Beware the Bolsheviks!

I had a chuckle recently listening to an archival news item on the radio, from November of 1983, when John Buchanan, then-premier of Nova Scotia, delivered a barn-burner of a speech in Amherst, N.S. Addressing the local Progressive Conservative Association, he succeeded in getting his audience riled up about a very pressing issue of the day: road signage.

Buchanan earned enthusiastic applause with his promise to have signs erected showing distances in miles – in defiance of the federal government’s metrification program. Then he really put the rhetorical pedal to the metal:

“Did you ever look around at the countries in the world today with metric? Not the United States of America, not our mother country, Britain, but the socialist countries of the world today! That’s where the metric system is! That’s why Mr. Trudeau determined that he was going to impose the metric system on the people of Canada against their will.”

Perhaps this did not sound as ludicrous in 1983 as it does now – though even then, many people knew that the new-fangled metric system had gradually been gaining worldwide acceptance since the time of the French Revolution. It stemmed from an Enlightenment idea that units of measurement should be based on our scientific understanding of the natural world – a metre originally being defined as one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator (along the meridian through Paris), and a kilogram being the weight of one cubic decimetre (i.e., one litre) of water.

Thomas Jefferson was an early proponent of the metric system, and the U.S. took steps toward adopting it during the 19th century, but public resistance to metric ultimately came to represent American exceptionalism – a perverse expression of national pride. (Disdain for anything with a whiff of French is now perhaps stronger than ever in the U.S.)

Back when I lived in Peterborough, Ontario, our MP was Bill “Hang’em-by-the-inch” Domm – another nostalgia-driven Tory, whose twin obsessions were reversing metrification and reinstating capital punishment. I was bewildered as to how someone could claim to believe in a minimally interventionist form of government (even with regards to bureaucratic banalities such as weights and measures) while endorsing the ultimate form of state power – the legal authority to execute certain undesirable citizens. It remains a mystery to me.

Buchanan, despite his boasting, only put up about a dozen of his counter-revolutionary road signs. It was a populist publicity stunt that generated some headlines, but it didn’t really get any traction, since the rest of the country had pretty much moved on from the metric debate. All of our road signs had been changed to metric by 1977, so the horse was quite a few kilometres out of the barn.

Soon after coming to power in 1984, Brian Mulroney’s PCs made a grand gesture toward freeing us from the tyranny of the tonne, abolishing the Metric Commission – and we settled into an odd mish-mash of official and unofficial units of measurement, which persists today. Many of us still don’t know our height in centimetres, or our weight in kilograms, but we are accustomed to the use of metric in communications concerning trade and research. (I used to have a vague idea that 40 miles per gallon was pretty good fuel efficiency – though there was always some uncertainty as to whether those were Imperial gallons or U.S. gallons.)

Buchanan, for all his anti-socialist bombast, adhered to a particular type of free-market economics that is now widely known as “crony capitalism.” He was a last bastion of the flagrant patronage that hobbled Nova Scotia politics for generations. His ability to evade scandal earned him the nickname “Teflon John” – but eventually the corruption caught up with him, and Mulroney whisked him away to the safety of a Senate seat (1,437 kilometres from Halifax).

It is strange that Red Scare rhetoric is making a bit of a comeback. In the ’80s, Buchanan was well aware that Papa Trudeau was no radical leftist. Pierre was a Mercedes-driving millionaire, with no grand plans to dismantle the capitalist system that allowed for the accumulation of his inherited wealth. (Due to his intellectual fondness for progressive politics, and his taste for the good things in life, some may have sneeringly called him a “champagne socialist.”)

Today, with Donald Trump habitually using the “socialist” label to warn Americans away from Democratic Party candidates, Bernie Sanders has stubbornly embraced this term (albeit the democratic kind, rather than the revolutionary), even though it does not accurately reflect his policies. Some observers believe Sanders is trying to destigmatize or redefine the word “socialism,” but this seems unwise. It actually plays into the dishonesty of ideological fear mongering, and further polarizes the citizenry – in a nation where the political divide is already a weeping sore.

Sanders has proposed nothing more radical than bringing the U.S. somewhat closer in line with Canada and most European countries, in terms of basic stuff like progressive taxation, health care, education, environmental protection, and a social safety net to catch those who fall on hard times. (Maybe the metric system is his scary hidden agenda.) Americans can take it or leave it, but they should not be under the illusion that it is true socialism, which would involve state ownership of factories and farms, etc.

A more honest political discourse would also acknowledge that the U.S. is not a true laissez-faire capitalist country – if such a thing even exists. American governments, like Canadian governments, regularly tinker with the marketplace – and sometimes they intervene in spectacular fashion. Banks and manufacturing sectors are bailed out, and various other industries – even those we view as functioning within the free market – receive direct or indirect government assistance.

American agricultural subsidies – a bane to Canadian farmers for decades – have recently skyrocketed, triggering a review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Trump’s assistance to crop producers, ostensibly intended to compensate for lost exports resulting from his trade war with China, has topped $28 billion during the last couple years. There have been reports that the payouts far exceed actual losses, and that they have been targeted to achieve optimum political benefit, with many recipients being the type of “farmers” who have never had muck on their boots.

Back home in Nova Scotia, there is a great deal of angst about the fate of the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County, which some might view as a case study in semi-socialist industrial development. From its inception, back in the 1960s, the mill was essentially a public-private partnership, and over the years it was propped up with considerable sums of government financing. I’m not saying this was right or wrong – just as long as we’re upfront about the true nature of the enterprise.

The mill’s lease on the government-owned effluent treatment facility was slated to expire in 2005, but in 2002 then-Premier John Hamm extended the lease until 2030. (Dr. Hamm was upfront about his warm relationship with Northern Pulp, accepting a chairmanship after he left politics, and only stepping down from the company’s board this winter.) Since the 2015 decision by Premier Stephen McNeil to expedite the closure of the notorious Boat Harbour effluent facility, effective this January, the public-private relationship has gone toxic. The mill is closed, and both sides are consulting with divorce lawyers, weighing the economic merits of someday resuming a loveless marriage.

I have no particular insight into how we should strike a balance, but it would be a good start to admit that Canada and the U.S. are well-established “mixed” economies, not “pure capitalist” economies. It is silly to stir up panic and self-righteousness about an imaginary socialist threat – and it is delusional for any of us to claim that we have “never taken a handout.” DL