Editor's Note: The following text is from GlobalPost, which provides excellent coverage of world news – important, moving and just odd.
By Sandro Contenta, GlobalPost
The Canadian government will spend $28 million to remind Canadians that their national identity was forged in a largely forgotten war against the United States.
“Without the War of 1812, Canada as we know it would not exist,” Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said Tuesday, while announcing a three-year-long commemoration of the conflict.
“Not enough Canadians know about the importance of the War of 1812. It was the fight for Canada,” Moore told reporters.
American historian Alan Taylor described the war as Canada’s David-versus-Goliath victory in repelling a U.S. invasion. The battle has instilled a lasting suspicion of American intentions toward Canada’s sovereignty.
Flag-waving events begin the year of the war’s 200th anniversary, including battle re-enactments, films, concerts and the building of a permanent memorial in Ottawa to the War of 1812.
But some see this planned outpouring of Canadian patriotism with suspicion.
Read: IRS pursues Americans up north.
News of the war’s commemoration broke at about the time that Canada and the U.S. were poised to announce a deal on security and trade along the 49th parallel.
That focused concerns that had been building during the past year, as both countries negotiated the border deal in secret.
Wayne Easter, international trade critic for the opposition Liberal Party, accused the government last week of wanting Canadians to “buy a pig in a poke.”
“Canadians need to know how much is our personal privacy going to be affected by this perimeter security proposal, and is there going to be any impact on Canadian sovereignty,” Easter asked the government during a sitting of the House of Commons.
The United States’ primary objective in the talks is to tighten security along a border that many American politicians, since the 9/11 attacks, consider too porous. Canadians see some of that concern as uninformed paranoia.
The most astounding examples came in 2009, when both Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Senator John McCain wrongly claimed the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. through Canada. [4]
Canadians have already seen a “thickening” of the border: Passports, instead of drivers’ licences, are now needed to cross, inspections of people and cargo have increased, and communities bissected by the border — like Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec — have seen generations of interaction impeded by the growing apparatus of security [5].
The Canadian government’s priority is to ease trade congestion along the almost 4,000 mile boundary. An estimated $1.6 billion worth of trade crosses the perimeter each day, a flow crucial to keeping Canada’s economy humming.
Read: Canadian oil: ethical or dirty?
In exchange for smoother trade flow, critics fear Prime Minister Stephen Harper will allow the U.S. to impose security standards on Canada, and give U.S. authorities access to the private information of Canadian travellers.
Their nightmare scenario has the U.S. gaining some control over Canadian immigration and refugee policy by getting a say in who enters Canada.
Recent American actions haven’t helped ease anxieties. Some Canadian politicians reacted angrily earlier this month to news of a draft report by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, proposing the use of “fencing and other barriers” along the Canadian border to manage “trouble spots where passage of cross-border violators is difficult to control.”
More troubling is U.S. President Barack Obama’s proposed job creation plan, which contains a protectionist “Buy American” clause that would prevent Canadian companies from bidding on $100 billion worth of U.S. infrastructure contracts.
Bob Rae, leader of the Liberal Party, urged the government to walk away from talks on a border deal until Obama dropped that clause.
“All I’m saying is it’s completely nuts to sign a deal when we’re getting hit every day of the week from the other side,” Rae said.
Harper has repeatedly insisted that Canada’s sovereignty isn’t up for grabs.
But as he and Obama prepare for a joint announcement on the border deal, there are fears that the patriotic breast-beating about the War of 1812 is camouflage for the U.S. getting through talks what it once couldn’t get with guns.
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In 1812 the Americans were fighting against the British colonists in Canada, but were driven away by the Canadians.
The bi-centennial commemoration shouldn't mar the strong relationship between the two neighbours.
Canada: better environment and place to live specially British Columbia
oh canada!
