Exclusive to this site, May 9, 2000 

The Ontario Pledge: Guardians of the Banana Kingdom
by
Pierre Lemieux

 

Ontario students will have to recite a daily pledge: “I affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.” (Ottawa Citizen, April 27, 2000) Don’t be fooled by the language: this is an American-style pledge to Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s flag, Jean Chrétien’s laws, and Allan Rock’s coercive political correctness.

The reader might object that Mike Harris is not exactly a pal of the said gentlemen. But then, why in heavens does he propose a measure that is so consistent with their statist philosophy?

To “faithfully observe the laws of Canada,” and, at the same time, “fulfil [one’s] duties as a Canadian citizen” might, in certain circumstances, be a logically impossible program. For, as the 16^th-century philologist Junius said, “The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.”

Indeed, many of the laws and regulations that have fallen on us during the last half century are nothing but “arbitrary measures” contrary to our traditions – including the obligation to recite a pidgin-ethic pledge. I would argue that it is often our moral responsibility to disobey such laws (so-called).

“Being citizens of a country as wonderful as Canada entails not only many rights, but also entail certain responsibilities of citizens,” said the Ontario Education Minister. As far as rights are concerned, not only have we lost a large number of our traditional rights, but some of them have actually become offences and even, sometimes, crimes punishable by many years in prison. Think about innocent acts like opening a restaurant, or another business, for smoking customers only, or living your peaceful life without being social-insurance numbered, or having a ready gun in your bedroom just in case.

If state authorities don’t like you, they can now easily get you. You don’t need to give them an excuse by bringing your bathing children’s pictures to be developed. You don’t need to have met a woman twenty years ago who will tell a tale of sexual harassment. The state can destroy you with administrative means – an income tax audit, for instance, or one of these warrantless searches that have been authorized in more and more cases.

As for the Queen, never mind. She is the less significant reference in all that. She is nothing, she can do nothing, and she only faintly represents the shadow of what remains of the promises of English liberty. In our political system, the Prime Minister is a temporary king, but king nonetheless. A pledge of allegiance to Jean Chrétien or Lucien Bouchard would at least teach the young respect for the truth.

The Ontario pledge is, should we say, un-Canadian. What made this country attractive was that, at least in time of peace, we believed we should be left alone, and we did not have to pledge allegiance to any kind of collective. Indeed, the only time I ever had to mumble a pledge of allegiance was to the Québec flag when I attended an old-time Catholic high school, many decades ago. How strange that the Ontario government has now rediscovered the old French Canadian nationalism! Once again, the Canadian establishment seems to be competing with, and winning the race against, the Parti Québécois style of statism.

The Ontario pledge is just the cherry on the cake. Over the last decades, Canadian governments have succeeded importing the worst of all the great cultures we have drawn from: the English naïveté and submissiveness to constituted authority, the French bureaucratic spirit, and the American simple-minded moral self-righteousness, backed by an illusory rule of law.

Not even in France would a pledge like the Ontario one be accepted – although the French have more sophisticated, and perhaps more dangerous, “civic education” courses. I fear that what the famous legal scholar Georges Ripert said about the French in the late 40’s describe well Homo Ontariencis: “The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes, without noticing it, the soul of a slave.” (Thinking about it, it may be even worse in British Columbia.)

The Ontario pledge is not much better than the ugly propaganda against the underground economy that the Québec Tax Department is presently distributing in schools. Submitting school children to overt state propaganda is part of a very disturbing trend towards the Reeducation-Camp State. This is not a way to grow disciplined youth, creative individuals, and responsible adults. It is, at best, a recipe for cynical, irresponsible, and potentially violent teenagers. At worst, it is a recipe for a citizenry of flag-waving, ID-happy, neckerchief-wearing, Cuban-looking guardians of the banana kingdom.