is of a more recent import in the form of Islamism, though insofar as a smattering of Leninist-Marxists existed in Canadian society in the 20th century, one might assert even that latter category was also present in Canada in the past. Also, one could also categorize the anti-Americanisms in a different though complementary manner in the case of Canada. There are ideological, cultural, and psychological reasons for anti-Americanism in Canada, though to categorize the wellsprings of anti-Americanism with such descriptions will lead to cross-cutting through the Katzenstein and Keohane categories. Ideological origins of anti-Americanism can fall into the categories of social, sovereign-nationalist, and perhaps even the elite categories offered by Katzenstein and Keohane. For example, Mel Hurtig's advocacy falls into all three categories (left-of-centre, nationalist, and elite given his status and wealth) while Maude Barlow's rhetoric can be explained by the first two (her left-wing politics combined with her version of Canadian nationalism). For the sake of simplicity when considering the Ontario narrative, I will use the Katzenstein and Keohane distinctions with the caveat just noted. Canadian narratives and the public discourse To properly understand Canada and the constant references to the United States, and informal limits on deliberation, it is helpful to understand Canada's culture, her narratives, including regional differences which may contribute to diverse self- understandings and have an effect upon receptivity to negative American references. An understanding of political culture is first revealed in narratives and myths, in the language which surrounds the interplay of history, leaders, citizens, nature, wars, money, and beliefs about the same. Those narratives, defined as a "a story of events, experiences or the like, whether true or fictitious" (Webster's 1983, 951), influence discourse including an individual's openness and response when certain rhetorical appeals are employed in public deliberation. For example, an appeal to change a 194 government policy on economic grounds will fall on deaf ears if the listener's framework begins and ends with a belief that economic calculations should not matter in terms of support for a particular policy. In the same manner, narratives shape outlooks. A public appeal to union brotherhood will gain a hearing in a union-friendly locale such as Vancouver Island; it may fall flat among office workers in corporate Calgary where the possibility for individual achievement is assumed and where union rules would be seen to interfere with that possibility. Such is the power of one's own narrative, and, if extended among enough people, to become the dominant narrative in a particular area. Relevant to this analysis, diverse regional narratives allow for unique responses to the United States. For example, a negative reference to American ownership of Canadian- based energy production would likely receive two different responses in Victoria or Winnipeg when compared with Calgary. Residents in the former cities might be more inclined to respond favourably to such an invocation; those in Alberta might ignore such rhetoric or argue with it, and on the two grounds: first, that American investment and ownership is not threat but to the benefits of themselves and other Canadians; and second, that in Alberta, private ownership is lauded regardless of the nationality of the majority of the owner. Such historic dispositions might even today shape those informed of and sympathetic to such narratives (often elites including writers, philosophers, poets, other artists, politicians, and some in the media). Moreover, the continuing difference in regional narratives drawn not only from history but recent interactions (including between Canadian regions) means that phenomenon might continue and with it provoke varied reactions to the United States and attempts to reference it in discourse. This should be unsurprising. In a country as geographically vast as Canada, where some regions were settled by Europeans far in advance of others, where the first four provinces entered Confederation in 1867 and the last, Newfoundland, joined in 1949, where population differences matter significantly given the preponderance of population in central Canada vis-a-vis other regions, regional narratives are arguably stronger than any possible national version. This is true even if on occasion some have mistakenly substituted their own region's version, writ large, as the definitive Canadian narrative. In this chapter, the narratives of two provinces will be summarized. The first originates in Ontario—important, given its historical dominance in the national discourse. The Ontario narrative has dominated for a number of reasons: federal institutions of power including Parliament, the Supreme Court, and much of the federal bureaucracy, are located in Ottawa; the proportion of Canada's population which resides in Ontario gives it significant influence; that in turn leads its population to assume Ontario's past and present experiences and its narratives are common to all; historically, much of the country's economic strength, including substantial portions of the country's manufacturing base, was located in Ontario; as well, given the political centre of power, population, and finance, Ontario's cultural dominance over the rest of Canada has also been significant. The second province to examine for narratives will be Alberta. That province is useful to examine as it provides the most useful contrast to Ontario's political culture available in Canada today with the exception of Quebec. There are of course, other narratives within Canada besides those two; Quebec has a distinct narrative as does British Columbia, Newfoundland, and the Maritimes; there is also a Saskatchewan- Manitoba version to consider as well as a northern narrative. However, for the sake of a simple comparison between two mainly English-speaking provinces, I will examine only the Ontario and Alberta narratives and shortly explain the advantages and limitation of such a comparison. Also, unlike Quebec, Alberta is a more useful model as it, like Ontario, is predominantly English-speaking. Thus, if one finds a narrative in Alberta which is distinct from Ontario, communal feeling based on language can be ruled out as the main factor; it must be something else. Some preliminary remarks about narrative are in order. A narrative may be true or it may be a myth but it allows a person or group of people to understand themselves and their world. For those who believe in the narrative, the historical facts often do not matter. Second, any attempt to assign a narrative culture to a particular region and especially to a province may face criticism that such an assignation is wholly arbitrary if not impossible. For example, Doreen Barrie (2006, 41) argues regional differences are overstated. Others may argue that northern Ontario culture is not the same as southern Ontario culture or that elements of an Alberta culture may well apply to areas of Saskatchewan or the interior of British Columbia. Others, such as Germaine Warkentin, argue Ontario is not a region in any geographical definitive sense. "No image of a place informs it, for as a geographical entity it is as various as any of the larger nations of Europe" (1974, x). Despite the criticism, there are foundational and formational events in a person's and a nation's or even a region's life. That such events and the ensuing narrative are not the sum total of an outlook should be assumed; so too should the possibility that sub- regions may dissent or have their own identity. Thus, "broad brushes" as regards a region or province are still useful. A simple observation of voting patterns and political culture in Texas would reveal a significant difference from Vermont. In Canada, the three words "National Energy Program" provoke a different reaction in Alberta than they would in Ontario (north or south). The re-telling of the events leading up to the 1982 repatriation of the Constitution is understood differently in Quebec than in British Columbia. This is evident to any casual observer familiar with the political history, narratives, and cultures of the respective regions, and even if one allows that dissenting views or minority narratives exist in such regions. Last, as a defense of an analysis of narrative I defer to historian Don Walker's observation, aptly summarized by another, that the historian, "to reach any significant truth about human experience, must go beyond the 'scientific' and quantifiable. He must exercise all of the human mentality including imagination, and in this respect he engages in a creative act closely analogous to that of the fiction writer" (Harrison 1979,4-5). To reach the significant truth about Ontario and Alberta and why the political cultures are distinct and produce varied reactions to the United States and how that may affect Canadian discourse, we must first begin with historical events which gave rise to later narratives; the truth of their respective experiences is found within the same. 198 Early Canadian-American Events and Ontario's Narrative John Brebner notes that all of North America was peopled by men and women of the same stock and closely intermingled by marriage and migration. He asks how it was that two separate, self-conscious nations came into being. He surmises that there were at least three reasons: First, the natural dividing line of the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes with the Canadian Shield; second, the slight but perceptible height of land between the Missouri Valley and the valleys of the Assiniboine and the Saskatchewan, and - perhaps most importantly though he does not suggest this as the most decisive of the three - "men's inclinations to find comfort in the fact that they and their regional groups are not as other men are" (Brebner 1945, 6). The regional groupings of early European settlers and the exacerbation of their differences over time are also analyzed in an early 20th-century look at the first "seeds" of Canadian-American relations by Hugh Keenleyside. He notes the initial freedom that the colonies in North America enjoyed. "Between 1660 and 1763 American colonies had enjoyed an economic freedom unknown in any other colonial system of the period. Legally, the Regulatory Laws of 1660 (which regulated and restricted trade in the colonies) were operative during this period, but in fact were consistently ignored" (Keenleyside 1929, 5-6). Keenleyside points out that the colonies had become accustomed to self- government and representative institutions that were far advanced beyond those of England itself. English colonies in the Americas enjoyed economic and legislative freedom that was the exact opposite of the practice in French and Spanish colonies. A century's worth of isolation, independence, and new social conditions reinforced by habit combined to produce a hatred of restraint. And no matter how legally sound the decision might have been (or seemed to have been) for the colonial power as it began to enforce long-established laws, the existing conditions meant that the North American colonies and their English rulers were in for a systemic shock when King George III decided to strictly enforce the Regulatory Laws (Keenleyside 1929,4-7). Brebner (1945, 42-43) expands upon this explanation when he notes that two generations of North American colonists blandly ignored British regulations whenever they interfered with profitable pursuits. But there was a significant difference in the colonies: In these matters there were important differences between the colonies south of the mouth of the Bay of Fundy and those north of it, that is, between the regions which were to become the United States and Canada. Nova Scotia, although remarkably like New England and peopled largely by New Englanders, was a marginal or debatable land where New England and Old competed for economic mastery and between them retarded the maturing of the region to economic independence. Newfoundland, dependent on a single staple export, was just beginning to shake herself free from English West Country control and, for lack of capital and capital equipment, was as yet unable to pursue a self-directed course. Quebec, cut off from France and no longer able to trade with the French West Indies through contacts around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, found that she needed the British connection in order to secure attention to her interests in the stern competition of the Gulf fisheries and of the fur trade in the interior. The Hudson's Bay Company was a living extension of the British industrial and commercial organism, and severance from it was unthinkable to the directors and shareholders. In fact, the District of Maine (then part of Massachusetts) might well have been taken as a sort of boundary between British colonies which were able and inclined to resent British mercantile control and those who looked to it for nourishment and aid (Brebner 1945,42-43). The difference between the two regions and their dependence on or competition with British mercantile controls illuminates the reality of early colonial history; two identities already existed and might one day become more apparent. Meanwhile, the first Continental Congress that met in Philadelphia in September of 1774 openly discussed the inclusion of Canada in the independence movement. And 200 reports of royal oppression in Boston served to provoke sympathy among merchants in Montreal and Quebec, who proceeded to organize a shipment of grain and money to send the New England port. In February 1775, American leaders in the independence movement drew up a letter to the merchants of Montreal in which they stated their grievances against the Crown, and denounced the Quebec Act (which among other items re-imposed compulsory tithes for the Catholic Church) as despotic. Upper and Lower Canadians were invited to revolt and to send delegates to the second session of Congress, soon to meet in Philadelphia. The Montreal reply, sympathetic though it was, was that the local British administration was simply too strong to be effectively opposed (Keenleyside 1929, 16-17). In early autumn 1775, American forces invaded near Montreal and Quebec, and while initially successful in their advance and in attracting some residents sympathetic to the American independence movement, the campaigns faltered over the winter months and were eventually defeated in the spring of 1776, a development crucial to the maintenance of British rule. As Keenleyside writes: The American defeat at Quebec was indeed the crucial event in the struggle for possession of Canada. Larger bodies of troops were placed in the field in 1776, but never again did the danger of Quebec appear imminent. Never again did the habitants, disillusioned by this defeat, risk their lives and property, in comparable numbers, on behalf of a losing cause. British authority here was established, to remain unquestioned for more than three decades (Keenleyside 1929, 27). Thus we find in Canada's earliest history doubt about the viability of the British North American polity given events south of the border. That included American revolutionary designs on Canada which continually impacted the lives of those in that same polity, in those British colonies which were later to become Canada. 