Pax Canadiana

What am I supposed to write about tonight?  The latest annoying TV commercial? Political analysis? Something about cars? Wait, what's that, Bloomberg has an article predicting Canada could be the next superpower? Drop everything, that's the topic.

The argument is threefold: first is resources, which we have plenty of. But I don't really buy that as a reason for gaining power. I could point out that the Middle East has lots of resources, but it's mostly just got them empty displays of wealth, plus invasions by the countries with actual power. But mainly I dismiss the argument because my ancestors came from a glorified rock off the coast of Europe and came to dominate the world for a century. When it comes down to it, the powerful can buy, borrow, or steal whatever resources they need.

The second point is that we have a relatively efficient, effective and trusted government. (I'll pause now so my Canadian readers can stop laughing.) Note that I said relatively. As I've mentioned before, we seem to be far more able to get things done than or American and European brethren. I'd like to think that we can keep that up, but I feel like the partisanship and risk-aversion that have paralysed other western nations threaten us too. We merely seem to be less far-along the road to political stalemate.

His third point, immigration, is the most compelling. Our immigration rate remains high. For one thing, that will remedy the biggest argument against or world domination: our relatively small population. But a diverse population has tended to be a trait of innovative times and places.

I do think that is our strongest characteristic at the moment. And it's accented by the fact that Europe, Australia and Japan are strongly anti-immigrant to the point of xenophobia, relight at the time they should be letting more people in to avoid demographic disaster caused by crashing birthrates. The Americans have recently been rather paranoid on immigration issues, though to be fair, it seems like they could be softening in that issue. But if they don't, Canada could be left as the only big developed-world immigration destination.

As for other world powers, it's easy to imagine Europe fumbling away their power with indecisiveness, mistrust, and poor planning. Japan arguably already has done that with its inability to reform its economy. Then there's the Americans. For all the talk of their decline, I still believe they have a lot of life left in them, but who knows how well they'll deal with their current ideological schism. And they appear to be one Rick-Perry-with-charisma from disaster.

Then there are the developing nations. Though most assume China's dominance is a foregone conclusion, I'm far more sure that:

1. Their economic boom can't last forever.
2. The people will demand democracy eventually, and
3. #2 will probably happen right after #1.

I still have my money on the dark horse India for world domination, but their political fragility, cultural diversity, corruption, and portly distributed wealth. As for the rest of the BRICS, is appearing that their wealth is greatly based resource sales due to the growth of China.

Of course that brings up perhaps the best argument against Canadian dominance: our economy has always ridden the coattails of the Americans, so it's hard to imagine a scenario where we replace a fading America, given that we'd likely fade right along with them. One would have to count on the idea that an influx of global talent would take us out of our traditional branch-plant mentality.

So it's not too likely that Canada would be a superpower. It’s possible, but would take a lot of things falling just right. And that’s just to be a relatively big power; I don’t think there’s any scenario where we would end up facing off against, say, South Korea in a new Cold War.