FLETCHER: Why do we now need a Ministry of Canadian Identity?

Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984. He lives in Victoria.Two unpleasant surprises struck me as I learned the details of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s oversized, largely recycled Liberal cabinet.One, political correctness has crept ahead again with the rebranding of the ministry of Canadian Heritage to Canadian Identity and Culture. And two, the minister is professional protester Steven Guilbeault.Erasing “heritage” from the name is on brand for the Liberals. It’s a bit, um, colonial, a relic of old dead white males. It matches the government’s move a decade ago to rename the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa to the Museum of History. We couldn’t have anyone suggesting that the introduction of written language and technology based on the wheel constituted “civilization,” could we? Because it was 2015..Canadian identity is a more troubling topic. Many readers will recall when a newly elected Justin Trudeau gave an interview to the New York Times Magazine in December of 2015. “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” Trudeau said. “There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post-national state.”If there is no unique Canadian culture or identity, Canadian “values” can only consist of a generic niceness, as per Trudeau’s list. So forget about the Huron Carol, and Sudbury Saturday Night and Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen. Forget the art of Bill Reid, son of an American man and a Haida woman. Forget Canada’s proud military history. We’re semi-retired “peacekeepers,” hall monitors to the world.And whatever you do, don’t go trying to fashion some sort of “core identity” out of this old-stock Canadian stuff. That would be racist..Trudeau the younger did not start this post-identity trend, by the way. Its roots are in Pierre Trudeau’s project of “multiculturalism,” that arrogant notion that while the United States is an industrial “melting pot,” Canada’s culture is a beautiful mosaic, consisting entirely of reverence for other cultures.Defending that project 20 years before Justin Trudeau was Sheila Finestone, multiculturalism and status of women minister in the Jean Chrétien government. “In my view, there isn’t any one Canadian identity,” Finestone said. “Canada has no national culture.”This is an odd position for a Canadian politician to take, as Ottawa spends ever-larger sums on the CBC and the arts, in a losing struggle to keep Canadian identity alive. Perhaps that’s why we have a new ministry, whose mandate extends to film and media funds to shape the image this elusive so-called Canada..Guilbeault is not off to an encouraging start. His first error was to misrepresent demand for oil from the Trans Mountain pipeline, using a made-up statistic that would make his former Greenpeace colleagues proud. His insight was soon reinforced by Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, who was asked if he had any advice for Alberta’s independence movement. He sniffed that Quebec has a culture, and “oil and gas” is not a culture.The renaming of the Canadian Museum of History a decade ago brings to mind one of its first new-era events, a parliamentary press gallery dinner featuring a somewhat inebriated Green Party leader Elizabeth May. Many will recall her rant about convicted terrorist Omar Khadr’s alleged moral superiority compared to Stephen Harper and his team, before she was gently led off stage by a member of that team, Lisa Raitt.Fewer will recall her opening lines, gesturing to the indigenous displays in the museum and denouncing the lack of a land acknowledgement to begin proceedings, as had become the style in B.C. “Like what the f--- was wrong with you, you didn’t notice we were standing on traditional territory?” May said..The push-back against these land acknowledgements has finally begun. They often include the term “un-ceded,” even in the majority of the country that is covered by treaties whose purpose is to specifically cede land outside of recognized reserves. The practice has run out of control in the B.C. bureaucracy, where a province-wide conference call for a struggling social ministry can begin with a half an hour of strained, performative apologies for the presence of white people.The task of rescuing Canadian identity was summed up for me by a recent comment on social network X. Adam Zivo is noted for his writing in the National Post on the danger of “safer supply” drugs and his front-line reporting from Ukraine.“Land acknowledgements legitimize blood and soil nationalism,” Zivo wrote. “The idea that land immutably belongs to a specific race, and that all other races are merely guests on said land, is profoundly regressive.” Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered B.C. politics and business as a journalist since 1984. He lives in Victoria.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX:@tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Why do we now need a Ministry of Canadian Identity?

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