Canadians look south with scorn

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 18

Canadians look south with scorn

Canadians see themselves as being like what they think New Zealanders are: Quiet, gentle, lawabiding, considerate, polite, patriotic.

Canadians look down their noses at their southern neighbours and equate Americans with Australians: Crass, loud, shallow, money-ob-sessed, crude.

“Americans don’t understand when we say, ‘We love you, but...’ ” said a Toronto publisher. They resent America’s economic power over them, the acid rain that they allege fouls their air, kills their forests, and pollutes their lakes. They feel that Washington, especially the Reagan Administration, bullies them. They despise their Prime Minister, Mr Brian Mulroney, for what they say is his inability to be tough with the United States like Pierre Trudeau was.

They scornfully recall a song-and-dance act done by Messrs Reagan and Mulroney at a State dinner in Ottawa. Their temper was not helped in July when the United States announced that it was sending an icebreaker through the Northwest Passage without asking Ottawa’s permission. Washington said that the Passage was an international strait, part of the high seas through which any country’s ships may sail. The Canadian Government said that the waters of the Arctic archipelago, including the Northwest Passage, were Canadian. Since it was clear that the Americans were not going to take any notice of Canada’s objections, Ottawa gave Washington permission for the voyage, said that it deeply regretted what the United States was doing, and arranged for two Maritime Command (formerly known as the Royal Canadian Navy) officers to accompany the icebreakers as observers.

Support for law and order appears to be a Canadian characteristic. Gun control in the United States, for example, looks to be unattainable. The custom of gunowning appears to be too entrenched there.

Canada has gun control. But doesn’t anybody, I asked a Vancouver woman, quietly ignore the law and have a pistol or whatever stashed away somewhere? “Oh no!” she replied—the suggestion really shocked her. “You see, that’s something the Americans do. We’re not like that.”

I’m not sure what the following figures say about the Canadians, which were released by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and Statistics Canada: In 1984 there were 621 murders, 42 manslaughters and five cases of infanticide—66B deaths. In 1983, it was 625 murders, 51 manslaughters and 6 instances of infanticide—6B2 deaths.

Canada has a population of just

over 24 million, and the totals seem remarkably low. A study by a university professor asserted that Canada’s police often put up images of bravado in perilous situations, endangering their lives and others’, because of a desire to be seen as courageous. Pressure to live up to this heroic image caused some police to confront armed people unnecessarily, fire off their guns accidentally, or engage in high-speed chases that threatened innocent bystanders, said Professor Duncan Chappell.

Those conclusions had verified beliefs that Canada’s police forces faced many of the same problems that American police agencies did when using dangerous weapons, he added.

The study, over four years, looked mainly at shootings in British Columbia. It concluded that calling for more help or taking cover may have been seen by police as signs of cowardice. It said that several unarmed citizens in British Columbia had been shot while trying to escape capture after committing non-violent acts. It suggested that the use of guns be regulated more and that more nonlethal types of weapons, such as capture nets or chemical shields, be used.

Although Canadians are strongly nationalistic—a legacy, they say, of Pierre Trudeau’s rule—there is a strong feeling for the Royal Family. It is there even among immigrants from non-Com-monwealth countries. Even so, Canada has shrugged off much British influence. It was the first of the “Old Commonwealth” nations to abolish the imperial honours system; it adopted a Union Jack-less national flag (which flies from public buildings, businesses, and even private homes); took the “Royal” out of the armed forces’ titles and wiped Royal Air Force-style ranks; and repatriated the British North America Act, in 1982.

Yet, Vancouverites hope that the Prince and Princess of Wales (“Chuck and Di”) will open their city’s Expo 86 next year. And in July, thousands ignored heavy rain to welcome the Queen Mother—she seems to be the real favourite—to Calgary, Alberta. She drew big crowds, too, when she visited Toronto. They openly expressed their admiration for her firmly put request that she be taken up the 1800-ft CN Tower, even though it had been taken off her schedule. I flew out of North America in the middle of the night regretting that I had not seen more. But coe vista still comes back to me more than any other We are flying in low over Los Angeles in the late evening from Toronto, and as far as the eye can see, from north to south, the lights of Los Angeles and all its cities are glittering like an immense table of diamonds.