From an English-Canadian to a Canadian Identity?

No less than francophone identities, the English-Canadian identity is undergoing profound change. Not only is it changing, it is also increasingly taking the form of a Canadian identity, with no qualifiers. Canada gives every indication of being in the process of constructing a new identity. For all practical purposes, the “one Canada” that John Diefenbaker dreamed of is a reality outside Quebec. In my view, a new and meaningful totality is being built in Canada from the English-Canadian root. Adoption of the constitution of 1982, which in a sense represented legal recognition of sociological transformations that had been taking place since the end of World War II, gave a powerful impetus to this process.

As Desmond Morton has suggested, a Canadian identity is more difficult to pin down than the Quebec identity. There is a melting pot at work in English Canada, he says, “but this melting pot is American and does not allow much opportunity for the definition of a Canadian identity as such.” On the contrary, I would argue that a new construction of the Canadian identity is in process. To understand the shape of this identity, we need to go back to its origins, when two significant Others deeply affected the traditional English-Canadian identity: Americans and French Canadians. Over time, however, English Canada’s relationship with these two significant Others has changed, and they are no longer necessarily perceived as threats.

The contrast between the principles that guided the people who drew up the British North America Act of 1867 and those that inspired the theoreticians of the American Revolution a century earlier has often been noted: Peace, Order, and Good Government on the one hand versus Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness on the other. The American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset evoked this contrast in the title of his 1990 book Continental Divide. More than two hundred years ago, he argued, the North American continent began to divide into two opposing entities: one made a revolution that was liberal, egalitarian, rebel, and whig; the other a counterrevolution that was conservative, authoritarian, Loyalist, and tory. The frontier was the paramount symbol of the American imagination, while the Canadian mind has been dominated for some two hundred years by survival and heritage. If Lipset’s analysis is correct, Quebec and the rest of Canada have much more in common than is generally believed. As a complement to Lipset’s argument, Desmond Morton emphasizes the loser mentality that characterizes the Canadian identity, noting “the recognition it gives to losers, from the Loyalists who were defeated in the American colonies and the habitants of New France conquered by England through the Irish immigrants escaping from famine to political refugees who have come in recent years.”

In the twentieth century, governments have been more interventionist in Canada than in the United States, notably in the economic, social, and cultural spheres and especially since the advent of the welfare state. It was not long before Canadians came to value their social programs very highly, to the point where they now view these programs as a new mark of distinction differentiating Canadians from Americans. Canada has also been more interventionist in the cultural arena, with the establishment of national institutions such as CBC radio and television, the National Film Board, and the Canada Council. These institutions have made a large contribution to shaping the image that English Canadians have of themselves, and, it should not be forgotten, they have performed a similar function for Québécois. Furthermore, Canada has been more interventionist in the economic field, supporting the development of a strong national economy through tariff barriers, to the long-standing irritation of the western provinces. Finally, it has been more interventionist in ensuring some sharing of wealth among the different regions of the country. The National Energy Program, adopted by Ottawa after the second oil shock of 1979, is a good example of intervention by the federal government in the name of a particular idea of what the country should be.

Three factors have substantially attenuated the traditional differences between Canada and the United States, while at the same time reshaping the Canadian identity: increased continental economic integration, immigration, and the development of a new political culture based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Continentalism, which in the 1960s and 1970s was considered a complete negation of the Canadian identity, has made enormous strides. Its momentum is indicated by the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, expanded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to include Mexico, all in the new context of globalization. The large increase in north-south trade since the adoption of NAFTA indicates Canada’s new level of integration into the North American economy.

At the same time, the Canadian economy is undergoing thorough change. The fiscal crisis that erupted in the 1990s forced the Canadian government to redefine its array of social programs. Large Canadian crown corporations (Air Canada, Petro-Canada, Canadian National) have been privatized and state capitalism is in retreat. Major public institutions such as the CBC and the research councils are facing serious financial constraints. Meanwhile, Canadian capitalism is expanding in the United States.

