The Canadian Slippery Slope

The Canadian Condition #1
What ever Canadians have done in the past they have not deserved Paul Martin or his predecessor Jean Chretian. This country which nearly one hundred years ago was told by the then Prime Minister that the 20th century belonged to Canada has become a bad joke in the context of that prediction. If de-constructionism is the current trend then we are in the fore front of the movement. From the end of WW II till now Canada has slowly slipped down almost every scale of national measurement. The national agenda has been all about appearances with very little substance. Most of the national effort has been put into pandering. A leadership that refuses to put its position at risk and speak about the realities of Canadian life. We have no resolutions to our national questions because we have or had no leaders that are resolute. Health care, Pensions, Armed Forces, Indian Affairs, Quebec. If we live under the shadow of the United States it 's not their doing. It's through our own inability to come to terms with our reality. Canadians have been encouraged to view their existence as some kind of American appendage. That's our choice. Instead of using the proximity of the United States for our advantage to build our strengths and independance we have beggared our national character by taking and then reviling them beacause we have taken. Have we come too far down this particular path, do we owe so much of who we are and how we view ourselves to the United States, that we cannot change so that the only relief will come when we are absorbed by them. In the long run it's all about character.