Source : Windsor Star

There are many sources of anti-Americanism in Canada, from specific and conflicting interests over trade in softwood lumber or live cattle to issues where no national interest is involved, such as Canadian criticism of American health care or gun legislation.

The former may be called "rational" criticism of America or its policies and refers to the kinds of disagreements that ordinarily arise between friendly nations. The latter kind of criticism of America might be termed "emotional" or "symbolic" and says more about the limitations of the critics than it does about the nation criticized.

The largest and most comprehensive context within which emotional criticism appears is "mythical," to borrow a term used by the great literary critic the late Northrop Frye.

At the centre of a mythical anti-Americanism is what Frye called the "garrison mentality." It reflects a view of the world typical of beleaguered and closely knit societies where one either fights outsiders or betrays the loyal ones behind the palisades. Empirically, it is a perspective disproportionately maintained by Canadians living in the Loyalist heartland of southern Ontario.

Other parts of the country--Newfoundland and Alberta, for example--have contrasting forms of consciousness and myths that accord little or no significance to symbolic anti-Americanism. The anti-Americanism disseminated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), we argued in a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, is both a faithful reflection of "garrison mentality" and promotes it.

NEWS EXAMINED

To gauge the extent of anti-American sentiment on the CBC, we examined news coverage of the U.S. on their flagship show, The National, for 2002. The year was chosen because it followed the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, but prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

We directed the content analysis by third parties of 2,383 statements taken from 225 stories referring to America. As with most news coverage, the largest number of statements (almost half) was neutral. However, 34 per cent of the evaluations of America were negative, over double the 15 per cent that was positive. Only 1.6 per cent of the statements were considered ambiguous by the coders.

The top issue, with over a quarter of the coverage, dealt with relations between Canada and the United States. Within this category, 41 per cent of statements were neutral. Of the remainder, statements about relations between the two countries were over twice as likely to be negative as positive.

Terrorism was the second most often cited issue, at 11 per cent. Here the negative comments overwhelmed positive evaluations by a 9 to 1 margin. Neutral statements, however, constituted nearly 60 per cent of the total coverage, which restored balance to some degree insofar as even a factual report on terrorist activity is usually seen to be a negative reflection on terrorism.

The third most-mentioned American issue, about the same as coverage of terrorism, was the build-up to the war in Iraq. The negative evaluations of American plans were nearly as disproportionately high as they were on terrorism.

The issues surrounding the Iraq invasion were unquestionably controversial, but to enjoy a controversy, two sides must present their positions.

The one-sided coverage in this instance was particularly egregious because there was an intelligible ethical and geopolitical reason to attack Iraq that never was articulated to audiences of The National. Other issues dealt with American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian and Afghanistan conflicts, an again evaluative coverage was strongly critical of the U.S.

Canadian support

The only issue area where positive evaluations surpassed both the neutral and the negative statements was retrospective coverage of the Sept. 11 events. Many of these statements recounted the memory of the 9-11 attack where Canadians supported and helped their neighbours. Special reports on the first anniversary of the attacks also positively portrayed American patriotism.

With nearly all these highly symbolic foreign policy issues, disapproval of the American regime was obvious. In short, despite the relatively brief time since the 9-11 attacks, the evaluations by CBC of America during 2002 were overwhelmingly critical of American policy and actions. The CBC has often claimed an important agenda-setting role for itself. To the extent it deserves the reputation it covets, the corporation is partly responsible for enhancing and sustaining anti-Americanism in Canada following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The CBC, in short, helped turn the joint outrage of Canada and the U.S. into mistrust and animosity.

By so doing, it is questionable whether the self-proclaimed national broadcaster served the national interest. Even worse, symbolic criticism can become strong enough to eclipse national interest when it is, in fact in accord with the American. The discussion of ballistic missile defence, for example, was almost entirely symbolic even though just about everyone informed on the subject said it was in our national interest to join. Much of this later coverage amounted to a hangover from 2002.

Like most hangovers, it was both unpleasant and avoidable.

Lydia Miljan is political science professor at the University of Windsor and is a Fraser Institute Senior Fellow. Barry Cooper is a political science professor and is the managing director, Alberta Policy Research Centre at the Fraser Institute.

© The Windsor Star

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