201 Loyalists vis-a-vis American revolutionaries If the American invasion of British territory with hopes that other English colonists would join New Englanders in their independence movement had the opposite effect of solidifying British control, the American Revolution and the forced and voluntary migration which followed into Canada for those loyal to the Crown reinforced the growing separateness of the two peoples. Keenleyside points out that a greater number of colonists in New England were at first opposed to such a separation and retained such sentiments even after July 4, 1776. But insofar as the successful War of Independence would eventually have an effect on Canada, the United Empire Loyalists (as they were proclaimed to be by the King), were reinforced in their dislike for the newly independent country by the treatment they received at the hands of the victors. Loyalists were barred from all civil rights; they could not collect debts, nor claim legal protection from slander, assault or blackmail. They could not hold land or present a gift. The professions were closed to them and military service in the Whig ranks was frequently demanded. Freedom of speech, press, and travel were rigidly curtailed, and, on the charge of treason, Loyalists were hanged, exiled, or imprisoned. On the same charge property was confiscated. Heavy fines and forced donations were levied, and in many districts those suspected of Tory sympathies were herded together in concentration camps—camps which in some cases compared unfavourably with the worst of British prison ships (Keenleyside 1929, 41). Keenleyside asserts that some of the measures could not fairly be criticized, given the conditions of the time, but he also notes that as such measures were enforced by some of the most violent members of the local communities, they became intolerably oppressive. For example, George Washington declared Loyalists to be "abominable pests," and only urged against executing them on tactical grounds: he feared revenge might be exacted against patriots. He advised Loyalists to commit suicide instead. 202 Another aspect to the Loyalist experience, and one that would influence attitudes once they migrated to Canada, was that some were drawn from the upper classes of New England and were wealthy in comparison to many revolutionaries. During the war as well as after, class envy inflamed the tensions: homes and goods were ransacked, property destroyed, and houses set on fire. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and General Greene protested against such treatment but to little effect. Keenleyside notes Loyalists were not innocent of such crimes either; but after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which ended hostilities and had within it provisions for a more orderly return of Loyalists to their properties, if for no other reason than to dispose of them before moving on, some of the Loyalists faced persecution worse than that which occurred before the end of hostilities. Keenleyside quotes John Adams - who previous to the war's end recommended hanging all who were disloyal to the Revolution - on the excesses of the Whig mobs: Profaneness, intemperance, thefts, robberies, murders and treason; cursing, swearing, gluttony, drunkenness, lewdness, trespassing.. ..they render the populace, the rabble, the scum of the earth, insolent and disorderly, impudent and abusive. They give rise to lying, hypocrisy, chicanery, and even perjuring among the people.... (Keenleyside 1929, 45). The effect of this hastened the departure of Loyalists, and Keenleyside speculates that their departure may have led to an American society that was less law-abiding, a charge often leveled at the U.S. throughout its history. Carl Stettler, a Swiss immigrant to Alberta after whom a town was later named, noted that in comparison to the United States from which he had emigrated in 1903, conditions in Alberta were more orderly, safe, laws were obeyed, few people carried firearms, and the people were "more decent and better mannered" (Palmer and Palmer 1990, 90-91). 203 When considering the plight and subsequent reaction of the Loyalists to the American state, it should be remembered that those in power in any society are generally among its more operationally and institutionally conservative elements. Unsurprisingly, they are less sympathetic to calls for radical change, given that the existing system "works" and poses no hindrance to their own progress, wealth, and comfort. Thus, when 100,000 Loyalists departed, the United States also lost the most conservative, stable, and perhaps most law-abiding segment of its population. However, their departure was involuntary; mass migrations usually are when they occur among the relatively wealthier, settled, and secure population in any area undergoing significant turmoil. The effect of this migration on the Canadian colonies was dramatic and the emigration of so many Loyalists entrenched the Canadian-American divide. Also, the conditions which greeted the new settlers, in spite of attempts by British authorities to ease the hardships, also reinforced an understandable bitterness that results from war and the inevitable migration caused by it: Privations such as they had never known were now their daily lot, and the long snowbound winter nights, which they were forced to spend in rough log huts or army tents gave ample opportunity for bitter thought in reference to the authors of their misfortunes. The fierce anger with which they had resented the indignities of war gave place to a deep and acrid hatred, which pervaded every aspect of their lives and constituted one of the strongest influences in molding the outlook of their children (Keenleyside 1929,49). The separateness of the two peoples only grew with the failed attempt by some Americans in the War of 1812 to, as they saw it, "liberate" Canada from the British. When hostilities officially ended with the Treaty of Ghent in 1815, the practical result for relations between the two countries was that the British North American colonies had 204 emerged intact, and the governing classes in British North America found their anti- Americanism reinforced. Henceforth the old loyalist attitude, enhanced by the ordeals and the property losses of the war, would be the taproot of an orthodox anti-Americanism Canadianism which might be contradicted daily in dozens of practical ways, but which would persist because it harmonized perfectly with the natural feelings of a small people toward an overpoweringly large one next door (Brebner 1945, 88). Despite the reality of early separateness in two British North American powers and the anti-Americanism of the colonies which did not engage in the revolutionary experiment, occasional pro-American sentiment and actions were found where colonial policies gave rise to dissatisfaction. In Montreal in 1849, merchants were upset with the loss of preferential trade tariffs with Britain as the loss exacerbated the declining influence of the city and made Montreal uneconomical as a port for grain compared with New York City. When tensions ran particularly high, the mercantilists rioted and circulated a manifesto that advocated the annexation of Canada to the United States. But the extremism of the demands and its failure only reinforced the separateness of the British colonies and the desirability of such in the minds of most residents (Brebner 1945, 148-152). Exiles, a garrison culture, and survival Thus, Canada's birth as a nation-state was a conscious creation in response to the founding of the United States. Add to that reaction another element which would exacerbate the experience in the Loyalist mind: the largely untamed wilderness Loyalists were made to face. Bruce Littlejohn and Jon Pearce, in their survey of Canadian literature, note that if there is one distinguishing element of Canadian literature that sets it apart from that of 205 other nations, it is the influence of the wild (1973,11). "We in Canada are, in large degree, formed by the wilderness," they write (1973, 215). But it useful to note that Littlejohn and Pearce's formation is bathed in fear, at least for some early settlers. The experience of the wilderness for the pioneer was that of "an enemy that had to be conquered" (1973, 63). In fact, they note that early Canadian literature was almost always negative and fearful when it referenced the wilderness; more positive and harmonious references began to show up only in the last half of the twentieth century (1973,192). John Moss argues that Canada's vast landscape, innumerable regions, geography and climate "impose an isolation of place, of many places, upon the consciousness of its populace," which leads to the mentality of an "exile" (Moss 1974, 125). Katherine Morrison, writing also about the United Empire Loyalists, describes the reaction in similar terms, noting, "The Loyalists saw themselves as exiles from a British homeland, forced to live in a northern wilderness" (Morrison 2003, 29).g Thus, two important formative influences - the early Loyalist experience vis-a-vis the Americans and the physical nature of Canada - combined to produce fear as a central theme among Loyalists. It is a theme prevalent in Canadian literature noted famously by Northrop Frye, who wrote of the prevalence of the "tone of deep terror in regard to nature" and its effect on one's psychological state. This in turn produced what Frye labeled a "garrison mentality" where the moral and social values of the group are not questioned. They 8 Morrison also observes that the Canadiens, then the term reserved for those of French ancestry in Lower Canada (what was later to become Quebec), also felt like exiles, or orphans as she calls them, after their hope of returning to France was dashed by the French Revolution when it rejected both the Catholic Church and the monarchy. 206 cannot be questioned because in a land not yet secure, still mostly unknown, which it is difficult to travel in and to defend militarily, the group's survival depends on such unquestioning loyalty. It is precisely that loyalty which exists in actual military garrisons where obedience is necessary for defense and for survival. The human mind has nothing but human and moral values to cling to if it is to preserve its integrity or even its sanity, yet the vast unconsciousness of nature in front of it seems an unanswerable denial of those values.... Small and isolated communities surrounded with a physical or psychological "frontier," separated from one another and their American and British cultural sources: communities that provide all that their members have in the way of distinctively human values, and are compelled to feel a great respect for the law and order that holds them together, yet confronted with a huge, unthinking menacing and formidable physical setting—such communities are bound to develop into what we may provisionally call the garrison mentality (Frye 1971, 225). Moss echoes Frye in discussing the landscape's effect upon various arts of Canada and notes the garrison is "a closed community whose values, customs, manners have been transported virtually intact from some other environment and are little influenced by their new surroundings. It is the stage of occupation" (Moss 1974, 12). The garrison experience was most prevalent in southern Ontario but to the degree that other Canadians, in the past or present, share the garrison mentality, they share in a narrative birthed in Upper Canada. Lydia Miljan and Barry Cooper (2005, 3) point out that while Frye drew a fundamental distinction between national unity and sub-national identities he later contradicted himself by arguing that there exists a Canadian, as distinct from a Laurentian, a Maritime, a prairie, or a Quebecois imagination. Miljan and Cooper take Frye's initial assertion to be the more accurate one and assert that the garrison mentality is unmistakably regional. It exists, they write "in the imaginatively articulate