-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.28/pageone.html <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.28/pageone.html">Laissez Faire City Times - Volume 3 Issue 28 </A> ----- Laissez Faire City Times July 12, 1999 - Volume 3, Issue 28 Editor & Chief: Emile Zola ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End of Canada? by Peter Topolewski Each July 1 Canadians celebrate the country’s birthday. For 1999 Prime Minister Jean Chretien approached the festivities by convening a retreat for his cabinet in the last days of June. As the 2-day retreat neared, the media speculated on the PM’s ambition and political duration. Then his office released the meeting agenda, revealing that the Cabinet was going to evaluate Canada-US relations, and suddenly the fortune tellers and doomsayers really got busy. That Canada-US relations should be on the table for Canada’s top policy makers should hardly be a surprise, and more likely a given. Canada and the US are each other’s largest trading partners, spending one billion dollars a day exchanging one another’s goods. Around 85 percent of Canada’s trade is with America, and the dollar figures have grown since the two have relaxed trade barriers over the last 15 years. Still, in spite of these free trade agreements, disputes have arisen, most recently over softwood lumber, magazines, salmon, cattle, and pork. And so Prime Minister Chretien’s Cabinet retreat seemed destined to look at how relations with the US have improved, and what areas still need attention. Instead, just days before the retreat commenced, rumors begin to fly that the Cabinet was going to talk about not only removing the border and customs inspections between the two nations, but unifying the currency – which is effectively a discussion about Canada adopting the US dollar. The rumors were no accident. Canada’s ambassador to the US, Raymond Chretien (no relation to Jean), aired these thoughts to a Washington DC crowd in early June. Dollar Imperialism? In Canada the loudest reactions to an open border and a US dollar fall into only a few categories that manage to cover the spectrum of emotion. Inevitably there are those who feel greater economic union with the US is "inevitable" (though nothing is). This group generally views "dollarization" favorably. Next, and closely related to the first, is the group that sees tighter ties with the US economy as beneficial and, with a little work, rather attainable. And lastly, there are those who are horrified by the idea of growing any closer to the US. This is probably the largest group, though the horror varies in degrees among its members. Through a combination of insecurity and notions of a purposeful American imperialism, this group foresees a Canada without sovereignty, where social policies are dictated from inside the Beltway and culture is beamed without halt from Hollywood. Fear of the imminent death of Canadian sovereignty is justified in light of the federal government’s recent kowtowing. Military support for the US escapades in Kosovo went without question, and threats that the British Columbia’s provincial government would ban US submarines from testing torpedoes at a naval base on Vancouver Island in BC prompted the feds to expropriate the base from the province. Still, those fearing the end of Canadian culture and sovereignty are no less fatalistic than those who see dollarization as an inevitable part of the country’s future. And in the name of protecting Canadian identity and values, they show no faith in the strength of that identity or those values – indeed they show no faith in the strength and abilities of individual C anadians. To the decades-old cry that Canadian culture is about to sink, Canadian artists and performers have proven they can compete on the world stage. Canadians Jim Carey and Mike Meyers are two of the biggest names in showbiz, and love them or hate them, female crooners Celine Dion, Sarah McLaughlin, and Alanis Morissette are among the biggest record sellers of the 90s. Not so long ago the Canadian government stood among this group of negative Nellies, risking a trade war with a hypocritical Congress to protect Canada’s precious magazine industry from American competition. Funny how in a matter of months that same government can without flinching float the idea of a unified currency and an open border–though Prime Minister Chretien denies that these specific issues came up during his Cabinet retreat. To this skeptics reply that the government simply got the issues out in the media to make official discussions, when they come, more palatable to Canadians. In America, government and business leaders have apparently heard little of these closer "theoretical" relations with Canada, and indeed the issue seems not to have crossed many of their minds. Yet by most accounts they have little reason to be averse to a single currency and a more open border – though American lawmakers might worry about British Columbia’s liberal attitude to marijuana and the province’s award winning bud, currently its number one export to the US. Intellectuals and observers on both sides of the border feel that if the move to greater economic unity is to succeed in Canada, the impetus must come from Canada in order to remove any notion that American imperialism is driving the move toward union. Suzuki and Mono-Culture All this talk of open borders and a single currency takes on a new character coming but two weeks after Canada’s best know scientist and science popularizer warned of the dangers of "globalization". As an unwavering spokesman for "environmental protection" and an articulate voice of conscience in an age of mass consumption, David Suzuki sends his radio and television messages to millions of people in dozens of languages each week. Writing in MacLean’s, Canada’s leading weekly news magazine, he notes that humans, like animals and ecosystems, survive changes in conditions because of diversity. In addition to genetic and physical diversity, humans benefit from cultural diversity that has produced different values and ideas of wealth, meaning, purpose, status, and relations. Suzuki claims that this diversity has enabled humans to survive and thrive at all corners of the earth. Globalization (by which he apparently actually means cultural homogenization, or "mono-culture"), he says, has narrowed the range of cultural diversity. Culture around the globe has moved toward homogeneity; and status, wealth, meaning, and purpose is now found by almost all cultures and nations to rest on one thing: the accumulation of goods. The problem, according to Suzuki, is the globe cannot support that consumption – consumption, he notes, that when looked back upon most often is not counted among the highlights of our lives. While I would add that mono-culture, as it has been dubbed, is boring, insipid, shallow, and predictable, Suzuki suffers for failing to differentiate between mono-culture and the process of economic globalization. The problem for him – and for all of us – is over-consumption (consumption for the sake of consumption), and although a culture of consumption is spreading across the globe, this trend is not inherent in a global economic system. In fact, if dollarization is in store for Canada, whether inevitably or by great effort, the benefits are likely to lessen Canada’s economic dependency on the US. A more stable and valuable currency will help develop secondary industries and break Canada’s reliance on natural resources. New sectors, a stronger economy, and a healthy greenback will open Canada to more global trade and investment. Wealth is one of the most powerful and accessible ways to assert independence at every level, including the cultural. Seen this way, the right kind of "globalization" can help foster an economic system to buttress–rather than threaten–our way(s) of life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter Topolewski was born in Canada in 1972. Against the odds that seem stacked against everyone at birth, he is just now beginning to learn that the society and system of authority one is born into is not the society and system of authority one must accept. He lives and works in Vancouver, where his corporate communications company is based. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 28, July 12, 1999 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Published by Laissez Faire City Netcasting Group, Inc. Copyright 1998 - Trademark Registered with LFC Public Registrar All Rights Reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
