Canadian-American relations have long been a source of tension between the two countries, especially in the early 19th century. After the collapse of the Hudson's Bay Company and the founding of the CPR, relations between Canada and the United States were at an all-time low. By the mid-1860s, however, relations were beginning to improve.
00:06:34.120Certainly, goodwill was now in fashion.
00:06:37.140After all these years, my dear, Grant re-elected.
00:06:47.140Well, Miss Canada, he's not such a bad chap, despite the cigars, there was a reminder of basic Canadian-American interdependence when President Grant journeyed in 1871 to meet the Canadian Governor-General and open a railroad which linked Halifax and St. John to Montreal via Portland, Maine.
00:07:12.140Late in 1871, a terrible American disaster occurred, the Chicago Fire.
00:07:42.120The New Utah, who went in the U. and he was in the New Yorker.
00:08:12.100were hardly cheered by Anglo-American reconciliation,
00:08:15.100which left them wondering whether the troubled waters
00:08:18.100of Irish politics were still worth fishing in.
00:09:57.100paternal but friendly relations generally prevailed.
00:10:00.100Gifts and annuities sought to carry on the tradition of the Hudson's Bay Company,
00:10:04.100which had valued the Indian way of life.
00:10:06.100After lengthy debate, the Indian chiefs agreed to give up general title to the land,
00:10:21.100in return for specific reserved areas.
00:10:23.100The Indians of the prairies had little enough reason to like any authority which replaced that of the Hudson's Bay Company.
00:10:32.100Unlike the company, any such authority was bound to be chiefly concerned with settlement.
00:10:38.100Nonetheless, government paternalism, which at least seemed intent on maintaining some place for the Indian way of life,
00:10:47.100was preferable to hopeless conflict with oncoming settlement.
00:10:51.100So the peopling of the Canadian West could now proceed peacefully.
00:10:56.100Canadians can take pride in the relative absence in their West of the bloodshed that marred the American frontier.
00:11:05.100But in making comparisons, they should remember the very different pace of development in the two Wests.
00:11:11.100There were American treaties, too, with good intentions.
00:11:15.100But the sheer speed of the American advance often frustrated the best-made treaties.
00:11:20.100Anglo-American reconciliation, Fenian decline, the securing of the West, all these events did reduce certain Canadian-American irritations.
00:11:33.100But what about that bogey annexationism, the desire to join the United States?
00:11:39.100The ambiguity and the feelings of many Canadians towards the American eagle had been cleared up a bit by recent American attitudes.
00:11:52.100Since the Civil War, Uncle Sam, many Canadians felt, had been riding a high horse indeed.
00:11:59.100His arrogance showed clearly in the inflation of war damage claims against Britain.
00:12:05.100Sam was a slick one, they felt, out to get the suckers.
00:12:21.100In fighting annexationism, MacDonald had an ally in French nationalism, which saw it as a deadly trap.
00:12:27.100The cutting of Catholic ties with Rome, advocated by much American opinion, was anathema to the French-Canadian clergy.
00:12:38.100Pastoral letters were read in Quebec churches, warning against the annexationist movement, which would lead to the certain destruction of French nationality.
00:12:49.100In the maritime provinces of the Dominion, there had been a change in the outlook of politicians.
00:12:58.100Commissioners were now being appointed to press claims on the new Canada.
00:13:02.100For Confederation was clearly here to stay, and Ottawa, not London or Washington, was the place to negotiate with.
00:13:11.100Better terms was the slogan, and federal leaders were left in little doubt that the cure for lurking annexationism was money.
00:13:23.100Halifax, the great Nova Scotia's seaport and commercial centre, already had rail connection with Montreal.
00:13:32.100But it was via the European and North American Railroad, which ran through St. John, New Brunswick, and continued on American soil through Maine.
00:13:50.100Completion of a railroad between Halifax and Quebec had been promised with Confederation, and now it was pushed ahead.
00:13:58.100Political unity, not profit, was clearly the motive, for it took a roundabout route as far from the United States as possible.
00:14:05.100Maritime fishermen had not relished the sight of the American Secretary of State proudly displaying his prize catch at the Treaty of Washington, their fish.
00:14:20.100On the fishery's seesaw, they felt on the wrong end of the deal, even though an effort had been made to balance things up with free entry of Canadian fish into the United States.
00:14:32.100But Uncle Sam, too, felt he was being robbed, when arbitrators at Geneva finally awarded Canada five and a half million dollars in compensation for her fisheries.
00:14:47.100The balancing act between the two nations' fisheries wasn't easy.
00:14:54.100The history of Canada's relations with the United States falls into three periods, a period of war, a period of near war and fear of war, and a period of peaceful relations.
00:15:09.100Just as the year 1818 was the dividing line between the periods of war and Cold War, so the year 1871 marked the watershed between Cold War and normal relations.
00:15:23.100It was the year of Anglo-American reconciliation, of Fenian decline, and the year when Canada reached the Pacific.
00:15:30.100It was also the year when annexationism faded.
00:15:34.100American high-handedness had helped this decline.
00:15:38.100When Americans were bellicose over the Alabama damage claims against Britain and silent about Canada's Fenian damage claims against the United States, even pro-Americans were angry.
00:15:48.100But the main reason for annexationism's decline was the easing of the commercial depression, which had followed the loss of reciprocity.
00:15:57.100An American historian has said that the annexationist movement in Canada was a response not to the Liberty Bell, but to the cash register.
00:16:06.100It wilted, therefore, in the warm rays of reviving prosperity.
00:16:10.100A lessening of regional grievances also helped.
00:16:12.100British Columbia and the Maritimes now had solid prospects for railways, and the free entry of Canadian fish into the United States did help Nova Scotia.
00:16:24.100It was just as well that annexationism was an eclipse.
00:16:28.100It had tended to foster illusions among American expansionists who were apt to mistake it for a grassroots rather than a businessman's movement.
00:16:37.100If any such movement ever did encourage American interference, Canada would now face it alone.
00:16:45.100Canada and Britain had long differed on the size of their respective roles in the defense of Canada.
00:16:51.100Canada had felt that hostility toward her in the United States arose largely from British policies,
00:16:58.100and that her defense was, therefore, largely a British responsibility.
00:17:01.100But now, Anglo-American reconciliation had opened a new era.
00:17:12.100Prospects for the future on this first new year after the Treaty of Washington did seem to Britain more pleasing.
00:17:19.100But from Canada's vantage point, the view was rather different.
00:17:27.100John Bull could now worry about Europe and India, and leave the worrying in North America to little Johnny Canuck.
00:17:34.100Through the streets of Quebec, the remnants of the Imperial military presence had been rumbling to the salvage dumps for disposal.
00:17:45.100The debris was considerable, for there had been thousands of British regulars in Canada.
00:17:51.100Now that the prospects for peace were better, Canada was not particularly keen to spend much on defense.
00:18:05.100So Canada's armed forces remained on a modest scale, and depended heavily on volunteer and militia organizations.
00:18:12.100There were very few regular troops at first, chiefly two artillery regiments.
00:18:23.100The guardians of the border were far fewer in number now.
00:18:27.100And the modernization of defense works like the American Fort Montgomery on Lake Champlain,
00:18:32.100and new Canadian forts near Quebec, was stopped.
00:18:34.100After 1871, the forts rapidly became obsolete.
00:18:41.100An agreeable somnolence now hung over them, as they sank to the status of historical monuments.
00:18:52.100But at Halifax in Nova Scotia, and Esquimalt in British Columbia, Britain did retain naval bases,
00:18:58.100which aided the operations of the world's largest navy.
00:19:07.100Canadians knew that this mighty power off their coasts discouraged any nation from trifling with a British ally.
00:19:13.100A confident Miss Canada, clad in all the trappings of national independence, was in vogue in 1872.
00:19:34.100But skeptics had a perhaps more accurate picture.
00:19:40.100The youngster's first independent steps could easily lead him into the waiting arms of an interested uncle.
00:19:47.100Loyalists felt that the troublesome colonial children still needed a political guardian,
00:19:55.100and that Mother Britannia should be less absorbed in her military affairs, and more devoted to her charges.
00:20:01.100The ladder of colonial development, they complained, which John Bull had climbed to imperial greatness,
00:20:09.100was now being thrust aside by anti-imperialists like Gladstone.
00:20:16.100Liberal England was chiefly interested in wooing America, and knew that the anti-imperial tune pleased her.
00:20:23.100The imperialists of Canada felt that the notion of independence was premature, and that cutting all ties with Britain was dangerous.
00:20:35.100Independence was a perilous venture, and Canada would drift into the Union unless imperialists stopped it.
00:20:41.100So when Lord Dufferin, the new Governor General arrived in 1872, many Canadians saw him as the symbol of a still vital connection.
00:20:53.100It was the security derived from being part of a mighty empire that made many Canadians so eager to keep the old flag flying.
00:21:03.100Shall we break the plight of youth, and pledge us to an alien love?
00:21:15.100No, we'll hold our faith and truths, trusting in the God above.
00:21:21.100Stand, Canadians, for me stand, round the flag of Fatherland.
00:21:37.100That song, incidentally, was called Empire First, a Canadian marching song.
00:21:50.100The fervid imperial sentiment which English Canadians continued to display after ceasing to be a colony may seem puzzling.
00:21:58.100MacDonald himself, looking ahead in 1872, foresaw Canada as the right arm of Britain and a powerful auxiliary for the empire.
00:22:10.100Yet the same MacDonald thought the notion that Canadians should take orders from Englishmen simply ridiculous.
00:22:18.100But at the same time, he called the idea that Canadians were ready for independence simply nonsense.
00:22:24.100The contradiction is less baffling if we remember how conscious, responsible Canadians were of their weakness and isolation in North America.
00:22:37.100The United States was very powerful, and Canadians were uneasy.
00:22:42.100The desire to stop being a scapegoat for British sins against the US was reason enough to accept Britain's withdrawal from North America.
00:22:50.100But the danger of American hostility to Canada on her own account was reason enough not to cut all ties.
00:22:59.100So Canada sought autonomy, not independence, within the larger framework of the British Empire.
00:23:08.100But there was a movement for full independence in Canada at this time, and its connection with annexationism was revealing.
00:23:17.100Professed annexationists had become distinctly less popular in Canada by 1872, so many of them joined the independence movement.
00:23:27.100They weren't necessarily being deceitful.
00:23:31.100They honestly did not believe that Canada could make it on its own, and that independence would simply be a first step toward union with the United States.
00:23:41.100So, with well-known annexationists praising independence and an American consul general sitting on the movement's inner council, the pro-British press denounced the whole idea as traitorous.
00:23:56.100The fact that advocates of annexationism and the advocates of independence could get mixed up so easily was ominous.
00:24:07.100It clearly revealed a considerable uncertainty about the whole idea of Canada.
00:24:12.100In the United States itself, the widespread belief that most Canadians were secret annexationists waiting for American action had receded, and many influential Americans also felt that Canada's problems guaranteed her entry into the Union anyway.
00:24:31.100Still, some were not above trying to help the process along.
00:24:36.100The Canadian youngster was still very much an object of interest to American expansionists, including Ulysses Grant.
00:24:49.100As a general, Grant had preferred the straightforward approach, but as president, his tactics for winning Canada had to be more roundabout.
00:24:58.100The key was reciprocity, and Uncle Sam was well aware that there was nothing the young nation wanted so badly.
00:25:10.100Well, little chap, if we don't give it to you, maybe you will be smart enough to know where you can find it, in your Uncle Sam's arms.
00:25:23.100A depressed Canada, said annexationists, would soon be forced by unemployment and misery to seek a better life by joining the Union.
00:25:36.100But hardship in Canada tended to have a different result.
00:25:41.100The teeming cities of the Union, already now a nation of 40 million strong, offered those willing to take a risk almost unlimited opportunities.
00:25:54.100And the immigration policies of the United States now made entry easier than ever.
00:26:01.100Canada might not join the Union, but an alarming number of Canadians did.
00:26:07.100From Chicago, the great Midwestern commercial hub, an ever-increasing torrent of wheat and other produce flowed eastward.
00:26:18.100The great Erie-Hudson water route was now reinforced by a complex and efficient network of fiercely competing railroads.
00:26:39.100This formidable transportation system was centered on New York, and helped funnel a preponderance of the Western trade through its magnificent port, which was always ice-free.
00:26:56.100Ice-clogged and dangerous by contrast, the St. Lawrence was unusable several months of the year, a crippling disadvantage for Montreal, New York's rival.
00:27:07.100In fact, any kind of movement at all during the winter months was quite an achievement for Canadians.
00:27:13.100Sometimes it was wiser just to stay home, a place which those who came to Canada saw a lot of during the long, cold winter months.
00:27:23.100Meanwhile, the American railroads were moving settlers across the upper Mississippi into the American prairies.
00:27:33.100The northern Pacific, undaunted by severe winter problems, pushed on to the west, not very far from the Canadian border.
00:27:43.100Soon, the rich American lands adjacent to Canada would be teeming with settlers.
00:27:53.100Canada's railroad builders faced far greater difficulties.
00:28:08.100Getting there wasn't always half the fun for Canadians.
00:28:15.100Over a thousand miles of rock and forest blocked access to the Canadian west.
00:28:30.100A thousand miles of prairie had to be crossed.
