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At Queenston Heights and Lundy’s Lane,
Our brave fathers, side by side,
For freedom, homes and loved ones dear,
Firmly stood and nobly died;
And those dear rights which they maintained,
We swear to yield them never!
Our watchword evermore shall be
“The Maple Leaf forever!”
The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our King and Heaven bless
The Maple Leaf forever!—Alexander Muir, “The Maple Leaf Forever.”
The week before his inauguration, President Trump threatened Canada with huge tariffs; in response, Canadian Prime Minister Justn Trudeau, summarily resigned. Mind you, I dislike little Justin as much as anyone, and shall be very happy to see him clear out sooner rather than later. But the manner in which it was accomplished, it seems to me, bodes poorly for the country’s future – unless, of course, as Mr. Trump believes, that future would be best served if Canada were our 51st State.
Canada is a hard phenomenon for most Americans – and indeed, many Canadians, as uneducated in their schools as most Americans are in theirs – to understand. All one hears about are things like little Justin invoking the Emergencies Act against the truckers, or adding his pathetic voice to the residential school lies that that caused over 100 Catholic churches to be burned across the country. To be sure, if that contemptible little person was all there was to Canada, it would be one thing. But just as there is more to the United States than either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, there is far more to Canada.
The first thing to bear in mind is that there are two Canadas, really, French and English. The first is the older, dating back to 1608, when Samuel de Champlain founded the city of Quebec; the second began in a sense with the British conquest in 1759, but in reality, in 1783. That was when thousands of American Loyalists were forced to leave their homeland to the south – being on the losing side of our first civil war, which we call the American Revolution. Ironically, it was partly started by King George III’s guarantee of their Catholic Faith to his newly acquired French Canadian subjects (which was denounced n Orwellian terms in the Declaration of Independence). The newcomers settled in the Maritime Provinces,what are now the Eastern Townships of Quebec, and Ontario, which was separated from Quebec to accommodate them. Thus began the two Canadian realities – one French and Catholic, the other Anglo and Protestant (although there is a third, Anglo and Catholic, primarily Scots and Irish – there are more native Scots Gaelic speakers in Canada than in Scotland). While these would be joined by immigrants from all over Europe and latterly the world, and there were also the American Indians – or “First Nations,” in Newspeak). But the main divide remains to-day.
These two realities were each, in a sense, alternative ways of being North American as compared to the Liberal, republican south – although Canadian Liberals traditionally looked in that direction, and there was always a section among them that favoured annexation to their neighbour. But amongst the French Canadians grew up a sort of Catholic Conservatism, dedicated to the Sacred Heart and marked by the historical episode of the Papal Zouaves, wherein numbers of young French Canadians served in the Pope’s army during the 1860-70 war. By the 1930s, the primary ideologue of this sort of Francophone Nationalism was Msgr. Lionel Groulx, the greater writer and historian. At the same time, the Anglophone High Tory Tradition, partly drawing from British roots, but coloured by the Loyalist and Scots Jacobite connexion, animated Conservatism on the other side. The two communities often came into conflict – especially over education, although there were the two Riel risings in the West (between which, however, Louis Riel led his Métis against the Fenians attacking form the United States in the name of Queen Victoria). All they had in common was a shared loyalty to the Crown.
As with the moral consensus that undergirded American unity up until the 1960s, that era saw the Revolution Tranquille, the “Quiet Revolution,” during which the Catholic nature of Quebec, as well as the birthrate, collapsed, at the urging of the so-called Nationalists. But if it ruined French Canada, it damaged Anglo-Canada as well, as recounted by the great philosopher George Grant in his Lament for a Nation. Just as Maurice Duplessis (Quebec’s Premier, 1944-1959) was the last great French Canadian political leader, John Diefenbaker (Canadian PM 1957-63) played the same role for his people. Since then, Canda’s religious, cultural, political, and moral decline has been rapid. But as with the United States, her political institutions remain in intact.
Since 1867, the Dominion of Canada has been a Confederation of Provinces – former colonies of Great Britain. The King of Great Britain was and is King of Canada, but in the beginning appointed the Governor-General, the officer presiding over the Canadian government and doing what the King would do if he lived there (and the Lieutenant Governors in each of the provinces) on the advice of the British Government, which retained ultimate control over the country. It was a formula which proved successful; and so in 1901, the Australian colonies were federated into the Commonwealth of Australia. Eight years later, the Cape Province and Natal were united with the newly conquered Transvaal and Orange Free State into the Union of South Africa. These “Dominions” as they were called were all self-governing; to their number were added New Zealand in 1917 and the Irish Free State in 1922. As they continued to develop – and because of their essential aid to the Mother Country in World War I, they became more independent.
Starting in the late 19th century, a movement arose called “Imperial Federation.” This was the idea that, instead of remaining mere colonies, the settler countries of the British Empire – well on their way to Dominion status by then – should be Federated directly with the United Kingdom, represented in an Imperial Parliament in London, from whose majority an Imperial Government would be drawn – serving under the common Monarch. Although popular for a while, this idea was in a sense superseded in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster. This made each Dominion a fully independent state “within the British Commonwealth,” united solely by allegiance to the same King, and equal in every way. Henceforth the Governor-General would be appointed on the advice of the local government rather than the British, and High Commissioners would represent Britain and the Dominions in each other’s capitals.
