The Border: Canada, the US and Despatches from the 49th Parallel (review)

'The question at the heart of this book,' writes Laxer, 'is what becomes of Canada, and the Canadian border with the United States, in a transformed world' (19). That question, he finds, is not easy to answer. Influences making for a close relationship between Canada and the United States are stronger than they have ever been. Innovations in communications and technology have intensified long-standing links and connections; CAFTA, NAFTA, and the WTO have reinforced already formidable trade and investment ties; and, dramatically, US concerns with homeland security in the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks have produced pressures for continental defence measures far beyond anything involved in NORAD. Behind all this, the US shift 'from republic to global empire' (315) has unleashed integrative forces that have a potency all their own: implicating Canada in a US-driven dynamic, the impact of which is general and comprehensive, that shift doubles - and more - the difficulty of any kind of Canadian resistance. Within Canada, the sympathy shown to the United States by 'Canada's business, political, and intellectual elites' (315) augments US power. Old Canadian ways of dealing with American strength no longer work: 'the traditional Canadian strategy [of] attempting to offset naked American power by encouraging multilateralism and by participating in structures such as NORAD that provide at least a nod to Canadian sovereignty ... lies in tatters' (320). But though there is much to support the view that continentalist influences are 'winning' (319) the game, Laxer insists, it is far from over. Canada remains very much its own kind of society: 'European' as well as North American, social democratic as well as liberal and individualist, it differs quite fundamentally from the United States, and it can build on this foundation to reaffirm its integrity and keep itself apart. It can, in particular, 'drop ... the free market religion' (321), revive the state, emphasize its orientation towards multiple identities, protect its sovereignty by building up its armed forces and forestalling US moves to take control of defence and security, and use the bargaining power that its markets, raw materials, and attractiveness as a manufacturing base give it. 'A sovereign Canada can be sustained next to the heart of the American Empire. The United States will let us live in peace because it cannot afford to do otherwise' (326).

This forceful argument is made clearly and accessibly. Readers familiar with Laxer's earlier work will see the same sort of generous presentation of data and insistent development of perspective on hand here. There are also echoes of the travel writing of Bruce Chatwin and Ronald Wright, and much first-person accounting of and reaction to life in the Canadian-American borderlands, all of which gives point to Laxer's claims for Canadian and American life as at once complexly interrelated and very much a matter of two societies, each with its own characteristics and behaviours. Recognition of the ambiguities the situation creates for Canada is especially evident. Laxer sees that Canada - still, for all its Europeanness, mainly a North American nation - is dependent on the US economy, addicted to American culture, trapped by geography, and bound to have a difficult time freeing whatever inner, real, genuine, 'European' self in fact exists within.

Some readers will think the picture presented is not complicated enough. Choice is put forward as a matter of clear-cut alternatives - 'would Canada seek deep integration with the United States, or would it choose the path of national independence?' (325) - when Laxer's own evidence suggests matters are not so simple. Canada's resistance to the United States (over US trading-with-the-enemy legislation, nuclear weapons policy, Vietnam and Iraq) is discussed as though this involved no trade-offs or costs. Condemnation of US behaviour toward suspected terrorists and security threats comes too easily. Canadian bargaining power - though real - is exaggerated. Tendentious, political, and written for a general readership, the book often foregoes analysis in favour of...