00:28:35.100A thousand miles of prairie had to be crossed.
00:28:38.100And then came the greatest obstacle of all.
00:28:41.100700 miles of towering mountains challenged McDonald's brash promise of a railroad to the Pacific coast.
00:28:54.100In the United States, a strong nationalism, a sense of national purpose was now dominant.
00:29:13.100The spokesman of national unity loved to dwell on the peace and harmony now prevailing.
00:29:23.100In contrast to the terrible strife of the war between the states.
00:29:34.100As America approached her second century, let the world note that the Union was again one and indivisible.
00:29:42.100The nation was supremely confident that it had confirmed the great heritage of the revolution and the national vision of the founding fathers.
00:29:55.100So when the new dominion appeared, it was not surprising that Columbia, so sure of herself, regarded the Canadian debutant with a certain disbelief.
00:30:10.100The clever portrayers of national character, who had done so well with Uncle Sam, had trouble comprehending the new nation.
00:30:22.100Their difficulty was understandable, for Canada was two nations in one, and one of them was French in character.
00:30:33.100Though somewhat outside the mainstream of North American life, French Canada was a lively and flourishing fact.
00:30:40.100A powerful clergy had led the successful fight for survival, and retained great influence.
00:30:47.100Indeed, religion had been a vehicle for a strong French-Canadian nationalism, which had helped the French fact hold its ground in Quebec.
00:30:57.100But many French Canadians were less sure how they would fare in the new dominion, sharing the country with the aggressive, business-minded Anglo-Saxon.
00:31:15.100Protestantism was powerful in Ontario, the other great Canadian province, and among its adherents, many were hostile to Catholicism and to Quebec.
00:31:24.100The British element, they felt, should dominate the future development of the dominion.
00:31:32.100What this concept of the dominion could do to the merry-go-round of Canadian politics was now clear.
00:31:39.100Already, the federal power had found the Riel affair, putting it at serious odds with Quebec.
00:31:45.100French leaders were deeply suspicious that the toppling of Riel in Manitoba showed that what the English leaders really wanted was an English dominion.
00:31:57.100If nation-building meant ignoring Canada's dual heritage, would the French support such a concept of confederation?
00:32:09.100It was clear that the brave new dominion from sea to sea had enough troubles to give annexationists on both sides of the border something to cling to.
00:32:23.100Canada's success as a nation was by no means certain.
00:32:26.100The two chief problems that loomed large and menacing before Canadians in that landmark year of 1872 were already the ones that most trouble Canadians today.
00:32:38.100Then, as now, the issue was whether Canada could achieve the two most audacious objectives of confederation,
00:32:44.100the creation of an American-sized nation without a homogeneous nationality and an American-style prosperity with national independence.
00:32:55.100Then, as now, failure could mean disintegration and absorption.
00:33:01.100In 1872, these problems were labeled Riel and reciprocity.
00:35:28.100Riel sensed that to survive, his people must be able to grow with the West in their own way.
00:35:35.100If French rights were secured, Quebec might also share in the development of the West, and his people would get support and reinforcement.
00:35:45.100In English Canada, patriots had been promoting a broader Dominion nationalism, or Canadianism, under the slogan, Canada First.
00:35:54.100But when faced with the French fact in the New Territories, the Canada Firsters quickly identified themselves with Ontario expansionism.
00:36:04.100It turned out that in their vision of the Dominion's future, expansion and colonization were peculiarly English tasks and privileges.
00:36:12.100There was no room in this vision for Riel, who was denounced as a rebel and obstructionist.
00:36:19.100When a general amnesty was denied and Riel fled, Canada Firsters boasted that they had robbed the French of their victory.
00:36:27.100But French nationalists in Quebec felt that Red River had been robbed of its natural leader.
00:36:36.100Never for a moment, they noted, had the Canada Firsters recognized the second nationality in Canada,
00:36:43.100or considered that Western development might be an act of partnership.
00:36:46.100Canadianism, they felt, was simply English imperialism in disguise, and Confederation, outside Quebec at any rate,
00:36:55.100looked all too like the American-style nation-building they had persistently rejected.
00:37:01.100The other great problem facing Canadians was whether an American-style prosperity could be sustained without a large reciprocal trade with the United States.
00:41:04.100The greatest supply of capital, the greatest industrial experience in the world, were available to Canada from her imperial partner, Great Britain.
00:41:20.100But the power of the British pound, like the rising power of the American dollar, must be made to serve Canadian development, not stifle it.
00:41:33.100A high protective tariff, Macdonald felt, must be applied even against cheap British goods, as well as paying Uncle Sam back in his own coin.
