National Battles: Canadian Monumental Drama and the Investiture of History

Abstract

English[-speaking] Canada is a nation by default, neither a political entity nor manifest national sentiment; more than a land but less than a country. Few would dispute that Quebec is a nation within a nation, but fewer might assert with confidence that Canada is therefore a nation surrounding a nation. The paradox in that formulation is the paradox of postcolonialism as it is manifest in Canadian experience. The prospect of an independent Quebec (and for that matter, the present reality of an independentiste Quebec) exposes "the rest of Canada" (as what used to be called "English Canada" is now commonly named in awkward but accurate journalistic practice) as a political arrangement wanting historical mission. (Canada: what was left when American republicanism transformed the larger part of colonized North America into ideology; the rest of Canada: what is left when Quebec repudiates the proposal that the rebellion of thirteen British colonies forced the condition of nationhood on the ones that were left.)