On Dec. 8, 2015, Guy Lawson, a Toronto-born expat living in the States, interviewed Justin Trudeau for the New York Times Magazine, the premier progressive organ on the continent. It was the first print interview provided by the new prime minister..On this occasion he was at his progressive best, stressing how close he was to President Obama. Lawson saw Justin as the true heir of “progressive modern Canada,” the foundations of which were laid down by Pierre, with the decriminalization of homosexuality, legalized abortion, support for the UN, and the use of taxpayer money in the arts and cultural industries. One could push things farther back to the 1960s with the adoption of the new flag and the replacement of Dominion Day with Canada Day (can anyone conceive of a France Day?).Now, of course, even the anodyne Canada Day is discouraged..Lawson then recalled the election debates between Stephen Harper and Trudeau and how the latter was against revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists. Climate change, Justin said, not terrorism was the real threat..When asked if his famous fight with Senator Patrick Brazeau was part of a larger plan, Justin smiled and nodded yes. “He knew perfectly well the power of symbols and had intended to exploit that power,” Lawson observed. Trudeau allowed that the boxing match “was a way of pointing out to people that you shouldn’t underestimate me — which people have a tendency to do.” The undertone of resentment was obvious..People “underestimate” Justin because he had no serious accomplishments to his name and has something of a dim wit. His answer meant: Maybe I am a bit flaky, but I am stubborn and will work hard to impose my flakiness on the rest of you..Lawson ended his piece with a now famous quotation that exemplified the power of symbols: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” There are shared values, a litany of progressive self-congratulations, which Trudeau then listed, and concluded: “Those qualities are what make us the first post-national state.”.In one sense Justin is correct regarding Canada’s lack of identity. As has been pointed out often enough, the English-French compromise of Laurentian Canada has nothing to do with the Maritimes or Newfoundland, to say nothing of the Prairie West or BC..What Trudeau had in mind was not, however, conflicting regional histories, interests, myths, and identities. On the contrary, the progressive “values” he cherished — openness, compassion, being there for one another, etc — constitute Canada’s identity after all. None of these “values” had anything to do with the political institutions, chiefly federalism and parliamentary government that Canadians partly inherited and partly transformed to meet their own requirements..One need look no farther than his progressivism to see the sources of Justin’s disdain for the traditions of Parliament, which presumes that members are ladies and gentlemen, and for the legal limits on central power implied by political life in a federation. Recently this tendency of progressive centralization of power, which some have called a nascent tyranny, has been expressed (and objected to) when the Canadian government continued of work of the 1960s by further degrading traditional Canadian symbols..On May 10, for example, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Karina Gould, unveiled the new model passport at the Ottawa airport..It was, she said, “state-of-the art” because of its security features, which will make it the envy of the world. Among them are pages made from plastic and laser-engraved personal data. None of the changes had anything to do with politics of political symbolism, she said, but were entirely the result of a desire to discourage counterfeiting. She did not explain how, for example, the image of a pumpkin was harder to counterfeit than one of Nellie McClung. She did, however, say “it will continue to inspire pride in the hearts of those who carry it.” Except for security-buffs, one wonders why..The old passport contained images that celebrated human and Canadian achievements: the voyages of discovery, Confederation, the Last Spike, and so on. The image of the Vimy Memorial reminded Canadians they once could fight and win battles; even the non-war hero, Terry Fox, exemplified the virtue of courage. The new one celebrates birds at a feeder and a man raking leaves..The RCMP was also purged from the new passport — during its 150th anniversary year, no less. Whatever one may think of their contemporary antics — and frankly they have been disgraceful — the horsemen have played an important and often praiseworthy role in our history. One of their most notable acts, as Robert MacBain pointed out recently, was their efforts to save the Blackfoot from extirpation at the hands of whiskey traders..In the National Post, Rex Murphy raised the question: who asked for these changes? Answer: Justin. The whole point was to express in symbols his hostility to human and to Canadian achievements. It was not an oversight..What has been called Justin’s crowning achievement was revealed about the same time as the new passport. The new “Trudeau crown” is a virtual reality, a heraldic symbol, not a real crown you can put on your head. It was, however, based on a real crown, the crown of Saint Edward, which was recently used in the coronation of the sovereign..The woke “Canadian Royal Crown” replaced Christian crosses and fleur-de-lis, which for a millennium have symbolized the purity of the Virgin Mary, with simplified maple leaves and triangles to depict mountains. The rim sports a blue wavy line to replace a band of jewels..The line (somehow) symbolizes (1) the relationship of First Nations to the sea and sky, but also (2) three oceans and (3) the environment. At the top, the Maltese cross of St. Edward’s crown has been replaced by a snowflake..The Governor General’s website says the snowflake is “a reference to Canada being a northern realm.” The arrows of the ermine base, which on a real crown would cushion the king’s head from the metal superstructure, point left. On the St. Edward crown they point right, which is the traditional direction. What do the changes mean?.Several interpretations have been offered. First, as Father Raymond De Souza wrote in the National Post, snowflakes today are not about the weather, but reference the narcissistic fragility of the infantile woke. For Justin, Canada is a “snowflake nation.” No wonder he declared we would never reach a commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. Second, Peter MacKay, also in the National Post, said that the new iconography expressed Trudeau’s loathing “of what we represent as a country.” For Justin, there are no Canadian heroes. We are the undeserving beneficiaries of a genocidal land-grab for which we may all, always, only be ashamed..Defacing the symbolism of an earlier time began with the obliteration of handprints in Cosquer cave some 18,000 years ago. More recent cancelling has been equally selective. Statues of Sir John A. and Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II may be toppled, but for some odd reason not those of William Lyon Mackenzie King, who was, until the present prime minister, the most repellent creature ever to hold that office. In 1939 he turned back a boatload of Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis to their fate in Nazi Germany..All these changes reflect the progressive view of the coherence and integrity of the Canadian character as something to be overcome. Whether individual of collective, character is defined by what we remember. We know from observing individuals that loss of memory is catastrophic. Worse, we become dependent — entirely dependent — on others. In the case of Justin and his associates, that is certainly the intent: they wish us to be dependent on the Government of Canada as the source of all meaning..They justify their desires on woke notions of self-realization. To be a member of a post-national state, we must repudiate everything from our previous lives. We must repudiate the very notion of character because it is stable. Make no mistake, Justin and his like harbour no regrets for what has been lost. For them: good riddance! All that matters is going “forward” towards ever-greater progress expressed in the ridiculous terminology of “post” symbolism: post-national, post-secular, post-industrial. You name it..These fanciful conceits, for those who refuse to self-destruct, can be summarized as post-Canadian. But as Premier Smith said in her victory speech, not post-Albertan.
