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The ever-erudite Ambler has an article at Vdare summarizing the Canadian elections and what that means for the "National Question". The Ambler prophesies that Canada's dissolution is imminent, and he's just surprised that it is taking longer than he expected.
Well, I take the contrary view.
Canada's "National Question" will continue to rear its head regularly, sometimes frightening the whole country into some kind of action. But each "secessionist" province has had its day. Albertans, with their riches and legendary independence, write about what Ottawa is doing to them, but ultimately have found a comfortable medium of keeping their distance and staying within the Dominion. Quebeckers will bully politicians into giving them their "cultural" identity, never quite mustering the strength (and why should they, since they are getting it all for free) to make a clean break. Maritimers are too weak, and perhaps too unprepared, to fight the behemoth that is Ottawa. And Ontario is losing ground as the economic leader, and may have to do many more compromises in the years to come to sustain itself.
There will be no dissolution of the nation. Each potential break-away has found a way to accommodate itself to the rest of the country. Part of it is historical, and part of it is opportunistic. Part of it is is also that Canadians are more left than they think, this despite the minority "conservative" government just voted in.
In the name of unity, the country has pledged itself into a centrist position. Sometimes left-leaning as with the Liberals, and now right-leaning with Harper's minority government. Provinces are willing to shell out funds for immigrants, Quebec, the environment, health care and many more programs. The overriding position is to keep the country together by forcing (coercing, convincing?) each other to take up the slacks. Which means heavy government involvement, or maneuvering. Albertans will pay for Quebec's cultural identity. The Maritimes may have to forfeit their transfer payments, and even start getting Ontario out of the hole. Everyone gets to pay for immigrants' assimilation. And universal health care will plod along with minor adjustments here and there.
Symbolic national identities are continuously eroded. Apologies and financial remunerations to Chinese and Indian laborers of almost a century ago went uncontested by taxpayers. The Governor General boasts of being a Haitian immigrant, has her Coat of Arms full of pagan and foreign symbols, and a husband who was a former Quebec separatist. The 2008 Olympics uniform was an array of Chinese imagery and symbolism, and no-one made an ounce of protestation about the design, accepting it as a Canadian expression.
This is the national accommodations that Canadians have agreed upon.
How this got started is a whole other question. I believe it was with the premise of the country's foundation. But, I will leave that for another blog. For starters, here is a recent, excellent, biography of John A. MacDonald, and the birth of Canadian confederation, by Richard Gwyn.