Criticism of Canadian Nationalism
Critics often point out that there is a marked difference between "Canadian nationalism," and Canadian patriotism, and that nationalistic organizations such as the Council of Canadians are biased or excessively critical of right-wing and centrist politicians and parties who support varying degrees of integration with the United States. In particular, the Council of Canadians routinely characterizes Canadian "neoconservatives" as being the individuals most responsible for destroying Canadian sovereignty. Conservative critics will thus often characterize modern Canadian nationalism as being a primarily leftist movement, allied too heavily with the Canadian labour movement.
There is also a political faction on the Left critical of what they call "left nationalism", arguing that it is a mistake to combine left politics with nationalism. Political currents which oppose left nationalism include the International Socialists, the New Socialist Group, Socialist Action and Socialist Voice. However these organizations are marginal in terms of membership when compared to Canadian organizations of the Left that choose to embrace nationalism (such as the Council of Canadians and Canadian Labour Congress). Marxist theoreticians who have written critiques of left nationalism include William Carroll, David McNally, Steve Moore and Debi Wells. In 2003, the debate took written form in the pages of Canadian Dimension and on a web-based publication ViveleCanada.ca.
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“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—John Rhodes Sturdy, Canadian screenwriter. Richard Rossen. Joyce Cartwright (Ella Raines)
“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.”
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986)