UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
by George Jonas
National Post
October 14, 2005

There's more to the story, but to
tell it in shorthand, 40 years ago
Canada's then-prime minister
called on three public-affairs
intellectuals to participate in the country's public affairs. Until then,
Jean
Marchand, 47, Gerard Pelletier, 46, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 46, had
been in the
wings. In 1965, Lester B. Pearson invited them to centre stage. The trio of
observers, activists and commentators became players.

Pearson's decision to install the "three wise men" (as they came to be
known in
English Canada; French Canadians referred to them as les trois colombes, or
the
three doves) was to have profound consequences for the country's political
ethos.
Whether they were the consequences Pearson foresaw and intended is harder
to
say.

The three French-Canadians were federalists. Pearson no doubt recruited
them at
least partly for this reason, for he aimed to defeat Quebec separatism. The
three
were also socialists, not by formal ties as much as by inclination. Cite
Libre, the
journal Trudeau had helped to found, was essentially a socialist
periodical. The
Catholic Workers Confederation of Canada, which Marchand had led during the
Asbestos Strike in Quebec, was less Catholic than syndicalist. While
Pearson was
undoubtedly aware of this, I wouldn't propose that he invited the three
wise men
aiming to change Canada from a liberal to a social democracy. I'd argue,
though,
that this turned out to be the result.

Inviting the three wise men ushered in the Trudeau-era. Though looking like
"a fish
out of water" in the beginning -- as a journalist described him during the
leadership
campaign of 1968 -- Trudeau soon made the transition from intellectual to
politician, becoming the most charismatic public figure of his period, not
only in
Canada but possibly in the world. His rule lasted for 15 years; his
influence on the
country's political culture has lasted to this day.

During the Trudeau years, the first domestic argument in Canada was between
free
enterprise and the interventionist economy, and the second between the
unitary
and the devolutionary state. Internationally, the main argument was between
liberal
democracy and totalitarianism.

It's safe to say that in the first and the third of these arguments,
Trudeau took the
wrong side. The jury is still out on the second one.

Some would argue that Trudeau didn't take the wrong side between liberal
democracy and totalitarianism, only the middle ground. This is silly. One
cannot
take the middle ground between life and death.

Having a soft spot for a Mao or a Castro, as Trudeau did, exceeds ordinary
political
latitudes. There's a material difference between alternate ways of looking
at the
world and apologizing for mass murder. If Trudeau had a similar weakness
for
Nazi-type regimes and rulers, it would have made him a pariah, and rightly
so.

The wise men's economic ideas turned out to be a quasi-Keynesian,
quasi-Marxist
muddle. Trudeau embraced wage and price controls, deficit financing,
confiscatory
taxation, intrusive social engineering and the National Energy Policy. The
last, apart
from the harm it did to individuals, created a sense of alienation in
Western Canada
second only to the separatist sentiment in Quebec.

Les Trois Colombes offered French Canadians the vision of a bilingual,
bicultural
country in exchange for giving up the dream of an independent Quebec. Their
unarticulated but unmistakable suggestion to the francophone elite was that
being
a big fish in a small pond was a foolish ambition. Why should francophones
be
satisfied with ruling Quebec, they intimated, when they could be masters in
their
own house -- which was the whole of Canada?

If Canada was to be a bilingual country with most power concentrated in
Ottawa's
federal government, in the nature of things it would be francophones who
would
end up occupying most positions of authority in it. The inclination is
always
stronger for minorities to learn the language of a majority. Anglos weren't
going to
be bilingual in significant numbers. Francophones would be, and so rule the
land.
This part of the three wise men's vision was addressed to the mandarinate
in
Quebec, actual or aspiring; francophone civil servants, chattering classes
and
company executives grooming their sons and daughters to be the bureaucrats,
politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs and administrators of the next
generation.

As a counterweight to Quebec's special status in Confederation, the three
wise men
advanced multiculturalism. According to this notion, all inhabitants of
Canada from
any part of the world could retain -- forever, if they wished -- their
separate
identities and traditions. The whole mosaic would be Canadian, while the
constituent bits in it could remain as distinct as they have ever been. But
none, not
even the Quebecois, would be more distinct than any of the others. Trudeau
& Co.
cleverly proposed to abolish special status by offering special status to
all.

How did it turn out?

The social models the three wise men promoted, admired or apologized for
never
fulfilled their promise. Communism imploded. Free enterprise outperformed
the
command economy. Bilingualism didn't do the trick. Non-traditional
immigration
and multiculturalism may have changed the face of Canada, but did little to
either
unify or imbue it with a new sense of identity. Today Canada is as much a
nation of
"two solitudes" as it was in 1945 when Hugh MacLennan coined the term.

If anything, Canadian society became more fragmented than it was before the
Trudeau era. Some of the concepts that contributed to Canada's splintering
into
hostile, self-seeking xenoliths were inspired by the three wise men's
ideas, and
some evolved as reactions to them, but in either case the result was the
same.
Multiculturalism, Western alienation, interest group-politics, the gender
wars and
aboriginal separatism only created an increasing number of solitudes.

The legacy of the three wise men isn't less significant for being ironic.
Separatism
hasn't been defeated as a political idea in Canada. On the contrary, it has
spread
from Quebec to points west. It's liberalism that has been defeated. By now,
it's
been replaced by a culture of statism within the ruling Liberal party.
Ideas have
consequences, though not necessarily the ones intended.

© National Post 2005

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