The maple leafs are rustling with awkward applause. A new survey reveals that our polite northern neighbours are, with a mixture of trepidation and pity, hoping that the United States manages a dignified 250th birthday party. It is a quaint, almost Victorian sentiment: the loyal colony wishing the rebellious son well, even as that son embarrasses himself at every family gathering.
The survey, properly digested, is less about American success and more about Canadian anxiety. Ottawa knows that if the American experiment finally collapses into the tribal squabbling that plagues its intellectual class, the economic shockwaves will be felt from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland. A stable, boring America is in Canada’s national interest.
So they offer their wishes, like a nervous parent watching a teenager drive a borrowed car. But dig deeper, and you sense a flutter of identity. The Commonwealth, that sleepy club of constitutional monarchies, suddenly looks less like a museum piece and more like a lifeboat.
As the United States lurches from fiscal cliff to constitutional crisis, Canada is quietly rediscovering the virtues of a stable crown and parliamentary sobriety. The Brexit mess, the Trump hangover, the French republican tantrums: all of these have made the steady, boring King seem like a wise old uncle. The survey is not about America’s birthday.
It is about Canada’s mid-life crisis. And the country is realising, to its own surprise, that it may prefer the crown to the star-spangled banner after all. So here’s to 250 years of American chaos.
May the fireworks be more impressive than the after-party.
