Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I tend to view things this way as well. It's hard to believe at the moment, but when I was in university (incl. during the Clinton presidency) there was a surprising amount of talk in my classes and just people in general about a common currency, more open borders, and perhaps an EU type arrangement between Canada, the US and Mexico. And this was in a left-leaning, not particularly pro-American Ontario university. The bravest ones even evoked the possibility of merging Canada and the US!
Even though there are always ups and downs, I guess that was particularly a period where things didn't look too bad in the US viewed from Canada, and relations were relatively harmonious as well.
I suppose that people who were not there at the time, or weren't paying much attention, won't believe me. But I very clearly recall it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Loco101
I had the exact same experience in university as what you wrote about the topic. Same discussions, etc.. I even thought that an EU type arrangement might be worth looking at. Things were going much better economically in the U.S. than in Canada during the 1990s so I felt that we should be tied more closely to that. The Clinton/Chrétien years were great for Canada-U.S. relations.
Once George W Bush was "elected" things changed rapidly and after 9/11 even faster due to the way the American politicians were acting. I didn't want Canada to look at a closer union with the U.S.. But I still enjoyed visiting the United States and went many times.
Now with Trump as president, I want Canada to start looking towards other countries. I don't want to visit the U.S. at all and won't until Trump is gone. Bush was nothing compared to what Trump is being.
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Is it just me or "should Canada join some union with the US" a common high school/university debate/discussion/essay topic, because I vaguely remember this kind of thing coming up too in the early 2000s, for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I appreciate this insight and share much the same sentiment, though I wouldn't want to overplay it too much. In Quebec there is a constant push and pull between the local francophone culture and the globalized Anglo-American culture, with French-European culture adding a bit of its spice to the mix.
Quebec like many places in the western world (especially given its location) has a high degree of Americanization. It's just that American culture doesn't seem to occupy virtually all of the space. As a result things are, in my view, a lot more balanced.
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Curiously, when people talk about US global dominance in a globalizing world and whether or not it will last (in light of other countries gradually industrializing and becoming economically prosperous), it's usually about economic power, geopolitical power, military power etc. but people rarely discuss if US
cultural power or influence will become stronger or weaker.
People discuss the rise of the EU, or (in the past, Japan), China or India, or even countries like Australia or Canada, but it's interesting that not many question (or at least I don't hear about the debate as often) whether the rise of any of these countries will lead to any cultural sway, not just economic.
When, various European countries do well economically, does that make European media and culture popular overseas? If China or India rise economically, relative to the US, will that make Asian-made movies as popular overseas as the typical American Hollywood blockbuster? After all, Hollywood's cultural dominance, for instance was due to US economic power in part in the 1920s and the earlier days of cinema were previously not that US dominated, for the silent film days had Charlie Chaplin, and other British, French, European film industries proportionally more influential.
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