Canada is not exempt from the graveyard of history

If Canada is to survive, Canadians must be willing to fight politically, culturally, and economically to save it

Time is corrosive—it wears away everything: coastlines change, mountains erode, whole continents drift, stars go nova. Anything human is particularly temporary. Our bodies age, our socks get holes, our computers become obsolete, customs change. Things we used to do, we don’t do anymore. What man wears Brylcreem in his hair nowadays? What child tends to her Tamagotchi or Chia Pet?

Political movements and parties are no different. Where are the devotees of Social Credit, the United Farmers of Alberta, the Ralliement créditiste, the Western Labour Party, or the Progressive Democratic Alliance? Long gone, like the British Columbia Social Constructive Party, the United Newfoundland Party, and the federal Progressive Conservatives.

Nations, too, rise, harden, weaken, fracture, and sometimes disappear entirely. Canada is not exempt from that reality.

Even something as large as a nation or an empire can disappear, to be replaced by something just as temporary. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a Russian empire. It was overthrown in 1917 and its place taken by a Russian republic which in its turn was destroyed to make way in 1922 for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which in 1991 dissolved to give birth to 15 new countries.

In my lifetime, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the United Arab Republic, South Vietnam, and Tibet winked out of existence.

Is there any reason to expect that Canada will long endure? Or, at least, continue to exist under its present constitutional form? On a global basis, constitutions have an average lifespan of 15 to 17 years, with Western democratic regimes generally lasting considerably longer than that before fundamentally shaking up their political structure.

Canada has already had three distinct formats: from 1867 to 1931, we were a Dominion of the British Empire with considerable powers remaining in London; our independence was enhanced after the Statute of Westminster of 1931; and under the guise of “patriating” the Constitution from Britain, a constitutional revolution occurred in 1982.

After 45 years of the current regime, is Canada a stronger, healthier, and more united country than we were at our centennial? Certainly not.

Quebec remains a half-hearted participant in the national dream, happy to block an energy corridor from the west, its separatist impulses undiminished, and its elected officials often viewing federal politics chiefly as an exercise in extracting political spoils from Ottawa.

Activists and courts have, in the view of many Canadians, combined to privilege certain ethnicities and genders and disadvantage others.

Separatism on the prairies has reached a level that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Canadians have ceased having children at a replacement level and outmigration of the young and talented is accelerating, especially to the United States.

The “reconciliation” process with Aboriginal people seems to have generated more ill will than cozy feelings.

Wait, there’s more. A decade ago, Canada ranked fifth on international happiness scales; we’re now 25th, and for those under 30, Canada ranks 58th.

We have also sunk on the Corruption Perceptions Index: of 10 high-income health systems we rank ninth, ahead only of the United States. What about Canada’s score on perceived freedom to choose one’s life? We have fallen from about 12th to 58th over the past decade.

One might think that Canadians would be interested in turning away from supporting the party that has been in power during these dramatic drops in their collective well-being, but anyone who thought that hasn’t been paying much attention to voting intentions. In some things, Canadians seem resistant to change.

All societies eventually decline, but decline need not be passively accepted. History also shows that nations can renew themselves when citizens refuse to surrender to cynicism or fatalism. Crossing one’s arms and waiting for decay to run its course guarantees further deterioration.

If Canada is to endure, Canadians must be willing to fight politically, culturally, and economically to improve it. A fighting chance is still a chance, and countries survive longer only when enough people believe their country is worth the struggle and get involved.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian, the author of several books on culture and European and social history, and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.