Welcome.
Today’s podcast is on Covid, Chaos and Culture.
For most of their shared history,
Canada has been thought of as a more law-abiding
and less individualistic society than the United States.
Canadians were, it was widely believed,
more inclined to accept and even welcome state authority
and the limits on personal choice that this entailed.
The sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset,
one of the most astute observers of Canada-US cultural differences,
argued that the lower levels of crime and violence in Canada
could be traced in part to the greater strength of collectivist and statist values,
captured in the Canadian constitution’s well known reference
to “Peace, Order, and good Government.”
The American spirit and national ethos, on the other hand,
emerged in the cauldron of revolution against injustices
perpetrated by the British colonial state against the American colonists,
leaving a legacy of mistrust of state power and an emphasis on individual freedom
…well, individual freedom for some.
By the 1980s and the 1990s,
what had been thought to be an important difference between the political cultures
of Canada and the United States came increasingly to be questioned.
In his excellent 1996 book, The Decline of Deference,
political scientist Neil Nevitte relied mainly on survey research data
to show that the image of a Canadian society
in which social order and stability took precedence over individual freedom,
and where citizens were more likely than in the United States
to quietly accept the decisions of those in positions of authority,
was no longer accurate.
Indeed, the Canada that Nevitte described in his book
was one in which Canadians appeared to be no more deferential
to authority than Americans,
and where Canadians were as likely to protest governmental decisions
with which they disagreed as were citizens
in almost all of the 12 western democracies that he examined.
Nevitte’s conclusions seemed to be confirmed by the rights culture
that quickly took hold in Canada
after the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became part of Canada’s constitution.
Challenges to federal and provincial laws under the Charter became commonplace,
and Canadians very soon came to think of themselves
as the possessors of constitutional rights that were guaranteed
against government interference and limitation, save in exceptional circumstances.
What had long been thought of as an important cultural and behavioral difference
between Canadians and Americans seemed to have diminished in significance,
or even disappeared.
But perhaps the older view of more assertive-individualistic Americans
versus deferential-collectivist Canadians is right after all.
This, at least, is the conclusion that one might draw from the respective experiences
of Canada and the United States during the Covid pandemic,
and from the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Let’s start with covid.
One of the most striking images from the early months of the pandemic
showed the American ship “The Maid of the Mist”
and the Canadian ship “The Hornblower”
passing each other near the base of Niagara Falls.
The American ship was bursting with passengers;
the Canadian ship carried only a handful.
A year later, after trailing the United States in its vaccination rate,
Canada surpassed its southern neighbor by a significant margin.
The head of the Center for Disease Control in the United States,
Dr. Anthony Fauci, was asked about this.
His explanation was, and I quote, “it’s because of ideology and political persuasion.”
By this he meant that whereas Canadian conservative spokespersons
encouraged citizens to be fully vaccinated,
their counterparts in the United States tended to range
from those who were skeptical of the efficacy of vaccines
or the reality of Covid virus, or both,
to the outright anti-vaxxers who saw in public health measures
a conspiracy to deprive citizens of their freedom
and extend state control over society.
The scale and opposition to public health measures intended
to control the spread of the virus,
opposition that was sometimes menacing and even violent,
as when gun-toting opponents to Michigan’s lockdown regulations
entered the state legislature
to register their unhappiness with their governor’s emergency measures,
simply had no counterparts in Canada.
Some American state legislatures have passed laws
banning vaccination requirements,
and some prohibited school districts from requiring that students wear masks.
These differences between Canada and the United States
are also reflected in public opinion.
Polls taken in the two countries in the summer of 2021
showed that Canadians were more likely than Americans
to support the idea of mandatory vaccination.
On non-identically worded questions, 74 percent of Canadians were supportive,
compared to 64 percent of Americans.
Another survey found that 27 percent of Americans
said that they either did not plan to get vaccinated
or were unsure whether they would,
compared to only 12 percent of Canadians who gave these responses.
