Get Going Canada!
Enough Of Being Good Enough
There is a peculiar temptation that confronts some immigrants. We arrive in a country that has given us a new life, and after a few months -or a few decades - we begin wishing it were a somewhat different country. Rather than just being grateful for the privilege of living in one of the best countries in the world, some of us wish that Canada becomes a better country.
I know the feeling because I have lived it.
When I arrived in Canada in 1973, Pierre Trudeau’s famous assertion that there was “no model Canadian” suited me perfectly. I had not crossed the Atlantic looking for a new national identity. I came because of my Canadian wife and curiosity. My life in Sweden, as an immigrant from Poland, was already a good one. I simply wanted a different one. My globalist youth yearned for broad vistas.
Canada asked little of me. Obey the law. Pay your taxes. Be sensible.
That seemed just fine then.
Today I have grandchildren, and I no longer think that being sensible is enough to make them love the country of their birth. And I do not agree that “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”, another way the son expressed his father’s idea about there being no core to Canadianess.
Canada has been one of the great success stories of the pre - 2000 modern world. It was peaceful, prosperous, tolerant and free. But somewhere along the way, a smug kind of modesty became a philosophy. Canada’s national ethos quietly evolved into;
We Are Best at Being Good Enough.
Canada’s circumstances encouraged patience. We learned to believe that most problems would eventually yield to moderation, compromise and good management. Years ago, while discussing Canada’s growing national debt in the late 80’s with the late Richard Gwyn, he responded with his slightly English sense of superiority that Canadians believed in “muddling through.”
For a too a long time we had a luxury of doing so. But muddling through requires history to move slowly. It assumes that tomorrow will resemble yesterday closely enough for incremental adjustments to be enough. That was a reasonable instinct in the second half of the twentieth century. It is a dangerous one in the twenty-first.
Advancing post-modernity has compressed time. Technological revolutions, geopolitical realignments and demographic change now unfold simultaneously and at a pace that punishes hesitation.
I believe that this old cultural habit of mind also helps explain Canada’s long slide in productivity since the 1970s. A society that prides itself on avoiding dramatic mistakes can also become reluctant to pursue extraordinary successes.
One tangible sign that Canada’s old formula is reaching its limits is that we are no longer merely struggling to attract talent, we are struggling to keep it. Record numbers of Canadian citizens and permanent residents are now leaving the country, many of them highly educated young professionals, entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists. They are drawn by stronger economies, higher productivity, greater opportunities and more ambitious societies.
Immigration remains one of Canada’s great strengths, but recruitment cannot become a substitute for retention. A country that continually imports talent while exporting many of its most productive citizens has a deeper problem than demographics. It has begun to lose the confidence of its citizens in Canada’s future.
Multiculturalism remains one of Canada’s remarkable achievements, but diversity by itself is not a destination. Diversity carries no content.
It’s a frame without a painting.
A national community requires a centre of gravity, a shared civic culture strong enough to transform strangers into fellow citizens. But it will not be built on the diversity-is-our-strength multiculturalist mantra.
This is not a call for a narrower Canada. It is a call for a much more ambitious one.The world has become harder. Power and size matters. No more room for feminist foreign policy for Canada.
Countries are once again judged not only by the values they proclaim but by the capabilities they possess. Canada cannot remain merely an observer of history while occupying the second-largest landmass on Earth.
The circumstances that gave shape to modern Canada also produced the habits that now hold it back. Gratitude for our past should not become captivity to it. Whether nations or individuals, we are shaped by our circumstances, but we are not condemned to remain their prisoners.
The one thing I have learned most deeply as an immigrant is that one of life’s greatest gifts is to live in the place where you were born and to love it above all others. A home, in other words.
Canadians who feel that way are truly fortunate. My hope is that more of them will and that more newcomers will come to feel it too.
Canada Day is the right day not merely to celebrate the country we inherited, but to primarily hope that Canadians who have access to levers of power get off their asses and get going on marshalling a great future for my grandchildren in a country I want them to love.
Canada has long had an uneasy relationship with its own strengths. We have often treated our abundant natural resources as liabilities rather than assets, taken our largest customer—the United States—for granted, and benefited from a North American security umbrella that allowed us to prioritize social spending while underinvesting in defence.
That era appears to be ending.
Canada is now scrambling to avoid what could amount to a forced economic "Canexit" from its most important market. The United Kingdom's experience with Brexit should serve as a warning. If reliable access to the U.S. market is significantly weakened, many international manufacturers will have far less reason to invest in Canada.
At home, we face additional self-imposed challenges. Multiculturalism has brought many benefits, but too often Canada has confused tolerance with the obligation to tolerate intolerance. A successful liberal democracy requires reciprocity: those who enjoy Canada's freedoms should also embrace the values that make those freedoms possible.
Meanwhile, Canada's productivity problem has become chronic. Prosperity cannot be sustained without stronger productivity growth. That requires policies that encourage investment, reward entrepreneurship, and give businesses confidence that capital will remain and grow in Canada rather than seek more attractive jurisdictions.
None of this will be easy. Canada's federal structure makes major reform difficult. Policies that benefit the country as a whole often run into provincial resistance. Ironically, provinces that still maintain barriers to trade with one another insist on unfettered access to markets south of the border.
Any major national project must also include meaningful consultation with Indigenous peoples, whose rights deserve respect and whose perspectives are diverse. There is no single Indigenous voice, making consensus both essential and challenging.
Canada has formidable advantages: immense natural wealth, talented people, stable institutions, and proximity to the world's largest economy. Whether we capitalize on those advantages will depend on the choices we make now.
On this Canada Day, let us wish Prime Minister Mark Carney the wisdom, courage, and pragmatism to steer Canada toward a more productive, more prosperous, and more united future.
The best and the brightest always seek opportunities and are recruited by those with opportunities to offer. In the 70s when you arrived it was difficult for that cohort of your Canadians to leave, especially for the U.S. If your grandchildren are as gifted as you are they too will be recruited and you may want them to accept opportunities that come their way.