bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 4 (1997) — Winter 1997 // Hiver 1997, pp. 43–45
LES PROPOS D’UN «PUR COTON»: ESSAI
SUR LE PROBLÉMATIQUE CANADIENNE/
THE CANADIAN CONDITION by Henry
Mintzberg, Éditions Québec Amérique Inc.
Montréal, (1995), 95 p. 12,95 $
Reviewed by Dr. David Anido
Professor Henry Mintzberg of McGill University is internationally renowned for his teaching and writing in the fields of management and organization. He is also titular professor at the Business School INSEAD in Fontainbleu, France.
In 1992 Professor Mintzberg was invited to Queen’s University to help celebrate Queen’s 150th anniversary. He was meant to speak about management, but, “because of the political climate of the day”, he decided to speak about “a breath of fresh air for Canada”. He did so because his ideas on “the Canadian condition” had been germinating “all my life”. Les Propos d’un «pur coton» is the result.
The lecture is recorded as an essay (published by Stoddart Publishing Co, in English, as The Canadian Condition), and is best read in the lively French translation of Jean André Straehl. It is this version that sovereigntists will read as a strong federalist argument against their ideology.
Professor Mintzberg goes to the core of national issues that have preoccupied Canadians to the point of frustration and anger. Mintzberg is persuasive and levelheaded. He illustrates the advantages of Canadian unity, “le tissu canadien” • and states at the outset that “Quebec is a political unity, not a distinct society”. ’. On the personal level, as a Jew, “I belong to a minority which has for a long time feared for its survival”. He is “fier d’être montréalais, québécois et canadien”, and is deeply aware of the pressures involved in trying to defend an endangered culture amidst powerful surrounding cultures. The “tissu canadien” is a multi-faceted, multidimensional sense of identity and belonging. Canadian culture is a binding of “tissues” into a whole.
Mintzberg’s exegesis is that Canada is both a concept and a reality. He quotes the quip of fellow Montrealer, Josh Freed, that “Canada works in practice, if not in theory” The “tissu canadien” is made up of three historic societies. First are the native First Canadians who are “pur poil”. The second are French Canadians (across Canada, not just in Quebec), and these are “pure laine” The third is the society to which Professor Mintzberg belongs, and these are “pur coton”; mainly English speaking, but a Commonwealth mixture of Celts, Jews, Asians, Arabs, Afro-Caribbeans, and many other human roots as well as English. Separatists are pure polyester.
There are three main threats to the “tissu canadien”. The Anglos are threatened by the Americans; the French by the English; and the First Canadians by everyone. But these threats are only serious if the checks and balances of Confederation are forgotten or abused. Canada’s distinction is tolerance. Canadians, says the author, are “less aggressive than the Americans; less hierarchical than the British; and less arrogant than the French. I think that the fear of Anglo-Canadians to be Americanized helped to protect French culture”. Tolerance is sensible as well as contractual.
A particularly interesting observation in Professor Mintzberg’s essay reflects what might be called “the breadth of the Canadian mind”. He notes that the Deans of the world’s top business schools, Stanford, Harvard and London, are all Canadians. Apart from the quality of intellect of these three Canadians they are also graduates of a Canadian university system that nurtures tolerance and human dignity, and is less hierarchical, politicized, and pressured than other systems.
The discipline of management involves both philosophy and application, and Professor Mintzberg’s viewpoint expresses a businesslike perspective. He decries the notion of “the rest of Canada” because no province has the right to define the limits of nine other provinces, lump them together, and then negotiate with them through threats. The separatists must stop “playing chicken” with Canadian tolerance.
Another example of harmony in reality is the alliance of Montreal’s four universities, McGill, Montréal, Concordia, and l’Université du Québec, in a joint Management Doctorate programme. The Latins and the Anglos combine the best of “la joie de vivre” and “le fair play” “. The alliance works because it is an applied plan: “a dream is not a plan”, though plans are often built on dreams. Montreal is the crucial Canadian city in the unity debate because “pur poil”, ’ “pure laine”, and “pur coton” all congregate in this urban setting of business, culture, and many customs.
The most telling paragraphs of the essay reveal Professor Mintzberg’s vision of the world and his reasons for advocating a “’renewed federalism” for Canada. As someone who has studied organizations and their processes he warns of the imbalance where hierarchy and bureaucracy endanger collective culture and individual liberty. The danger arises when the open human spirit (e.g., Canadian tolerance) is impoverished by simplistic categorization or oxymoron (e.g., “the rest of Canada” or “the independence of Quebec”). What appears to be harmless when the spirit is confined by categorization can grow into lethal proportions when “frontiers are limited”. Organizations, like cultures, must have identity and lines of demarcation, but the Canadian way is “d’opérer une véritable décentralisation … dans notre état d’esprit”
The main argument against Quebec separatism in this essay derives from Canadian history. Canada is not Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia. Its cultural “tissue” is based on covenants relating to our autochthonous co-citizens (“pur poil”); to the agreement at Confederation between French (“pur laine”) and English (“pur coton”) Canadians; and to those new citizens who arrive here to become Canadians, and who continue the process of immigration that has gone on in this territory for millennia.
The continuous human flow of our past and present through immigration has created unparalleled diversity, a plural culture, and Canadian laws and institutions that have harmonized this diversity into the tissue of tolerance. Separatism, therefore, is unnatural, recidivist, and retrograde in the Canadian context, even if seemingly comparable national aspirations have found acceptance elsewhere. The primacy of French in Québec, the Napoleonic civil code of law, and other recognitions of the French fact in Canada already give Quebec a specific personality. For Mintzberg, Canada can find no equivalent model in the world whereby its dismemberment can be based on natural political evolution or comparison with an international historic precedent.
At the end of the essay Professor Mintzberg presents his draft of a constitution for Canada. Built on a foundation of tolerance, Canadians thrive on cultural diversity and “la souplesse des institutions”. Tolerance is based on human dignity and personal freedoms. Institutions are important as support for these fundamental rights. There are three distinct societies; pur poil, pure laine, and pur coton. Canada is a mosaic of communities, and political power is divided among three orders of government: federal, provincial, and local. Canada is “une seule nation”. The Quebec government has a “rôle special, mais non exclusif” to protect French culture, and there are native and other people within its aegis whose rights are fully Canadian.
The unity of Canada is an ongoing process, living and creating. It is not a static quantity enforced by ideology and bureaucracy. The essence of Mintzberg’s argument is that the spirit of being Canadian is the fundamental strength behind all our institutions, laws, and history. Tolerance in cultural diversity is the basis of the Canadian spirit, and the crux of this “Essai sur la problématique canadienne”
Professor Mintzberg has used his formidable reputation to express deeply held personal views on what Canada can and should be. Canada relies more and more on individual citizens who are willing to take philosophical and practical initiatives to protect the future of the country. It is refreshing to hear wise advice from a teacher and scholar whose field of study is the practical and applied disciplines of management, business, and organization.
This essay goes beyond wishful thinking to an argument that will challenge the logic and ethics of the hardest separatist. It is a rallying point for citizens who stand on guard for Canada, and an excellent contribution to the reconciliation that, with leadership and popular support, will be the grail of Canada’s “renewed federalism”.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 14, No. 4 (1997) — Winter 1997 // Hiver 1997, pp. 43–45. Read the rest of this issue →
