This is, of course, a chant popular in grade 3 classes everywhere. A steady reader of the National Post however, might mistake it for the anthem Canadians sing to each other on patriotic occasions. Certainly it came to mind when reading Michael Bliss’s much-discussed article in the newspaper headlined, “Is Canada a Country in Decline?”

The notion that Canada is a country in decline, a nation of losers, a hub of mediocrity, etc. is one encountered often in the Post. Now, I’m not disagreeing Canada has declined in recent years. But the decline I see has to do with our willingness to give up control over the shape of our own society, our willingness to knuckle under to the dictates of global capital.

The decline highlighted so often in the Post is almost exactly the opposite. It usually boils down to a deep yearning for us to be more in lockstep with the United States’ way of doing things, particularly on the economic front.

We’re a weak and piddling people, slaves to mediocrity, the argument seems to go, because we don’t have the balls to offer our rich people as big a tax break as the rich south of the border get. (This fits with Post columnist Peter Foster’s recent suggestion that high taxes have caused more damage in the world than terrorism. Forget those guys in the caves; can’t those Daisy Cutters do something about capital gains taxation?)

In his article, Bliss is particularly exercised about the decline in Canada&#0146s standard of living, relative to the United States. He never exactly identifies the source of this decline, but criticizes us for not lowering our taxes to American levels, allowing our dollar to slip so far below the U.S. one, not reducing our public debt fast enough — all the usual suspects.

The Post’s columnist Mark Steyn, meanwhile, regrets that Canadians can’t be more like the spunky passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, commemorated in Neil Young’s new song “Let’s Roll.” I suspect the rolling Steyn would like to see from us is along the lines of deferring more eagerly to U.S. power. “Let’s Just Roll Over” might be closer to his idea of an appropriate Canadian anthem.

But back to Bliss and our declining living standard. He argues Canada’s living standard nearly matched that of the United States in the 1960s and since then, has been failing to keep up. This timing fits conveniently with the notion it was the build-up of social programs and the welfare state after 1960 that sapped our strength and vigour as a nation.

It’s a good storyline, marred only by a few troublesome facts. In fact, Canada’s standard of living was already 20 per cent below that of the United States at the beginning of the 1960s, before our parliamentarians had even dreamt up medicare and affordable university education as a way to increase mediocrity in the country.

Then, interestingly, even as all that mediocrity was foisted upon us, Canada proceeded inexplicably over the next thirty years to reduce the gap between Canadian and American living standards from the level it was at in 1960.

For most of the next three decades after 1960, our Gross Domestic Product per capita actually rose faster than that of the United States, as data from the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards shows. It’s only really since the early 1990s that our standard of living has significantly deteriorated compared to the United States.

Now, maybe I’m being a stickler for detail, but it seems to me that if we were genuinely curious about Canada’s declining living standards, we might start by looking at what we did differently in the 1990s, when the decline began.

Incidentally, of course, the 1990s is an era when the financial elite was particularly effective at putting its agenda in place in Canada. Indeed, its standard whipping boys — social programs and the progressive tax system — were mostly under the knife then.

What was distinctive and new about Canada in the 1990s was its severe austerity program. It started with the Bank of Canada’s reckless attempt to eliminate inflation through high interest rates in the early part of the decade. This drove the country into deep recession — never a good thing for one’s standard of living — and big deficits, which Ottawa tackled mostly with hefty spending cuts.

Meanwhile, south of the border, no such reckless extremism was going on. The result of all the Canadian belt-tightening was that, after thirty years of gaining ground on U.S. living standards, Canada started to lose ground in the 1990s.

Bliss suggests, instead, that the widening gap has something to do with our failure “to level the tax playing field with the Americans.” It’s true U.S. taxes are overall lower than ours, but again, we should look at what was different about the 1990s, when the Canadian decline began.

Interestingly, the tax playing field between Canada and the United States actually became more level in second half of the 1990s — mostly because the Clinton administration raised taxes on high-income earners in the United States.

So, while some may believe high taxes cause more damage in the world than terrorism, let’s not get carried away and assume high taxes are also responsible for the post-1990 decline in Canada’s living standard.

Not surprisingly, Bliss’s options for the future revolve mostly around closer integration with the United States. He briefly raises the possibility of reinvigorating an independent Canadian nation, and then promptly loses spirit for the task because of intimidating forces like globalization and continentalization.

And now, all together, “Let’s Just Roll Over.”

Linda McQuaig

Journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989...