After World War II, the Empire of India became two independent Dominions – India and Pakistan; partitioning the two cost over a million lives in a few weeks – many more would die from that ongoing conflict to the present. In 1948, the Afrikaaner Nationalist party won the election, and set the Union of South Africa on the course that would make the country an Apartheid republic in 1961, eventually bring Mandela to power, and end in the slow descent into chaos she is enjoying to-day. In 1949, Ireland left the Commonwealth, and in 1950, India became a “republic within the Commonwealth.” From that time on the diminishing number of countries that retained the Monarchy after independence would be called “Realms;” the rest became badly run banana republics in the name of “anti-colonialism” and freedom. In 1973, Britain joined the Common Market in Europe, softening the Commonwealth ties even further. It became an organisation better defined by what it is not than by what it is.
In all of this, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were attempting to go their own ways, with their leftist politicians pushing to become republics just like so many other failed states in the Commonwealth. Retaining the Monarchical status quo became a “Conservative” issue – but even among those parties it was seen by many as a mere tradition, with little practical use. But at the same time, even as London was becoming increasingly subservient to Brussels, Australia and New Zealand were being tied ever closer to Indonesia and others of their neighbours. It is in this context that we need to look at little Justin’s dismissal by Mr. Trump.
The sad truth is that – apart from these United States – the four other major nations of the Anglosphere are too small to maintain their own identities in the long run, but are doomed, as it stands, to eventually be absorbed by their neighbours. Would that be an improvement for Canada? I do not think so. Let me explain. I am a proud American, I love my country, and I served briefly in her armed forces. But by blood, on my father’s side, I am French Canadian. My father was raised in one of those “Little Canadas” in New England that produced the likes of Jean Louis de (Jack) Kerouac. He was equally fluent in French and English, served in World War II, and was proud of being “Franco-American.” But in his own lifetime and mine, all of that collapsed in New England save in a few places, and both Faith and language were lost. I am the youngest in my family to speak the mother tongue, and a thousand years of tradition have been lost – fortunately, all of my brother’s ten children and their spouses have retained the Faith.
That Faith is gone in Canada to a great degree already, absorption by the United States would lead to a similar end to French Canada. Now, whether they like it or not, there would be no French Canadians without their Anglo frenemies, and vice versa – and the Crown remains the only thing they have in common. Yet as we have just seen by Mr. Trump’s dismissal of Justin, practically speaking that counts for little. Moreover, while we might be happy to see Trump send Trudeau packing, in the future, it could easily be a President Harris II dismissing a PM Diefenbaker II. Is there no way out for Canada, then? Just possibly – and that way is CANZUK (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom).
After BREXIT – although the idea had been floating around – many in Great Britain’s establishment were forced to re-examine their country’s place in the world. This was especially true of the Commonwealth ties that had been allowed to drift during the UK’s EU period. But as the Commonwealth stands, there is no real way to turn it into an effective organisation capable of maintaining national identities. A closer union of the four named countries, however – who already share a common King, governmental and legal systems, and military and intelligence ties – is another matter. Such a more or less loose union could act as either an ally or a counterweight to the US, the EU, China, or Russia, and so maintain the members’ independence. It does sadden one to think of the demise of South Africa, the “lost Dominion;” CANZUKSA would have been quite a thing!
At the moment, CANZUK is primarily an interest of the more Conservative parties in each realm – but it is gaining strength among the others, simply because it really is the only feasible option for their long-term survival. At the moment each of the realms are saddled with some of the worst Prime Ministers imaginable – little Justin for the next few weeks in Canada; Sir Keir Starmer of groomer gang protection fame in the UK; Labour prelate Albanese in Australia; and wishy-washy National leader Luxon in New Zealand. But they are all on shaky ground, politically, and those who would replace them – either in their own parties or outside – would be well advised to embrace the CANZUK notion.
Obviously, the Monarchy, as the major mutual instrument of the four nations, shall have to play a key role in making CANZUK a success. On the one hand, the King himself or members of his family shall have to play a more active role in opening national, provincial, and state parliaments in the various realms, granting the Royal Assent, and the like. But both the appointment of viceregal officials (Governors-General, Australian State Governors, and Canadian Provincial Lieutenant Governors) and the respective honours systems of each of the four would be best taken out of the hands of the politicians and deposited solely in the hands of the King. The central symbol of unity must be as insulated from the political rat race as possible to be impartial – and able to make that impartiality effective if circumstances require it.
A last point is that – as with his annoying the Danes by talking about snatching Greenland – Mr. Trump’s actions have to be seen in context. The American political class has always been evangelical in a non-religious sense; it is in their DNA. Madison and Monroe supported the revolutions in Latin America, subsequent presidents not only snatched a third of Mexico but inevitably backed whichever Latin American party was anticlerical; the war of 1898 with Spain allowed us at last to expand our non-creed beyond our borders. Wilson sought to impose it on Europe in 1918, with disastrous results; FDR did the same at Yalta and after, with worse. Eisenhower dynamited our European allies out of their Empires, and Farouk out of Egypt (and Nasser in). JFK signed off on Diem’s assassination, and Carter “greased the skids” (in Nixon’s memorable phrase) for the Shah. Bush Sr. vetoed Monarchical restorations in Romania and Bulgaria, Bush Jr. in Afghanistan (which arguably lost us that war) – and set off his “Global Democratic Revolution;” Obama did his best to impose our sexual mores on the Third World, as did Biden. It is dangerous to be the enemy of the United States, but it can be lethal being our ally. Much as I love our country, and wish to see her remain always herself – within our borders – our shared history would indicate that if the four other major Anglosphere nations wish to survive, they are better off doing so on their own, and together.
Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash