Should Canada put the national interest first? The Canadian answer has usually been: Sort of. Maybe. Kinda. It depends.
Even claiming that Canada has a single national interest has often triggered a cascade of questions. Who is a part of it and who is not? Does it conflict with the special claims of Quebecers? What about Aboriginal rights? Can we even speak of a single Canadian culture? Shouldn’t we instead celebrate diversity as our culture?
Mark Carney’s government is living through a modern version of these struggles as it tries to identify projects of national significance.
Our long, divisive history
This is nothing new under the cold Canadian sun. In the 1870s, the young Canadian government wondered whether it could build a national railway to the Pacific. Maybe—but critics soon asked whether the project unfairly benefited Eastern capitalists. And even if it did tie the nation together from east to west, others now argue that it should not be celebrated because it destroyed Indigenous livelihoods and sovereignty.
The pattern appeared again in wartime. Should Canada impose conscription to fight a total war against Germany and Japan? That might be what many English Canadians wanted—but would French Canadians rebel?
Or consider social programs. Could Canada create a national pension plan? It sounded like a good idea. But shouldn’t Quebec be allowed to opt out with compensation and create its own version?
Canada even had its own “Canada First” movement in the 19th century. After the assassination of D’Arcy McGee, a group of British Canadians dreamed of building a culturally nationalist movement that could transcend these divisions within the new country. But it collapsed almost immediately. Canada Firsters spoke in the 19th-century language of race and religion, too easily pitting Catholic against Protestant and English against French. The movement divided the nation it wanted to unite almost as soon as it appeared.
Even in the 20th century, when John Diefenbaker asserted a civil-rights-based “One Canada” vision—a celebration of unhyphenated Canadianism—he was ultimately criticized for ignoring the country’s divisions. Diefenbaker dared to suggest that Canadians should be Canadians first. His critics called the idea naïve. Foolish.
Then came Lester Pearson, who advanced the notion of two founding nations. With Quebec separatism looming in the background—and FLQ bombs and murders pushing Ottawa to act—Pearson embraced a more asymmetrical federalism. Quebec would create its own pension plan and gradually assume control over areas such as immigration and aspects of foreign relations that had once been clearly federal responsibilities. We were told it had to be done.
Perhaps it did. But actions have consequences.
Canadians today live with the consequences of building a country in which the national interest has often ranked second to local, provincial, or ethnic identity.
In 1982, Pierre Trudeau and the premiers agreed to include Section 35 in the Constitution, guaranteeing “existing Aboriginal rights.” Was this a vague concept that few people at the time could define? Yes. Did some warn that it could lead to a major expansion of rights claims and challenges to provincial and federal sovereignty? They did.
Many participants at the 1982 constitutional table would likely be startled by how courts have since interpreted Section 35, expanding the scope of those rights in ways that were never explicitly agreed upon. Yet this concession, too, was made in order to “go along, to get along.”: another accommodation, another effort to pursue justice by dividing authority within the national framework.
The best of intentions.
Better together?
But when a country continually subdivides itself—parceling out powers, exemptions, and special arrangements to nations within the nation—it becomes increasingly difficult to claim a single national interest exists at all.
And once that pattern is established, it should not be surprising when other regions make similar demands for special accommodation.
Hello, Alberta separatists.
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Danielle Smith’s proposed referendum questions contain some Western Canadian quirks, but in several areas—immigration authority, the ability to opt out of national programs with compensation—they merely echo concessions Ottawa has long granted Quebec. In effect, they demand their own form of asymmetrical federalism, backed by the implicit threat of separatism. Plus ça change.
The same logic also echoes many Indigenous political claims: demands for local control, economic ownership of resource projects, and forms of sovereignty, accompanied by the silent threat of blockades or prolonged litigation if concessions are not granted.
For some Canadians, this entire process is admirable. They argue it is precisely what defines Canada: a country united by its willingness to accommodate differences and reconcile competing claims.
But if you happen to live in Alberta, you might notice that some differences are more readily accommodated than others. As Orwell put it: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
Taken as a whole, this legacy of national hesitation makes governing difficult. Is it any wonder that Carney spends so much time abroad signing international agreements? Foreign policy is one of the few areas where a Canadian government can still act as a single whole with relative clarity about the national interest.
But Carney’s real test will come when he finally returns home.
Canada’s genius has always been accommodation. But accommodation, repeated often enough, can gradually hollow out the idea that the country itself even has a single political purpose.