Do all these changes indicate that Canada and the United States are drawing closer together, and that as a result specific characteristics at the heart of the Canadian identity are being abandoned? Only time will allow a clear answer to this question, but the tendency is there. It should be noted, however, that even if English Canada is more integrated into the North American socioeconomic space, it is also showing considerable cultural dynamism – in literature, popular music, film, and painting. Through this cultural flowering, it is declaring its own identity, different from the American identity. If this analysis is correct, economic tendencies and cultural tendencies are evolving differently. In parallel to increasing economic integration, a new definition of Canada has emerged, based on the idea that drives it, which we referred to in the beginning of this entry.

Simultaneously, immigration is transforming not only the face of Canada but the very definition the country gives to itself. Canada is a land of immigration, and its largest city, Toronto, is now one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. In the 1960s an attempt was made to institute biculturalism, the dream of the French-Canadian elites. But biculturalism was quickly abandoned in favour of multiculturalism, which has become one of the primary markers of the Canadian identity.

Although multiculturalism has been perceived in Quebec as a policy whose effect is to trivialize Quebec’s assertion of its own identity by treating the Québécois as one among many ethnic groups, it is also a policy suited to Canada’s new face.

The rest of Canada does not share Quebec’s interpretation: it sees multiculturalism as an original way of integrating immigrants and of distinguishing Canada from the United States. In this respect, Canada has adopted a very different approach from other countries of immigration. France chose a Jacobin model of integration that eradicates differences and emphasizes equality among all citizens. “Give me soldiers,” said Napoleon, “and I will make Frenchmen of them.” The United States has preferred a liberal model of integration of individuals, whatever their origin, language or culture, into the great American dream of a free society in which all individuals are responsible for themselves.

Multiculturalism is certainly an essential component of the new way in which Canadians define themselves. This official policy, however, also contains contradictions. First of all, it is difficult to build a common identity while promoting diversity. Indeed, it is with this fact in mind that the official Canadian policy of multiculturalism has been criticized in some circles, especially on grounds of closing cultural communities in by emphasizing their differences. Others see Canada’s multiculturalism as a myth because in fact individuals integrate into the host society, which is primarily anglophone in culture.

This theme has been taken up by Reginald Bibby, who has argued that Canadian and American public discourse about immigration may be different but daily practice in the two countries is largely the same. The melting pot is at work in both societies and the challenges presented by the harmonious integration of diverse immigrant populations are in fact the same. The highly diverse origins of Canadians living outside Quebec and their integration into the anglophone majority constitute probably the most powerful force leading to a new self-definition in Canada. Canada received more than seven million new immigrants between 1951 and 1998, the equivalent of a country the size of Austria or Switzerland. Outside Quebec, these new Canadian citizens cannot identify themselves with English Canadians and simply define themselves as Canadians. A new totality, defining itself in an unqualified way as Canadian, is in the process of development.

This new totality represents a break with the bicultural and binational dream entertained by French-speaking Canadians in the early twentieth century. Its identity is expressed first and foremost in English. A new rhetoric of national identity emerged in Canada, as described by Ian Angus, and new symbols replaced British ones: a new flag, a new national anthem, the maple leaf. The fact that francophones outside Quebec now define themselves as bilingual Canadians rather than as French Canadians is another element in this process.

Finally, in 1982 Canada gave itself a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has taken on enormous symbolic significance in Canadian culture. Probably more than any other factor, its reference to the rights of the person has changed the political culture of the country and contributed to the construction of a new identity, at the heart of which is an emphasis on individuals rather than collectivities. This is a major change. There are a number of clauses in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that are directed towards the promotion of collective rights, but in practice individual rights have become an essential reference.

English Canada’s relationship to the French fact has also changed substantially over the years. Although there are a number of reasons why English Canada has redefined itself with respect to this second significant Other, the following discussion will look at only two: language and institutional life.