heartland of Upper Canadian Loyalism, the culture that has developed in the wedge of land between 207 the Ottawa River and Lake Huron south to the American border" (2005,4). In other words, the garrison narrative is the narrative of southern Ontario, perhaps (they allow) extendable to Quebec, but beyond that not applicable to the rest of Canada, even though it has sought to become the hegemonic Canadian narrative. As proof that the narrative is Ontario-born and focused, Miljan and Cooper reference Dennis Duffy's Gardens, Covenants and Exiles: Loyalism in the Literature of Upper Canada/Ontario (1982). Miljan and Cooper assert, not without reason, that the Loyalist narrative, which includes the garrison mentality, reflects not all of Canada but the particular experience of a region that was and still is dominant in Canadian cultural, political and economic life. Miljan and Cooper summarize Duffy's work in this manner. It is a story of exile (from the rebellious American colonies), of a covenant (to remain ever loyal to the Crown), and of a promised or merely hoped for return to a garden (of a transformed wilderness in the early days, and today of a society infused with "distinctive Canadian values" that renders Canadians morally superior to the United States). But notice as well that this symbolism and the political myth it sustains is limited to the Loyalist heartland (Miljan and Cooper 2005, 4). Indeed, Duffy's work notes how fragments of the Loyalist heritage "dot our landscape," meaning Ontario's landscape. Examples include Ontario's crest urging citizens "to remain as loyal as when we began," highway plaques with Loyalist sentiments, a ferry with a loyalist appendage on it, and regular meetings of the United Empire Loyalist Association (John Duffy 1982, 4). Katherine Morrison, an American immigrant to southern Ontario, notes how the War of 1812 was only a footnote to the Napoleonic wars and an addendum to the American Revolution, "but to the Loyalists it was of considerable significance and it looms large in Canadian history" (Morrison 2003, 7). 208 This garrison culture is revealed in the literature not only as exile, isolation, terror, but also and ultimately as a survival project. Thus, Margaret Atwood wrote that if "The Frontier" is what symbolizes America and "The Island" represents England, "the central symbol of Canada.. .is undoubtedly survival." And Atwood notes this is so whether one looks at early explorers/settlers, the French vis-a-vis the English, or now English Canada in relation to the United States (Atwood 1972, 31-32). The Loyalist-garrison-survivalist narrative has a long shelf-life. In 1891, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, who had long sought reciprocity with the United States but was rebuffed, turned rhetorically against free trade. During the election, the Prime Minister queried voters rhetorically and asked them to consider the danger of "ultimately becoming a portion of the American Union," i.e., if Macdonald's Liberal opponents, who favoured a trade agreement, won. Macdonald, no amateur orator, declared that as for himself, "A British subject I was born—a British subject I will die" (Robins 1946, 368). Writing in 1965, the philosopher George Grant lamented a Canada he believed to be disappearing due to the influence of American money and a Canadian ruling class "that looks across the border for its final authority in both politics and culture" (Grant 1991,9). The survivalist language and garrison fear echoes in modern Canadian discourse, including that which is directed towards the United States. In 2006, left-wing nationalist Maude Barlow spoke in a survivalist voice and assumed the southern Ontario narrative to be the founding narrative of Canada when she argued that Canada's "founding narrative is sharing for survival." Barlow contrasted that narrative with what she labeled "a 209 succession of Liberal and Conservative governments [that] have brought Canada closer to an American narrative of survival of the fittest" (Draper 2006,19). Why the survival narrative is limited outside the garrison Atwood's theme of survival, applied nationally as a political project, is a direct outgrowth of the garrison fears of southern Ontario and the Loyalist experience. To be sure, survivalism did appear as a motive for British colonial and later Canadian policies; a cross-country railroad was one response to the fears of American absorption. But it was a survivalism politically superimposed over separate regional identities that in some cases already existed (in the Maritimes and Quebec), and in others were yet to be substantially created (as in the West). Whether pre-existing or just forming at the time of Confederation, the other regions may have been part of the survivalist political project; but they were never part of the loyalist, garrison narrative because they were never part of the Loyalist garrison experience. As Frye noted, unity and identity are not the same thing. "Identity is local and regional, rooted in the imagination and in works of culture; unity is national in reference, international in perspective, and rooted in a political feeling" (Frye 1972, ii). In some instances, separate regional identities exist because of diverse regional histories, in others due to language differences as in the case of Quebec. Such identities also exist, as Frye pointed out in his rhetorical query, because of a vastly different wilderness and the psychological effects that had upon the imaginations of various settlers in a manner distinct from the garrison experience in Upper Canada. Frye's query on what exists in common between the south shore of the St. Lawrence and the great sprawling wilderness of northern Ontario and "an imagination 210 nurtured on the prairies, where it is a centre of consciousness diffusing itself over a vast flat expanse stretching to the remote horizon," (Frye 1971, ii) almost answers itself. John Moss answers Frye's query when he contrasts the garrison with the frontier, the latter set in "a context of undifferentiated perimeters, where the experience of one reality comes into direct conflict with that of another, a more immediate and amorphous reality" (Moss 1974, 12). For Moss, "Garrison exile tends to be communal—it is part of a shared experience in an urban setting...." In contrast, the frontier exile "is solitary, the experience of an individual in the wilderness" (Moss 1974, 36). The garrison is a form of prison, its occupants in a form of stasis, and it is often from this very state that the frontier exile is a fugitive. His flight, usually, is a quest for either a private alternative or personal redemption. The fugitive, solitude and wilderness, romance and moral drama, the search for meaning, these characterize the frontier effect in Canadian literature of exile (Moss 1974, 36). These two different reactions, that of the garrison and of the frontier experience, show up time and again in various regional accounts. Bruce Hutchison in "Western Windows" describes how, in his ascent in the Canadian Rockies above the timberline, sudden winds opened up a panorama. The sun bored through the concrete, the clouds were torn to fluttering rags of blue and white, the valley of gilded autumn poplar at our feet was emptied instantly of mist. Sky, earth, mountain and forest, rock and tree, were convulsed like the colours in a child's kaleidoscope. The whole planet (how else can I say it?) turned into a whirling, bubbling molten substance as on the day of creation—a sight too dizzy for human eyes to look upon (Littlejohn and Pierce 1973, 227). Hutchison conveys a certain magnificent awe of one faced with nature's full, raw power, but noticeably absent is the chronic foreboding found in descriptions of nature narratives in Ontario, the danger lurking around the next tree. Andy Russell, in describing the foot of the Rockies "where prairie and mountain meet," writes of how in no other place "can its awesome and beautiful display be seen 211 and felt so well" (Littlejohn and Pierce 1973, 248). His descriptions are fulsome and overflowing: "Sudden-bursting life," the Rockies as the foothills' "great backdrop," the "sprawling peaks of the Great Lewis Overthrust," and how "mountains, meadows, lakes and ageless stone couple into solid magnificence." "It is a marriage of light and life," continues Russell, "the mountains light up at first sun in deep rose, swiftly changing to gold, and all shot through with deep purple's shadow, it is as though the whole universe pauses for a long, heart-stretching moment, locked in a spell of deep wonder" (Littlejohn and Pierce 1973, 249). Russell's words are all noticeably positive descriptors of nature and they are distinct from a dreary fear of a seemingly endless thick Cambrian Shield forests. Russell's exultation in Western nature is far from the fear seen in Loyalist-garrison-survival narratives produced by the wilderness of the Canadian Shield. Ontario's narrative and typologies of anti-Americanism With reference to the typologies identified by Katzenstein and Keohane (2007) - liberal, social, sovereign-nationalist, radical, elite and legacy - Ontario's narrative provides for the possibility of anti-Americanism to spring from four such sources. First, liberal anti-Americanism is a possibility given Upper Canada's attachment to Great Britain and advocacy for similar principles, rights, laws, and institutions claimed by the American Republic. As Jack Granatstein writes of Loyalist soldiers, "they had stood against the revolutionary republican mobs and the revolutionists' professed ideals..." (1996,14). Second, sovereign-nationalist anti-Americanism is also a possibility. Katzenstein and Keohane note this typology focuses on two values: "the importance of not losing control over the terms which polities are inserted in world politics and the inherent importance and value of collective national identities" (2007, 32). The Loyalist experience where sovereignty was challenged and also threatened (and thus could have been lost) provides obvious room for this second source of possible anti- Americanism. Third, elite anti-Americanism is also present in the Upper Canada/Ontario narrative. Keenleyside (1929) has asserted that that many of the Upper Canadian Loyalists were wealthier and drawn from the upper classes of pre-revolutionary American colonies; Granatstein disputes that assertion and instead argues that the Loyalists "were in every way the same as those who had drive them off their lands" (1996, 15). Still, as Granatstein admits, the narrative of the Loyalists and their ancestors is that they represented "the very cream of the American crop" (15). Narratives need not be precisely or even partly accurate historically in order to be believed and to animate discourse; the Loyalist thread in Ontario's version gave room for anti-Americanism of an elite variety. Last, the legacy typology of anti-Americanism is obvious in the Ontario narrative: there was a an American Revolution, Loyalists did lose, and they were scattered and chased into the remaining British North American colonies, only to see an American invasion again later in 1812 and threats against the British possessions and coveting of the same well into the later 19th century. 213 The Alberta Narrative: A Frontier As dominant and influential as Ontario's narrative has been for Canada's national discourse, other regional narratives exist. They, as with Ontario's, were shaped by diverse sources including history, language, nature, and culture. Such narratives then influence reactions to others, including for the purposes of this analysis, Canadians vis-a-vis the United States. If the narrative in one region is distinct from another it follows that reactions to the U.S. might also be distinct. Alberta's narrative is dissimilar to Ontario's and there appear to be several reasons why: Alberta's relative lack of European influence during the period when Upper and Lower Canada were settled and formed by the same; Alberta's subsequent settlement and incorporation into Canada at a time, post-1867, when concern over American absorption existed but was not equivalent to the threat posed to Upper Canada and Lower Canada in 1775, 1812, or 1849; the difference in the landscape and the response to it by those who would later be known as Albertans; the sources of immigration for Alberta; Alberta's experience of the "other," which was not the United States but Ontario; a starkly different economic history; and political and elite leadership who were significant in producing a distinct Alberta narrative. The interaction with Alberta's nature and its effect upon people To extrapolate on one aspect of Alberta's narrative, the province's effect upon newcomers is a useful place to start. In his 1972 introduction to A History of Alberta, James MacGregor describes the province in this manner: My Alberta is a magnificent land—a magic land. The seasons transform spring's new leaves to fall's blaze of gold, always ending in shelter of winter's pine forests. For me, no other land can match its rugged grandeur or rival its hold on the heartstrings. Not only is it beautiful, from sage-scented Cypress Hills to the redolent spruce-forested Caribou Mountains, but each of its valleys, hills, and mountain passes is steeped in history, the history of men following their fortunes to Alberta (MacGregor 1972, 10). MacGregor expands on the relationship between the land and its people when he writes of aboriginals (pre-European contact) and nature romantically and Rousseau-like and in almost beatific terms. He describes Alberta's parklands and prairies as "magnificent," a "vast land over three hundred miles from north to south and rippling away