When Carney eventually tries to move forward with projects deemed nationally significant—whether mining developments, high-speed rail, or (God forbid) a new pipeline—he will run directly into Canada’s familiar pattern of internal division.
That’s when we’ll truly find out who is willing to embrace an “Elbows Up” style of nationalism. Until then, we’re left wondering: whose elbows? Defending which nation?
Historically, Canada has faced a lot of difficulty in prioritizing a unified national interest due to regional, cultural, and other divisions. From railway construction in the 1870s to modern-day debates over resource projects and Indigenous rights, Canada has consistently grappled with balancing national goals against the specific needs and demands of its diverse populations. Concessions made to Quebec and Indigenous groups have created a precedent for other regions, like Alberta, to seek similar asymmetrical federalism. This pattern of accommodation, while intended to promote justice and unity, has paradoxically weakened the concept of a singular Canadian political will, posing challenges for future national projects.
Has Canada's history of accommodating regional/cultural differences strengthened or weakened its sense of national identity, according to the author?
How does the example of Alberta's separatist sentiments relate to Quebec's historical demands, as described in the article?
What challenges does Mark Carney face in implementing projects of national significance, given Canada's history of internal division?
Comments (4)
I appreciate the perspective, but it’s hard not to roll your eyes seeing a professor from an Eastern University suggest it’s time to stop accommodating at the same time a Western government is trying to get a fair shake.
I was among those who was appalled by Trudeau’s comments in 2015 about the lack of a Canadian nation, but over time I’ve come to see the unintentional wisdom in them. He was talking about globalist shlock, as though Canada was a cultural blank canvas waiting to be painted by outsiders. That is and always has been complete nonsense. But, the real truth he lit upon without knowing is that there really is no core Canadian identity. At best, being Canadian in the unified national sense that people yearn for, has essentially been stripped down to being Ontarian.
“Oh KXL got cancelled, who gives a sh*t?”
“Frontier, the largest oilsands project in history. You don’t f***ing need that! Go build some wind farms.”
“Oil prices tanked? Your problem. It’s not like you deserved the money anyway. And it isn’t like you have any idea how to spend it. Keep forking over the equalization (and much more) scum.”
“Oh by the way, how is rigging the financial system and creating impenetrable regulatory barriers against energy going?”
But now, the already heavily subsidized automotive industry is under threat and it’s “All hands on the bloody deck! throw Alberta overboard! Cut off Western access to cheaper imports and force them to buy Ontarian steel and cars!”
Alberta being battered for 10 years will barely register as a foot note in Canadian history. Ontario under threat is existential. It’s pretty easy to see who is and what is Canadian and who is not. The distinction is even more stark when you consider that most of the wounds inflicted on the West are from ostensibly friendly fire.
People shouldn’t take this as pessimistic or even separatist. What I’m striving for here is a dose of realism. Once we understand that if there is a Canada in the singular, it’s just Ontario, we can all properly calibrate our expectations better. Canada is also not alone in being a country of fragmentary identity. All we have to do is look back out our cousins across the Atlantic. What is “Britishness?” Is it the same as Englishness, Welshness or Scottishness? Are they the same as one another? How can the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland be a country, but then be made of other countries? These questions aren’t all easily reconcilable yet they keep on with both a much more assured sense of self and sense of place in the world than we do. We can likely do the same, when we stop pretending a Newfoundlander and a Saskachewanian belong in the exact same Ontario shaped box. Ideally we should celebrate those distinct and endemic northern peoples, but maybe we could at least try tolerating them. Canada will have both a more honest and a richer culture for it.
There is one area where we all need to toe the line though. Run your finger down section 91 of the constitution that outlines federal powers. You find pretty quickly that most of the powers allotted to the federal government pertain to two things, the economy and the border. Canada is by design a lot more like the EU than we think. You can imply a cultural context to things like the “naturalization of aliens” but it’s not really what the federal government is supposed to be devoting its time to. Instead, what it is supposed to be doing is getting the lead out on the economy. If there’s “accommodation” to be set aside, it isn’t cultural it’s economic. A Canada that isn’t building roads, rails, pipes and powerlines and ensuring the smooth flow of private capital is one that is failing at its core duty and arguably its raison d’etre.
In that sense, Albertans have a leg to stand on when they say “Canada left us.” We want the Canada that was supposed to be, not the one we’re getting.