00:41:42.100Only if these gentlemen put up their factories in Canada, could they sell as they pleased in Canada.
00:41:50.100Macdonald was determined that, as much as possible, what Canadians bought in Canada should be made in Canada.
00:41:57.100Rapid industrialization, said Macdonald, must become the national policy of Canada.
00:42:09.100The tremendous West would play a vital role in the national policy for Canada.
00:42:22.100The new province of Manitoba must become the destination of immigrant farmers.
00:42:27.100Only when the West was properly peopled, would Canada have a great home market, like the United States.
00:42:42.100To succeed, this vast new Canada must be held together by railways.
00:42:47.100Only a transcontinental railway would enable Canada to pull away at last from her dangerous dependency on American communication.
00:43:04.100Canadian built and owned, the railway would give the St. Lawrence a hinterland.
00:43:09.100The commercial system of the St. Lawrence had existed since the earliest days.
00:43:18.100There had been endless hazards and disappointments, as it struggled to share the great trade of the American interior.
00:43:27.100But the struggle had never been abandoned, and against many odds, Montreal had become a great commercial center.
00:43:39.100Now, the great port would truly flourish.
00:43:52.100In transcontinental Canada, the dream of an empire of the St. Lawrence would be fulfilled at last.
00:43:59.100MacDonald was always at his best when promoting what came to be known as the national policy.
00:44:10.100He had to be, for there were plenty of skeptics.
00:44:13.100Some thought MacDonald's national economy simply one more version of the same alluring but unobtainable mirage
00:44:20.100which audacious Frenchmen, intrepid Norwesters, and canny Montreal merchants had pursued in vain.
00:44:28.100MacDonald replied that transcontinental Canada was different.
00:44:32.100For decades, the only frontier for Canadians had been the American.
00:44:36.100But now Canada controlled her own West.
00:44:40.100She had, at last, the same great complementary regions as the United States.
00:44:44.100The policies which were making America great, mass immigration, economic nationalism, industrialization, could now do the same for Canada.
00:44:55.100But MacDonald's critics said flatly that Canada was not the United States.
00:45:00.100MacDonald might have acquired some prairies, but two million square miles of pre-Cambrian rock made up two-thirds of his dominion and wedged apart its settled regions.
00:45:12.100MacDonald's dreams were pretentious and dangerous, for an imitation United States would contrast badly with the real thing,
00:45:22.100and the backlash of pro-American sentiment would destroy Canada.
00:45:27.100A less grandiose but surer approach to Canadian prosperity was to convert the Americans back to reciprocity.
00:45:34.100Publicly, MacDonald did not deny the desirability of reciprocity.
00:45:41.100But privately, he was convinced that reciprocity could mean the death of an independent Canada.
00:45:48.100The greatest danger for Canada was her growing dependence on the United States.
00:45:52.100For this put her at the mercy of American goodwill, as Congressional termination of reciprocity itself clearly showed.
00:46:01.100The partisans of close American connections now faced the choice of becoming perpetual beggars in Washington or annexationists.
00:46:09.100This argument is still going on today.
00:46:14.100MacDonald was a thoroughly unromantic patriot.
00:46:18.100He knew that his critics did not exaggerate the geographical odds against the Dominion.
00:46:22.100And he knew that no scarred wedge of pre-Cambrian rock separating the settled regions of Canada would be as hard to bridge as the terrible wasteland of misunderstanding between two proud nations who had once been enemies.
00:46:39.100Yet, MacDonald was supremely confident.
00:46:44.100He had not taken on such liabilities without considering the assets.
00:46:48.100For if the liabilities were great, he knew the assets were greater still.
00:46:53.100And much there was, after all, to work with in these lands and peoples, first brought together by a common rejection of the American Revolution,
00:47:05.100people whose peculiar character had been tough enough to resist the attractions of a powerful and seductive union.
00:47:12.100What incalculable possibilities might lie concealed in the future association of these lands, of these peoples?
00:51:20.100Miss Canada would be wise to stay for a while longer yet with her own family.
00:51:25.100So imperial ties continued to be honored in Canada.
00:51:29.100A nation which was no longer a colony.
00:51:32.100But which was eager to be known as part of a mighty empire.
00:51:36.100Canada's leaders were determined to look British, even if it killed them.
00:51:44.100Canada's leaders were determined to look British, even if it killed them.
00:51:49.880An observant visitor in the early 1870s might have had difficulty in sensing
00:52:16.620that Canada had just entered a new and happier period in her relations with the United States,
00:52:22.000or that, strictly speaking, the struggle for a border was over.
00:52:28.120In actual fact, anti-American feeling in Canada was probably at an all-time high.
00:52:33.820If the Treaty of Washington had any larger significance, it was lost on Canadians who
00:52:39.040merely felt cheated out of reciprocity. To most, it was just one more example of American high-handedness,
00:52:45.820like the Fenian raids, the Trent episode, and so many others, all the way back to the Continental
00:52:51.600Congress and its friendly invasion of Canada in 1775. A century of war, threat of war, and cold war
00:53:00.600had conditioned most ordinary Canadians to presume that America was immoral, aggressive,
00:53:07.060and expansionist, that her hostility was implacable, and her intentions annexationist.
00:53:13.320But was this drastic pessimism a fair assessment of American attitudes as a whole?
00:53:21.820The fact was that whatever individual Americans might advocate, American governments in their
00:53:27.760dealings with Canada had generally revealed a concept of their manifest destiny that was
00:53:33.460historically moral and realistic rather than adventurous and romantic. The populous American
00:53:40.380colonies did have a manifest destiny to advance westward across the mid-continent from their broad
00:53:46.560Atlantic base. Whoever got in the way of the process jeopardized the American future and
00:53:52.440invited war. New France blocked the path west, and there was war. British and Canadian lingering in the
00:53:59.860American path helped bring on the American Revolution, almost started war in 1794, and did help start one in
00:54:07.8401812. And in 1846, though, President Polk may have been bluffing when he claimed British Columbia.
00:54:14.500He was deadly serious about getting the mouth of the Columbia.
00:54:18.900But after the war of 1812, with the boundary confirmed and Western advance assured,
00:54:25.060Canada's unfriendly neighbor became less belligerent. Although she frequently terrified Canadians by
00:54:31.860seeming to indulge her aggressive spokesman of manifest destiny, the United States never allowed them to
00:54:38.800chart the national course. Aggressive republicanism was dangerously rife among the hunters' lodges
00:54:45.620who wanted to help Canadian republicans, and among the Fenians who wanted to rid North America of British
00:54:51.940monarchy. But making the continent safe for republicanism never became an official crusade, nor did manifest destiny.
00:55:01.300But bringing the whole continent within the magic circle of the Union sounded fine during elections and on the 4th of July.
00:55:13.280Economic ambitions, which made some American regions anxious to acquire adjacent Canadian regions, produced serious annexationists.
00:55:21.700But Midwestern desire for the St. Lawrence and New England's desire for the maritime fisheries were satisfied by reciprocity.
00:55:30.680And the expansionists who wanted to acquire the British Northwest could not persuade fellow Americans that their cause was a vital national interest.
00:55:40.620Secretary of State Fish would have liked to annex Canada, but only if Canadians wished it, which for a while he thought they did.
00:55:47.540But when he was convinced they did not, he dismissed the whole idea.
00:57:26.660Failure could still mean disintegration and absorption.
00:57:31.960Yet this was hardly the destiny for which three centuries of history had accumulated the marvelous heritage now spread out at last before Canadians.
00:57:41.260The monument to their past and the measure of their future.
00:57:45.900The great lands won and held in the long struggle for a border.
01:03:44.280You can see why, you know, at the beginning of this stream, I kind of said a lot of what they go into in this episode is really repetitive stuff from previous episodes.
01:03:53.760So I found it kind of hard to really pick out clips that were worth, you know, discussing in more detail in this one.
01:04:00.500Obviously, there's some stuff, you know, stabilizing what had already occurred, you know, in the previous episode, as well as, you know, kind of tying up loose ends.
01:04:14.080So it's more of a general episode, so it's more of a general episode, so I didn't really get into it.
01:04:19.760I started marking times and I started marking times and I was like, we already talked about this.
01:04:23.060I feel like I'm just going to be repeating myself.
01:04:24.540So I figured I'd just let it go and then, you know, I could engage with the chat for a bit here and we'll wrap up this series.
01:04:30.680But yeah, obviously, you know, general themes.
01:04:36.420I think that this series in particular would be very good for people to watch in the current political climate with what's going on with the United States and, you know, the growing calls of annexationism and separatism across Canada.
01:04:50.220I think that a lot of those people who are making those claims would learn a lot from watching these videos.
01:04:55.120And even if it doesn't change their mind, if they're still set on that, I think that it would probably be useful information for them in understanding the mindset of Canadians and why these movements typically fail.
