Back when the Western Standard was a print magazine published by Ezra Levant, its preeminent columnist was Mark Steyn. Even then, more than twenty years ago, Steyn recognized that Pierre Trudeau had so fundamentally transformed Canada in a bad way that he referred to the country as “Trudeaupia.” It wasn’t really Canada anymore.This is a helpful way to view the country. Those who support Alberta independence want to remove their province from Trudeaupia, not Canada. Canada was a great country that its citizens could be proud of. Canadians would willingly fight for their country.But Trudeaupia? That is an entirely different matter. It’s not what our forefathers bequeathed to us.In one 2005 column, Steyn commented on the Liberal Party of Canada’s penchant for denigrating this country’s past. When the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, they wanted to create a new society and purged the country’s history by declaring Year Zero as a new beginning. In their desire to transform Canada, the Liberals seem to want a Year Zero for this country as well. Steyn asks, “Is it 1965, when we got the new flag? Or 1980, when we got the new anthem? Or 1982, when we got the new constitution? Or 1983, when we got the new national holiday? And, as Dominion Day became Canada Day, a nomenclature unsurpassed by any other nation’s holiday in its yawning nullity, so some influential figures now wish to replace Victoria Day with Heritage Day, for only in Canada do we celebrate our heritage by obliterating it.”In the same year, Western Standard columnist David Warren also commented on the Liberals’ erasure of Canada’s history and identity: “Anything that was particular about the country — not about regions but about the country as a whole — has been obviated by government legislation, or put quite purposely into disuse.” Warren went on to explain that after the Liberals discarded our original identity as a nation, they had nothing of significance to put in its place: “We are reduced to waving a Canadian flag — and that is itself an imposture. The current Canada is something that was invented from scratch, in Liberal party advertising agencies, and dates approximately from the invention of that flag, in 1964. But successive Liberal governments could think of nothing with which to replace the old symbols. Hence, a ‘new Canada,’ defined by a bunch of nothings.”If you ask a Canadian what Canada means to him, he “will say something like ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘tolerance’ or ‘universal healthcare.’ These are nothings. There is nothing Canadian about any of them. Every postmodern country has all these things.”.The new concepts cited as defining Canadian identity are not particular to Canada at all. “The late Pierre Trudeau made no secret of his contempt for Canada and Canadians as a national group, and instead put his faith in universal abstractions.”With this statement, Warren put his finger on the key issue. And this was even before Pierre’s son took these Liberal ideas to their logical conclusion when he became prime minister. Shortly after his election in 2015, Justin Trudeau told the New York Times, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and that Canada is “the first postnational state.” The Times rightly explained that Justin’s view makes him “an avatar of his father’s vision.” That is, Justin was fulfilling his father’s agenda in denying Canada had a “core identity.” Instead of a national identity, our “postnational state” simply represents abstract universal concepts, as Warren pointed out.Last year, a left-leaning Ontario columnist named Andy Straisfeld — who praised “Justin Trudeau’s calls for unity and inclusion” — confirmed the Trudeau vision of Canada, writing, “Our national identity is rooted in inclusivity, multiculturalism, and a commitment to social welfare.”Ah yes, the three pillars of modern Canadian identity: inclusivity, multiculturalism, and a commitment to social welfare. This is precisely the goal of the Liberal Party of Canada, namely, to have Canadians forget their country’s glorious heritage, and instead think of it in terms of abstract universal concepts. This is Trudeaupia. A country without an identity. A country marked out by universal concepts that would be embraced by any American Democrat. Alberta is not like Trudeaupia and should no longer remain a part of it. Alberta has a real heritage and a real identity. Unlike Trudeaupians, Albertans don’t need to borrow their identity from the California Democrats. It’s time for Alberta to escape the Trudeaupian nightmare before its heritage, too, is obliterated by the Liberals. If Alberta does not become independent, future generations will be raised in a postnational state without a core identity. Instead, they will see themselves in terms of universal abstractions, with nothing to identify them as specifically Albertan. Pierre Trudeau would then have achieved his ultimate triumph.
