Can Canada have a culture?
by Jack Moore, CA.
Jack Moore has been a practising Chartered Accountant in Toronto and
areas of southern Ontario for 40 years. He has been a consultant/hand-holder
to small businesses including two years as the comptroller of The Institute
of Chartered Accountants of Ontario (ugh). He also spent two years as vice-president
and general manager of a small national manufacturer/retailer.
CULTURE: the concepts, habits, skills, art, instruments, institutions,
etc. of a given people in a given period; civilization. (Webster's)
Does Canada have a culture? I think not!
When Europe discovered Canada, it was occupied by Indians and Inuit.
Immigrants have been the populaters of Canada from that time until now.
Do not expect this process to change.
The federal governments of Canada have found that there is political
gain to be had by encouraging, controlling, manipulating, and financing
immigration. There may be a financial benefit to Canada at the same time.
That gain has been dramatically exploited for the last quarter of a century.
The result is a nation that has a significant quantity of new people, who
settle in their chosen areas of the country, generally two or three metropolitan
centres, and are supported by the taxpayers of Canada when they cannot
make their own way. They are encouraged to maintain the practices, mores,
philosophies and ways of their homelands. As a consequence, Canada does
not have a culture to call its own: it has a polyglot of cultures, all
subsidised to some degree by the taxpayers. This is known as "multiculturalism".
One of the largest businesses in Canada is the federal government.
One of its largest expenditures is directed toward the support of multiculturalism,
and its major by-product: bilingualism, which has been extended to multilingualism
in many locations. By these policies, the government has ensured that Canada
will not form a culture of its own and that the country will become more
regionalised and fractured than it is now. There is a whole bureaucracy
which has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. This in spite
of the fact that a national culture would work toward uniting Canada as
a nation and as a people.
As in all the ages, pendulums move from extreme to extreme as time
passes. We have begun to move away from the "womb to tomb" policies
of our governments toward the "be responsible for your own actions"
attitude. With that move there has been a re-thinking of the effects of
financial support for multiculturalism.
The political objective has been to influence votes by providing funding
for film productions, museums and art galleries operations, ethnic activities,
non-english language support, special interest groups both large and small,
and the infrastructure of organisations and people that feed off the various
programs. Let us not forget the protection/support via taxes and tariffs
afforded the book, magazine and literature group as well as the institutions
such as the CBC in Canada and another CBC in Quebec.
The public has become far more politically aware during the past decade
and the political gain may have become a liability as the effects of the
divisiveness and waste becomes apparent.
The culture industry in Canada is fast losing its momentum. In fact,
in another decade, the federal government will likely be out of the business
altogether. The result will be the start of a consolidation of cultures
back to basics so that each group will maintain its own special heritage
as a facet within the total culture of Canada. By the end of the next century,
Canada may well have culture to call its own and a group of inhabitants
who may well become a real nation again.
The bottom line is that tax dollars for the arts will become scarcer
with time. Those who survive will have found the way to exist by being
a profitable business or by attracting a support group of patrons. The
former is by far the more practical method. It has longevity.
Can Canada have a culture? I think yes!
Art Business Magazine http://www.culturenet.ca/artbusiness