01:05:09.220And so I'll just say it, you know, it doesn't I can almost guarantee you that every single person that's pushing for annexationism or separatism in Canada at this current moment has very little to no knowledge of any of the history
01:05:22.920that we reviewed in this stream. And that's to their detriment.
01:05:28.340It's not going to help them make these arguments better.
01:05:31.360It's not going to help them understand the psychology of Canadians and why the country is the way it is.
01:05:36.520It's not going to, you know, you know, it's not good to approach a problem realizing that you're arguing for the same things that previous people argued for and it didn't work.
01:05:46.540And the reasons that it didn't work, you know, then are the same reasons that it won't work now.
01:05:52.920But I don't know. I think, you know, part of the problem here is that if these these types of people had more of an understanding of their history,
01:06:01.000they probably wouldn't be so quick to jump into the annexationist camp or the separatist camp.
01:06:08.160Maybe they would. Maybe, you know, maybe I'm wrong.
01:06:10.540Maybe if they watch this series, it would just cement their belief that, you know, 100 and whatever, 150 or 200 years ago,
01:06:19.260there was a huge mistake and Canada should have joined the union, you know, but
01:06:23.640I don't think they really understand the arguments that they're making.
01:08:38.880And they will, you know, gain some momentum and it will probably become more sophisticated as a movement.
01:08:46.820Um, the problem is that, well, first of all, they don't have the pure numbers.
01:08:52.820So even amongst the people that are pro Alberta independence, I would estimate that they're somewhere between 25 and 40 percent of the population.
01:09:02.400I don't know what the latest polling numbers say, but something like that, which is not even close to being enough to actually push for a legitimate independence from Canada.
01:09:13.700So I just don't I don't see it happening.
01:09:17.140And this is what's going to be proven in the so like everybody likes to point out that, you know, there's 10,000 Albertans that showed up at, you know, some of these independence rallies in Edmonton and Calgary.
01:09:30.180Um, not none of them are talking about the fact that 500 plus thousand people signed a petition, you know, in opposition to Alberta independence.
01:10:57.840Now, that doesn't mean that it's impossible.
01:11:00.840But it means that, you know, of that 60 percent, you know, I'll tell you right now, because I know this from my own experience, that 60 percent, sorry, if, you know, a thousand people, let's say a thousand people support you.
01:11:15.600OK, 50 people will actually fight with you.
01:11:21.700Remember, it's roughly five percent of people who ideologically and spiritually agree with you are actually willing to get in there and actually help move the ball down the field.
01:11:32.620So, you know, if you have 60 percent of Albertans, well, that that's going to actually amount to like.
01:11:38.520I don't know, less than five percent of the population actually getting involved in any kind of real action to make things happen that can still work.
01:11:56.200And then, you know, the reality is that I've put it like this before.
01:12:01.760There are more like and this is something that Albertans should understand.
01:12:05.060There are more people in Ontario who agree with the grievances that are being put forth by Alberta separatists than there are people in Alberta who agree with the Alberta separatists.
01:12:20.880There are more people in Ontario who are sympathetic and agree with the grievances that Alberta separatists are putting forth than there are people who agree with the Alberta separatists in Alberta.
01:12:41.460You're you're you're throwing away millions of people who agree with you.
01:12:47.220Virtually every single grievance that you have, they agree with you for an independence movement.
01:12:54.240The fact is, too, honestly, that's probably true about Quebec as well, by the way.
01:12:59.320There's probably more people living in Quebec who agree with you than there are in Alberta who agree with you.
01:13:06.060Now, it doesn't mean there's not more people who disagree with you, but I'm just saying like a huge amount of people who support you do not live in Alberta.
01:13:13.880So in choosing to become a separatist movement, you're basically ensuring that those people will no longer help you because of what they can help you.
01:13:25.080You've chosen independence and to cut yourself off from them.
01:13:29.500What are they supposed to do at that point?
01:13:37.200There's way more people in the rest of Canada who agree with the grievances of the Albertan separatists than there are Alberta separatists.
01:14:03.920Anyways, I just think it's a short-sighted movement that is going to ultimately collapse.
01:14:13.140And by the way, too, the one thing that I didn't even get into in this when it comes to Alberta separatists is that they're not a unified group.
01:14:22.560Among the people who would consider themselves Alberta separatists, there are libertarians, there's nationalists, there's just Christian conservatives, there's purely economic motivated conservative types, there's fucking liberals, there's a huge immigrant section of it.
01:14:44.760Like what it's it's not a cohesive movement, either ethnically or idea ideologically.
