The Western Standard (from 9.11.06) - A great and powerful Oz
Of the two senior dominions, Australia’s a fraction of our size with double the global influence. Where did Canada go wrong? Mark Steyn

But countries that are apparently just like your own are much harder to get into the real rhythm of. On the face of it, Australia is much like Canada: the streets have the same names (Wellington, Grosvenor, and so on), and there’s usually a statue of Queen Victoria and/or a bunch of buildings bearing her moniker. Canada and Australia are, as we used to say, the two senior dominions–though their respective confederations (1867, 1901) are separated by a third of a century and very different political climates within the Empire. Still, I didn’t really start thinking about the big differences between the two until my fourth or fifth day down under, when, at a conference in Queensland, the governor general strolled over to say hello.

I hasten to add that’s not the big difference. True, I find it hard to imagine the governor general of Canada seeking me out with such enthusiasm. But I’m reluctant to measure a nation solely by its deference to one’s own eminence, mindful that that’s pretty much why Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter et al. loved the Soviet Union. Rather, what struck me was the startling character of the viceregal personage. He was (a) white; (b) male; and (c) a retired major-general.

What happened? A freak computer virus? To the best of my knowledge, there’s no de jure constitutional prohibition against a white male with a military background serving as Canada’s governor general, but, if it hasn’t been formally read into the Charter of Rights by Madame L’Heureux-Dubé, it might just as well have been. If you’ve got a name like Gord MacKinnon, don’t hold your breath waiting for the nod to pack for Rideau Hall. And Major-General Michael Jeffery isn’t just some blue-helmeted peacekeepy type. He led the Australian SAS–i.e., special forces, the toughest hombres on the squad. He won the Military Cross in Vietnam and still believes that that war was the right thing to do. He headed Australia’s national counter-terrorism strategy team.

In other words, if you wanted to devise the precise opposite of Michaëlle Jean, this is what he’d look like.

I can’t tell you how much that amuses me. (Wiki links added by me as further illustrations.)

A couple of days later, an unnamed very senior mega-important super-duper government official (as The New York Times says when it’s leaking details of U.S. national security programs) told me that, after untold meetings during the Chrétien-Martin years, he’d concluded that Canada, like New Zealand, saw itself not as a country but as an NGO. That’s not just a very funny but also a very shrewd characterization, perfectly encapsulating the Trudeaupian state’s abasement before transnational pieties–to the point where we regard it as entirely natural that Canadian foreign policy has nothing to do with national interest (assuming we still have one) or even basic morality. …

A few days into my trip to the Antipodes, I’d heard so often the line that Canada to America is like New Zealand to Australia, that I began proposing an alternative: Canada to America is like Indonesia to Australia–crazy joint to the north where half the people are jumping up and down shouting, “Death to the Great Satan!” But, after mulling it over, I decided this was unfair to the Indonesians.

I quote that because the US : Australia :: Canada: New Zealand comparison is a common theme in my emails to one or two of you.

In failed and failing states, John Howard’s government installs, according to need, troops and/or cops and/or Aussie judges, police commissioners and other bureaucrats, the principal aim being to provide an environment inimical to corruption. By comparison with Washington, they’re honest about and comfortable with this qualified neo-imperialism, and the Americans could learn a lot both from the policy and from the Aussies’ ease with it.ÊBut in Canadian terms you’re struck yet again by the difference embodied in our respective viceregal potentates, by the difference between attitude and action. Canada has a hard and honourable mission in Afghanistan, but it’s acting in support of larger powers, whether the U.S. or NATO. We’re all but incapable of projecting force on our own.

Oh, Canada. They’ll come around, I’m sure of it. Even if only because the Eastern Provinces will die off and be replaced by good solid sensible Albertans. And southern Saskatchewans and Manitobans.

Date: Sep 26th, 2006 · Comments RSS · Tags: Geography and Foreign Affairs