Every year the USA has a large scale national statutory commemorative celebration of the war of independence from the British. IN YOUR FACE QUEEN ELIZABETH ! AND IN YOUR FACE TOO DAVID CAMERAN ! Well, not really. The celebration is more of the birthday type rather than a war commemorative. But having been named "Independence Day" the commemorative spirit can never be completely erased, and nor should it. The war of 1812 is not just commemorated in Canada, but in the US as well (see War of 1812 commemorative Watertown, NY). So let those who may have had a more direct involvement in an historical event commemorate it as they please. Besides, we all know how the wars turned out, and one would think enough time has passed by now to at least be GROWN UP about it!
“Without the War of 1812, Canada as we know it would not exist”
It was a British colony before, it was a British colony after. But after the war Canada was much more willing to remain a colony. Except Quebec, which rocks.
Before illegal US citizens start sneaking across. The will try to become Canadian citizens and vote for more "TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH!!!!" like here in the US. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regardless of my disappointment with the Harper revival of the war of 1812, I am happy, quite happy, that things turned out as they did. Nevertheless, I judge it absurd that the Canadian Federal Government is spending nearly 30 million dollars in its attempt to re-interpret the war of 1812 as a Canadian war. That war was a Canadian war just as much as Napoleon’s defeat of the Austrians at Marengo represented the beginning of the unification of Italy.
Regardless of the stamp the Harper Government wishes to place on that war, the war of 1812 remains a colonial war in which the British were aiming to get even with the Americans and re-establish their influence over all of North America.
Whether a Canadian war or a colonial war, Prime Minister Harper comes out ahead, so fond is he of things colonial and royal. Will his subservience to those symbols slow down our march toward nationhood? Would Trudeau ever greet a visiting Royal with a “Welcome to this, your Dominion, your Highness” as Harper has done on our Canada Day?
An amusing story, yet I can understand some Canadian being sensitive about these issues. Yet no one can make 911 go away and no one can turn back the clock and remove terrorism. So what do we do? Call each other names and refuse to co operate with each other. Even if Napolitano and McCain did know the terrorist did not come through Canad I would say almost all Americans know they came though our ports of entry. For Gods sake mates lighten up and know America is not your enemy..Wimberly in Houston, Texas saying: Toronto, we two peoples have no problem with each other!
Michael we have no problems. You down South have the problems!
I just arrived back in Alberta from Houston last night. Spent a week there taking courses. I had no idea so many people were still so ignorant in the world. I side with the prime minister in doing what he's doing. There are still a few down South that still haven't got the message...
Ignorance is NOT a negative word when taken in context ie; one who does not know. Thus, my comment is not meant to make anyone feel denigrated. I lived and worked in the U.S. (Florida) for almost two years. Made many friends. But, the one thing that stood out for me was, of how little many U.S. citizens knew anything worthwhile about Canada. Without going into great detail, just let me say this; Canadians, compared to the average U.S. citizen, are a very well-informed people. The knowledge of the U.S., its history, politics and culture held by Canadians, far exceeds that of U.S. citizens when it comes to their knowledge of Canada AND Canadians. When I read most comments made in this forum by U.S. citizens, I have to temper my thoughts about their comments with a few grains of salt.
I have worked with them, played with them and can say this about U.S. citizens, (at least those whom I came to know and know well); They are the most patriotic sob's; the most generous people I know AND, I discovered, when they tell you they are your friend(s)....they really mean it. I am sorry to see them having fallen upon such hard times and can only hope for them that a lasting solution is found for their current woes. But I do ask; when you wish to comment about Canadian issues which you feel affects you as a U.S. citizen, stop with the knee-jerk uninformed reactions and know what it is you're talking about.
Canada has been a large trading partner, nafta was created in part to incourage trade between the two countries. Yes, Benedict Arnold lost the battle of Quebec when the other general directing a pincher movement was killed. Let's get over it, and move on. My main concern is the Chinese who have made huge investments in Canada are coopting them. We want their trade. They are our allies and friends. Let's keep it that way. We need to protect ourselves as we are a target. They can appreciate that. Let's not turn it into some kind of issue.
George Bush ruined a good thing when he pointed out where that 1 terrorist jumped the border at. He should have kept his mouth shut. Now everyone is on a NATIONALIST BIGOTRY binge.