EVOKING THE THOUGHT OF ALEXIS DE TOQUEVILLE, MINISTER DION STATES THAT UNIVERSAL VALUES MUST UNDERPIN NATIONAL ATTACHEMENT

QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC, July 29, 2000 – Speaking at a workshop on the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville during a conference sponsored by the Conference for the Study of Political Thought in cooperation with the Canadian Political Science Association, the Honourable Stéphane Dion, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, stated today that universal values must underpin any sense of national attachment.

The Minister first noted that, unlike those who consider nationalism to be incompatible with individual freedom, Tocqueville believed that liberalism and nationalism can be reconciled. He asserted that under certain conditions, nationalism can be the bearer of the civic virtues necessary for a democratic and liberal society.

Fearing that democracy could degenerate into asocial egoism, Tocqueville stated that love of one's country - or what we now call nationalism - is one of the ways to strengthen the commitment of individuals to the societies to which they belong, Mr Dion noted.

The Minister explained Tocqueville's premonition of "the demagogic, despotic, reactionary and racist outrages which the inflammation of the national sentiment can produce." And yet, in spite of the dangers of nationalism, he continued to believed in the civic virtues of national attachment. Tocqueville thought that, to promote this civic patriotism more effectively, a democratic state ought to be federal or decentralized.

"Uniformity held no attraction for Tocqueville," the Minister pointed out, "which is why he saw federalism, decentralization, and love of one's country as a useful contribution to the plural quest for freedom and genuine citizenship."

The Minister noted that, although we now know the enormity of the crimes that have been committed in the name of the nation in the past two centuries, Tocqueville was right in seeing national sentiment as "a potential source of civic virtue." But Mr Dion pointed out that Tocqueville did not specify "how nationalism might become civic patriotism, rather than degenerating into a principle of racist and totalitarian exclusion."

"There are universal values that are far more important than nationalism," Mr Dion continued. "That go far beyond it. I am thinking of the values of liberty, equality, solidarity, sharing, tolerance, acceptance of others, and the pursuit of prosperity for all. These are the goals that, as human beings, we should all pursue beyond our differences."

"To my mind, that's what we're trying to do in Canada," the Minister stated. "We must draw our national pride from our efforts to build here a country where each human being has the best chance to flourish as a human being, whatever their origin or skin colour," he emphasized. "To do so, we must build on the plurality of experiences, on the diversity of our country and on the federative form of our system of government."

He asserted that we need "to draw from our feelings of belonging [...] something bigger and better than nationalism, something that can anchor us to the universal, to what Tocqueville called displaying 'the aspect of mankind [...] in the broadest light'."

The attachment to both Quebec and Canada is in no way contradictory, the Minister concluded. "I consider it to be a wonderful complementarity, perhaps the best combination to better live according to the universal values sought by all human beings."

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For information:

André Lamarre
Special Assistant
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