01:14:50.080So, like, how do you build a a separatist movement from a hodgepodge of all these different groups that agree on one thing, but disagree wildly on other things?
01:15:02.680You're setting yourselves up for it like this.
01:15:06.240It's going to get really bad as it gets closer, because all of these groups will start infighting because there's there's nothing that really unites them.
01:15:16.820So as they get closer to, you know, actually.
01:15:22.200Like when one group comes out and they say, here are our policies for independence, they're fucked, because another group will be like, well, that's not what I want.
01:15:31.100And then the other group will be like, that's not what we want, either.
01:15:55.700You need to have a cohesive ideology that bends other people to it.
01:16:02.240And if you if like one ideology, one movement has to rise above all the others and absorb the others or it's not going to work.
01:16:11.200And the obvious, you know, this is the conclusion I came to, you know, within a year after the convoy, the obvious, you know, rallying point for people is blood.
01:16:23.140But it's the thing that runs the deepest.
01:16:29.620So if you're if your movement isn't based in blood in one form or another, it's going to fail.
01:16:37.280Anyways, that was a huge tangent on Alberta separatism that we didn't, you know, it's not really relevant necessarily to the series.
01:20:22.960Like they're, they're obviously uniquely a nation within a nation.
01:20:27.440Um, uh, old Dutch hush says, are these movements organic Alberta set?
01:20:42.800So Alberta separatism is absolutely organic.
01:20:45.280Um, there might be some people who are trying to subvert it or leverage it for their own purposes.
01:20:55.260For example, it wouldn't surprise me at all.
01:20:58.620If, uh, the UPC in, uh, or the, what the UCP, sorry, in, uh, Alberta has agents or people who are in communication with them embedding themselves into the separatist movement because Danielle Smith can use it to her advantage.
01:21:19.700Um, it, it gives her basically a tool to use, um, to, to leverage Ottawa for negotiations about certain things.
01:21:31.400So, uh, that wouldn't shock me at all if that's happening, but the spirit behind Alberta separatism is a hundred percent organic.
01:21:41.060Um, there are absolutely people who believe that Alberta should be its own nation and they, some of them, they have some valid reasons.
01:21:49.160Um, they're just not, I don't think there's, they're seeing it practically.
01:21:54.200Now, what, what is interesting is like, I, it's possible that they could, um, the, the, the problem is though, um, from what I saw when I was living in Alberta, the people who talk about Alberta separatism are not serious about it.
01:22:16.460And when I say that, I mean, they might actually believe in it, like they might be sincere when they say it and they might, you know, be willing to do things, you know, to get it, but they're not actually serious about it.
01:22:28.060And so what I mean when I say that is they're not going to do the tedious little things.
01:22:33.420They're not going to schedule town hall after town hall.
01:22:36.820They're not going to, you know, build a movement, um, you know, to fight for it.
01:22:41.440They're not going to, you know, develop a cohesive ideology that is rooted in, in, you know, sound nationalist ideology, which would mean Alberta is, you know, rooted in European society, right?
01:22:56.680Like that, you need something like that.
01:22:58.380They're not going to make that argument.
01:22:59.960They're not going to make the argument that Alberta must remain, you know, true to its, its British roots, you know, or to its, you know, they're not going to maintain that Alberta is a.
01:23:11.440Uh, you know, an ethnicity or something like that.
01:23:17.320They're not going to make any of the arguments that are actually nationalist, uh, in their making.
01:23:22.860So basically it's just that they're, what they're advocating for is an economic zone and that's not going to work.
01:23:29.380Um, they're not going to do all the tedious little things that are required to actually build a nationalist movement.
01:23:35.920Um, the kind of stuff that we're doing, like the, it's, it's tedious, it's tedious going and meeting people all over half of a fucking continent.
01:23:43.620Um, like I do, it's tedious, you know, getting guys, you know, organized and meeting regularly, ritualistically moving towards a single goal.
01:23:54.320It's tedious, you know, building all these little micro departments that are designed to become more sophisticated and expand over time.
01:24:12.960It's just people who are, they, they have, it's not that they're wrong.
01:24:16.220It's not that they don't have sound arguments.
01:24:18.120It's that there's no work to back it up.
01:24:20.280So it doesn't matter what arguments you have.
01:24:22.780It's with what army, with what army are you actually going to manifest these arguments and this, this ideology in the real world.
01:24:31.980If you don't have that, you don't have anything.
01:24:35.900Um, and from what I've seen, yeah, like maybe they can get 10,000 people to show up at the legislature building in Edmonton, but that's not going to, that's not enough.