Nationalism, technology, and Canadian survival

36. Montreal Gazette, Dec. 10, 1873. 37. In W. A. Foster's Canada First Scrapbook; reprinted in Canada First: Memorial, pp. 48-56, but without the platform . 38. Toronto Globe, Jan. 9, 1874. 39. See the newspaper commentary appended to Hon. Edward Blake, M.P., "A National Sentiment!" (Ottawa: E. A. Perry, 1874), pp. 23-88. 40. Morgan Papers, Foster to Morgan, 5 Sept., 1877. 41. Mair Papers, Foster to Mair, 10 June, 1875. 42. Mair Papers, Denison to Mair, 20 Feb., 1876; PAC, Denison Papers, Mair to Denison, 17 March, 1876. 43. James Young, Public Men and Public Life in Canada, Vol. Nationalism, technology, and Canadian survival R. D. MATHEWS The issue has been joined. The threat to the survival of Canada has been recognized. No political party does not have at least the rhetoric of concern. The Committee for an Independent Canada is attempting to build a multi-party pressure group. The N.D.P. has sprung to new life with a Socialism/Nationalism wing of considerable power. Unions with U.S. connections are finding life increasingly uncomfortable. George Grant and Walter Gordon become more and more relevant in discussions of a national destiny. The attitudes of Lester Pearson and "les trois colombes," Trudeau, Pelletier, and Marchand, become increasingly irrelevant as Canadians in every region move towards the sense of "maitres chez nous." The speech from the throne was a massive expression of unawareness of the people of Canada. History is moving quickly. Mel Watkins, looking a little like a rock singer, is on the cover of a recent Saturday Night as "a very Canadian sort of hero." There are soldiers in Ottawa, soldiers in Quebec. There is a Canadian Liberation Movement with a newspaper , New Canada; but as yet there is no "Front de Liberation du Canada." Even the League of Canadian Poets still possessing a few Canadian poets in its midst, exploded at its October meetings in Ottawa - on the subject of nationalism. Life in Canada is moving "towards something," people say, but they cannot say exactly what. The word nationalism doesn't wait to be defined to everyone's satisfaction. It forces 44 II (2 vols, Toronto: William Briggs, 1912), p. 211. 44. "A singe nation of brothers"; the phrase is Schiller's, from Wiiheim Tell. Denison was fond of comparing the Canada Firsters' pledge to the "oath on the RGtli" sworn by Schiller's heroes. In addition to the works by Hougham, Wallace and Underhill cited above, Canada First has been discussed by David Farrell in a recent issue of this Journal, and by Carl Berger in his excellent book The Sense of Power which, regretably, appeared after my study had been completed. See also John Mathews' Tradition in Exile. its way onto centre stage, informing ideas of a Canadian socialism, of left Liberalism, even - by twisted declension - of continental energy sell-out. Harry Johnson, the economist from Chicago and LSE, visited Canada recently to attack nationalism on behalf of the multi-national corporation. He spoke of the Canadians, clearly of an evil kind, who have been "disguising.... white Canadian Anglo-Saxon supremacy as national independence ."1 And he went on: The nation state is an agency of social conservatism and the use of power to coerce the illiterate majority for the benefit of the educated minority. The corporation is an agency of both efficiency and regulated change....2 The nation state, it would seem, is bad. Technology , the magic wand, in the hand of the fairy godmother - the multi-national corporation - will be waved over the downtrodden globe full of nation states, and will liberate them. Clearly some confusion is present. But out of the confusion some clarifications come. Start with Harold Innis. In his Empire and Communications, published in 1950, he anticipates in a few lines the Watkins Report and the continuing discussion of extra-territoriality , the branch plant, continental defence (and the Defence Production Sharing agreements). The United States, with systems of mechanized communications and organized force, has sponsored a new type of imperialism based on common law in which sovereignty is preserved de jure and used to expand imperialism de facto. It has been able to exploit the tendencies toward...