bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 42–44
Canada on the Threshold of the 21st
Century: European Reflections Upon the
Future of Canada edited by C.H.W. Remie
and J.-M. Lacroix, Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1991,
565 pp.
stretrand arm ….
The publication of this book marks the end of a unique project called the All-European Canadian Studies Conference. The project, begun in 1987 and culminating at the Conference held in The Hague in October 1990, marked the first time in the history of Canadian studies that a Conference of this type had been organized. The book is a very timely initiative in light of the geo-political changes in Europe during the 1988-1990 period and the changes that were taking place in Canada, changes that are bound to have a dramatic impact on Canada’s position in North America and, particularly, on its relationship with Europe in the 1990s and beyond.
The aim of the book is to explore in a comparative way — stressing European rather than national perspectives — the main issues and problems that Canada faces as it moves into the 21st century. The fifty-eight papers by Canadian and European (including Soviet) various sections of the book. The first section on demography addresses the possible economic, social, and political effects of a declining and aging population, whose numbers can only be kept stable through increased immigration, which leads to further cultural variation.
The section on environmental problems discusses sustainable development. The next section looks at the impact of the Canada- USA Free Trade Agreement and regional economic issues on Canada’s economic transformation. The human settlement section discusses the demographic, political and social changes that are reflected in the spatial organization of the country. As the demographic scene changes and economic, sociocultural and political transformations occur, the need for a new definition of a Canadian identity becomes all the more felt. Discussions in this section focus on issues such as language policies, cultural heritage, francophone/ anglophone cleavages and multiculturalism.
Much of the discussion in the next section of the book, dealing with Canada’s changing political power structure, is focused on the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and the possibility of Quebec’s secession. A short section on aboriginal issues follows (the Conference took place at the time of the Oka stand-off) which analyzes the state of the “re-autonomization” of Canada’s indigenous peoples. The last section of the book is dedicated to Canada’s international relations, especially its relationship with the new Europe. It is on this section that I will focus my review.
What strikes the reader first is the anachronistic title of the section, “Between Superpowers: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian-European Cooperation” because one of the superpowers, namely the Soviet Union, at the time of the Conference was already in irrevocable decline. And, perhaps as a measure of the fluidity of the international system and, especially, the geopolitical changes in Europe at the time, most of the articles with the exception of an excellent piece by Alting von Geusau spend more time reviewing Canada’s “Third Option” and Trudeau’s security policy than they do looking at post-1989 trans-Atlantic relations. There is also a striking imbalance in that at a time of European economic integration most of the discussion, except for articles by Sylvia Ostry on economic summits and Theodore Cohn on agricultural policy, is skewed to the defence and security implications of Canada’s Europe policy. Another point to consider is that history has already overtaken many of the observations made by the authors, especially in light of the Government’s recent decision to remove troops from Europe.
But the major problem of this section is the lack of an integrated approach to trans- Atlantic relations. There is no linkage of the security/political and economic/trade policy strands. For example, although von Geusau is correct in stating that a central element of the redefined trans-Atlantic relationship is that it is moving from a strategic-geopolitical foundation to one based increasingly on politico-cultural terms, he does not highlight the fact that economic relations have gained primacy in the new era as security linkages wane. Nor does he explain what are the new “cultural” links.
In an integrated approach, one of the articles in this section should have made clear Canada’s “three pillar” (i.e., the European Community, NATO, and the CSCE) approach to its relations with Europe. Although the articles point to the fact that historically the dominant agenda in trans-Atlantic relations has been that of military security relations, they do not point out that, also historically, the ability of Canada to gain a ’privileged’ economic access to the European Community has been based to a significant extent on Canada’s participation in the post-War trans- Atlantic security framework. The real question then is that as ’cooperative security’ (i.e., cooperation against terrorism, drug interdiction, migration) gains ascendancy and replaces military security as an anchor in trans-Atlantic relations, how will this affect Canada’s economic and trade relations with its European partners? How will this affect Canada’s relations with the European Community, especially as the Community pushes for its own independent security régime? Will the EC-Canada relationship become more politicized? (As a postscript, the EC and Canada issued a “Trans-Atlantic Declaration” to formalize political links in November 1990.) With the changing security situation and a diminished Canadian influence in Europe, should Canada look at assistance to Central and Eastern Europe as a way of making itself a “valued” partner to Europe? Or, should Canada increasingly move away from Europe and concentrate on North American and Latin American linkages? These are all questions that should have been addressed clearly in this section. In other words, the articles on Canada’s relations with the Third World and Northern Europe are interesting, but they do not tie-in sufficiently to the theme of re-evaluating trans-Atlantic relations.
However, the major flaw of this book is in the copy editing. Obviously, there is always a problem of consistency in a book containing so many contributions from authors for whom English is not a maternal language. In certain articles, however, the English lacks any semblance of syntax and basic grammar, with run-on sentences a particular problem. These articles, no matter how insightful and relevant, are thus rendered highly unreadable. That the reader’s patience should be tried in this way is a shame, but what is inexcusable is the obvious carelessness in the preparation of the manuscript. Peppered with typing errors, spacing errors, and misspellings, one wonders if anyone bothered to do a final reading before sending the manuscript to print.
The strength of this book is that it permits us, in a comprehensive fashion, to take stock of ourselves as a nation — but from a largely European perspective. Unfortunately, this timely and useful exercise is overshadowed by a sense that the convention papers were hastily slapped together for the book. Furthermore, since the publication of this book was made possible by a special grant of the Department of External Affairs, in the future, perhaps such books should be sent to the Department before publication.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 42–44. Read the rest of this issue →
