This is from a Canadian living in the USA.  I agree with his sentiments.
Every Canadian writer quoted is a conservative writer.

dr

---------------------- Forwarded by Dennis Raphael/Atkinson on 09/29/2004
11:14 AM ---------------------------


Stephen Bezruchka <[log in to unmask]> on 09/29/2004 11:08:08 AM

This appeared today in the paper of record down here.  From my
perspective, with the United States sinking further in any measure of
health, and Canada holding its own, the article is specious.  When I
present the Health Olympics results (Canada 5th, USA 27th) and ask why,
Americans say "they seem happier there, more laid back, less uptight" and
never pessimistic.  From a US person's perspective I agree.  If anyone is
failing, it is the USA.  As a lapsed Canadian, am I missing something?
STephen

****
NYT September 29, 2004 LETTER FROM THE AMERICAS

Canada's Prophets of Pessimism (Is It the Weather?) By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

TORONTO, Sept. 28 - As one of Canada's pre-eminent historians, David
Bercuson of the University of Calgary is not your average couch potato.
But with beer in hand and feet up on the sofa, he watched the Olympics on
television last month to cheer on the world champion hurdler Perdita
Flicien to win a gold medal for Canada.

When Ms. Flicien inexplicably stumbled into the very first hurdle like a
rank amateur, Mr. Bercuson dashed straight to his computer. He knocked out
a screed declaring that her sad performance, and that of the entire
Canadian Olympic team, was just another symptom of "the national malaise''
that is making Canada a second-rate, uncompetitive nation.

"It's not the individual performers whose shortcomings are on display for
all the world to see,'' he wrote in an op-ed article for The Calgary
Herald. "It is the very spirit of the nation and the sickness that now has
hold of it that is at fault.''

His acidic commentary is characteristic of the view of a growing number of
historians, foreign policy thinkers and columnists from some of the
nation's top newspapers. Many see themselves as part of an informal school
that has no name or single mentor, but all are writing the same
assessment: Canada is in decline, or at the very least, has fallen short
of their aspirations.

For these thinkers, Canada is adrift at home and wilting as a player on
the world stage. It is dogged by not only uninspired leaders but also by a
lack of national purpose, stunted imagination and befuddled priorities
even as its economy prospers.

"I'm in almost total despair,'' Michael Bliss, a University of Toronto
historian, said in an interview. "You have a country, but what is it for
and what is it doing?''

In a newly published updated edition of his classic "Right Honorable Men,"
about Canada's leaders through history, Mr. Bliss wonders about the recent
"decline in quality" of the nation's leadership. "A logjam developed in
the river of Canadian political history," he wrote. "Where are the
visionaries?"

Canada may still have a glowing reputation as a sensible country that
promotes peace and social justice abroad, and it is a pioneer in
decriminalizing drugs and allowing same-sex marriage. But, they groan, the
bold foreign aid programs of the past have been much reduced.

It once built great railroads, conquered the Arctic and had the world's
fourth largest armed forces at the end of World War II, pioneering
peacekeeping in distant trouble spots. But today, they argue, Canada
outfits its peacekeepers with 40-year-old helicopters and decrepit jeeps
akin to dune buggies.

The country, they say, has seemingly come to define greatness by how much
money it sinks into health care or day care. Even so, education budgets
are shrinking and there is brain drain of doctors and other professionals
to the United States.

Such themes run through two widely sold recent books by two of Canada's
most distinguished authors, "Who Killed the Canadian Military?'' by J. L.
Granatstein and "While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World"
by Andrew Cohen, which earlier in the year was on the Canadian best-seller
lists for 10 weeks.

The two books hark back to the days when Canada lifted far more than its
weight to win World Wars I and II and when Prime Minister Lester B.
Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956 for his role in establishing a
United Nations peacekeeping force that settled the Suez Crisis.

"What has happened to that sense, that impulse for excellence, that sense
of ambition that gives life to a nation?'' asked Mr. Cohen in an
interview. "We're a country with a strange attitude toward success."

Mr. Granatstein had a similar critique. "We're not soft so much as
softheaded,'' he lamented. "A country is not just a health system."

Canadian intellectuals note that if there is an Eeyore lurking in their
midst, they are not alone. The chronically depressed can also be found
inhabiting other intellectual traditions. Danish and Swedish
intellectuals, too, tend to have an overcast view of their country, from
time to time, Mr. Bliss noted, "and they go through long winters too.''

Desmond Morton, a McGill University historian who has written jointly with
members of the school of thought but is not a member himself, said nations
that sit next to countries with far more power and confidence - like, say,
Belgium beside France - share "these envy problems."

But pooh-poohing his colleagues, he said, "They would love to be greater,
but being great has a cost - usually to the foot soldier.''

Explanations for Canada's supposed and undoubtedly debatable demise vary
among the thinkers. Nevertheless, intellectual complaining about the state
of the nation seems to be as much a part of the Canadian tapestry as
curling and maple syrup.

In that regard, the dialogue is eerily reminiscent of the past. Some of
the best-selling books in Canada during the 1960's and 70's went by such
titles as "Must Canada Fail?'' "Lament for a Nation," and "Silent
Surrender."

Many intellectuals on the left posed the theory that Canada's economy and
culture were destined to be swallowed up by the United States. Others
viewed the divide between Quebec and the rest of the country as so wide
that complete national disintegration was virtually inevitable. Neither
prediction has come true.

Several of the new school of thinkers were young in the era of Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau, a leader whose panache and focus on big national
issues like opening Canada to "third world" immigration and striking an
independent foreign policy made him recognizable around the world. His
policies are criticized by some of these same thinkers for shrinking the
size of the military and diluting the national character. But at least,
they say, he was a man of big dreams.

Prime Minister Paul Martin, by comparison, looks to them simply asleep.

The gloominess was much in evidence in recent weeks as the National Hockey
League headed for a season-killing lockout and Mr. Martin met with the
provincial and territorial premiers to promote federal financing for
health care, without taking any meaningful measures to re-engineer a
system short on doctors, technology and affordable drugs.

"Two of Canada's defining institutions - health care and hockey - are
sick,'' wrote the columnist Jeffrey Simpson, no stranger to pessimism, in
The Globe and Mail. In an interview, Mr. Simpson said that while this was
not a particularly bleak time for the general population, pained
intellectual musings are not that surprising for a country "that has never
had a defining national myth'' like America's Revolution or Civil War.

"Besides, if Americans had to live through our long winter,'' he added,
 "it would test their optimism as well.''

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