Issue 2

<div class="page traditional" style=" background-color: #fff; "> <article> <header> <h1 style=" font-family: 'Lora'; color: #000000;">A LIBERAL LAMENT </h1> James Rimmer </header> <div class="main"> <img src="/uploads/52e68d0572556.jpg" class="title-pic" alt=""/> Long haunting my book shelf, I decided to see what truths John Raulston Saul did have to say in A Fair Country, Telling Truths about Canada. It was a difficult project. The book seems to have been written spontaneously as the words came to the author, giving it a repetitive and, rambling character, high on rhetoric but low on evidence. At its best it creates a very honest effect – the reader can feel the author being stumped by an issue, feeling his confusion. The reader can watch Raulston try to sound out words and ideas in the same way that one would watch a speaker struggle for words at a dinner table. At its worst the book is distracted, constantly being caught in rabbit warrens of tangents. It is a deceptive book. Ostensibly a call for Canada and Canadians to recognize that we are an aboriginal people and nation, with aboriginal values, the book concludes as a liberal Lament for a Nation. Like George Grant, John Ralston Saul is a man of beau lettres, a trained academic who has travelled Canada extensively. Like Grant, Saul makes extensive use of the colonial period to build a myth of what Canada was meant to be. Like Grant, Saul blames the nefarious actions of American corporations, and bored bureaucrats in the post confederation period, for Canada abandoning the path the founders set it on. Unlike Grant, who kept his Lament short and concise, A Fair Country rattles on for 300 pages. I’m sure there is a judgemental joke about the nature of conservatism and liberalism somewhere in here. Saul makes four arguments that weave in and out of his narrative. They are arranged in nominal blocks, but the tangential style of writing means they are all mixed up. To use one of Saul’s favourite metaphors, they are inter-woven like the currents of a river. First Saul argues that Canada is an aboriginal nation with aboriginal values; divides between natives and non-natives should be removed and we should recognize the values of our native society. Saul’s aboriginal point is his most novel, and his most persuasive. His idea about merging the different artistic canons in Canada – English, French, native – to allow Canadians to have a better holistic understanding of the Canadian experience is a good one. His idea that we should not see natives as problems, nor as opportunities to be exploited, but as equal members of our society who have a long history of shaping it and should be included into it, is correct. His assertion that native concepts such as “the common bowl” and reciprocal relationships powerfully explain Canadian ideas around citizenship and federal-provincial dynamics is moving. From this point however the author begins to wander. His second main argument is that Canada’s founders believed that the state was responsible for, and needed to be active in ensuring, the welfare of its citizens. He further asserts that these beliefs were removed and covered up post confederation by a cabal of Anglo elites, Orange Order types, and American corporations. Like Grant, Saul is engaged in historical mythmaking. He points out that the national motto was to be “peace, welfare, and good government” but “order” was put in at the least minute as a compromise with the British. He makes a powerful argument about the biblical allusion made by the founders with the title “Dominion.” Saul claims it came from Zachariah 9:10: “and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river on to the ends of the earth” and that in this context dominion meant responsibility – “responsibility to ensure the welfare of the people” Next, Saul argues that Canada’ economic leaders have failed, sold us out, and that Canada needs a new economic policy that puts the nation first. He attacks our corporate leadership as being short sighted and lacking vision; of only thinking of themselves and their shareholders and not the national wellbeing. He also condemns them for being clubby, a network of old boys who scratch each other’s backs. His personal attack on Conrad Black is unnecessary - though hilarious. Saul is at points incoherent with rage at the corporate elites for not putting Canada and Canadian interests first. Saul’s final theme is the "colonial mind.” His least coherent theme, he argues that Canada’s leadership is trapped by their culture, language, education and ideas, into focusing exclusively on how to please their imperial overlords and not on the general wellbeing of the country. He attacks our leaders for only searching for success outside of Canada and not trying to build, expand, and understand the Canadian experience. Beyond the style, the book has three core, fundamental flaws: its lack of evidence, breathtaking paternalism, and total rejection of other views of Canada. Throughout the book Saul makes wild and totally unsubstantiated assertions. His statement that Canada has an inherent “oral tradition” is based on some shaky logic concerning literacy rates. He never even bothers to look up what Canada’s actual literacy rate was. In another example, he refers regularly to Canada’s “egalitarianism.” Maybe this says more about my times than it does about Saul, but in the age of Rob Ford and all the class conflicts connected to that issue, it is difficult to see said Canadian egalitarianism. Further, to use his metaphor, it is easy to pick out a current of deep class division in Canada, from the Family Compact to St John’s Merchant families, to the Palm Beach set of EP Taylor and The Canadian Establishment, from Quebec’s church hierarchy to the oil men of Calgary, Canada has much a tradition of small interconnected cabals as we do of egalitarianism. Saul offers little tangible evidence of the egalitarian tradition. Further, it is a touch galling to read the partner of a former Governor-General and English-educated academic preach the inherent Canadianness of egalitarianism. But looking beyond a lack of proof, the book is paternalistic to its core. It is a call for elites to take up their burden and lead Canada properly. To go back to the Dominion biblical reference, the broader context is about a King being given responsibility by god. The king is to be an enlightened monarch who tends and cares for his whole flock. Hard to find a more patriarchal image.It doesn’t really matter what average Canadians think of his proposals – all it will take is a clear, strong leadership to pull the masses on board with his idea of a cradle to grave state that educates Canadians to their full potential, free from the intellectual limits of empires, heal them with excellent health care and provide them fulfilling work at firms dedicated to overcoming the challenges of the global market and look after the needs of all Canadians. That the taxes may be high, or that huge corporate subsides may be needed to build this world, a la France, doesn’t really bother Saul. France in fact is a concept that Saul struggles with throughout the book. He wants to avoid calling for Canada to become France, for he wants to reject the baggage of French intellectual space, yet at his core he likes their model. A Fair Country is in many ways an elaborate production to create a Canadian reason to accept the French state. Connected with his paternalism, Saul denies both the validity and legitimacy of his opponents. The possibility that there might be an honest, pro-Canadian conservative conception of the country, that people genuinely think is best for Canada, is an idea rejected by Saul. Conservatives are imperial toadies. Further, the Canadian socialist tradition is never mentioned or spoken of. It is simply ignored. Ultimately A Fair Country is a lament for an image of Canada best put in practice by Pierre Trudeau. A society where political and bureaucratic leaders led, corporate elites were forced to put people before shareholders, and Canada sought to carve its own path, independent of any empire. It was also a society where the people did not like where they were being led, the economy stagnated, and Canada, for all its rhetoric of a “third way”, continued to serve as a loyal western ally. Like Grant, Saul cannot accept or understand why Canadians rejected his conception of the country. Unlike either them, I see the texts as paths Canadians successfully avoided. </div> </article> </div>

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Issue 2