From: kspeicht@kilcom1.ucis.dal.ca (Kevin F. Speichts)
Subject: Re: "Canada is like a dull party"
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 18:37:52 GMT

In article <5038@disuns2.epfl.ch> riese@litsun.epfl.ch (Marc Riese) writes:
>From: riese@litsun.epfl.ch (Marc Riese)
>Subject: "Canada is like a dull party"
>Date: 5 Nov 92 12:38:51 GMT


>"Glug glug", le son que fait un bateau qui coule, est le titre d'un 
>article sur le Canada dans l'edition de "The Economist" du 31 octobre.

>"The bog in which [Canada] now comes to rest is deeper and
>stickier even than the one from which it started, and it is not clear
>that there is a way out. Canada may well be mired for years. 
>[...]
>The disaffection is nationwide, and any attempt to reduce it in one
>place is certain to increase it elsewhere. 
>[...]
>Quebec could well vote to pull out by 1995.
>[...]
>Westerners might calculate that they would be better off joining the
>United States - at which point Ontarians might reckon that their
>economy is so closely tied to America's that, well, they might as well
>join too. This is the boring party theory of break-up:
>Canada is like a dull party which the guests are too polite to leave;
>but, once the first person makes a move to go, the others each claim
>a pressing engagement and head for the door.
>[...]
>For many, not being an American is central to being a Canadian.
>Yet that could change. If asked to describe in more positive terms
>what Canada stands for, Canadians will often cite their health-care
>system, their broadcasting service (CBC), Canada's compassionate
>attitude to the old, the poor, the unemployed. Tellingly, all these
>marks of Canadianism depend crucially on government. Yet on Monday
>[October 26th] Canadians delivered a savage rebuke to those they have
>elected to run their governments, all of whom had recommended the
>Charlottetown agreement. Now wonder: it is becoming even plainer that
>Canada owes much of its mess, both economics and political, to excessive
>government. Province is at war with province, and often with the centre, too.
>California, with a bigger population, has but a tenth of the number
>of cabinet members.
>[...]
>Meanwhile, all Canadians can pay attention to things they have been
>neglecting, especially the question of how to live with deindustrialisation -
>the loss of more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs in less than four years.
>[...]
>In their current morass, with the eventual break-up of the country looking
>more probable than ever, Quebeckers are likely to see more jobs,
>people and investment go elsewhere; and other Canadians are likely to 
>go on watching their young drift south and their economy suffer from
>paludinous uncertainty. This week's No will have echoes for years."


>Marc Riese
>Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
>Suisse


	This brings to mind the Kids In The Hall skit ...
	titled "I Hate the Swiss" :)   Did anyone else see this it was great.

	I'd tell this guy to go jump in an ocean .. but they don't have 
	any. :)

	

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 Kevin Speichts                                   KSPEICHT@KILCOM1.UCIS.DAL.CA
 NSTN Operations Centre, Communications Services           Tel: (902) 494-2833
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