Citizens of Modernity from a Cosmopolitan Point of View

Abstract

IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN TODAY'S DISCUSSION 1 IN GOOD CONSCIENCE, I need to preface my remarks by saying that I am not a citizen. Certainly not in this country. Perhaps not at all. Or just barely. Although I hold a Wisconsin driver's license; although I could show you (should you want to see it) a copy of a lease to an apartment there; and although, most importantly perhaps, I pay both federal and state taxes, I am considered a nonresident alien. Nonresident. I live in the United States without living there, which in the end may be the only way one can inhabit that curious national space. And things are not much better in the country of my so-called citizenship. Upon leaving the country to "reside" elsewhere, I was expected to relinquish that most cherished of Canadian rights—the right to "universal" health care—knowing that should I return to my native Ontario I would have to wait three months before having it reinstated—before, it would seem, being Canadian enough to merit health care once again. During another stint in the United States a number of years ago, a national referendum was held on a new constitution that then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney hoped would bring Quebec into the fold of a constitutionally, if not culturally or otherwise, unified Canada. [End Page 1] Faced with an interesting voting opportunity and eager, like many, to send a message to Mr. Mulroney, I tried to vote in absentia, from the United States. But the Canadian government was having none of that, none of us outsiders. Undaunted, I asked to be registered at my permanent address in Canada, the address on my yearly tax returns, even after I "resided" in the United States. No again. To vote, one had to be residing in Canada. Like now, I was neither here nor there, which may describe precisely what it means to be Canadian.