Category: Books and literature

Discussion of books and other literature

McRoberts on Trudeau and national unity

The argument of this book is that the roots of the present [national unity] crisis lie in decisions made in the 1960s. More specifically, they lie with Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s ‘national unity’ strategy, at the centre of which was an attempt to implant a new Canadian identity. ‘National unity’, it was presumed, meant that all Canadians must see their country and their place in it in exactly the same way.

In particular, this meant persuading Quebec francophones to abandon their historical attachment to the notion of a distinct francophone national collectivity, centred in Quebec and firmly linked to the Quebec government. Through such measures as official bilingualism and a constitutionally entrenched charter of rights, francophones were to be incorporated into Canada as a whole and to adopt a vision of Canada that included multiculturalism and the equality of the provinces.

As this book will show, the national unity strategy failed abysmally to change the way Quebec francophones see Canada. Indeed, the attachment of Quebec francophones to Quebec as their primary identity is stronger than ever, and they are more determined than ever that Quebec should be recognized as a distinct society.

It is ironic that the national unity strategy, although conceived primarily in relation to Quebec, has had its main impact, not in Quebec, but in the rest of the country and has transformed the way many English Canadians think of Canada. As such elements of the Trudeau strategy as a charter of rights, multiculturalism, or the equality of the provinces have become central to English Canadians’ view of Canada, so they have destroyed any willingness to recognize Quebec as a distinct society. Indeed, within the Trudeau strategy these principles were intended to negate Quebec’s claim to recognition.

McRoberts, Kenneth. Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity. 1997. (p.xii, paperback)

Daniel Carpenter and Andrew Delbanco on abolitionism

Delbanco’s essay considers abolitionism as a general category of political vision, one impelled by “imprecatory prophets” whose contribution is, in part, to envision what their contemporaries regarded as “preposterous” and to make it seem possible. Abolitionists render a moral case against the existence and endurance of or or more of a society’s perceived wrongs, such as slavery and racial castes. And perhaps others: alcohol, or gender discrimination, or abortion, or the hierarchy of heterosexuality over gay and lesbian lives. The abolitionist then and now requires moral clarity in the form of a sharp division between good and evil in which the viewer and reader can tell the two apart. Abolitionism also requires a refusal to settle for half-measures; it paints these compromises themselves as part of the problem, as resting firmly on one side of the binary divide. And, not least, abolitionism must conjure a world without the evil institution whose demise it seeks: a promised land.

From Daniel Carpenter’s forward to: Delbanco, Andrew. The Abolitionist Imagination. Harvard University Press. 2012.

Perhaps climate change activists should begin calling themselves fossil fuel abolitionists.

Federalism and the French Canadians

As part of my preparation for my August comprehensive exam, I read Pierre Trudeau’s 1968 collection of essays: Federalism and the French Canadians. Compared to the other texts on the list, it is short, clear, and accessible. While some of the controversies addressed are too obscure to be intelligible to someone who has never closely studied the politics of Quebec at the time, the book does set out the general thrust of Trudeau’s thinking in areas ranging from the shortcomings of ethnic nationalism to the importance of bilingualism and federalism in Canada.

Written during the middle of what has subsequently been called Quebec’s ‘Quiet Revolution‘, Trudeau’s book argues that the constitutional structure of Canada’s federation, encompassing Quebec, arose appropriately from the historical circumstances of Canada’s founding. (197) Regarding the future of that province, he describes two alternatives: one in which isolation and ethnic nationalism lead to stagnation and an economy and society falling ever-farther below the world standard, and another in which federalism is renewed, particularly through the universal application of bilingualism across Canada. (32, 48)

Trudeau does an acute job of identifying the shortcomings in an ‘asymmetric’ approach to federalism, in which some provinces are granted special privileges or substantially more power than others. For one, how can provinces granted such rights be appropriately accorded equal influence within the federal government to provinces with lesser powers? Trudeau also discusses the contradictions involved in asserting national self-determination for Quebec. If it is a ‘people’ that holds the right to declare political independence, how can they bring with them an Anglophone minority that doesn’t want to come, or indigenous groups that would choose to remain part of the rest of Canada. Similarly, how can they leave behind Francophones in other provinces? (153) He concludes that a modern state must be polyethnic and that such a character actually empowers and enriches a society through openness, diversity, and tolerance. (156-8, 165)

Trudeau stresses the importance of the division of powers to democratic legitimacy – describing the importance of the electorate being able to identify which level of government bears responsibility for a particular policy. The book also describes Trudeau’s perspective on equalization payments as an essential part of a federation in Canada, justified on the basis that they will allow all provinces – regardless of economic circumstances – to provide the same basic standard of social support. (27, 72)

In one long chapter, Trudeau describes what he perceives as the obstacles to democracy in Quebec. These are chiefly the things which the Quiet Revolution arose against: an overmighty Catholic church, restrictions in speech and education, a parochial elite dominating society, and lingering feelings of historical inferiority and exploitation. (106) He highlights, for instance, the enduring alliance that emerged between the English Canadian elite that played a large role in the Quebecois economy and the Catholic Church which was permitted to operate largely unchanged after the Seven Years’ War and 1774 Quebec Act.

