Altered States - From Illusion to Opportunity

Two posts ago, we briefly examined the Canadian penchant for seeing itself as a remarkably progressive place when in fact we have fallen prey to national delusions.While Canada in the years following World War Two possessed inherent institutional strengths and a citizenry empowered by its own accomplishments in the recent conflict, it was also a generation that revealed illusions of its own. Interning Canadian Japanese citizens in guarded camps spoke to the hidden prejudices of the day and how, in the age before multiculturalism, the great "white" way was alive and well in Canada.But there was more. Tommy Douglas pondered how a country that had fought so well in Europe couldn't find the will to battle for adequate healthcare to all its citizens. He, along with others, pushed forward the concept of a national pension plan, in part based on the realization that seniors in the pre-World War Two days often fell prey to financial hardship. I recall my father wondering how it was that most young people couldn't afford post-secondary education in a land clearly full of great resources - natural and human. I also remember his shock when people opposed him for attempting to start a mixed bowling league that welcomed women into the formerly male den. Growing up in that era, it was easy to see that we had permitted all manner of injustices against the aboriginal population across the country in almost every place.The Canada of the 1950s and 1960s, though led by great institutions and a more strengthened citizenry, was not without its great illusions and debilitating traditions. Yet the maturing process following the great battle of 1939-1945 introduced us to our own flaws as a relatively new nation and the scales began to fall away from our eyes. With new-found vision, citizens and government cooperated at all levels to correct the injustices that only a few years before had been comfortably accepted in daily life.History has begun to look on that period as a time of great national renaissance, epitomized by the emergence of the Centennial in Montreal, the installation of a new flag, the introduction of peacekeeping as a Canadian concept, and the appearance of national healthcare and pension programs. It was a time of our own great awakening and it provides us guideposts for how we might escape the current mess we're in. As a nation, we are in the sad process of turning away from one another - not in shame or anger, but in self-absorption. Politics lately has played to that tune as opposed to pulling us together. Following two decades of unparalleled prosperity, women still make less in wages than men, we have made frustratingly little progress on the fight against global warming, the aboriginal community got a public apology with no meaning behind it and our cities are facing systemic decay. We - all of us - let it happen. Both politicians and those who elected them (and, might I say, the media structure that was supposed to peel the veneer off of all this), preoccupied ourselves with ensuring our own personal access to money and power.Yet the story is not finished. A new generation of political leadership is inevitably emerging and citizens in communities across this country are beginning to personally engage again. But for this to work, these two entities must work together. The current mutual contempt between politicians and citizenry must come to an end and we must regain a healthy respect for what each brings to the building of a new national dream.The Canada of my father's time clearly wasn't perfect, but they pulled together to create something remarkable. Now it's our time, but citizens and media must first begin by being more constructive, and the political order has to agree to put an end to its dysfunctional self-destruction.