beyond the province's borders, it was an ocean of grass ...." (MacGregor 1972, 19). He describes how those same oceans of grass were bordered on the north by the boreal forest and in the west "lapping at the edge of the pine-clad foot hills." It was "a never ending meadow, it was decked with blue and pink and gold, with crocuses, roses and marigolds, and dotted with azure lakes reflecting the blueness of the boundless sky. For with the ever changing clouds, the sky, too, was part of the Indians' paradise" (MacGregor 1972, 19). While arguably patronizing, MacGregor's descriptions at the very least reveal how he views the Alberta landscape, as when he asserts that the aboriginal "came to love the little piece of the beautiful parkland or prairies which he called his home," and how each inhabitant took his place in "pristine ecology without upsetting its equilibrium...." This paradise ends when, "interlopers invaded and occupied the natives' land and forced the former owners farther west" (MacGregor 1972,19). Later, MacGregor describes the interplay of the "interlopers" and the land in a rough but still robust, beautiful, and unafraid manner: The prairies which so recently had rumbled to the rush of buffalo herds now felt a new rumble as graders, track-laying men and steam locomotives pushed the rusty new rails west. Now, thousands of men, sweating and straining, carousing and 215 fighting, rushed the rails along... Young Canada's great accomplishment was on its way (MacGregor 1972, 132). A constant theme in historical recollections in Alberta is the celebration of the beauty of the land, and it affects the narrative. Reflecting on his arrival in southern Alberta in the spring of 1884, John D. Higginbotham noted how the day was "glorious": The sun was shining from an unclouded sky and was brilliantly reflected from the snow-crowned peaks and sides of distant mountains; the nearer foothills and valleys were all clad in emerald, the sparkling streams - clear and cold - murmuring over their gravely beds, the birds singing on all sides, the grouse, or chicken, drumming as they flew from the pleasant pastures in which they were feeding to give us an inquisitive glance as we rolled long (Higginbotham 1933/1978,73-74). Higginbotham continues to note the flora and fauna of Alberta's southern vista and describes two bands of antelope numbering "three or four hundred of these beautiful creatures" (76), the "glittering whiteness from bank to bank" of the ice break of a river in spring" (91), the effect of chinooks, "a summer wind in the midst of winter [which] transforms a bitter cold into balmy springs, luring cattle from huddling about buildings and haystacks to roam the grass-covered ranges" (102), and Waterton Lakes, which he describes as a "beautiful chain of lakes" with "cool, clear waters" (252). Higginbotham also endorses the fulsome description of another early settler "struck with the abundance of wild game, but more so with their temerity," how the buffalo was "monarch of the prairie by reason of his vast numbers," how "the fleet-footed antelope emerged from almost every clump of brushwood in the river bottoms and coulees, and the beaver and otter abounded in every stream," and when berries were plentiful, how grizzlies "left their rocky fortresses and, in bands sometimes a hundred strong, descended the rivers in search of their favourite food" (244). 216 Others also saw and described the beauty of the prairie province. In 1907, Rudyard Kipling described his visit to Alberta's southern prairies in similar glowing terms: A vast mound of copper-coloured wheat piled in the sun between two mounds of golden chaff. Everyone thumbed a sample of it and passed judgment—it must have been worth a few hundred golden sovereigns as it lay out on the veldt—and we sat around on the farm machinery, and in the hush that a shut up house always imposes, we seemed ready to hear the lavish earth getting ready for new harvests." (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 364). Kipling described Medicine Hat as a "town born lucky, with its hinterland radiating a hundred miles" Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 364). Frederick Haultain, the premier of the Northwest Territories, which then comprised present-day Alberta, Saskatchewan, and most of Manitoba, similarly became entranced with the "spectacular scenery and forthright people" (van Herk 2001, 206). Similarly, Wilfrid Eggleston noted the impression made on him in the spring of 1911 during "the Golden Age of my boyhood." He writes of his impression of a homestead in southern Alberta, near the Montana border. We had entered the Promised Land. On every side there were magical regions to explore. No fences barred young adventurers....There were immigrant children in nearby homesteads to meet, to mingle with and go berry-picking with, to share lunches with and go gopher-hunting with and perhaps fall in love with. Everyone was friendly and helpful. Barriers of race and sect had not yet emerged... .The sky was an endless spectacle by day or by night, the panorama was fascinating, the air was bracing and the spirit of the frontier permeated our neighbourhood (Palmer 1977,120-122). The wonderment in a child's description of the southern Alberta landscape was later met by the harsh reality of the Palliser triangle in which Eggleton and his family lived. The area, writes Eggleton, was unsuitable for farming and "even ranchers had stayed away from those arid townships until all the more attractive ranch sites in southern Alberta had been occupied. The range was thin and the water sources limited" (Palmer 1977,122). By 1924, Eggleston records that 90 percent of the homesteaders in the area where he glimpsed Alberta's southern landscapes as a child had given up. But Eggleston also notes that even after drought, hot winds, hail, grasshoppers, frost, cutworm, and multiple economic grievances, his parents and other old-timers were, in the main, full of mellow nostalgia, not bitterness (Palmer 1977, 128). Later, suffragist Nellie McClung described the potential for women's progress with the optimistic terms which others used to describe Alberta's natural environment: "We were in sight of the promised land, a land of richer sunshine and brighter fruitage, and our head and hearts were light..."(Palmer and Palmer 1990, 178-180). A contrasting vision of the West is offered up by Howard and Tamara Palmer (1990, 30), who record that central Canadians of the time saw the Northwest as "predominantly cold, desolate and isolated." Given that this was an account of central Canadians from afar, and not a direct, first-person experience of the region - a region largely unknown to most in central Canada at that point - it is possible to regard the sentiment as quasi-projection-like in nature, more similar in tone to a vision of their own region which they and their ancestors encountered closer to home, i.e., the garrisoned survivalist forest noted by Frye and Atwood. Regardless, in addition to the more optimistic accounts of man's interaction with and reaction to the wilderness, part of the Alberta narrative has been individualism. Clues to where such a touchstone might have originated arrives in an analysis of the transformation of Alberta's land from a communal resource prior to the 1850s into individual parcels. Frits Pannekoek notes, "What had long been considered a frozen, remote and eminently forgettable hinterland began to receive attention in London, 218 Montreal, Toronto and Washington as its strategic importance in the future of the North American continent became clear," (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 1, 181). That attention meant that as the plains were increasingly seen as the commons of the people of the world, that they "could not be treated as commons at all" (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 1, 192). In other words, when a greater number of people showed interest in the Canadian West - it became "the commons of the people of the world" - it became necessary to think about how to practically divide up such land. In Alberta, the result was that grazing land could no longer be used in common by a few settlers who happened to have arrived. The land was enclosed in order to prevent disputes over land stewardship and ownership, including leased land. Such land was made private in usage, similar to how English meadows had been enclosed centuries earlier. That this was a substantive change from how the plains aboriginals used the land - in common, not enclosed, and used for ranching or farming - is obvious. The result for Alberta's narrative is that there is a legitimate historical ground for seeing Alberta's self- understanding as one that was and is more individualistic. Alberta's "other": Political and economic and power struggles with central Canada Beyond the change in how the land was utilized, the narrative and self- understanding of Alberta is also not comprehensible apart from an understanding of the province's conflict with central Canada. The "other" in Alberta's experience has most often not been, as it was for central Canada, the United States. In the case of Alberta, the "other" has long been central Canada itself, whether Ontario in general, Toronto financial and cultural institutions in particular, or the federal government in specific policy areas. 219 While central Canadians may blame the U.S. for perceived or actual slights against Canada, Alberta's narrative is often focused on perceived or actual slights from central Canada. Historically, many Albertans have the same response to Ontario that many in that province have to the United States: a power with significant potential to affect one's own life and region, often negatively, even though that power (the United States or central Canada) is blithely unaware of its elephant-like effect. Moreover, the combination of the above in historical references and personal recollections reveals how Albertans are more likely to think of their provincial narrative in the manner many Americans think of theirs: as a frontier. Palmer and Palmer (1990, 30) note how in the 1850s Canadian expansionists began to demand that Canada acquire Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company. There were three prime motivations: first, they worried about Canada's economic future once reciprocity (free trade) with the United States ended; second, they were concerned about American designs on the Northwest; third, the commercial elite in Ontario began to see the West as a potential source of raw materials and conversely as a potential market for eastern manufactured goods. Looking at the West as a source of raw materials and as a new market for one's own goods does not qualify as an exploitative relationship; increased trade is not a zero sum game. Historically, it was the restrictions that accompanied the new attention to Western markets that were problematic. Thus, van Herk (2001,196) describes how what little income early settlers could hope for was dependent on the grain shipped from Alberta farmers east to Ontario. The problem for such farmers was that American farmers seemed to get more money for their products and pay less for machinery, and this was result of federal policy. The West buckled under Central [Canadian] tariffs; meat, timber, and coal were all subject to tariffs—and to double the insult, they had to buy tariff-laden equipment from Central Canada in order to be able to work their land. Many a farmer tried to smuggle a harvester across the forty-ninth parallel into Alberta (van Herk 2001, 196). A bottleneck on the railways was an additional burden. When wheat elevators were full, there were too few railway cars to bring Western products east. The same problem existed for other exporters; coal and lumber suffered from the squeeze in export capacity in 1902. Thus, narratives are created from economic concerns and may be exacerbated where such narratives already exist. In 1900, North-West Territories Premier Frederick Haultain petitioned Ottawa to create one province in the territory, with control of resources and public lands (unlike Manitoba's agreement with Ottawa in its ascent to provincial status in 1870 where the Dominion government retained resource rights). Haultain was ignored by the Laurier government, so over the next five years, he made repeated attempts and noted the Territory already possessed a population larger than existing provinces such as Manitoba and British Columbia (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 1, 331-332). In 1904, as the territory approached provincial status (albeit separately as it would turn out) Haultain made clear his vision. It is noteworthy for its contrast with the vision favoured by the Dominion government and with central Canadian political assumptions in general. Haultain thought education was a local responsibility (as opposed to Ottawa, which pressed for French education rights to be protected in any new province). He also asserted that the new province(s) should be able to Canadianize their very diverse 221 immigrant population in a manner that the old English-French, Protestant-Catholic model of central Canada would not necessarily provide for in a new Western cultural fabric. Moreover, when Alberta was proclaimed as a province and held its first election in 1905, the winning premier and party, Alexander Rutherford and the Liberals, won on the basis that the Conservative party and candidate for premier, the Conservatives and Richard Bennett, were too close to Ottawa (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 1, 349-352). Thus, there was a concern about central Canada before and after Alberta became a province. Preston