Trudeau frequently expounds on the importance of reason and the allure and inadequacy of emotion for making political arguments or justifying political institutions. He is largely dismissive of nationalism as a force for unity in Canada. He also refers frequently to the importance of expanding individual liberty, using this as the criteria for distinguishing between ‘genuine’ revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. Trudeau’s view of constitutional politics is remarkably Burkean, with an emphasis on the idea that Canada’s constitution doesn’t merely reside in one or more constitutional documents, but also in precedents and traditions, and that the fact of standing the test of time is an endorsement of their merit. (20)

In places, the book seems to fall into some of the traps of which the author is wary. In particular, there are segments where close logical argument is abandoned in favour of something more like emotional or rhetorical hand-waving. Nonetheless this is an unusually interesting book. Indeed, it is probably a unique one in Canadian history insofar as it shows the thinking of a politically-minded academic who actually went on to make singular changes to how Canada is governed, via the patriation of the constitution and the Charter.

Peter Russell on recent decades of Canadian constitutional politics

At the beginning of this book I introduced Burke and Locke as representing two different approaches to constitutionalism. For the Burkean, a constitution is thought of not as a single foundational document drawn up at a particular point in time containing all of a society’s rules and principles of government, but as a collection of laws, institutions, and political practices that have passed the test of time, and which have been found to serve the society’s interests tolerably well… From the Lockean perspective, however, the Constitution is understood as a foundational document expressing the will of the people, reached through a democratic agreement, on the nature of the political community they have formed and how that community is to be governed… The central argument of this book has been that up until the 1960s constitutional politics in Canada was basically Burkean, but for a generation – from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s – the prevailing constitutional aspiration in Canada and in Quebec was for a Lockean constitutional moment. That effort failed, for the now obvious reason that in neither Canada nor Quebec was there – or is there – a population capable of acting as a sovereign people in a positive Lockean way.

Russell, Peter. Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People? (Third Edition). 2004 (first edition 1992). p. 247-8

From The War of the Ring

I have long found Tolkien to be an effective antidote to leaden academic prose. His sentences demonstrate such craft, and his epic language – evocative of Beowulf and Norse legend – contrasts pleasingly with the sesquipedalianism of the academy.

Reading The War of the Ring yesterday, I found a passage that is ironic in hindsight. Gandalf is explaining why vanquishing Sauron is a sufficient task, even though it may leave other perils to be faced by those in the future:

Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

This is strange to read, in light of climate change realities. The weather future generations shall have is now largely ours to rule, and we must decide how much suffering we are willing to impose on them for our convenience and for the pleasure of extravagant energy use.

I have heard it argued that there is no point in dealing with climate change, because some other problem will inevitably arise to confront those in the future. Alternatively, some argue that climate change should be ignored until other ills which they consider more pressing have been addressed. To me this seems a cowardly bit of rationalization. We have the knowledge know to foresee the consequences of our energy choices, and we have several varied courses of action open to us. In choosing how to rule the weather of the future, we ought to acknowledge that and confront the implications.

Strunk&White on style

Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style has no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices which are popularly believed to indicate style — all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.

p. 69

The Looking Glass War

I picked up a library copy of John le Carré’s The Looking Glass War because all my own books were in moving boxes, and to begin re-habituating myself to intensive reading in the lead-up to my comprehensive exam in August.

The novel is what you would expect from le Carré: not sensationalized, conveying a sense of awareness about realistic tradecraft. The characters aren’t much differentiated, but the writing is very good and the book seems like a nice counterweight to the sensationalism of the general espionage genre. For instance, there are a number of detailed passages about the inconveniences of operating a WWII-era radio using Morse code. The bureaucratic turf war that forms the primary motivation for the action in the novel seems depressingly realistic.

To sum up: it’s a reasonably interesting quick read which provides the sense of a brush with realism that distinguishes le Carré from other writers in the genre.