“We stand on guard for thee?”

Canadian university course offerings. (In this light it is rather sad to hear that the c.A.U.T. have recently turned down the suggestion of such a study because they could not obtain the necessary funds from the Canada Council. One would think that it would be a relatively easy matter for member universities to have department chairmen collect this information.) Further, the c.A.U.T. should be made to investigate the possible discrimination against Canadian graduates both in Canada and in other 1 countries. They never did fully answer the problem facing all graduate students as to why United States immigration requirements are so much more restrictive than those facing immigrants coming into Canada? Why is it so easy for Americans to obtain jobs in Canada, while Canadians in turn are made to fill out endless forms and then face a possible wait of a year or so? The c.A.U.T. is being negligent to its membership if it continues to hide its head in the sand on this matter. On the other hand, Mathews and Steele have not conclusively demonstrated that the "foreign invasion,, (to use Claude Bissell's phrase) of the Canadian universities is detrimental to the future of Canadian education, although their arguments to this end are stimulating. Here, too, we need further detailed information to decide whether or not we are battling a straw man. The book, or dossier, is something of a milestone in Canadian education , for it has dared to touch upon a problem which has been bandied about for years, but has never been brought up publicly to take its place alongside those other perennial threats, to the economy and culture, which occupy the Canadian conscience. Now Canadian education too will be considered as being tainted by "Americanism." Already much of the student unrest has been attributed to this phenomenon. The truth is that Canada at this point cannot do without non-Canadian university professors, but the time is also fast approaching when this need will diminish. It is imperative that action be taken now to ensure that future i actions are based upon a sound understanding of the problem. GARTH JOWETT "We stand on guard for thee?" Two things must be said at the outset of a discussion on what Professors Robin Mathews and James Steele call the "de-Canadianization" of our universities: first, that it is extremely difficult to discuss this matter at all and, second, it is impossible to discuss it impersonally. As Hugh Maclennan says, "Our conscience, our sensibilities, our notion of courtesy are deeply strained by this issue. 11 I have always regarded Canada and its people as characterized by an openness, a tolerance and a generosity that I have found nowhere else. Thisis why I am here. Canada makes very few demands of its immigrants. Theyare invited to retain their original customs and beliefs, and their childrenfrequently grow up perfectly bilingual and sometimes multilingual . Immigrants have enriched our cities with many kinds of churchesand architecture. They are unembarrassed by their past and unapologeticfor their accents. They make and keep national costumes foruse on special occasions. They form social and political groups. They publish newspapers in a score of languages. These are just a few thoroughlyCanadian characteristics of our culture. Now this is not the placeto explore the whys and wherefores of such a situation, but one mustpoint out that this is made possible by the absence of a Canadian Ideology.It is the result of the genuine power of Negative Thinking, the most difficult and valuable of modern postures. To use the alien termsof American culture, Canada has no revolutionary past, no history of rejection of Europe, no "American Dream, 0 no umanifest destiny/' norhetoric to live by and therefore no "melting pot." Immigrants do not thereforeencounter a pressure to be something new or join something newbecause the ideological framework that would create such a pressuredoes not exist here. As soon, therefore, as we in Canada begin to take any position that suggests a narrowing of perspectives, a limitationon immigrant power or a quota of any sort we must arouse very deepCanadian responses. The strange irony of this is that those who...