Canada, America — compare and contrast

Opinion

Three days and 90 years. That’s the difference in age between Canada and America. But the differences between Canadians and Americans have never been on starker display than this, our joint birthday week.

It is truly a tale of two countries, a revolutionary society versus an evolutionary community. The United States today is undergoing a second American revolution, one that will determine whether it remains a republican democracy or becomes a presidential autocracy. The signs are ominous.

Canada, meanwhile, is engaged in a debate about economic progress and regional and civil accommodation. The signs are hopeful.

Two bills tell the tale. Parliament passed Bill C-5 last month, the “Build Canada Act” meant to eliminate internal trade barriers and accelerate infrastructure projects, with strong majority support from the governing and opposition parties. This past week, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Act,” the largest wealth transfer from the poor to the wealthy in American history, on strict partisan lines.

More than differences of policy are on display. Differences of values, culture, and the very role of government are coming to the fore. The U.S. today is asserting “nationalist sovereignty,” projecting an America-first mindset to protect a perceived superior and threatened cultural way of life. Canada is asserting “sovereign nationalism,” projecting a distinct and stronger political and cultural identity buttressed by greater domestic economic wherewithal.

Consider less than half-a-year of America under Trump. Executive power has exploded at the expense of due legal process to deport migrants and immigrants, using the National Guard and masked, unidentifiable ICE agents to swoop and detain.

Law firms have been forced to do free legal work for MAGA-type causes to protect their regular government work, a form of racketeering. Media companies have paid the president or his surrogates tens of millions of dollars to avoid government-sponsored lawsuits against them, threatening freedom of the press.

Science and evidence have been shut down in favour of extremist, crank views on vaccines and climate change. Between 12 million and 15 million Americans are about to lose their health insurance, making people sicker and poorer.

None of this is being mirrored in Canada, leftist Liberal and rightist Conservative complaints notwithstanding. Even when there is some alignment in policy goals — investing in national defence, more secure borders, less immigration — there is a legitimate Canadian difference. A difference not just in degree but in form. Not just what we choose to do but how we choose to do it.

Peace, order, and good government. This sums up the Canadian difference. It sets out our governing culture in constitutional clothing.

When Canada was formed in 1867, Parliament was given authority “to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada.” This “POGG clause” was the constitutional device in vogue in the 19th century as the British Empire “decolonized” itself. Across Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa, each of these countries incorporated the phrase into their self-governing constitutions. Uniquely here, though, this means of figuring out who does what jurisdictionally between the national and subnational governments, grew into a governance ethos for Canada.

Our constitutional history has not been without contention over this phrase. Federal governments have justified controversial pan-Canadian interventionism with it such as carbon pricing. But these fights have occurred in the courts of law and public opinion with acceptably civil discourse.

Blatant disobedience rarely rears itself.

This is due to a political culture in Canada that has been historically shaped and influenced by expectations of, and satisfaction with, peace, order, and good government in our political life. Not the legality of the clause but its sentiment.

Even as we’ve experienced a decades-long decline in deference for traditional public, religious, and social institutions, Canadians have opted for an evolutionary reordering of society in response. No national guard deployed here. Even the most revolutionary development in Canada since Confederation itself, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has been implemented over time in an evolutionary manner.

This is to be celebrated. For it is during the difficult, fraught periods of political and societal tension that constitutional norms and behaviour become most important. In short, it is how you get through to the other side. Especially now as we contemplate how to forge a successful transition of “sovereign nationalism” from today’s unipolar economic vulnerability tied to the U.S. market to tomorrow’s multi-polar economic wealth model of multiple markets, a transition that will challenge entrenched political and economic orthodoxies across the country through wrenching, uncomfortable change.

Imagine if Trump’s “national sovereigntists” had access to this type of constitutional clause to assert unbridled executive power for their federal government. For what is occurring in America today is the greatest assertion of presidential authority at the expense of congress and the judiciary in that republic’s history.

This has been a year of resurgent Canadian patriotism. Waving the maple leaf flags, singing the national anthem, and posting “elbows up” are all on the rise. In this, our birthday week, we should celebrate the true unsung hero of our Constitution — the Peace, Order, and Good Government clause. Over a century and a half, it has shaped the character of governing and the distinctiveness of Canada.

It has made us — and keeps us — Canadian.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.