Manning (Connors and Law 2005, 315-344) notes that in just the five years before Alberta was given provincial status by the federal government (in 1905), the senior level of government alienated 6.4 million acres of Alberta's most fertile soil and gave it to eastern-based corporations. The land was a subsidy given in exchange for the construction of railways but not for rail lines in Alberta; Alberta land was alienated for railway construction in British Columbia and Ontario. In addition, the federal government gave 10 million acres to homesteaders without compensation to the provincial government, and also granted mineral leases to mostly eastern-based corporations. Lewis Thomas notes in contrast to British Columbia, which already had its own identity and negotiated its way into confederation, the North-west Territories were controlled from Ottawa, changed into provinces by federal policy, and did not gain control of their natural resources previously used for national purposes until 1930 (Harrison 1979, 60-61). Also, James Lougheed, a successful Alberta businessman from Calgary, a Conservative (and grandfather to future premier Peter Lougheed) was 222 similarly piqued that (Liberal) Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier did not give resource rights to Alberta when she became a province in 1905 (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 645). This lack of provincial resource control had ramifications on the land itself. After oil and gas were discovered in small quantities in Turner Valley in 1914, federal control and accompanying indifference meant natural gas flared at a rate as high as 600 million cubic feet a day for 14 years before Alberta was able to intervene (Richards and Pratt 1979,46-47). The historic reality of a lack of control, whether over land in the 19th century or resources in the 20th century, helped create an Alberta narrative in which Albertans acting as a unitary whole vis-a-vis the federal government was desirable and necessary. Where the federal government was seen to be a problem, governing parties in Alberta could and have argued for a united front vis-a-vis Ottawa. Doreen Barrie (2006) notes that the oft- cited disagreements with Ottawa which first surfaced in the 1800s continue in the present and help explain why opposition parties in Alberta have historically been weak. "The quasi-colonial relationship fostered and reinforced the non-partisan attitude towards politics in Alberta. If political battles were waged primarily between provincial governments and the federal government there would be no need for alternation of parties" (Barrie 2006,11). With the 1930 Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, which finally gave Alberta control over her natural resources, economic irritation as a source for Ottawa-Alberta tension should have lessened. However, several factors laid the groundwork for future disputes between the province and the federal government. 223 Between 1947 and 1960, Alberta had difficulty in getting her oil and gas noticed; also, the United States imposed a quota on imports of oil; and at the beginning of this period, Ontario and Quebec could obtain such resources at a lower cost offshore than they could from Alberta (Connors and Law 2005, 333). There was no desire on the part of eastern and central Canada to pay a premium for Alberta's natural resources when the same could be obtained elsewhere at a cheaper price. It was an understandable market response by central Canada. But given federally imposed requirements in the past where Alberta consumers and businesses paid higher than market prices because of central Canada's protectionist policies, the sudden, central Canadian conversion to market principles would regularly feed into Alberta's resentment and its narrative. Similarly, when the province's resources were no longer ignored but instead forcibly priced by the federal government at lower than market prices for central Canada, the narrative would again be reinforced. In 1973, after the Arab oil embargo and sharply rising oil and gas prices, the federal government imposed price caps on Alberta's resources. Sources of oil in Alberta developed prior to 1973 could be sold to other parts of Canada only at 75 percent of the international market price. In addition, the federal government imposed a 40-cent per barrel export tax on crude oil, a tax later raised to $1.90 per barrel (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 643-644). The price of oil in 1973 ranged from $3.56 to $10.50 (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 677). The economic restrictions were again applied seven years later in their most dramatic incarnation with the federal National Energy Program (NEP). The NEP, introduced in 1980 by the Pierre Trudeau government, imposed further price caps on 224 Alberta oil and natural gas, ones lower than international market prices. The justification according to supporters of the NEP was energy security, the need to make predictable the "unpredictable" trend in energy prices, and to shore up "poor" federal government finances (Connors and Law 2005, 395-410). Yet Nemeth, an author somewhat sympathetic to the federal position on the NEP, notes that the NEP did indeed have a dramatic and negative effect upon Alberta. In contrast to Alberta and the NEP's effect upon its economy, which was immediate in 1980, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Louisiana were able to partake in the energy boom until prices started to soften in 1983. Alberta's sharp downturn occurred before 1983, an economic hit directly attributable to the NEP (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 2, 691). Whatever one may think of the NEP as security, economic, energy, or constitutional policy, the perception for many Albertans was that the NEP was an attack on the growing power of a Western province by a federal government whose power base resided in Ontario, Quebec and points east. That 1980 action was seen as more evidence that the main adversary of Alberta was not the United States, as an early Loyalist or a present-day left-wing nationalist might fear, but a domestic one: a central Canadian federal government with deep electoral roots and concerns in that part of the country. The National Energy Program was seen as a continuation of earlier central Canadian policies dating back to at least the turn of the 20 century. It reinforced the Alberta narrative: that Ontario and her governments were the problem and because of some survivalist-based fear rooted deep in Ontario's, but not Alberta's, history. 225 The frustration with which residents in Alberta could view central Canada was sharpened given that Alberta's narrative includes an aspect of belief in a brighter Western economic future. Thomas argues that the West was not a "lonely and isolated garrison". Instead, for those who had established themselves in favourable positions in the West, their vision of themselves and the region was as "the spear-head or the cutting edge of Canada's progress toward the final realization of her national dream" (Harrison 1979, 63): The west, British Columbia as much as the prairies, could perceive itself, not as a neglected hinterland, but as the region that provided the dynamic base of a dynamic Canada, a Canada that after a century of disappointments, could look forward to a century of expansion and progress comparable to that enjoyed by the United States (Harrison 1979, 63). Thus, specific to the narrative, when economic disputes with central Canada impinged on Alberta's economic interests, the resentment stoked was similar to that spurred by the United States vis-a-vis central Canada: the bigger power is seen as interfering in the very identity and aspirations of the smaller power. Actions initiated in the corridors of power in Ottawa reinforced an existing Alberta narrative time and again. Immigration's effect on Alberta A further clue to Alberta's narrative can be found in the difference in immigration patterns and the experiences of Alberta's early immigrants about the United States. The historical experiences were in contrast to those endured by many early Ontario settlers, the Loyalists. Some eastern and central Canadians could trace back European roots in such regions hundreds of years by the time European settlements became significant in Alberta in the latter 19th century. The timing and type of immigrants (increasingly non- British) would lead to alternative assumptions about Canadian identity and culture and an 226 alternative view of American influence. Hundreds of thousands of Swedes, Icelanders, Norwegians, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Americans, along with smaller numbers of Asian immigrants and others would not have as their formative experiences the American Revolution, the persecution of Loyalists, or the ever-present existential threat of American armies marching across the border. Palmer and Palmer (1990, 71) estimate that in the early 20th century and up to 1930, half of Alberta's population was foreign-born, so their experience of the United States did not carry with them any ancestral memories of earlier British of French disputes with Americans. Moreover, while some Americans might possess a belief in Manifest Destiny, after the east-west Canadian Pacific Railway line was completed in 1885, Canada was an established reality. It is not that the possibility of American absorption was entirely absent. Barrie observes that sparsely populated prairie provinces constituted a prize for the Americans because western settlement in the US was far advanced and no free land remained. But such a possibility was not an ever-present psychological threat to Westerners in the manner it would have been for Loyalists in Upper Canada in 1776 or 1812. As Barrie notes, even at the time of Confederation, "there was no real fear that American army would march in and occupy any of the colonies—the Fenians (disgruntled Irishmen who wanted to rid the continent of the British) hardly posed a threat" (2006, 24). Thus, the early Alberta immigrant experience in the late 19th and early 20th century was one of concern over more mundane and immediate threats: planting and harvesting successful crops, central Canadian policies vis-a-vis western farmers, and building a homestead. Insofar as it concerned the United States, Alberta's experience was 227 dramatically different from that which arose in Upper Canada in the late 18th and early 19l in response to the American Revolution, a response which was understandably antagonistic. In addition, American immigrants themselves helped shape western Canada: One famous example is that of William Cornelius Van Home, the engineer hired as general manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway and charged with building the cross-country railway in order to secure the West against possible American expansion (Palmer and Palmer 1990, 60). American immigration was also substantial. Between 1888 and 1914, nearly 600,000 American immigrants from the U.S. Midwest arrived in western Canada. According to the 1906 census, less than half of Albertans (46.8 percent) were born in Canada, while 23.3 percent were born in the United States and only 13.1 percent were born in the British Isles or British possessions (Payne et al 2005, Vol. 1,335). Also, the federal immigration department actively sought white American farmers for free homesteads in Alberta and Saskatchewan, both for racial reasons and also because they were considered ideal settlers given their experience in wheat farming. Not unimportant, such immigrants also possessed the capital which would help the success of the new homesteads. The private Western Canadian Immigration Association, with 2,500 agents in the United States to promote Canada, also sought to resettle American farmers to the Canadian prairies and was in a form of competition with the government department, which had fourteen agencies (with an unknown number of staff) (Palmer 1977, 88). 