Carved in the stone of the outside wall of the Scottish Parliament building, is "Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation" with the quotation attributed to the great contemporary Scottish writer Alasdair Gray.

Gray's sentiment has been used repeatedly to appeal to Scots in various ways, most recently by a major Scottish Sunday newspaper in an editorial endorsing the Scottish National Party in this Thursday's Scottish election.

What is not generally recognized in Scotland, however, is that the idea is not original to Gray but is derived from Canadian poet Dennis Lee's Civil Elegies in which he wrote "And best of all is finding a place to be/in the early days of a better civilization." The lines that follow may also have caught Gray's eye. Lee goes on to say "For we are a conquered nation: sea to sea we bartered/everything that counts, till we have/nothing to lose but our forebears' will to lose."

Lee was writing in the early 1970s when he felt that Canada was beginning to shake off the deleterious effects of British and American colonialism and discover its own identity It is no coincidence that his idea was echoed on the side of the Scottish Parliament building in 1999 when Scottish hopes were high that a new era had arrived for them.

These hopes were so high, in fact, that it was probably inevitable that they would be disappointed. Vast overruns on the cost of the Parliament building and a general feeling that its occupants had underperformed meant that subsequent Scottish elections were blighted by apathy and low voter turnout.

This time, however, there is a brio in the run-up to the election that was not evident in previous ones. This is due in large part to the Scottish National Party leading in the advance polls which has galvanized both supporters and opponents of the cause of Scottish independence.

But why should Canadians care beyond the fact that one of their poets is being used to issue a rallying cry?

For one thing, there are 4.2 million Scots Canadians, almost as many as there are residents of Scotland eligible to vote in Thursday's election.

Secondly, there is a historical symbiosis between the state of Scottish politics and politics in Canada. The adjournment of the Scottish Parliament in 1707 created a paradoxical situation whereby one of the world's most politicized populations had no parliament of its own.

Many Scots practiced their politics in London (and still do) but many more took their political skills outside of Britain, especially to Canada. In Canada the Scots were disproportionately involved at all levels of government. MacDonald from Glasgow and MacKenzie from Longierait, the first two Prime Ministers; another MacDonald, the first Premier of Ontario; another MacKenzie, the first Mayor of Toronto; Murdoch from Paisley, the first Mayor of Calgary; MacLean from Tiree, the first Mayor of Vancouver - too many to list While the connections between Canada and Scotland may not be a strong as they once were, they still exist and the Scottish election has served to highlight some of them.

The successes and failures of Quebec nationalism have been used to both promote and oppose the SNP's ambitions though little account seems to be taken of the differences between the two situations. Quebec nationalists are trying to create a new nation and the Scots restore an old one; an independent Quebec would be isolated between two large neighbours, an independent Scotland just another small nation in an expanding European Economic Community.

A more telling comparison might be made with the Canadian provincial political system generally. As presently constituted, the Scottish Parliament has broadly similar powers to Canadian provincial parliaments with jurisdiction over areas like health and education. Polls suggest that Scots want these powers expanded even when they do not support independence and there is much discussion of how a Scottish parliament could work if it had its own tax raising powers (similar to those of Canadian provinces) and some say in areas like immigration, national security and energy.

One other thing that Canadians might want to a watch for is the Scottish experiment in representative democracy. The Scottish Parliament uses an additional member system (AMS) and the local government elections, which take place the same day, use the single transferable vote system (STV), the same system recommended to British Columbia by its Citizens' Convention in 2005. It makes for a complicated ballot, but working in the early days of a better nation is a complicated business.

1:48pm Wednesday 2nd May 2007

Print

Email this