Intent For A Nation: What is Canada For. Michael Byers
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In much the same way, returning after a long absence can help you to see that widely accepted assumptions have become outdated, or that national debates have—for reasons of bias or lack of information—diverged or fallen behind debates on the same issues elsewhere.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.
— INTRODUCTION —
UN CANADIEN ERRANT:
Why I Gave Up My U.S. Green Card
“THIS IS THE FIRST time I’ve met someone who wanted to do that.”
The U.S. immigration officer’s southern “ drawl, so out of place in the Vancouver airport, was accentuated by incredulity.
A “green card,” which is actually off-white in colour and called a Permanent Resident Card, provides full rights to enter, live and work in the world’s most powerful country. It conveys most of the advantages of U.S. citizenship, so much so that it can be traded in for an American passport after just five years. Yet there I was, four and a half years after I had acquired it, asking for my green card to be taken away.
Acquiring U.S. permanent residency is an arduous process, involving blood tests, chest X-rays and numerous documents, including police certificates attesting to a crime-free past. Even with a prominent sponsor, Duke University, it had taken me three years to get my green card.
Apart from the 50,000 “diversity immigrants” selected by lottery each year, the 50,000 refugees and the roughly 140,000 who, like me, are targeted for universities and high-tech jobs, most of those who aspire to live and work in the United States have no chance of legally settling there. Still, millions flock to the country, like moths to a flame.
I was on my way to a conference in San Diego when I surrendered my green card. The next morning, out for an early run, I saw scores of Mexican men tending lawns and flower beds. Later, a woman from Guatemala cleaned my hotel room. I remembered one of my graduate students at Duke, now a law professor in Mexico City, explaining that most such labourers hold forged social-security cards that are convincing enough to protect their employers from the police, while providing no protections for the workers.
Some illegal immigrants do have decent jobs. In North Carolina, my colleagues and I frequented an upscale restaurant where one waiter, “Mark,” spoke fondly of his family in Calgary while admitting, with evident regret, that he had not been home for ten years. I wondered why not—an arrest warrant, perhaps?—but I knew that Mark was working solely for tips and probably not filing taxes in either the United States or Canada. This, in itself, was likely reason enough for him not to approach the border.
In 2000, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson estimated that 660,000 Canadians were living and working illegally in the United States. Most Canadians blend easily into U.S. society. The lack of a “foreign” accent helps, as does our fluency with American pop culture. It is also true that many Americans assume that Canada, like Puerto Rico, is very nearly part of their country.
Immigration papers acquired greater significance after September 11, 2001, as concerns about security escalated into hysteria and fear replaced curiosity as the standard response to things unknown. Before 9/11, my wife’s English accent often generated a friendly response, including the comment, “You sound just like Princess Diana.” After the attacks, the warm chatter gave way to a strained silence.
At least my princess had a green card and was, therefore, on the legally advantageous side of the divide between “us” and “them.” Thousands of men of Arab ethnicity were rounded up and either detained or deported without charge or access to lawyers. Significantly, none of them were citizens or permanent residents of the United States.
Of course, even U.S. citizenship does not provide the protections it once did. In 2002, the Bush administration jailed two Americans without charge or access to lawyers, in direct denial of habeas corpus, a common-law principle that dates back to the Magna Carta. And then there is the secret, unconstitutional wiretapping program.
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