228 Evidence of American influence includes the names of newly created towns such as New Dayton and Usona, the latter an acronym created from the "United State of North America," (Palmer and Palmer 1990, 83-86). In Turner Valley in the 1920s, one-third of the labourers were American (Palmer and Palmer 1990, 205). This American immigration also had a significant influence on Alberta post- World War Two. As Palmer and Palmer note (1990, 306), even though small in numbers compared to earlier waves, the relatively few Americans who came to postwar Alberta had a notable social and political impact: a majority of the senior management in oil companies between 1955 and 1970 were American and nine of the fifteen presidents of Calgary's Petroleum Club were American. They brought a penchant for volunteerism and more conservative politics. By 1963, 62 percent of Canadian oil and gas companies were controlled by Americans (1990, 314). Palmer and Palmer note the exception to this trend of political conservatives migrating north occurred during the Vietnam War. Immigrant realities shaped Alberta's cities and gave them a narrative different from Ontario in other ways. Thomas Harrison argues the decline of France and England as world powers and the rise of the United States removed substantial obstacles to North American continentalism. He asserts this was most obvious in Alberta. Calgary was the most "American" of cities even in the 1930s, asserts Thomas. Edmonton, with a university, was "less exposed to the assault from the south" (Harrison 1979, 71) but even the capital city, modified greatly by European immigration, became more cosmopolitan than British. In other words, both major Alberta cities became increasingly less like an historic Ontario loyalist enclave. Summary The prairie and the Rocky Mountain wilderness, central Canada as the "other," and immigration unlike Ontario's or Quebec's, make Alberta's story so unrecognizable to Ontarians that Alberta's version has often been labeled "American." Alberta's narrative need not necessarily be categorized in such a manner, but for an Ontario population that assumes early Upper Canada experiences as the distinctly and definitive Canadian narrative, the Alberta frontier narrative is understandably foreign—it was foreign to southern Ontario's garrison culture. Relative to discourse in Canada, the reality of two distinct regional cultures has affected Alberta's receptivity to attempts to end debate with references to the United States. Historically, such attempts were less likely to succeed in Alberta when compared with Ontario, given that it was Ontario itself and not the United States that was often viewed as the threat, the omni-present "other," in Alberta's unique history. Would a stronger Alberta narrative within Canada provide the opportunity for a discourse less trapped by the historic survivalist-garrison-Loyalist response so evident in the Ontario narrative? Perhaps. At a minimum, Alberta's narrative would provide for the possibility of a different discourse, including one more deliberative insofar as that discourse is less focused on and referenced to the United States. However, three caveats should be applied: First, the possibility of discourse and then deliberation less focused on the United States exists so long as the "other" which is now Ontario is not one day replaced with the United States. Second, the fact that Alberta's narrative is presently different from Ontario's (i.e., the historical absence of America as the "other") is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for more deliberation in Alberta or in the rest of Canada. Other factors could interfere in a "new" or alternative Canadian narrative's effect upon national discourse similar to how repetitive, negative references to the United States now interfere in deeper deliberation. Third, while Alberta's historic narrative is unique in contrast to Ontario, it is not clear from the quantitative survey that Alberta's discourse - insofar as the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal represent that discourse - is different from that which exists in the rest of the country. Problematically, when examining newspaper references in the case of the Herald and Journal, both are chain newspapers and have been for much of their history. In addition, over the period surveyed, there has been a marked tendency for newspaper chains to use fewer local reporters and columnists (where more opinions will occur on what is and is not "American") and more national material. That can mean a local broadsheet is not necessarily representative of local discourse but of viewpoints created elsewhere. One can hypothesize from the results of federal and provincial elections that anti- American sentiment would be less prevalent or "saleable" in Alberta, conservative politicians presently being less prone to such discourse than their opponents. However, that is a tenuous conclusion to draw without more investigation. To gain a better understanding of regional discourse, further quantitative research would be necessary, which could include phrase searches of the sort performed in chapter 3 but as applied to legislative debates in Ontario and Alberta. The reciting of the Alberta narrative was intended to reveal the historic difference between it and Ontario's narrative; without further investigation, it should not be concluded - one way or the other - that present 231 Alberta discourse on the matter of American influence is largely different from Ontario's or substantially similar. 232 CHAPTER SEVEN DISCUSSION OF THE DISCOURSE AND CONCLUSION "We Liberals are often accused of being Republicans." —Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Political Liberalism, 1877 (quoted in Robins 1946, 368) Summary of the Discourse in Seven Policy Areas The survey of discourse among Canadian political actors and other elites reveals a marked tendency to reference the United States as a model for emulation or avoidance— either for political models or policy development. In the first four of seven policy areas surveyed (health care, foreign policy, courts and judicial reform, and economic issues) references are usually made in order to ward off consideration of any presumed or actual American approach to such a policy. That the speaker or writer in question often means such references to be taken as negative can be deduced from the context. In two areas (affirmative action and the initial adoption of Canada's 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms and subsequent interpretation), references are usually benign and the fact of American origins rarely surfaces in Canadian discourse in any negative manner. In one policy area, the environment, references to a real or presumed American position (and/or personality), are often used to buttress support for a Canadian position or in the case of partisan actors, also to attract votes. The effect upon discourse is clear: policy areas where the real or presumed "American" position is a priori assumed by proponents as negative is intended to limit the potential for further deliberation. (Arguably, given the lack of any change in federal health care legislation since 1984, such a tactic has succeeded.) The same effect can be observed where the American position is given a "pass," i.e., when U.S. environmental initiatives are assumed superior. Deliberation, at least from those who assert Canada should imitate the United States and its leaders on green policy, is secondary. Insofar as rhetorical allusions to the U.S. are used to avoid serious and sustained discourse, one defense of such a practice may be that such references are merely shorthand for what everyone already "knows," i.e., that American health care is less desirable than the Canadian version, that American foreign policy is aggressive and undesirable compared to Canadian practice, and so forth. The problem is that such assumptions presume the audience or the speaker/writer is fully informed about the nuances, exceptions, and exaggerations of the subject as regards the United States. The presumption also assumes the person leading such discourse could not be mistaken, that no aspect of an assumed or real American policy or idea could ever be desirable or adapted for Canadian purposes, and that the actor has no other motive in play other than the welfare of the Canadian public. These are not wise or realistic assumptions to make; agendas vary widely and plenty of political actors, reporters, commentators, and policymakers can be mistaken or misleading about the United States and for a variety of reasons. Public choice theory is useful to recall here as are common-sense observations about political actors and others in the political and bureaucratic realm. Further, even with the assumption of pure motives on the part of reflexive critics, such critics are still human and lack perfect knowledge. So an a priori dismissal of a real or presumed American policy leads to a circumscribed discourse in Canada. The result is that deliberative democracy is weakened because by definition it demands openness to other perspectives and possibilities. At minimum, this survey of seven areas reveals that both negative and positive U.S. models are used by relevant elites to reduce the scope for public deliberation. Certain topics - health care, foreign policy, questions of the courts and reform, and economic policy - usually attract negative U.S. references. In other cases, that of the environment, positive references are used to buttress one's own policy preference. This pattern occurs even when, for example, the view of what is considered "American" or "Canadian" has changed over time. For instance, fiscal restraint and budget cuts were once seen as American by many Canadians. For many, it was American senators such as Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Ernest Hollings and their 1985 balanced budget law who initially popularized the notion in the public consciousness.11 More recently, a federal balanced budget is now the new reference point of pride for Canadian politicians and commentators and in contrast to the United States, which has mostly incurred deficits over the last three decades. What was once categorized as American, especially by those opposed to American economic influence, is now taken as a Canadian accomplishment and part of the virtue of being sensible, non-ideological, and moderate—Canadian, in other words. The particular examples used to trumpet Canada or to condemn the United States in h I qualify this because such policy was not unknown and began in Canada before the United States. In the late 1970s, B.C. premier Bill Bennett began a program of privatization. In the early 1980s, Bennett introduced a provincial restraint program to rein in a provincial deficit. British Columbians were well familiar with the notion of privatization, budget cuts, and restraint before the notion became more politically talked about and practiced either in the rest of Canada or in the United States. However, most Canadians outside of British Columbia might well think such policies were "American." Ironically, even the historian Jack Granatstein, writing about anti-Americanism in 1996, and who was critical of chronic American references in Canadian discourse, thought fiscal conservatism was American. "Governments in virtually every provincial capital and in Ottawa are hacking and slashing at programs and budgets, following the global agenda as defined in the Republican-dominated Congress in Washington" (Granatstein 1996, 281). Unbeknownst to most Canadians, including historians, Bennett's privatization and "hacking and slashing" later copied by others had nothing to do with U.S. influence; it had everything to do with Michael Walker and the Fraser Institute who had private conversations with the BC premier and his colleagues beginning in the late 1970s. 235 Canadian discourse may have shifted over the last two decades but not the frequency of such references. The references are constant, and as noted in the quantitative survey, have increased slightly on an average annual basis over the past decade. A Comparison to Deliberative Democracy's Essentials Recall that Public Choice theory takes into account not just men's ideals, but their interests, and that men's individual interests are not necessarily opposed to the public interest but are in many cases part of a continuum between the former and the latter. Also, different individual interests need not lead to impossible and irreconcilable clashes. If Buchanan and Tullock are correct that men cooperate because they are different, the question then becomes how should men and women resolve differences? What is the bare minimum necessary for peaceful resolutions and for private and public interests to be resolved with a minimum amount of friction? My approach to deliberative democracy in theory contains four necessary core components "boiled down" from the various approaches in the literature: the necessity of reciprocal objection, self-referencing, individualized popular sovereignty, and combining the search for truth and process. My approach to deliberative democracy is to point out the necessary minimums for actual deliberation, whether in Parliament, on talk-radio, or in print: whether one describes deliberative democracy as "political activity of shared consensual reasoning," an "open exchange of 'public-regarding reasons,'" "about concrete options in public policy," or " reasoning on the merits of public policy," an open exchange of ideas and attention to the importance of debates is critical for deliberation. 236 Such descriptions constitute the bare minimum for a practical approach to deliberation. Questions over the proper type of representation, a republican or parliamentary form of government, whether referendums are desirable, and a multitude of other possible considerations in the institutional design of a state, are in practice irrelevant if ethos and pathos (character and feeling) rule public discourse with logos (reason) mostly absent or downplayed due to legal restraints or a bias against proofs from argument. In Canada, public discourse is mostly unhampered by legal restrictions on debate. With some exceptions, "gag" laws at election time on interest group spending and "hate speech" laws being noted, the Canadian public, media and political actors are mostly free to engage in the art of rhetoric, the art of persuasion, should they so choose. There are few legal barriers. On the question of whether Canadian discourse meets the theoretical standard of deliberative democracy - the necessity of reciprocal objection, self-referencing, individualized popular sovereignty, and combining the search for truth and process - this too is largely unproblematic. While the average voter, political leader, or talk-show host will rarely think in such theoretical terms, anyone in Canada can, if they so desire, object to something another person has said, do so with reference to their own mind and moral compass, retain the right to express themselves, advocate change and a better institutional approach by which to discover truth including suggested reforms to the system of political representation. Canadian public deliberation does not usually fail the theoretical test. 237 However, the same cannot be said for practical day-to-day public discourse and especially in several high-profile, public policy areas and where deliberation matters most: in the dialogues observed by millions and practiced by elites (as it only can be, given only a few Canadians can appear on a commentary page of the local newspaper, on television, or speak on talk radio). If, as one of the questions posed earlier is now again considered - are certain ideas a priori dismissed? - the answer, as made clear in the seven case studies presented, is yes. And most often in health care, judicial appointment reform, foreign policy, and economic issues. In these four areas, reasoned discourse is hampered by chronic references to American-style this or U.S.