In its relations with the U.S. these days, Canada feels a bit like a woman having an affair with the big rich man next door. She depends on him and he’s a good provider, but he has a roving eye and a lot of other offers.

In this view, Canada is as an anxious mistress, fearful that her wealthy playboy-lover will wander off, attracted by some more curvaceous, accommodating starlet. It’s not a very flattering image. It highlights Canada’s vulnerability and dependence — so perhaps it’s not surprising that the lines were written by an American (former New York Times columnist James Reston).

But, oddly, this image of Canada isn’t far from the one being put forward by members of Canada’s own financial elite, who have been carrying on a vigorous campaign for more than a year to get Canadians to accept deeper economic integration with the U.S.

The unofficial campaign, spearheaded by the business-funded C.D. Howe Institute with backup support from Tom d’Aquino’s Canadian Council of Chief Executives, plays on the notion that Canada is particularly vulnerable to being tossed aside by the U.S. in the new tight-border atmosphere of the post-9/11 era.

Access to the U.S. market is “less assured than it was,” warns the lead-off paper in a C.D. Howe series on closer Canada-U.S. ties, developing a theme of vulnerability that runs through the series, hinting ominously at the heightened levels of insecurity Canadians should feel in the post-9/11 world. One can sense those exotic beauties (Britain, Australia, Spain, Uzbekistan, etc.) prettying themselves up, dropping their necklines, as they jockey for the chief mistress suite at the presidential ranch.

With so much that Canadians are supposed to feel insecure about these days, the business and academic types associated with the C.D. Howe Institute apparently feel emboldened to seize the moment. They’re clearly hoping to push Canadians to accept a greater degree of economic integration with the U.S. — perhaps a customs union or a common market — than we’ve been willing to accept in the past. (Traditionally, Canadians have been unconvinced of the economic benefits and worried that entering into these sorts of arrangements with the ultra-powerful U.S. would compromise our autonomy.)

Such concerns about maintaining our independence don’t seem to be shared by many in our business elite and their supporters in business-funded think tanks. Over the years, these types have been influential in knocking down laws aimed at encouraging Canadian ownership and supporting Canadian culture. They also helped make the case for dismantling laws ensuring Canadians have preferential access to our own resources, like oil and gas. (We no longer do.) And they were a key force pushing us to sign the “free trade” deal, under which U.S. corporations won a wide range of rights to our market.

Of course, there’s nothing new about a local business elite siding with powerful foreign interests — interests that, to a large extent, own the companies that the local elite works for.

In the days of European colonialism, such a local elite was known as a “comprador” class. (Oxford defines “comprador” as the “chief native servant in a European house of business.”)

What’s ironic is the attempt by Canada’s “comprador” class to portray submissiveness to foreign interests as exactly the opposite — as a sign of strength! Of course, the idea is to make knuckling under to American interests more palatable to ordinary Canadians by suggesting that such behaviour indicates we are now “more confident” and “ready for change.”

I suspect we are more confident, so confident that despite constant attempts to stoke our insecurities, we’re reluctant to give up any more of our independence — a spunky attitude that seems to be causing concern at the institute.

In a C.D. Howe paper last month, Alan Alexandroff and Don Guy noted that polling data show Canadians “do not favour” economic integration, that a growing number of Canadians feel the free trade deal benefits the U.S. more than Canada. Only about 20 per cent of Canadians are happy with the way Canada is becoming more like the U.S.

So how should the elite respond to such a clear yearning for independence on the part of ordinary Canadians? Alexandroff and Guy suggest that Canadians are simply “confused,” and that political leaders must “educate and persuade the public” of the importance of accepting further Canada-U.S. integration.

To that end, it probably wouldn’t hurt if Canadians were constantly reminded of their vulnerability these days, and of the proper way to keep a man from wandering — laugh at his jokes, stroke his ego, admire his plans to invade Iraq.

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...