Читать книгу Intent For A Nation: What is Canada For - Michael Byers - Страница 6

— PREFACE —

AS A CHILD, I spent my summers on a farm near Stoughton, Saskatchewan. My awareness of international affairs dates from that time. For although southeastern Saskatchewan might seem a long way from anywhere, global politics were ever present. My grandparents’ livelihood depended on the price of wheat, and that price was determined by events abroad. I remember my grandfather, with only a Grade 8 education, discussing quotas and subsidies with acumen worthy of an international trade lawyer. At the same time, we saw the contrails of American B-52 bombers high overhead. The planes were flying north to the High Arctic, where they would circle on standby—just like in Dr. Strangelove—waiting for the order to fly into the Soviet Union to drop their nuclear bombs. Rural Saskatchewan was smack dab in the middle of the Cold War.

I have spent my life learning, reading, thinking and teaching about Canada’s place in the world: first as a high school student in both Ottawa and Lethbridge; then as an English literature and political studies major at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and later as a law student at McGill in Montreal. For twelve years—from 1992 to 2004—I lived outside Canada. The first seven years were spent in Britain, studying and teaching international law at Cambridge and Oxford universities. The next five years were spent in Durham, North Carolina, as a professor of law and director of Canadian Studies at Duke University. It was then time to return to Canada to teach political science at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

It is a strange experience, returning to one’s country after an extended period abroad. Everything is familiar, yet so much has changed. Things you had once been attached to—Peter Gzowski and Morningside—exist no longer. Things you had forgotten—the almost spiritual role that hockey occupies in the Canadian psyche—suddenly reappear.

Returning from an extended absence can improve your understanding of where you come from, since you have seen how things are done differently elsewhere. One of the reasons Canadians support universal public health care so passionately is that so many of us have lived in countries without it. Canada’s strict limits on the financing of political parties are possible because so many of us have seen how badly wealth distorts politics elsewhere.

Returning from a long absence can also help you see changes that, because they have occurred slowly, are less visible to those who have stayed at home. For me, the most shocking change was the dramatic increase in the number of homeless people on the streets of our cities, in this, one of the wealthiest countries on Earth. I still find it disturbing that many of my fellow citizens are so desperate for a few pennies that they are willing to sort through the Dumpster behind my house at 6:00 AM.

Of course, I have noticed positive changes too, most notably the incredibly socially conscious and internationally oriented character of the current generation of Canadian youth. I am privileged to teach hundreds of young Canadians each year, not just at UBC but also—thanks to the tradition of the “guest lecture”—at universities across Canada and around the world. Their optimism and idealism, their faith in how progressive views can improve the world, is inspiring and a little humbling. And a contrast to what I encountered in both Britain and the United States!

In much the same way, returning after a long absence can help you to see that widely accepted assumptions have become outdated, or that national debates have—for reasons of bias or lack of information—diverged or fallen behind debates on the same issues elsewhere. The Canadian debate about climate change is the best contemporary example of this. In September 2004, British prime minister Tony Blair stated that climate change could be “so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power that it alters radically human existence.” Blair’s assessment was generally accepted in Europe: the debate there now concerns how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60 per cent or more within the next few decades. But anyone taking the same position in Canada is dismissed as a member of an alarmist fringe group.

I have now been back in Canada for three years. My eyes are still fresh, but my understandings are better grounded. I have used my time to reconnect with my country and its people, travelling from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Tofino, British Columbia. I have even sailed the Northwest Passage on the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen, spending two weeks living, learning, and speaking French with its Québécois crew. And I have involved myself in national debates on issues from transboundary water to missile defence, Afghanistan and the Middle East. I see this place as it is now, in all its messy reality, rather than how, in my absence, I dreamed it to be.

But my time outside Canada has also made me far more optimistic about this country’s future than the majority of Canadian academics, journalists and policymakers, many of whom believe that Canada is destined to be a minor actor on the world stage. Even the most optimistic doubt that this country can play more than a modest role, by generating some new ideas, mediating the occasional conflict and, above all, by riding the coattails of more powerful states. They see the glass as half empty.

I see the glass as half full, for Canada is a potentially influential country. Consider the facts: Geographically, we are the second-largest country in the world. We have a population of nearly 33 million well-educated, globally connected people, many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants, speaking two official languages and dozens of other ancestral tongues and coexisting in remarkable harmony. We have one of the highest standards of living, good public services and a strong infrastructure. Our abundant resources are becoming ever more valuable, and we have vast tracts of rich agricultural land. Our location, halfway between Asia and Europe and contiguous with the United States, places us close to the world’s largest markets, at a time when advances in transport and communications are further reducing the cost and time involved in engaging with other countries. We have the eighth-largest economy on the planet and are the only G8 country (apart from oil and gas-rich Russia) with balanced books. We are a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Commonwealth, the Francophonie and the Arctic Council. We have no sworn enemies and are still well regarded for our contributions—mostly during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s—to multilateral diplomacy, international law and United Nations peacekeeping. We are, believe it or not, the envy of the world. We are—take a deep breath and don’t laugh—a powerful country.

Yet successive Canadian governments have failed to exercise leadership internationally. They have failed to push for real and positive change. They have underplayed Canada’s potential, content to stand in the shadows or—worse yet—to meekly follow the lead of a powerful but uneasy neighbour, the USA.

It is time to seize upon the vast potential of this great country, including the goodwill, expertise and ability of so many Canadians. It is time to assert our historical independence and take progressive action on the challenges facing Canada and the world today. Canada should, as a country, be asserting itself as a “global citizen,” shaping the international agenda and using its influence to secure positive, progressive change. As Canadians, we should dare to dream great dreams. As Canadians, we should dare to make them happen.