Having watched the intellectual evolution of John Richards for 35 years, I have always been impressed by his ability to perceive new social patterns, challenges and potential solutions well before others do. In this article, he does not disappoint (“Canada’s Candide,” October 2007).
First, though, a quibble. In my opinion, Vancouver and Toronto have grown much closer to each other over the past couple of decades while distancing themselves from most of what lies between, including Calgary. To the horror of Vancouverites, especially those originally from the east, Torontonians have adopted English Bay, Kitsilano and Shaughnessy as their spiritual coast, hoping one day to end up there the way people used to hope they would go to heaven.
It is Calgary, rather than the twin cities of Vancouver and Toronto, that confronts an existentially Canadian predicament. Richards is right that Calgary’s brains and energy have made it a city that is ready to rule. What others, including the bankers of Toronto who chose not to invest in the Alberta oil patch during its early days, have often failed to see is that Calgary has had to reinvent itself a number of times over the past century. Rail town, cow town, spiritual headquarters of Social Credit during the Depression, oil town and now a financial, cultural and political metropolis, Calgary’s rise is the great Canadian success story of the past six decades.
I don’t agree that Calgary lacks physical charm. Its rivers, neighbourhoods, transition from prairie to foothills and its outlook on the Rockies give the city the look of a place that is continually in the process of movement and creation.
In a setting that cannot escape the problems of resources, global markets, revolutionary technology and environmental degradation, Calgarians have always had to live by their wits. Therein lies the city’s next historical conundrum as Richards suggests.
Richards is quite right to deride the placebos Canadians have been fed to coddle them as they confront the climate change crisis. His own list of proposals, while debatable in its details is a least a serious one.
It may well be true that Stephen Harper will be most remembered for how he confronts the climate change question. That is also the challenge that confronts Calgary.
To make its next historic leap, the business, intellectual, cultural and political leadership of Calgary will need to look beyond the oil sands and oil itself. To succeed, it will need to devise a program that will allow Alberta to benefit from oil the way Norway has, as a stepping stone to the future, while providing leadership to Canadians on the environment.
Could Stephen Harper devise such a program? Based on past performance, it doesn’t seem likely. But Richard Nixon did reach out to China, as Richards reminds us. Nixon, though, was much more corrupt, dissolute and opportunistic than Harper, which made him malleable, and he did have Henry Kissinger at his elbow.
Still, the idea of an environmental political saviour from Calgary is an intriguing one.
James Laxer
Toronto, Ontario