There has been a clear trend towards language polarization in Canada. French is the mother tongue of 82 percent of the population of Quebec, while English is the mother tongue or the language normally spoken at home for 80 percent of the population in the nine other provinces. About 10 percent of Canadians outside Quebec say they are bilingual, as opposed to 35 percent in Quebec. Outside Quebec, there is a high rate of assimilation of francophones and of language transfer from French to English. According to Charles Cantonguay, there was a substantial increase in the cumulative rate of assimilation of francophones outside Quebec between 1971 and 1991: from 54 percent to 67 percent. Thus, Canada has become increasingly anglophone, while the proportion of Quebec’s population that speaks French has remained above 80 percent. In practice, Canada outside Quebec appears as an anglophone country, with francophone minorities that acknowledge the preponderance of English as the primary reference point by defining themselves as bilingual. Quebec, meanwhile, has consolidated its own identity. Canada is indeed a bilingual country, but it is not a bicultural one.

A second reason for this increasing difference between English Canada and Quebec is the development of parallel institutions in the economic and social spheres as well as the cultural arena. This process can be illustrated by looking at an institution that has played a key role in the construction of the Canadian identity: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In practice, CBC television functions as two independent entities in two separate cultural universes. At the level of production there are few effective links between the English and French networks. Immigration provides another example of how Quebec and Canada have different approaches to the question of multiculturalism. Quebec has a policy of integration aimed at convergence, offering immigrants training in daily and civic life along with courses in language and civilization. Public discourse on immigration in Quebec is centred primarily on integration into the society where immigrants are settling and the need to build a common civic culture.

In short, a new Canadian identity – an unhyphenated identity expressing the idea of Canada as a new totality, with no need to attach an adjective (English or French) as a qualifier – is now emerging and probably being consolidated. While this new Canadian identity can be considered a successor to the English-Canadian identity, it represents a break with the country’s history. Daniel Latouche, Guy Laforest, and other political analysts have shown that the contract agreed to in 1867 – the federal union established by the British North America Act – was unilaterally broken when the constitution was repatriated from London in 1982. “It was decided that the country could no longer allow itself to exist without being a nation,” Latouche writes. The Constitution Act of 1982 established the basis of this new Canadian national framework, but, according to Kenneth McRoberts, it endorsed a misconception of Canada.

This new Canada also has adherents who promote it in Quebec, such as Cité libre magazine and Alliance Quebec. But a number of indicators, notably official positions taken by the Quebec Liberal Party until the late 1990s, suggest that not all francophone federalists share this new vision of Canada. This places Quebec federalists in a very uncomfortable position.

Let us conclude by proposing an answer to the question asked at the outset: how has a Canadian national identity come to be defined? There is a Canadian identity, a self-representation or an imagined community, to use Benedict Anderson’s expression. Francophones outside Quebec have come to reconcile their own identity with this Canadian identity by defining themselves as bilingual. Not being of British stock, new immigrants who have settled in Canada could not define themselves as English Canadians. Instead, they have defined themselves simply as Canadians, and they have learned English to participate in the civic life of their new country. As of 1996 the premiers of the three prairie provinces were all citizens of non-British stock whose families were all relatively recent arrivals in Canada. Like an increasing number of their fellow citizens, they define themselves as Canadians. The same is true for the aboriginal peoples, who proudly declare their distinct cultural identity and seek more powers to develop their communities, but without calling into question their belonging to Canada. In short, Canadians have developed a strong national feeling that is expressed in their attachment to their great northern country and the symbols that represent it: the maple leaf, the beaver, the flag, the national anthem.

This leaves Quebec, most of whose French-speaking citizens, federalists and sovereignists alike, have developed a strong national feeling of their own. This feeling, however, is not recognized in the new emerging Canada. The new Canada is reluctant to recognize Quebec’s special place in confederation – as it did in 1867 – either by agreeing to a form of asymmetrical federalism or by accepting Quebec’s demands, which have been expressed in a variety of formulas: special status, associate states, distinct society, sovereignty-association. The history of constitutional failure from the first constitutional conference in 1967 to the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord in the 1992 referendum indicates that this reluctance has become an insurmountable obstacle. It follows that the new Canadian identity and the Quebec identity coexist and are developing in parallel but different frames of reference.