Canadian Studies Across the World

It is a great pleasure to say a few words at this conference, which celebrates vision, patience, dedication, and success.

The enterprise which Allan Maceachen launched in Edinburgh in 1975 was a bold one, building on slender beginnings, and animated by faith and hope. It was a time of new beginnings and bold enterprises, glowing with pride and optimism.  Many might have wondered why the study of Canada would be attractive to scholars in countries themselves rich with centuries of history and culture.   The presence here tonight of so many distinguished scholars from around the world is testimony to the vision of the founders and the value of Canadian studies. 

We have honoured tonight some of the honorary founders, individuals who have made outstanding contributions to building this program.  They stand for many hundreds of others who have dedicated substantial portions of their lives and energies to promoting the study of Canada around the world.  There have been dozens of officers of DFAIT, at home and abroad, including many locally engaged staff at embassies, who have tirelessly assisted and encouraged scholars, formed lasting friendships and left fond memories.  I join with John Manley, the minister for foreign affairs, who spoke this morning by electronic means in honouring them.

Canadianists around the world through their research and writing, have not only enhanced understanding of Canada but have in the process enriched their own disciplines with new insights.   They have interpreted this country to their fellow countrymen and women and on occasion their governments.  For generations of Canadian diplomats, they have been rich sources of information about their home countries.  They have made an important contribution to the ties of friendship and mutual understanding that are so crucial to peace and progress in the pre and post September 11^th world today.

L’idée lancée il y a 25 ans a connu un succès qui a dépassé ce à quoi s’attendaient ceux qui l’ont bravement lancée à l’époque.  Il est bien de célébrer ce succès mais il faut aussi regarder comment il a été atteint, et penser à ce qui peut être fait pour maintenir et bâtir sur cette réalisation.

J’ai déjà suggéré quelques raisons de ce succès, incluant le dévouement et la foi de tous ceux et celles qui y ont contribué, de même que l’excellence académique et l’engagement des participants.  La patience est une autre raison.

Reasons for Success

The program could not have been willed into existence by a few people in a burst of furious energy over a short time.  Building a Canadian studies program was like Stephen Leacock’s instructions on how to plant a garden. “it appears”, he told us, “that the right time to begin gardening is last year.  For many things it is well to begin the year before last.  For good results one must begin even sooner.”  We have here tonight ample evidence of the biblical wisdom that bread cast upon the waters will return multiplied after many days. 

Another reason for success has been the determination that Canadian studies abroad should not be a hothouse plant.  Of course, seed funding and pump priming were essential.  But the money Canadian taxpayers put into the program has been matched many times over.  This is not only a tribute to efficiency and good management, but to the solid foundations of Canadian studies and the dedication of scholars.

Indeed, the strength of the program is in its independence and integrity.  We have encouraged and supported but we have never tried to tell scholars what to study, what to write, what to teach, what to say.  We never will.  When Canadian studies scholars speak, anywhere in the world, they are credible.

Le programme a été profitable tant pour les canadianistes que les canadiens.  Les universitaires des recherches communes, des conférences, et des échanges d’idées avec les canadianistes des autres pays.  Des barrières tant physique qu’intellectuelles ont été franchies.  Tous les canadiens ont profité des commentaires habituellement sympathiques mais parfois critiques, des canadianistes à l’étranger.   

Edinburgh Conference

For most Canadianists abroad, Canada is not really a foreign land and their countries are not really foreign to us.  With an understandable bias, Allan Maceachen considered it fitting in 1975 that the first chair of Canadian studies should have been created in Edinburgh.  Last year at the 25^th anniversary conference of the British association for Canadian studies, Canadian visitors were taken to see buildings and places in Edinburgh, including the magnificent old university, which would have been familiar to William warren Baldwin –the father of responsible government in Canada --and to George brown -- a father of confederation and founder of the liberal party.