Shifting now from Covid to chaos,
most of you will remember
and indeed will have seen images of what happened in Washington, DC
on January 6, 2021.
The estimated 30,000 demonstrators who gathered that morning across
from the White House were there because on this day members
of the House of Representatives and the Senate were scheduled
to confirm the results of the 2020 presidential election, won by Joe Biden.
The demonstrators were encouraged by President Donald Trump
to march on the Capitol.
And march they did.
Some went no further than the barricades that had been erected.
But an angry mob of several hundred persons stormed Capitol Hill,
the seat of the United States Congress.
They crossed the hopelessly inadequate barricades, scaled walls,
smashed windows and doors,
and fought with those whose job it was to guard the Capitol.
Some of the demonstrators were armed.
The mob occupied the building for several hours,
vandalizing offices and causing mayhem.
During this time some members of Congress sheltered under their desks and others,
including the vice-president,
escaped to safety through the labyrinth of tunnels
connecting the buildings on Capitol Hill.
By the time the rioters left, five persons had been killed
or would subsequently die of wounds suffered during an unprecedented mêlée.
Most of those who gathered on this day very likely were there
with only the intent of expressing what they believed to be the illegitimacy
of the 2020 election result.
Some certainly believed, encouraged by President Trump,
that their presence might influence the deliberations going on in Congress that day.
Others, no doubt a minority,
went with violent and what can only be described as insurrectionist intent.
Most Americans were appalled at what happened that day.
But a poll taken several months after the event
found that about one-third of Americans believed that “legitimate protest”
was a fair description of what happened that day,
and almost half of Republican Party identifiers agreed
that this was an apt characterization
(by the way, only 13 percent of Democrats Party identifiers agreed).
Now, whatever label one choses to give to what happened
on January 6th, 2021—insurrection, riot, legitimate protest,
or something else—there is little doubt that both the event
and the fact that not only was it not universally condemned,
many prominent Republicans and much of the conservative media
in the United States actually expressed sympathy for the motivations,
if not the actions, of the violent mob.
Despite the fact that there was some ideological drivel
from Canadian commentators who argued that something like January 6, 2021
could happen in Canada, this is in fact highly improbable.
The level of political polarization and the mistrust of government and the media
are considerably lower in Canada,
and the values and beliefs that can nurture mob violence against the constitution
and the states are much less prevalent in Canada than in the United States.
Let’s have a look at some numbers,
all of which come from the latest round of the World Values Survey.
First, in answer to the question,
“How democratically is this country being governed,”
42 percent of Canadians give a score of 8-10 on a 10-point scale,
compared to just under 28 percent of Americans.
That’s 42 versus 28.
Asked how satisfied they are
with how the political system is functioning these days,
about 36 percent of Canadians gave a score of 8-10, on that same 10-point scale,
compared to only about 12 percent of Americans.
That’s 36 percent versus 12 percent.
Asked about their confidence in the government,
46 percent of Canadians said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence,
compared to about 34 percent of Americans.
46 percent of Canadians versus 33 percent of Americans.
And on the question of social trust,
about 47 percent of Canadians agreed that most people can be trusted,
versus 30 percent of Americans who agreed with this statement.
Finally, remember that old belief that Canadians are more likely than Americans
to value social order over personal freedom?
Well, it turns out that it remains true.
Asked whether, “if you had to choose between freedom and security,
which one would you consider more important?”
About 51 percent of Canadians chose security
compared to only about 28 percent of Americans who chose security over freedom.
Or to put it differently, about 70 percent of Americans,
just under 70 percent of Americans, opted for freedom over security,
versus about 49 percent of Canadians who opted for freedom over security.
And Americans are also much more likely than Canadians
to believe that they have completely free choice and control over their lives.
On a 10-point scale where 10 indicates the highest level of personal control,
about 4 out of 10 Americans give themselves a score of 9 or 10,
compared to only one-quarter of Canadians who give themselves a score of 9 or 10.
So, covid and chaos:
it seems that recent history confirms
some important cultural differences between Canada and the United States.
What do you think?