Canada on brink of implosion, chaos rampant

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No, not really. But that’s the view of one Stephen Marche, who in The New Republic a couple of weeks ago wrote that Canada is about to become… the Balkans. Or Italy. Or something really, really terrible:

If Canada does collapse — and the parliamentary crisis is pointing us in that direction — the U.S. will end up with something like a Balkans to the North.

Canada has become ungovernable, entering a period of Italian-style instability.

Marche was perhaps overstating his case for effect, but, regardless, it is one of the worst and most outlandish analyses of Canadian politics ever written (and shame on the editors of TNR for publishing such stupidity -- it should have known better, not least because it is owned by Canadian media conglomerate CanWest, although Marche's piece may actually fit right in with CanWest's right-wing propaganda and fearmongering).

I wrote a lengthy response to it in an article at The Guardian that was published yesterday. You can find it here.