Elbows Up!, page 16
I was offended on his behalf, but the subject of the cartoon didn’t give much of a damn. He said the rag that published the thing was being slowly sold off to the Americans, so what could we expect?[*]
My father, Mel Hurtig, was a lifelong defender of Canadian independence. He believed that too many decisions affecting Canadians were being made outside Canada’s borders. In his landmark book The Betrayal of Canada (1991), he warned, “We have become a country where too many of our major corporations are no longer Canadian, where too many decisions affecting our lives are made in foreign boardrooms.”
He was not alone. Walter Gordon, a former federal finance minister and chair of the 1957 Royal Commission on Canada’s Economic Prospects, had come to a similar conclusion decades earlier when he cautioned that if we allowed control of our economy to slip out of Canadian hands, then we would lose the ability to make the political decisions that reflected our own values.
Both men argued that economic sovereignty is the foundation of political freedom. For them, it wasn’t enough for Canada to have its own parliament and flag if the key levers of economic power—energy, finance, media, industry—were increasingly controlled by foreign, often American, interests.
Despite decades of warnings, the core issues my dad—and people like Walter Gordon, Maude Barlow, and David Orchard—raised remain unresolved, and in many ways have worsened. Canadian corporations are regularly sold to foreign buyers, with little resistance from government regulators. Much of Canada’s natural resource sector is controlled by multinational firms. Media and cultural content are overwhelmingly influenced by American platforms. Mel described this phenomenon as a slow-motion surrender, warning that one day we’d all wake up to discover there was very little left to call our own.
Economic sovereignty is not about isolationism. It is about having the power to make decisions in the national interest, based on Canadian values and priorities. Gordon understood this deeply, and he emphasized the importance of proactive policy: “Canada needs to take deliberate action to maintain control over its economy, or it will become merely a branch plant of someone else’s empire.”
For my dad, the stakes were not only economic but cultural. He warned that foreign ownership of Canadian media and cultural industries would lead to the erosion of a distinctly Canadian identity. He fiercely defended Canadian content laws and public support for the arts and publishing. In his book The Vanishing Country, he warned that Canada could become a “weak, subservient U.S. colony” if it failed to halt the process of Americanization. He argued that this outcome would not be due to Canada’s failure to grow but rather its failure to resist pressures that erode its sovereignty and distinct identity.
Moreover, he saw Canada’s social programs—especially public healthcare, social welfare, education, and environmental protections—as tied to economic independence. If corporate and political elites prioritized global competitiveness over national well-being, then social policies would be weakened in the name of market efficiency. Today, can anyone argue that he wasn’t right?
Canada still has choices. It can strengthen foreign investment review processes, support Canadian industries and manufacture goods here, fund the cbc and the arts, and develop a national economic strategy, in partnership with First Nations and Inuit, that prioritizes Canadian ownership and innovation. But these choices require political will and a renewed commitment to sovereignty.
Listening to the voices of Hurtig and Gordon is not about romanticizing the past. It is about recognizing that the threats they identified—economic domination, cultural assimilation, and political dependency—remain real today. Their legacy is a challenge to this generation: to protect Canada’s ability to chart its own course in the world.
Mel once said in a cbc interview: “If you can’t, in Canada, create a country which is a great bastion of freedom and opportunity, where you have people living without poverty—if you can’t do that in Canada, I doubt very much that it can be done anywhere in the world. We have the wealth and the resources; young and energetic people; space and freedom. It’s terribly important that we don’t let this drift away so that we find ourselves set on the wrong course and unable to turn back.”
That sentiment is at the heart of why we must listen to the economic nationalists who came before us. They foresaw a future in which Canada would lose control of its destiny—first through quiet acquiescence, and then (more recently) by threat of conquest. We cannot let this happen. We do, indeed, have the wealth, the resources, the young and energetic people, and the space and freedom. I suggest we put on our chicken suits and get to work.
Skip Notes
* As of 2025, Postmedia, which runs the great majority of this country’s newspapers, is 66 per cent owned by a U.S. investment company.
IAIN REID
The Appointment: A Short Story
Our appointment was scheduled for the last Friday of the fiscal year. We’d hoped for something sooner. We’d waited a long time, too long, to find out where and when we had to be. We just wanted to get it over with. We worried about what the delay would mean. It’s idle time, as much as anything, that can inflame a minor setback into a critical condition, or worse.
For three days we called the office. We left three messages, wondering when a time would be set. There was a lengthy period of anxiety between the news of the campaign, our pending appointment, and when our date was finally confirmed. That time was brutal. It dragged on in a haze of tense ambiguity and despair. We scrolled through the articles and profiles with all of their puzzling images and obscure anecdotes. We had headaches and weren’t eating much. We lost weight. Eventually we were informed by automated call. It was finally our time. We made the necessary arrangements and prepared accordingly.
A second, longer message was left in the same cold, digitized voice, outlining the dietary restrictions and any other pre-appointment protocol. We listened and re-listened three times. We wrote everything out by hand on our notepad, underlining the directions we felt were most important.
