Remembering Our Future

Towards the end of his tenure as one of Canada's most popular and controversial political figures, Pierre Trudeau attempted to lift Canadian eyes outwards when he said:

It is the duty of a middle-power like Canada, which could not sway the world with the force of its armies, to at least try to sway the world with the force of its ideals.  We are faced with an overwhelming challenge.  In meeting it, the world must be our constituency."

I wonder how many Canadians actually recall those words and their force in our collective mindset three decades ago?  Definitely, the younger generation would never have had that chance. But now it appears more and more as if those of us old enough are actually having trouble remembering.  Somehow we have permitted the presence of a Canadian military force in Afghanistan to substitute for actual foreign diplomacy. When confronted by such words from generations past, our eyes kind of mist up, we puff out our collective chest, and then pride ourselves on what a great country we are. But it's sentiment - almost all of it!Unlike our European counterparts, we as a nation never emerged from the ruins of previous wars. We, in effect, created ourselves. Where others dug chasms, we built bridges; when elites urged a kind of melting pot for this land, more refined leaders sought a cultural mosaic; and when other nations viewed the world only through their own lens, we entranced ourselves by viewing Canada through the prism of the world and all its complexities. Fragile at best, and always on the verge of separating, we nevertheless hung together because we instinctively understood that we were something the rest of the world couldn't master - a social experiment that stuck and prospered.I remember Lester Pearson speaking to my father about this country's responsibility to take that experiment and export it for the sake of peace and a better world. What's significant about that is not so much the concept, as that I still recall that conversation as though it was yesterday.But do we remember such insights or comments anymore? The profound effect of people like Pearson, Trudeau and Mulroney was to primarily "internationalize" us, to makes us better than we would have been in a bordered world. The fact they were able to deliver on such an outlook despite our powerful neighbor to the south only makes their accomplishments more remarkable.There's no point in getting misty-eyed any more about this, for the simple reason that we're remembering a Canada that once existed, not the one we are seeing at the moment. We are now a country with an army, and a good one at that, doing noble work despite horrendous odds. But that was never us before. Whatever military prowess we might have exerted, we were always about what the fight was for - peace, order and good, sensible government. Better that we now weep for our lost heritage - real tears - than encourage sentimental thoughts of a country that once was.It is time we started remembering again - not in the way of nostalgia, but as those emerging from a kind of collective amnesia, eager to get on with lives of promise and profound international influence as our memory returns in stages. Whatever the future of Canada in this next decade, it will be one closely aligned with our past. The world isn't looking for another army, another corporation, or another trading partner. For most of the people on this planet, they are searching for peace and right to live decently. They want to know that there is one place in this troubled world that once got it right, and has realigned itself to those principles again. We had better start remembering - for them and for us - before that great future is lost.