Scott Staring: Canadian nationalism is committed to the public good

In recent years, though, Grant has been the subject of an anthology exploring the contemporary relevance of his thought, as well as academic monographs, articles, conference panels, dissertations, and even an episode of the CBC’s “Ideas.” It seems that a new generation of Canadians is seizing on his sometimes controversial, but always interesting writings to help make sense of our disorienting times. Would Grant have his elbows up? So what would Grant have thought about the nationalist resurgence we’re witnessing today? More particularly, what would he have thought about the new nationalist spirit that has awakened in Canada? The answer requires some understanding of the purposes Grant associated with Canadian nationhood. At the broadest level, he believed that Canada had no business existing as an independent nation unless it could provide a meaningful alternative to the U.S. Grant described the U.S. as a country that, from its very founding, had rejected the constraint of earlier Old World traditions in favour of a modern and radically unconstrained conception of the rights and freedoms of individuals. Canada, on the other hand, had been born out of a determination not to be a part of the U.S. There was in this country a stronger sense of the public good, which had to be insulated against the more unruly and self-seeking culture of our neighbours to the south. Canadians experienced this commitment to the public good as a duty to care for others in the community—a duty that, according to Grant, was usually mediated through traditions or customs, however residual, and inevitably experienced as a limitation on our freedom to determine our own ends. The public good The idea that we owe something to the public good or are bound by obligations and traditions that are not of our own making was, according to Grant, threatened in our time by three intertwining forces: liberalism, capitalism, and technology. Liberalism reinforced the primacy of the individual and their freedoms as both a legal and normative principle; capitalism enabled a seemingly illimitable expansion of individual choice in the realms of production and consumption, and technology encouraged us to view nature, including human nature, as something to be controlled or manipulated in conformity with our individual desires. All three of these forces had, in Grant’s view, reached their peak expression in the U.S. The result was a more exciting and dynamic country than Canada, one driven by a tremendous entrepreneurial energy and a wild sense of freedom and experimentation. But it was also a country with a weakened commitment to the public good, where unfathomable private wealth mingled with widespread poverty, high levels of social disorder were met with a repressive carceral system, and violence was endemic both at home and abroad in the outposts of the American empire. If Canada had avoided some of the excesses of American society, Grant maintained, it was in part because of our greater willingness to use the state to defend the public good. He viewed the state as having a practical role to play in an era when many of the older traditions, institutions and ways of life that once mediated social existence were being eroded by new technologies and the pressures of an international marketplace. In his nationalist vision, the state would be used to constrain and harness these forces to address social needs, some of which arose as a result of the dying away of the old. State programs, like healthcare, public education, and public broadcasting, would provide a concrete instantiation of our duty to care for our neighbours and fellow citizens as traditional community supports disappeared. Such measures turned the provision of social supports into a more bureaucratic operation, but it was better than leaving individuals to seek them out in a commodified and completely asocial form in the marketplace. Although many of Canada’s most important social programs came into being in the postwar years when Grant was writing, he was concerned that these gains would be offset by a concurrent flood of American investment capital pouring into our country. In this period, he saw evidence that the government was coming to view itself as a mere caretaker of an economy that prioritized the needs and demands of powerful corporations above all else. In actual fact, these trends became far more pronounced in the decades after his death. The neoliberal age saw governments around the world pursue policies like deregulation, liberalized trade, and regressive tax reform, while slashing deficits, scaling back public services, and privatizing public institutions. Inequality soared, jobs became more precarious, and citizens—now rebranded as taxpayers—were increasingly expected to manage more of their own security and welfare. The idea of the public good, vilified by neoliberalism’s architect-in-chief, Friedrich Hayek, was at best neglected, at worst reviled. Nationalism in today’s Canada Across the world, today’s nationalist revival has been characterized by many commentators as a revolt against the neoliberal age. Certainly, some policies pursued by nationalist governments today challenge  the agenda of neoliberalism, notably the reassertion of national borders, whether through immigration restrictions, border walls, or tariffs. But we also see nationalists doubling down on a number of neoliberal policies, like tax-cuts for the rich, the creation of “special economic zones,” the privatization of welfare, the promotion of entrepreneurial individualism, the blurring of boundaries between consumption and citizenship, and, in North America especially, the cultivation of distrust in the state and its interventionist capacities. All of this suggests an orientation sharply at odds with the “kinder, gentler” vision of Canadian nationalism described by Grant. As for the grand nation-building project the Liberal government is currently pursuing in response to the uncertainty sown by President Donald Trump, perhaps Grant would have entertained a modest hope that it could lead to a renewed commitment to the public good. Simply breaking our economic and military dependence on the U.S., however, would not be enough for Grant. He would insist, for example, that government efforts to boost business and industry not merely serve the accumulation of capital, but be matched by measures to address growing inequality and labour market insecurity. Likewise, he would point out that unprecedented increases in military spending should not prevent reinvestment in social programs like healthcare and public education, which have been hollowed out across the country. For Grant, anything less would serve to soften rather than strengthen the bonds that hold the country together. What his book shows us is that without a strong vision of the public good, nationalism works against the nation itself.