-style that. Thus, when the Toronto Star editorial board argues Prime Minister Harper has "opened the door to American-style politicking" due to a polite parliamentary hearing imposed on a judicial nominee (Toronto Star 2006c), or when Hugh Segal dismisses economic criticism from other Canadians as having originated with "American-style neocons," (Segal 1995), or when Lawrence Martin notes that Lester Pearson kept Canada out of the Organization of American States and Brian Mulroney did not, and draws the conclusion the latter was "as American as they come" (Lawrence Martin 1991), the rhetoric skirts deliberation and substitutes feelings of aversion in place of reasoned objections. In another policy area, that of the environment, reason is hampered by a resort to American references in a different manner. Unlike references in health care or foreign policy where the assumption is that such a link will scare Canadians away from undesirable policy by virtue of the American linkage, deliberation in Canada on the environment is mostly distracted by the "glitter" of Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, 238 and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Logos is still absent, but instead of advocates who use U.S. references to create public fear about American policy, the review of discourse reveals that shame and adoration are used to persuade the public that in this case the American republic has much to teach Canadians. When contrasted with the previous four policy areas, rhetoric surrounding the environment reveals how the use of a U.S. allusion is often done for political and partisan ends, at least when done consciously by political actors, public commentators, or interest groups. Politicians and commentators would dislike being cast as unthinking or less than thoughtful; that leaves only one other option: that the on-again, off-again ad hominem and guilt-by-association American references are not accidental but contrived and convenient. That this latter possibility is accurate is further cemented by comparing the reality of how political actors, media elites, and interest groups who show up in the public square on issues of health care, judicial appointment reform, foreign policy, and economic matters discuss other policy areas. In the first four areas, objection to policy is communicated on the grounds of American-likeness. It's a "gnat" of an argument which avoids the substantive debate. But many of the same actors then proceed to swallow an "elephant" of American-likeness on affirmative action and Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the latter of which is as historically and constitutionally far from traditional British-Canadian Tory thinking and history on such matters as one can be. On American-derived racial and gender quotas and the Charter, the same actors - self-described as progressive, politically left or liberal, or nationalist and who avoid deliberation on health care on the premise that any reform is American - embrace 239 concepts foreign to Canada and her traditions. On occasion, they do so with a slight nod to reason—they argue affirmative action, a Charter, and activist judicial interpretations are reasonable and preferable. Insofar as they make such occasional reasoned arguments there is no hindrance to deliberation. But when reasons are given in those selected policy areas, it serves to highlight the manifest hollowness of attempts to block discourse on other matters with simple references to the United States, references which serve as verbal talismans designed to ward off undesirable influences. There, reason is not proffered, but revulsion to America as a foreboding idea on this or that policy. My research question was, "When the United States is introduced as a factor in Canadian public discourse, are deliberation, public discourse, the possibility for reciprocal objections, and openness to the facts, arguments and proposals skewed when that factor is in play?" The answer, from a survey of Canadian discourse, is yes. The Results: The Nature of American References In Canada, ubiquitous references to the United States would matter little if such references were in the nature of an afterthought while discourse was otherwise unaffected. But the nature of American references in Canada since the 1980s can be categorized in four ways. First, some references to the United States are strategic and opportunistic; second, as a general rule such references are more common on the political left; third, references to the U.S. are likely eternal in Canadian discourse; and fourth, if regional narratives grow in influence and challenge the Ontario narrative as the dominant national conceptualization of Canada, discourse about the United States may be amenable to change in its future intensity and effects. Strategic and Opportunistic The use of references to the U.S. in Canadian discourse is often strategic and opportunistic and this is a constant in Canadian history. When Prime Minister Paul Martin criticized the United States in December 2005 in the middle of an election campaign, despite having arrived in power trying to dampen Liberal attacks on the same, it was an attempt to wrap himself in the Canadian flag even if that meant reversals on previous rhetoric. When John A. Macdonald abandoned free trade in 1891 he did so to win power. The 1988 free trade swirl where John Turner's Liberals and Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives switched historic party positions (in place since 1891) is another example. This is true of all political parties and their leaders and many interest groups and opinion leaders. The political left, which admired Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and American isolationism in the 1930s but dislikes present American economic and military policy in the present and reflects that in discourse, has been similarly opportunistic. When political actors such as New Democrat leaders oppose a certain foreign policy as American, but endorse Supreme Court of Canada activism when rulings conform to their political priorities, despite the reality that Charter-based activism is wholly American in origin, the plain political nature of much of Canadian discourse becomes clear. In the end, such references are not primarily about the United States; they are ammunition in the service of politically useful weaponry. Such duplicity reveals a strategy where the American republic and her politicians and policies become blunt instruments to win policy and political battles up north. The opportunism is not just political but economic. The support of protectionism by manufacturing industries in Ontario in the 19 century or by union leaders such as Buzz Hargrove in the 21st century is directly related to economic interests, so too the reversal in the 1980s by corporate Canada on the issue of free trade. In the last great election-time free trade debate in 1911, much of Canadian business - at least in the manufacturing sector - opposed open borders and preferred the cosseted comfort of protectionism. Anti-American discourse on Canada could switch from right to left (and could switch back again) because the opportunism arises from parties and personalities which seek advantage. The opportunism is partisan for parties and politicians, economic for business and labour unions, and social and cultural for advocacy groups and their representatives. The axis on which discourse on America turns in Canada is less about the U.S. in many cases - though rank prejudice cannot be eliminated as a factor at times - but more about using the United States as a convenient foil. This becomes clear when party leaders who resort to crude anti-Americanism one day also use American politicians or policies the next to try and garner domestic political support for a particular cause. More Common on the Political Left As both the quantitative and qualitative review of American references demonstrated, such references originate far more with the political left than the political right. Canada's political left makes great use of "American-style" and "U.S.-style" tags on multiple public policy issues. Health care, foreign policy, free trade, military involvement in Afghanistan, and other issues are slapped with American labels. Insofar 242 as actual American influence has led to a U.S.-inspired Charter of Rights and Freedoms or affirmative action, the contradiction matters little to such actors, given that ideologically, such American-inspired results are in line with the priorities of the political left which desires such policy and constitutional approaches. Insofar as modern negative references are made about the United States by Canada's political right, conservative-leaning political actors, elites and commentators do so to ward off accusations they are too close to American politicians or positions; it becomes a defensive game of "me-tooism." Unlike the nationalist left which might actually nationalize business in order to prevent Canadian corporations from falling into American ownership, the mildly anti-American references from those on the modern right is transparently insincere and occasionally over-the-top in delivery. That noted, in select cases, it might still be effective for the desired end: blunting charges from the left that a particular partisan conservative is "American." When Alliance leader Stockwell Day held up a "no two-tier health care" sign in the 2000 leaders' debate, the action was less than convincing. It might have only reinforced public suspicion that conservatives have something to hide on health care when they try so visibly hard to distance themselves from the issue. Stephen Harper's 2004 shot at the Liberals for engaging in "U.S.-style attack ads" might have been marginally more successful. Likewise, when Harper, later as Prime Minister, played up defense of the Canadian Arctic {Globe and Mail 2006), the natural question to be asked would be—from whom? The answer is: the Americans, but only for domestic political purposes; any real threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic from the Americans could not be meaningfully addressed given overwhelming U.S. military superiority. No prime 243 minister would risk such a confrontation, and it has always been the Russians, not Americans, who would naturally worry Canadian governments as opposed to a NATO ally. Further, that the modern political right is hardly anti-American while Canada's political left is becomes obvious with a review of present discourse and Canadian history; the positions have reversed. In 1812, the religiously conservative Loyalists were fiercely anti-American. Reverend John Strachan, the Rector of York and a Loyalist refugee in Upper Canada since 1799, criticized Americans as a people with "little or no religion" (Granatstein 1996, 22). In the 1920s, Canadian magazine publishers complained of "smut-filled" American magazines flowing into the Canadian market (perhaps motivated in part by protectionist economic interests). The Toronto Globe was positively social conservative about the liberal American press when it declared U.S. pulp fiction as "off-scourings of the moral sewers of human life" and a veritable flood of "undisguised filth" (Granatstein 1996, 76). Another example of conservative anti-Americanism was Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker. He acted genuinely anti-American to the extent that he was willing to offend a major ally in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis by not ordering Canadian components of NORAD to alert status in October 1962 (Granatstein 1996, 131). Recent left-wing anti-Americanism which dislikes U.S. foreign policy, often tagged as interventionist, is also a reversal of earlier Canadian sentiment which was also militaristic. As Jack Granatstein notes, many Canadians, "poets and novelists alike," were 244 enraged by the U.S. refusal to enter the First World War until 1917 (Granatstein 1996, 76). Historically, concerns about the United States did occasionally emanate from Canada's left. Jack Granatstein points to the Canadian Forum's 1926 critique of American capital and its influence on Canada. But much of Canada's anti-Americanism came from the most conservative elements within Canadian society: Anglican Loyalists and Catholic Quebecois, businesses that desired protection from competition, pro-British Empire Canadians, and a pro-war public and elites unhappy about America's slow entry into two world wars and abandonment of Europe between those wars. Eternal in the Discourse As the quantitative and qualitative analyses showed, American references are so pervasive in the discourse (and are often negative) that predictions of its demise would be premature. Granatstein the historian prophesied in 1996 that, "A generation from now, the Free Trade election of 1988 will, I suspect, be widely recognized as the last gasp of a once powerful motivating force" (1996, 285). He also asserted that: With all its hatred, bias, and deliberately contrived fearmongering, anti- Americanism was once the