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This weekend's march in Washington was one of the most exhilarating things I have ever watched. Finally, a people that won't let its country run away from its principles. Americans refuse to behave like the suicidal Europeans, and the passive Canadians. And they should be an example to all.
Meanwhile, here in Canada, universal health care was snuck up on the people. Actually, the doctors put up a fight initially, but ultimately the people's psyche wasn't able to overcome this socialist intrusion. Some say that the cold winters and huge landscape require a particular type of cooperation amongst people, which set the stage for government interventions to enforce this cooperation. But, rugged individualism is not thwarted by the weather, or the sparseness or breadth of the landscape. I think it is something more fundamental, some inability to grow up, something in the psyche that is still clinging on to bigger authority, that induces one socialist scheme after another in Canada. After all, Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth.
I cannot ever see such a popular movement coming out of Canada as the one we saw (barely - news coverage here was at a minimum) in Washington this weekend. Canadians are partly too self-conscious to go out on such a march. But, they also inherently believe in the system, however much they may talk about changing it. It has become a kind of addiction - like any welfare system. That, and fear of the unknown (how will we pay the bills?) keeps Universal Health Care a bastion of Canadian identity.
Still, some are hopeful that with bursts of private systems here and there, this behemoth will slowly be eroded. But, I wouldn’t count on it. The Conservative Party, the party most likely to turn things around (somewhat), is forced by popular demand to abandon many conservative principles, and is slowly becoming a centrist government. I don’t think Canada even has a right-oriented party anymore. And unless some outrageous incident provokes the anger of ordinary Canadians (it has happened before!), such a turnaround is but a dream.
So, universal health care, with its constant horror stories, is here to stay. And huge marches, demanding that big government remove itself from people's decisions, will never happen.