No solid food, only fluids twenty-four hours before, nothing by mouth the day of the appointment. Not even water. There was a brightly coloured pharmaceutical potion to ingest the night before. We picked it up at the clinic and could tell just from looking at it how revolting it would taste. It was almost glowing.
In bed that night, before the appointment, I asked if he was, like me, scared about tomorrow, about the appointment and what would happen. He had his back to me. I figured he was asleep, and then after a while he said, “It’s a part of our shared history. It’s common procedure. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Yet we couldn’t sleep. We felt uncomfortable, antsy. We got up. We swallowed two pills, shivering on the fire escape. We got through some of the dishes in the sink. We cut our toenails. We changed the cat’s litter box. It was full and disgusting. We sat and listened to the upstairs neighbours arguing.
We went back to bed. We tossed and turned. We tried moving to the floor with our pillows. We kept our eyes closed. Nothing helped. When we did sleep, it was restless, troubled. We had dreams. Bad ones. Dreams about our teeth. Nightmares we hadn’t had in years.
* * *
—
You can drop someone, the sick or injured, off at the door, but you can’t park there. Not even for a little while. You have to keep going. There’s a steady flow of cars moving around the half-circle, dropping off and picking up, like an airport. We have to enter the long-term parking area and walk back to the main entrance.
Even at this hour, the lot is full. There are no spots. Not one. We have to drive into the underground garage, down a steep ramp. The first two levels are full. The first free spot we find is three levels down, 1, 2, 3, under a yellow floodlight that’s flickering. It’s a tight space. We have to be careful opening the door to avoid hitting the car beside us.
There’s no natural light in here; there never is in these dank, depressing lots. No way to tell time. It’s always night. We move quickly toward the elevator, ignoring the smell of decomposition, our steps timid, unwilling. We push the button. We hear a shrill horn honk somewhere behind us.
When the elevator doors glide open, we step inside. We push ^. The doors don’t close. We push ^ again. We try the “close door” button. We hold our finger on it. It doesn’t do anything. We push ^ again and again. Nothing. Just as the doors are finally closing, a hand stops them. A tall, thin man steps into the elevator with us. He’s wearing a hat and white surgical mask over his mouth and nose.
Now we’re not alone. We all stand in silence, waiting for the doors to close. When they do, it’s impossible to tell if we’re moving up or down. We stare straight ahead. At one point the man glances at us. He must be very sick. Infected, contagious. We don’t want to be here. We don’t have to be here. We just want the doors to open.
It’s an unbearably slow elevator, maybe the slowest we’ve ever been on, clattery. While still in disconcerting motion, we suddenly remember we didn’t feed the cat. We can’t believe we forgot to feed the cat. It’s indefensible. We never forget. She will be waiting at her dish, confused, hungry, wondering where her supper is. She doesn’t know about the appointment. We told her, but she doesn’t understand.
Maybe this man isn’t sick. Maybe he’s healthy, well. Maybe the mask is for self-preservation, for protection, his armour against outside contamination. Against us.
The elevator stops with a slight lurch. There’s an uncomfortable moment before the doors open. The man motions for us to go first. We do, hurriedly, without looking back. It takes a moment to orient ourselves. It’s a busy place. There are signs overhead. Some have straight arrows showing the way. Some have arrows that turn at ninety degrees. There are plaques and paintings on the walls. Scenes of nature. There is a gift shop. A café. We want to move. Halfway down the hall, we turn back. The man with the mask is walking behind us.
We’re almost struck by a large wheeled cart that’s easily seven feet high. It has three levels and is full of clear plastic bags. The man governing the cart doesn’t say anything. No sorry or excuse me. Soiled is stencilled on the cart.
Ahead of us are two elderly women sitting behind a wide desk. They both have permed greyish white hair and are dressed in matching red vests. A sign above them says Information. One of them has a hearing aid. The other has a drooping chin as if she’s carved from melted wax. They’re laughing and it takes a moment before they notice us. We wave, tell them we’re here. They direct us to where we need to be, down the long hall behind them, they say, where we’ll find it.
“Find what?” we ask.
“The waiting area,” she says.
A phone on the desk rings. The other woman answers it. When we glance back behind us again, the tall man from the elevator is gone.
* * *
—
At the end of a second rambling hall, we turn left into a large room. It’s divided into several sections of chairs facing the wall. There’s a small tv mounted on the wall in the far corner. On the tv: two shirtless men fighting. Blood pours from a cut above an eye. We all cheer as one. We demand more. More fighting. Less sympathy. The restrained violence isn’t enough. The gore benign. The laceration too moderate. To the left of the tv, a set of double doors. We hope we’re in the right place.
