Cultural Politics

Abstract

To some it might not come as a surprise that Canada has no national cultural policy. It took major international upheavals to alert us that we had no national energy policy. There has been relatively little discussion — except in emotional terms — about the recent emergence and the long-term impact of cultural nationalism in Canada. Not one of the three or four major political parties on the federal scene have a platform on cultural policy. Apparently the NDP is thinking about drafting one. If so, it may have been shamed into it by the strongstance which has been consistently taken by the Committee for an Independent Canada. The CIC has had the advantage of two nationalistic publishers at the helm: Jack McClelland and Mel Hurtig. And it was publishing that received most attention from the Ontario government’s Royal Commission on Economic and Cultural Nationalism. But it does not take a special interest group to perceive that foreign control of our economy produces fallout in the social an< cultural sectors as well: these problems are rooted in the same soil What has not been adequately realized either by politicians or the public is that nationalism is a cultural phenomenon, long before it blossoms politically, let alone bears its sometimes poisonous fruit How fast this maturation is completed and how edible the fruit turns out to be depends largely on the nation’s self-confidence, self awareness, though also on international forces and events.