Mais les britanniques sont loin d’être les seuls à avoir franchi de grandes distances pour démarrer une nouvelle vie au canada et l’expérience d’Édinburgh pourrait être répétée en bien des endroits sur la planète.  Dans trois ans, nous célébrerons quatre siècles de civilisation française en Amérique du Nord.  Des gens de toutes les régions du monde ont bâti le canada et plusieurs maintiennent des liens étroits avec leur terre d’origine.  Ce n’est donc pas par accident si parmi les disciplines de recherche les plus populaires auprès des canadianismes, on retrouve la littérature, l’histoire et l’étude sociale des migrations, de même que l’expérience canadienne sur le multiculturalisme. 

I believe that the most important reason for the success of the program has been that the study of Canada is intrinsically interesting and valuable for the world.  I say this with the necessary Canadian diffidence and sense of proportion but with confidence nonetheless.

Canadian Model

We have pioneered a process of political evolution by which we, and other commonwealth countries, have become independent without rupturing old ties.  George-étienne Cartier, after playing a key role in creating the Canadian confederation of 1867, contrasted this peaceful evolution with the rivers of blood that accompanied political revolutions in his other motherland, France. 

We have built in our half of North America not a traditional nation-state but a political space, based on civility and balance, in which an enormous diversity of peoples and cultures can develop in peace and freedom.  Our two official languages give us a window on two of the great cultures of the world.  We have as fellow citizens first nations peoples who have “lived here since the world began” - or at least during 13 or so thousand years.

We have made substantial contributions to the evolution of international institutions, understanding, peace, and development.

We have survived a somewhat harsh climate and tamed a hostile wilderness.  We have also learned to be stewards of a delicate environment.

We have also built a prosperous society based on human rights, tolerance, and social responsibility with a quality of life that is the envy most of the world.

We have produced cultural achievements of global renown which reflect the diversity of our heritage.

And when we have had to, as we now do again, Canadians have done our part in the defence of freedom and the authentic values of humanity.

Comme l’écrivait récemment, mon collègue, Pierre Pettigrew: “évoquer le canada, cèst donner libre cours à son espoir, c’est déployer toutes ses capacités de rêve, c’est croire qu’on a enfin trouvé le lieu où les plus nobles idéaux individuels et collectifs ont une possibilité réelle de se concrétiser.” [p.100, pour une politique de la confiance]

Does that make us a people worth studying?  Certainly.  Do we have something to offer the world?  Absolutely.  Are we perfect?  Of course not.  Our capacity for self-criticism is one of our greatest strengths.

Neither Canada nor any other country has a monopoly on virtue.  We are the product of our own environment, our experience, our traditions -- homegrown, imported, and blended.  We carry the benefit and the burden of many things done and many things left undone. 

It is important that we encounter our experience, build on our successes, and acknowledge our errors.  As our political space fills in with an ever wider range of beliefs, traditions, values and cultures, our dialogues with the world and ourselves must become broader, more inclusive, and more meaningful.  

Nos Débats

Ces questions constituent l’essence de la recherche, de la réflexion, et du débat parmi les universitaires et les écrivains.  C’est ce que vous faites, en tant que canadianismes, ici et de par le monde.  Et ce que vous faites est crucial pour nous tous, pour la santé et la prospérité du pays.  

Les études canadiennes se doivent de toujours être équilibrées, objectives, et en quête de vérité.  Les canadiens ont toujours valorisé la recherche de la vérité.  Nous invitons les universitaires de partout à nous joindre dans cet effort.

Post September 11

If the events of September 11 have taught us anything, it is that the respect for diversity and freedom, including free enquiry, which have been dearly won in the past, must continue to be defended in the future against those who would imprison the mind with the body and plunge humanity generally into a permanent nightmare of ignorance, intolerance and violent bigotry.  

Relations among nations and peoples will always have a military/security dimension, a political one, and an economic one.  But they must also have a human, intellectual, and cultural dimension.  Dialogue, understanding, and accommodation on the basis of our shared values, beliefs, aspirations, heritage and our common humanity, must be the firm foundation of a better world that is peaceful, prosperous, and secure.

It is people who will remake our world – people with the curiosity to know more about others, people with the courage and conviction to seek and speak the truth, people with the intelligence and insight to find that truth, test it in the marketplace of ideas, and convey it to their fellow citizens.  People like you.