Canadian way of being different. Now it has faded away and good riddance to it. Anti-Americanism never was and never could be the basis for any rational national identity.. ..Two hundred years after the Loyalists came to British North America, we are finally outgrowing our reflexive anti-Americanism (Granatstein 1996, 286-287). Granatstein was too optimistic. He was correct that anti-Americanism is not a rational basis for a national identity but narratives rarely are about a reasoned approach to identities; they're about history, interpretation of the same, and myths that grow up in response. Anti-Americanism is still prevalent in discourse though Granatstein is correct 245 that it has lost much of its animation as a powerful force. Today's anti-Americanism appears to be rife in the discourse but more "toothless" in many - not all - policy areas. For example, genuine anti-American policy is mild in the present and unlikely to change in the age of terrorism. For example, it is difficult to imagine any prime minister now, Conservative or Liberal, acting in the manner Progressive Conservative Diefenbaker did in 1962. Despite a multitude of disagreements with American presidents and Congress, no prime minister would withhold real or rhetorical support from the United States in the event of a terrorist attack. Even when a Liberal prime minister does turn down an American request in a high profile manner - Paul Martin's refusal to join the Americans on anti ballistic missile shield program - such a decision came when terrorism and not missiles were at the top of the public mind as the more likely danger. Also, Martin's decision, spurred on by anti- Americanism as it was, was not made in a crisis. Had it been, the decision might well have been different and not of the sort made by Diefenbaker. Regionalism May Help Deliberation Anti-Americanism has always existed in Canadian discourse but the reasons bear on present discussions of discourse and how that might change in the future. Part of Canada's anti-Americanism exists because of opportunity and that anti- Americanism is trans-ideological. Frye's 1971 rhetorical query on the difference between Canada's regions reminds us why anti-Americanism is trans-ideological: for many, it is tied to the Canadian political project, which also helps explain why anti-Americanism endures as part of Canadian discourse. 246 Recall that Frye compared the various regions of Canada: Newfoundland with its environment turned outward to the sea, the Maritimes, the urban plain of southern Ontario, and the "gentle pays farmland along the south shore of the St. Lawrence." It is at this point that Frye contrasts all that he has just written about the eastern and central Canada and poses a rhetorical question. In detailing the wilderness of Canada's regions and posing a query, he explicitly reminds the reader of Canada's strong regional identities and also asks his rhetorical question: And what can there be in common between an imagination nurtured on the prairies, where it is a centre of consciousness diffusing itself over a vast flat expanse stretching to the remote horizon, and one nurtured in British Columbia, where it is in the midst of gigantic trees and mountains leaping into the sky all around it, and obliterating the horizon everywhere? (Frye 1971, ii). What can exist in common is a political project, the goal of which is unity, acted out through the mechanism of politics, and expressed psychologically as fear of American absorption should the political project, which is Canada, fail. Frye argues that the question of Canadian identity was not, in fact, a "Canadian question" but a regional question. That may indeed be the case. However, there is throughout Canada's political history this one common imperative with origins in the Loyalist narrative and noted by Margaret Atwood: survival in contradistinction to the American state. Thus, whether in the original act of Confederation or in successive additions to the country (i.e., British Columbia in 1871) Charles Doran and James Sewell note that the Canadian federation, ... was a deliberate effort to create a political society distinct from the United States while accommodating both European founding nations. The saga of extending the Dominion from sea to sea similarly bespoke an aim of protecting the Canadian project from its neighbour and its neighbour's way of life (Doran and Sewell 1988, 107). To express this in another manner, for many Canadians, anti-Americanism is part of and a demonstration of the Canadian ethos, Canada's national "character," at least that which is expressed by the dominant political, social, and economic culture of southern Ontario and parts of Quebec and subsequently by other Canadians to the degree they are influenced by the same. Part of modern anti-Americanism then is another variant of the survivalist fears which have existed since Upper Ontario garrison fears gave rise to the notion. Unsurprisingly then, when politicians and other elites tap into this pathos and ignore reason, it is often successful; they tap into a perennial fear, the survivalist fears historically dominant especially in southern Ontario. But it is a political project. It is also one that has been imposed on the country at large, for reasons which have much to do with central Canadian history and the realities of a populous region which contains many of the economic, cultural, social, financial, and political institutions which govern the rest of the country. However, the political project born in fear may be losing its effect. Some evidence for this assertion arrives in how few Canadians advocate a strong anti- Americanism of the sort practiced by past Canadian governments. While some New Democrats, nationalists on the left, and a smattering of others would nationalize business on the grounds Canadian would be thus protected, there is no recent equivalent to Pierre Trudeau's 1970s-era attempts via government fiat to wrest private or American control away from the oil and gas sector or any other industry; there has been no equivalent of Walter Gordon's 1963 first budget under Lester Pearson, which imposed a 30-percent takeover tax on sales of shares to non-residents (i.e., Americans) Granatstein 1996, 157). Part of the current reality might be due to a more strict separation between the private sector and the government sector in the minds of Canadians and the limitations they believe should apply to the latter. However, where anti-Americanism does reign supreme is in discourse and in policy areas subject to ideological and leveraged interests. That excludes much of the private sector but includes issues and policies within the domain and control of the political and public sector. Health care is a useful example. At least three of four federal political parties (Liberal, New Democrats, and the Bloc Quebecois) believe it is in their political interest to block efforts on health care reform which involve the private sector and they do so with relentless reference to the American model. In the case of the NDP, it is institutionally tied to unions dominant in the public sector. That political interest is also tied to vested interests such as a strong unionized public sector presence in health care delivery. As a result, both are willing to play the America card. In that sense, any "new" anti-Americanism is similar to old anti-Americanism when magazine publishers opposed American imports in the 1920s and in the 1990s; it is self-interested. But such self-interested anti-Americanism has a natural limit. If one has no stake in such economic opportunism, the result is that such self-interested Anti-Americanism is hemmed in and applicable in policy only to easily-controlled sectors such as health care largely government-run or mandated. Such government institutional control may also explain why, even if a plurality of Canadians say they would vote for a political party which promotes a blend of private and public care as noted in chapter 4, such reforms are stillborn. Recall Peter Hall's observation that the likelihood of a set of ideas succeeding as policy is directly relevant to how viable they are economically, politically and 249 administratively. In health care, reform is perhaps hampered most in the last category and because of institutional blocks within at least some provincial government health ministries and the economic opportunism evident in the public health care sector across Canada which resolutely opposes any expansion of private involvement in financing, insurance, and delivery. True, the federal government has used its leverage courtesy of tax dollars transferred to the provinces (and expressed through the Canada Health Act) as an "incentive" for provinces not to engage in private experiments, and this was especially true when the Liberal party was in power. However, in addition to any ideological attachments federal Liberals may have had to the Canada Health Act, the presence of vocal public sector unions to keep any reforms within the public sector should not be overlooked. Anti-Americanism is not so easily translated from discourse into public policy when the effect would be to harm living standards. For example, limits on oil and gas exports to the United States would harm Canadians in at least four provinces - British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland - and thus policy restrictions are less possible now when compared to the 1970s, even if advanced under some sort of anti- American Canadian nationalism. A modern version of the National Energy Program (NEP) with concomitant price controls could not now be portrayed as affecting only Alberta as it was in the 1970s. It would be seen as a federal attack on at least four provinces. Another threat to robust anti-Americanism in policy results from a re-assertion or strengthening of regional identities which have always lacked the historic garrison- survivalist narrative. Anti-Americanism of the past was anchored in Loyalist narratives and is at present connected to opportunity, or even to raw responses to a widely disliked American president such as George W. Bush. But provinces such as Alberta have always been less "twigged" by the survivalist narrative when played out by national institutions located in the Loyalist heartland of Ontario. The result is that anti-American rhetoric may continue but might be weakened in impact when the two most important sources for it - opportunism and a powerful narrative - have natural limitations, first, because of economic realities and second, because of the presence of other regional narratives, which in the case of the West are growing in influence relative to central Canada's historic dominance. The Ontario narrative was, for some Canadians, accepted as the national narrative and the result of a historical overlay over regional narratives; it was helped along by the fact of economic, cultural, social and political power rooted in a populous central Canada. If one listens to CBC in Alberta, one might well share that survivalist concern, but that is a minority of Alberta's population. To the degree that central Canadian power erodes and is supplanted by the distinct narrative natural to one's own region, the Loyalist-survivalist-garrison narrative will decline in relative influence. Thus, anti-Americanism of a sort will continue and will be used for ideological, business, partisan and advocacy ends as is convenient. It will translate into policy where leverage exists to affect the same. However, for increasing parts of the population, including those in traditionally Loyalist heartlands where much of the population has long forgotten such history or never knew it (new immigrants), the survivalist fear will not animate discourse in the manner it has in the past. Anti-Americanism will be surface gloss but without significant kinetic energy. 251 With such limitations noted, anti-Americanism in Canadian discourse will always exist and it will always affect Canadian deliberation. For its complete abolition, Canada itself would need a new national narrative that is positive and self-referencing as opposed to other (America)-referencing. Or a "tipping point" would need to be reached where over-the-top anti-American references discredit that sort of discourse. Failing that, anti- Americanism will wax and wane, depending on a variety of factors: the personality and policies of any particular American president and how his/her policies are perceived in Canada; the skill with which political and media elites in Canada either use or openly discredit U.S. references in discourse; the awareness and reaction of the public to those attempts to use U.S. references rather than argue substantively about issues. But absent any dramatic discrediting of U.S. references - or conversely, any new and deeply threatening American action akin to the 18th and 19th century wars, which would then revitalize anti-Americanism in policy - American references will continue in the discourse but with a relative declining ability to dominate it or to completely capture policy. If that trend continues, deliberative democracy in Canada may well improve. Deliberative democracy theory needs to incorporate culture Insofar as deliberative democracy theory is concerned, recall that public reasoning is valued, not because reason alone is all that matters in the public arena, but because without reason substantive discourse is impossible. Discourse minus rational debate is merely a contrived facade of a polis where opinion and prejudice are endlessly recycled; it is the discourse equivalent of a Potemkin village instead of a deliberative democracy. 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