Hey Matt, interesting proposition here.  I know just about zilch on this topic, so my question may be naive...BUT: how does non-English-speaking Canada fit into this calculation.  Are you in support of secession? 

Also, I'm curious to know from what, or whom, the values and interests of English speakers around need defending.  Does language, indeed, determine these things?

Hey Michael.

Well, as you might imagine, I am in fact not in favour of my country disintegrating. However, I don't resent the question, because you've used a legitimate instrument of argumentation to show what one may choose to view as the lack of... tenability or persuasion which accompanies the view I expressed.

I in fact cherish the contributions of French-Canada and believe this community is essential to the country. That is, French Canada inheres within the essence of this nation. I am utterly disinterested in exploring an alternative vision of Canada, predicated upon some bankrupt vision of linguistic or cultural sterility. My family lineage is in part French, and various ancestors have contributed in limited but not totally insignficant ways to French-Canadian culture. As I've perhaps now somewhat overstated, I am viscerally committed to French Canada.

However, no argument to the contrary lives within my casual description of Canada as part of the English-speaking world. Canada is predominantly English-speaking, has lived for its entire existence within various forms of the Anglo-American orbit, and its strongest and longest alliances are with other predominantly English-speaking countries, including the US, UK, Australia, etc.

I do view the predominantly English-speaking countries as having a great deal in common. The British community of nations and its American ally draw from the same well of parliamentary, civil, legal, linguistic, artistic, philosophical (etc.) wells, and these states are therefore quite similar. These countries all affirm basic liberal values, and view these values as key to progress, peace and prosperity around the world. Which is why these states try consistently, if imperfectly, to foster them all around the globe. So I guess I'd say that these nations share a basic M.O. and basic long-term interests predicated upon liberal values. That is surely a recipe for co-operation and fraternity. The thing I regret, I suppose... 

is that the member states of that community of British nations have elected to deepen, extend and maximise the potential of this community in a conscious or energetic way. The British Commonwealth as a political/military/cultural bloc appears, after about fifty years of retrospection, to have stood athwart history not because it was destined to, but because it did not choose otherwise. I regret this simply because I identify with that once dominant and now aggressively thinning form of Canadian patriotism which understands Canada - at least in part - as a member of this British community. But more than that, I understand Canada is being itself british (in the 'small b' sense. See Charles Taylor's "Radical Tories" for more on that). Not English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh; but british in its own right.

Canada has always been much, much more than a British dominion. It is a cultural and political phenomenon unlike any other, and I love it in and of itself, absent any consideration for its evolving cultural attachment away from its britishness. But that eroding attachment is not something I celebrate, because I quite personally value its historic placement within the British Commonwealth.

(first line of second comment entry should read "... have elected to NOT deepen"...

M

Hi Matt, interesting post! I don't know a great deal about the relationship between the U.K. and Canada, it's interesting to note the continued role that the U.K. plays in some Commonwealth states in Africa. In Sierra Leone, for example, the British government is one of the major funders of the Sierra Leonean government and its commitment of aid money is rivaled only by the European Union. Even decades after colonialism ended on the continent, former colonial powers play a key role in the development and politics of some African countries.