Pubdate: Mon, 21 Jul 2003
Source: Nation, The (US)
Copyright: 2003 The Nation Company
Contact:  http://www.thenation.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/285
Author: Naomi Klein
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

CANADA: HIPPIE NATION?

Canadians Can't Quite Believe It: Suddenly, We're Interesting.

After months of making the news only with our various communicable
diseases--SARS, mad cow and West Nile--we're now getting world famous for
our cutting-edge laws on gay marriage and legalized drugs. The Bush
conservatives are repulsed by our depravity. My friends in New York and San
Francisco have been quietly inquiring about applying for citizenship.

And Canadians have been eating it up, filling the newspapers with giddy
articles about our independence. "You're not the boss of us, George," Jim
Coyle wrote in the Toronto Star. "So much for nice; we're getting
interesting," wrote conservative columnist William Thorsell in the Globe and
Mail. Polls are showing that it's not just that Canadians are becoming more
forward-looking and groovier, it's also that the United States is lurching
backward, retrenching into more conservative values. According to Canada's
summer bestseller, Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of
Converging Values, by pollster Michael Adams, Americans between the ages of
18 and 29 are twice as likely to worry about crime, "moral decline" and
ethnic conflict as their Canadian counterparts.

Four events have contributed to Canada's newfound status as Hippie Nation:

(1) The Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien didn't
support the US-British invasion of Iraq ("opposed" would be far too strong a
word, since we maintained troops in the region).

(2) On May 27 the Chretien government introduced legislation to
decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. People caught
with up to fifteen grams will get the equivalent of a parking ticket. US
drug czar John Walters has promised to "respond to the threat."

(3) On June 17 the Chretien government announced it would introduce
legislation to legalize gay marriage. This will bring the entire country
into compliance with a court ruling that has already made it legal in the
province of Ontario. US gays and lesbians have been flooding into Toronto to
get hitched.

(4) On June 24 the government announced the opening of the first "safe
injection site" in North America in Vancouver, which averages 147 overdose
deaths a year. The publicly funded facility will provide needle exchanges
and health assistance to heroin addicts. Walters calls this one
"state-sponsored personal suicide."

So, does all this peace, love and drugs really mean that the United States
and its closest neighbor and ally are parting ways? Much as I'd love to
report that I really do live in "Soviet Canuckistan" (as Pat Buchanan has
taken to calling us), it's mostly hype.

When he was elected in 1993, Chretien pledged to reopen the North American
Free Trade Agreement and negotiate a better deal for Canada. He immediately
broke the promise. Now, months away from the end of Chretien's decade in
office, Canadians are keenly aware of how much independence we have lost
under the agreement.

Our economic dependence on the United States is staggering: Almost 40
percent of Canada's gross domestic product comes from exports to the United
States. More troubling, particularly given the Bush Administration's
unquenchable thirst for oil and gas, we have traded away our right to put
Canadian energy needs before those of the United States. A little-known
clause in NAFTA states that even in the event of a severe energy shortage,
Canada cannot cut off its oil and gas exports to the United States--we can
only reduce the flow south by the same rate as we reduce our own domestic
consumption.

This dramatic ceding of power to the United States is Jean Chretien's true
legacy, which is why, in his final months in office, he's racing to be
remembered as a principled man. But Chretien's last-ditch attempts to
declare Canada's independence--significant as they are--can't mask the fact
that on trade and security, the Liberals are following Washington more
obediently than ever.

We are pushing, with the Bush Administration, for NAFTA to be expanded into
all of Latin America. Our government has made only tepid efforts to save
Canadian citizens born in countries identified by the US government as
"sponsors of terror" from being photographed, fingerprinted and otherwise
humiliated when they enter the United States. Immigrants and refugees inside
Canada suspected of having terrorist ties are being detained for long
periods without charge, then tried in secret, with key evidence withheld
from their attorneys. And to bring our policies further in line with the
United States, Canada has also lifted its ban on deportations to Algeria,
where returning refugees face serious dangers.

It seems there is no peace and love left for the most vulnerable sectors of
our population.

There is another reason Chretien's nose-thumbing at Washington should be
regarded with skepticism. Every poll shows that when Chretien steps down, he
is going to be succeeded by his archrival, Paul Martin. By passing a bunch
of laws that piss off the Bush Administration and then retiring, Chretien
wins on two fronts: He gets to be remembered as the man who rescued Canada's
sovereignty, while Martin gets stuck dealing with the fallout. Watch for
Martin, who represents the right of the Liberal Party and is the favorite of
the business community, to do whatever it takes to get back into Bush's good
books, even if it means overturning Chretien's last-minute laws.

This much is predictable. The wild card is how the Canadian people will
respond. Will we embrace obedience once again, or will we demand more of
this whole independence thing? Well, so far there are no signs of retreat.

The Pentagon may be developing a high-tech form of "gaydar" to monitor the
northern border, and John Walters may well be diverting funds from Colombia
to launch "Plan Canuckistan." But we are not afraid. For a country that has
been boring as long as we have, there may be something more addictive than
sex and drugs: being interesting.
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