THE TRUTH ABOUT CANADA
By Mel Hurtig
Nobody knows the exact origin of the expression about "lies, damn lies,
and statistics," but its longevity speaks to our suspicion of the way
numbers can be spun and data massaged to support virtually any side of an
argument. Nevertheless, for Mel Hurtig it is statistics that reveal the
essential truth about Canada. His new book is full of numbers, so many of them
that he occasionally doesn't know how to fit them all in, and making some
chapters nearly unreadable. Which unfortunately makes it easy to lose sight of
what he's saying about Canada's decline.
Relative decline, because one of Hurtig's favourite approaches is to show how
Canada stacks up against other countries around the world in various categories.
So, for example, in a UN list of 179 countries our voter turnout rate came in at
109th. Our rank in reducing pollution is 126th out of 146. Or wrap your head
around this: Canada has the lowest percentage of adults in the OECD smoking
tobacco daily, but the highest percentage of people in the industrialized world
using marijuana on a regular basis.
Such international comparisons are interesting, but also wide open to
interpretation. The general theme that stands out is that Europe is good (at the
top of most rankings) and the U.S. is bad (near the bottom). And Canada is
becoming more and more like the U.S. So the Free Trade Agreement, the "most
colossal con job in Canadian history" and long a bête noire of
Hurtig's, comes in for more criticism here, and there is even reporting on a
top-level "covert, under-the-table" plan to further integrate Canada
into the United States "by secrecy and stealth." You may not have
heard of these continentalist/integrationist plans, but that doesn't surprise
Hurtig. The media has shown little interest in the story.
This is a point that Hurtig underscores. Canadians don't want to move closer
to "American standards and values," but that is what is happening
anyway. There is a growing gulf between the policies of our leaders and the
country we want to live in. One reason he gives for this is Canada's
corporate-conservative media. But this is not really convincing, especially
given all of the commentary Hurtig quotes, approvingly, from the pages of
newspapers like the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. Even plans to
integrate Canada more fully into a continental system are hardly secret. There
has been public debate over a common currency, for example, for years. The truth
is out there, and it hasn't been concealed.
The real problem with The Truth About Canada, however, is the sheer
weight of numbers. Whole pages are blanketed in the recitation of statistics,
not all of which are clear in their meaning. And the repetitive, dulling effect
is heightened by Hurtig's habit of coupling the numbers with adjectives like
"alarming," "appalling," "absurd,"
"astonishing," and "amazing" -- just to give you some of the
a's. In the face of so much that is "appalling" (to take his favourite),
one ceases to be appalled. Such words start to seem like they've been dropped in
automatically, and lose significance. Take a statement like the following:
"Remarkably, almost 40 percent of those who didn't vote in recent elections
said that the elections didn't matter, or that they felt they had no one to vote
for." What is remarkable about this? Wouldn't it make sense that people who
don't vote either think elections don't matter or feel they have no one to vote
for?
Even readers sympathetic to Hurtig's positions, and he is a good nationalist
in this reviewer's opinion, will find themselves wishing more of this book had
been written as opposed to simply compiled. The numbers and rankings and
statistics are there, but they aren't given a full enough context. All of the
information makes it a useful resource but not much more.
Notes:
Review first published May 17, 2008.
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