This is from the Toronto Star:
Each day, more of home to miss
LUKE ERIC PETERSON
For five years, I've been in a long-distance relationship with my country.
From vantage points in the U.K., Switzerland, and most recently, the U.S., I've managed to continue working for Canadian employers; filled my down-time listening to CBC Radio on the Internet; and each April vacuumed out my bank account and sent the contents home to Revenue Canada.
But as an expatriate sitting down to pen a column about Canada Day, I soon found myself dwelling less on my home and native land, and more on our next-door neighbour.
It was Dalton Camp, in these pages, who once observed that "Whenever Canadians begin singing the praises of their country, they end up talking about America."
Some attribute our fixation with our southern neighbour to our own insecurity; and I'd be the first to concede that there may be something to this.
Nine months into a two-year tour of duty in the United States ? where my wife has come to study ? I see much in this nation that elicits unease, not least because America is so often held up as a model which Canada ought (or inevitably will) emulate.
The longer I spend in the United States, and despite a strong affinity for many of its people, the more convinced I become that Canada is, in so many respects, on the right track (one shared by many western nations), while in the U.S. democracy is largely derailed.
Until now, I'd yet to live in a nation where the prospect of being detained ? without charge or contact with the outside world ? was legally ordained not only by the government, but by the highest court in the land.
Nor had I ever lived in a nation where 41 million citizens live in a second-class existence without health insurance.
Or where numerous states teeter on bankruptcy and slash basic services to stay afloat ? while wealth continues to concentrate in ever fewer hands.
Having moved to within a five-hour drive of the border, I've never felt so far from home.
What is a visitor to make of a nation which holds itself to be the global standard-bearer of democracy, yet whose electorate is so ill-informed that one in four citizens believes that Iraq greeted invading U.S. forces with chemical and biological weapons attacks?
While the rest of the world bristles at the misrepresentation, or even fabrication, of intelligence data about such Weapons of Mass Destruction, millions of Americans work themselves into a lather about non-existent WMD assaults on American forces.
Thomas Jefferson, who spent more time than any American wrestling with the workings of democracy, warned, "The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights." And Jefferson knew that experiments in self-government would only work where the people were prepared to act as well-informed watchdogs.
One can't help but wonder, then, what Jefferson would have made of surveys showing that half of Americans believe that Iraqis numbered amongst the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Far more sobering than the standard run of Elvis sightings and UFO abductions, such insights call into question the capacity of the American public to hold its government to account.
Little wonder that the Bush Administration can strip public assets as if it were a chop-shop proprietor dismantling a stolen car ? and in broad daylight.
Amidst all this fingering of the American worry beads, there may be an important lesson for Canada: An electorate can grow so aloof, so disengaged from the political process, that government can no longer be looked upon to bear fruit of any kind.
Debates like those which have recently taken place in Canada, as to whether governments should raise taxes slightly so as to invest in improved public services, would be greeted with stunned incredulity south of the border. To be sure, there is no unanimity in our own nation about the right balance for government to strike.
But I see widely shared understanding amongst Canadians that a government may ? within certain bounds ? promote the public good, through the provision of essential public services, and provide a safety net of last resort for the elderly, the ill, and the downtrodden.
Vast swathes of America appear to lack this elementary faith.
Government, according to the prevailing ethos in Washington and in the heartland, is to be progressively dismantled, and citizens left to their own devices.
I must confess to taking heart every time I open an American newspaper and read of Canadian accomplishments ? be they the provision of cheap prescription drugs to the elderly, softening of drug penalties, or the avoidance of record deficits.
But I also can't help but wonder how perplexing Canada must seem to the average American who has long since been disabused of any conviction that government can be trusted to work for the public good.
Luke Eric Peterson lives in Boston.
Each day, more of home to miss
LUKE ERIC PETERSON
For five years, I've been in a long-distance relationship with my country.
From vantage points in the U.K., Switzerland, and most recently, the U.S., I've managed to continue working for Canadian employers; filled my down-time listening to CBC Radio on the Internet; and each April vacuumed out my bank account and sent the contents home to Revenue Canada.
But as an expatriate sitting down to pen a column about Canada Day, I soon found myself dwelling less on my home and native land, and more on our next-door neighbour.
It was Dalton Camp, in these pages, who once observed that "Whenever Canadians begin singing the praises of their country, they end up talking about America."
Some attribute our fixation with our southern neighbour to our own insecurity; and I'd be the first to concede that there may be something to this.
Nine months into a two-year tour of duty in the United States ? where my wife has come to study ? I see much in this nation that elicits unease, not least because America is so often held up as a model which Canada ought (or inevitably will) emulate.
The longer I spend in the United States, and despite a strong affinity for many of its people, the more convinced I become that Canada is, in so many respects, on the right track (one shared by many western nations), while in the U.S. democracy is largely derailed.
Until now, I'd yet to live in a nation where the prospect of being detained ? without charge or contact with the outside world ? was legally ordained not only by the government, but by the highest court in the land.
Nor had I ever lived in a nation where 41 million citizens live in a second-class existence without health insurance.
Or where numerous states teeter on bankruptcy and slash basic services to stay afloat ? while wealth continues to concentrate in ever fewer hands.
Having moved to within a five-hour drive of the border, I've never felt so far from home.
What is a visitor to make of a nation which holds itself to be the global standard-bearer of democracy, yet whose electorate is so ill-informed that one in four citizens believes that Iraq greeted invading U.S. forces with chemical and biological weapons attacks?
While the rest of the world bristles at the misrepresentation, or even fabrication, of intelligence data about such Weapons of Mass Destruction, millions of Americans work themselves into a lather about non-existent WMD assaults on American forces.
Thomas Jefferson, who spent more time than any American wrestling with the workings of democracy, warned, "The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights." And Jefferson knew that experiments in self-government would only work where the people were prepared to act as well-informed watchdogs.
One can't help but wonder, then, what Jefferson would have made of surveys showing that half of Americans believe that Iraqis numbered amongst the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Far more sobering than the standard run of Elvis sightings and UFO abductions, such insights call into question the capacity of the American public to hold its government to account.
Little wonder that the Bush Administration can strip public assets as if it were a chop-shop proprietor dismantling a stolen car ? and in broad daylight.
Amidst all this fingering of the American worry beads, there may be an important lesson for Canada: An electorate can grow so aloof, so disengaged from the political process, that government can no longer be looked upon to bear fruit of any kind.
Debates like those which have recently taken place in Canada, as to whether governments should raise taxes slightly so as to invest in improved public services, would be greeted with stunned incredulity south of the border. To be sure, there is no unanimity in our own nation about the right balance for government to strike.
But I see widely shared understanding amongst Canadians that a government may ? within certain bounds ? promote the public good, through the provision of essential public services, and provide a safety net of last resort for the elderly, the ill, and the downtrodden.
Vast swathes of America appear to lack this elementary faith.
Government, according to the prevailing ethos in Washington and in the heartland, is to be progressively dismantled, and citizens left to their own devices.
I must confess to taking heart every time I open an American newspaper and read of Canadian accomplishments ? be they the provision of cheap prescription drugs to the elderly, softening of drug penalties, or the avoidance of record deficits.
But I also can't help but wonder how perplexing Canada must seem to the average American who has long since been disabused of any conviction that government can be trusted to work for the public good.
Luke Eric Peterson lives in Boston.
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