Bomb Canada: The case for war

National Review, Nov 25, 2002 by Jonah Goldberg

It's quite possible that the greatest favor the United States could do for Canada is to declare war on it. No, this isn't a tribute to South Park, the TV cartoon that popularized a song -- "Blame Canada" -- calling for an outright invasion of our northern neighbor. A full-scale conquest is unnecessary; all Canada needs is to be slapped around a little bit, to be treated like a whining kid who's got to start acting like a man. We've done it more than once, and we've threatened it plenty of times. Thomas Jefferson told President Madison that conquering Canada would be "a mere matter of marching." Of course, that advice resulted in the burning of the White House in the War of 1812, but the U.S. still came out ahead. Why would a new war be necessary? The short answer is: to keep the Canadians from being conquered by the United States. In effect, it would be a war to keep Canada free. But first some background.

Five decades ago, historian Frank Underhill wrote that the Canadian is "the first anti-American, the model anti-American, the archetypal anti- American, the ideal anti-American as he exists in the mind of God." In a sense this isn't really true. Philosophically and politically, the New Soviet Man was a superior anti-American: He not only hated America but had a blueprint for its replacement. After all, the perfect anti- American must be pro-something else; he must offer a viable alternative to that which he detests.

Canadian anti-Americanism does none of this. It is anti-American by reflex, which is to say that when America goes about its business, Canada flinches and calls this tic "the Canadian way." It was ever thus: The very formation of the Canadian state was, quite literally, a flinch in response to America's muscle-flexing. Canada's 1867 confederation, according to most historians, was the direct result of Canada's not-unfounded fears that the battle-hardened Union Army would turn its sights on Canada the way a still-peckish lion lazily turns on a fat gazelle. The Canadian Mounties, perhaps the most enduring symbol of Canadian pride and rectitude, were created to restrain the tomfoolery of American whiskey traders. They chose their red tunics solely to distinguish themselves from the Union blues of the American cavalry. It may even have been Americans who came up with the Mounties' famous motto, "They always get their man."

Virtually all of Canada's public policies were born out of a studied contrariness to U.S. policies, real or perceived. Canada's disastrous health-care system survives because of three things: vast sums of (poorly spent) money, the limitless patience of Canadian citizens who are regularly willing to wait between four and eight months for necessary surgeries, and the widespread fear that any reform might constitute "Americanization." There's every reason to believe that Canadians would embrace at least a few market reforms -- which might, for example, reduce the wait for an MRI from a national median of 12.4 weeks -- if only it didn't seem like capitulation to "American-style" health care. But Canada won't even legalize private health insurance as long as this is perceived as Americanization. It is a matter of national pride to have a "different" -- i.e., worse-but-more- egalitarian -- health-care system than they do south of the border (I mean south of our border: Canada has fewer MRI machines per capita than Latin America).

The accusation of wanting to "Americanize" healthcare is a Medusa's head any politician can use to petrify opponents. Mike Harris, the premier of Ontario, declared in a 2001 TV interview: "If we're going to have a universal system . . . we should not be afraid to say, 'Can the private sector run this hospital better? Can they provide this service better? If they can, why should we fear that?'" The reaction from editorialists and the health-care community was one of near-total condemnation -- including the charge of "Americanization."

At a conference sponsored by the Fraser Institute, a free-market- oriented Canadian think tank, I listened to a speech by Preston Manning, a founder of the conservative New Alliance Party. I sat next to David Gratzer, a Canadian health-care expert and physician. "This guy is sort of the standard-bearer for free-market conservatives in Canada," Gratzer said, gesturing at Manning, "and he's to the left of Sweden."

Gratzer was serious. Over the last ten years, Sweden has introduced a host of fee-for-service reforms, and the government now permits private health insurance. These moves have reduced waiting periods for equipment and surgeries, by 50 percent in some cases. Canada is the only industrialized democracy in the world that flatly prohibits private insurance of any kind. One wonders why they don't just call it Swedenization and get to work.

Indeed, in the last election Prime Minister Jean Chretien campaigned on a promise to shut down private MRI clinics that had sprouted up to meet demand. Chretien argued that such clinics undermine the ideal of universal health care; not a single major party objected. The result was predictable: Hospital parking lots in Michigan are full of Canadian license plates. And in Saskatchewan -- the province where Canadian socialized medicine was born -- the phone book displays an ad for a clinic in North Dakota. It reads: "Need Health Care Now?"