We flip through a magazine found on a table. One is dedicated to the campaign. The other is a wildlife magazine with photos of birds in flight. We can’t believe we didn’t feed the cat. No excuse. She’s going to be starving without us. She needs us. We put the magazine back down. There’s a child sitting at the other end of the waiting room. He’s sitting with his mother. We can tell by his eyes and the way his cheeks are streaked that he’s been crying. Now he sits quietly. Another cart of bedding rolls by. An announcement is made that we can’t decipher.
From our chair, we can see three hand-sanitizer stations. Directly across from us is a row of vending machines, side by side by side. We’re looking at the vending machines when a man sits down. Not beside us, one chair over.
He doesn’t look at us. We pretend to check out the magazine again. He’s holding a piece of gauze to his face, near his mouth. There’s a rusty stain on the gauze. It must be a fresh gash. His hair is thinning. No wedding ring. He hasn’t shaved in days. His fingernails are long, dirty. He looks pathetic. I’m sure he lives alone. Of course he does. We stand and walk over to the vending machines.
Two for drinks, one for snacks. At the top of the snack machine it says, Be bright, choose right! All the snacks inside are identical. Individual spring-loaded compartments with the same candy waiting to be picked. Grey, furry dust balls peek out from under the machines. It should be clean in here. Not like this. Neglected. These are the nooks and crannies they should know about. It shouldn’t be left for us to find as we wait for our appointment. We move the dust around with our foot. When we return to our chair, the man with the facial wound is gone. Another is sitting in his place. He shows no signs of trauma or illness. I sit down. I stare ahead.
“For you, or someone else?” he says.
“Pardon?” I say.
“Are you waiting for you, or someone else?”
“Someone else,” we say. “We’re not even sure we should be here yet.”
“I’m only here for me,” he says. “I hate these places. But we have to do our duty.”
He’s holding a small packet in his hands, unwrapping it.
“Would you like some?” he says. “Banana bread. I cut a big enough piece for two. It’s good for you.”
“That’s okay,” we say. “Thanks.”
“I saw you looking at snacks. None of those are homemade. It’s all junk.”
“We weren’t really looking,” we say. “Well, we were looking, only looking.”
“You have to eat,” he says.
“We don’t have much of an appetite.”
We accept the piece when he passes it to us, and hold it carefully between our thumb and index finger. It’s soft and greasy.
“Still warm when I wrapped it,” he says.
There are chocolate chips baked in. One of the chips melts onto our thumb. We examine the piece of loaf, both sides, before taking a token bite. We chew longer than we need to before swallowing. We barely have enough saliva to get it down. The wad nearly gets stuck in our throat. Along with banana, there’s a vague medicinal flavour.
The man’s waiting for a reaction. Before we can say anything, we hear someone. A woman sitting behind a pane of glass, calling out to us.
“We have to go,” we say to the man.
We approach the woman behind the glass. She’s speaking through a half-open window.
“Excuse me,” she says. “Yes, you, you.”
“Sorry,” we say, looking down, then back to her. “Are we in the right area?”
“You have to fill in these forms first. Don’t skip any lines and don’t make any mistakes because it’s very important. We need all the information.”
“So, we’re giving you the information?”
“Fill in the forms here, then go to the left and down that hall when you’re finished. Follow the signs. Over there. To the right.” She motions with her head. Someone calls to her. She turns away to address them.
The forms are on a clipboard. There’s a lot of text on the forms. Personal questions. There are many blank lines. It’s loud in here. Be bright, choose right! it says at the top of the page.
“Do you have a pen?” we ask.
She points to the counter in front of me. There’s a pen in a holder. It’s attached to the counter with a thin chain.
“You’re not supposed to be eating,” she says.
“Pardon?” we say. “Oh, it’s not ours. Well, it’s ours now, but we didn’t bring it.” We lean in closer to the window. “We didn’t even want it. It’s his.”
“Whose?”
“The guy,” we say, turning around. The chairs facing the wall are empty.
“There was a man, and he—” we say.
She cuts us off. “Fill those out,” she says. “We need your information.”
“Who would ever steal a pen from here?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s back on her computer, tapping at the keys.
* * *
—
Even before we knew about the appointment, we’d been spending more time at home, hanging around the apartment.
“It’s strange,” we said to the cat one morning. “No one goes out anymore.”
We turned on the old tv out of habit. We’d cancelled our cable subscription so there was nothing on. We missed the soothing diversion of aimless channel surfing. We put on one of the two channels we still had. A local one. The candidate was giving an interview. We fell asleep on the couch. It was a knock on the door that woke us. Loud, aggressive, unending.
We walked to the door slowly. The rapid knocking didn’t let up. It intensified. We kept the blanket around us, and opened the door an inch or so. It was her. A woman around our age. She wore a yellow scarf coiled around her neck and face that covered her nose and mouth.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry to bug you. Is it a bad time?”
We’d never met, but we knew it was the girl from upstairs. The unit directly above us. She was wearing a heavy, beige jacket, buttoned up the front. It hung down several inches past her waist.
“Well,” we said, turning to look back, “we have some water boiling on the stove.”
“It’s getting cold out,” she said.
“Has the snow started yet?”
