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I have been thinking about how the US's influence on Canada (and especially Anglo-Canada) is often brought up and is the focus of heated debate.
Perhaps one of the reasons for the constant haranguing over this is that it's being framed in the wrong way?
I mean, the way it's usually approached is that the US and Canada are supposed to be entities that are relatively foreign to each other, a kind of ying vs. yang opposition. Canada exists precisely because it didn't want to be like the US. And yet paradoxically it has become extremely similar to the US over time, and the evolution suggests growing integration, in a three steps forward, one step back kind of way.
But what if we think of the US as Canada's Mother Country? Or at least as a country that plays the Mother Country role for Canada? (The latter point being a concession to the fact that we may not have come into this relationship in the way that these things normally happen.)
Then the fascination with and mimicking of goings-on in the US, be they cultural, political, societal, etc. suddenly makes a lot more sense.
Even if on an institutional level, Canada certainly has British as opposed to American foundations - though the US's foundations are also British. They're just more distant than ours.
But even our institutions have slowly evolved and continue to evolve subtly towards more American norms in many cases. Just look at how our constitutional framework has become more American-style with a codified document and a Supreme Court that rules on the constitutionality of laws and such.
I know that one of the counter-arguments will be that it's actually a two-way relationship and that we "share" this stuff with the US, but the "traffic" and "gaze" figuratively speaking is overwhelmingly in one direction. Americans overwhelmingly don't think they "share" Hollywood with us. Hollywood is theirs and if we're good enough to make it there is a place for us there just like there is for Brits, Aussies or Croatians.
And all of the talk of Canada's influence in the US (which does exist) does not contradict the Mother Country theory. It's very common for the "colonies" (for lack of a better term ) to contribute to the culture of the Mother Country.
Mother country?
For Canada to have the US as a mother country, Canada would have had to be part of the US at one point and break away. That is the very definition of what a " Mother Country" is.
So no.
As for our Constitution, I'll let Chevy comment on that, but suffice to say, even though the Supreme Court has evolved since it's creation in 1875, I'm not seeing it as moving towards a more American system. Chevy???
I realize that I am asking people to think way outside the box, which has always given us the impression that there were pretty much two dual, parallel "vectors" (those arrow diagram thingies) that shot out from the UK with each one landing distinctly into what are today Canada and the U.S.
That's actually not how the history played out.
It isn't how history played out when John Simcoe's Canada was developed. I agree with that. Prior to the American Revolution, the British portion of what is now USA and what the Brits developed with Tories in Canada were culturally from the same vector. The vectors that spawned from those two branches of the same diagram though went in very different directions. It wasn't just the political difference of royalty vs. no royalty. It was the different combinations of cultures that were assimilated in various degrees in USA as opposed to those that were either assimilated or made part of Canada. Citizen participation levels were very different in the two countries, resulting in very different mindsets about government and in Canada a sort of perpetual political conflict between the Brits and the French.
I'm not suggesting that we don't have any culture conflict in America. We do, but today it is not to the level you have it in Canada, and our system seems better adapted for resolving those issues. Your differences are sometimes so stark the result is one unhappy compromise after another.
Our link to the Brits is historically much weaker. It is true that most of our moral character came from the Puritans, and except for Louisiana (which uses the Napoleonic Code for business relations), British Common Law still dictates commercial activity in America. Other than that though, we are more continental European, aboriginal, and even African culturally than we are British except for the rural areas in the lowlands of our East Coast. Old English still has a strong influence there, down as far as the Florida state line. In some respects, attitudes in lowland Virginia and North Carolina are similar to those in Ontario.
Prior to America's entry into World War 2, there was primarily an isolationist attitude in USA. Americans wanted no part of Europe's wars. Even after 130 years, there was lingering resentment of the British. Only the wealthy elite Americans had ties of significance to Britain, and they wanted us to intercede on behalf of the Brits. In the Heartland, there was sympathy for Germany, but still nobody wanted to be part of the conflict. It was only the Japanese attack on Hawaii that drug us into the war, and if not for the secret pact between Germany and Japan, we would not have been in Europe.
Last edited by CTMountaineer; 10-11-2019 at 01:24 PM..
I'm not suggesting that we don't have any culture conflict in America. We do, but today it is not to the level you have it in Canada, and our system seems better adapted for resolving those issues. Your differences are sometimes so stark the result is one unhappy compromise after another.
.
I'd say you have significantly more stuff that could be described as "civil unrest" related to inter-demographic conflicts than we do. We basically don't have any. Even in the tensest periods of our contemporary history on this front, there was hardly none.
I'd say you have significantly more stuff that could be described as "civil unrest" related to inter-demographic conflicts than we do. We basically don't have any. Even in the tensest periods of our contemporary history on this front, there was hardly none.
For Canada to have the US as a mother country, Canada would have had to be part of the US at one point and break away. That is the very definition of what a " Mother Country" is.
I did mention several times that it's not a standard "Mother Country" evolution, though in a way the founders of what was to become Anglo-Canada did "break away" from the fledgling United States. They refused to a part of it and moved to largely unoccupied land that was still part of Britain's North American colonial empire but had not joined the movement led by George Washington.
As I asked before: tell me how Anglo-Canada could have come into existence if the 13 Colonies/United States did not provide a whole host of historical figures, people, events, etc. to the tableau?
(I knew this would be hard for people to wrap their heads around.)
For Canada to have the US as a mother country, Canada would have had to be part of the US at one point and break away. That is the very definition of what a " Mother Country" is.
So no.
As for our Constitution, I'll let Chevy comment on that, but suffice to say, even though the Supreme Court has evolved since it's creation in 1875, I'm not seeing it as moving towards a more American system. Chevy???
I'd say you have significantly more stuff that could be described as "civil unrest" related to inter-demographic conflicts than we do. We basically don't have any. Even in the tensest periods of our contemporary history on this front, there was hardly none.
I agree with that. Our last administration seemed to stoke up one unrest after another for 8 years. Fortunately, those have disappeared. But, I seem to remember a number of serious issues with aboriginals in Canada, and the unrests in Canada, while not as unruly, actually have threatened the stability of the country.
Here is a side note though … should our beloved Cajuns consider Quebec or Acadia a mother country?
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) to contribute to the culture of the Mother Country.
