Shall We Dance?: A Patriotic Politics for Canada

Jeffrey J. Cormier is an assistant professor of sociology at the
University of Western Ontario in London. He is the author of The
Canadianization Movement: Emergence, Survival and Success.

Charles Blattberg is a young up-and-comer in the world of Canadian
political philosophy. He certainly comes from the right lineage. First
studying under Charles Taylor at McGill, he then completed a master’s
degree at the Sorbonne in Paris, eventually finding his way to Oxford to
work with Michael Freeden and Sir Isaiah Berlin. Blattberg now lives and
works in Montreal as an assistant professor of political science at the
University of Montreal. Shall We Dance? is his second book, written
after some seven years away from Canada. He admits that it was motivated
by his homesickness—a theme that resonates throughout the text.

Canadians, he argues, are all homesick. They don’t feel that they
have a constitutional home of their own, and are alienated from their
state, their government, and one another. There is evidence, he claims,
that the Canadian “community is seriously ill, and the treatments
usually recommended, whether monarchist or polyarchist, have only been
killing the patient.” Monarchists are those individuals who believe in
the absolute unity of Canada, and who appeal to some sovereign (e.g.,
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) to adjudicate constitutional
disagreements. Polyarchists, or pluralists, believe in the diversity of
Canadian political and social life, and suggest negotiation as a means
of settling political disputes. For reasons not entirely clear,
Blattberg is unsatisfied with both these options and instead develops
what he brands “patriotic conversation.” Rather than an adversarial
political style that leads to negotiation and compromise, Blattberg
suggests a conversation where all Canadians discuss their conceptions of
the common good. This approach, he believes, will move us toward
national reconciliation and a greater sense of national integration.

What this book lacks in rigorous argumentation, it makes up for with
style. Some of its suggestions are wacky: forcing the Canadian
government to personalize its relations with Canadians by referring to
them by their given name, or changing the current shape of the House of
Commons into a semicircle. But its suggestion that Canadians begin to
converse and dialogue more with each other is, considering everything,
an entirely sensible one.