Ep. 65 / Elbows Up: Canada's Rejection of the 51st State with Paul Marshall (Part 1)

A throwaway line about Canada becoming the “51st state” lit a fuse that burns back centuries. In this episode we open the map to a rarely told story: English Canada was built by people who rejected the American Revolution, chose loyalty to the Crown, and embraced a social order they believed to be steadier. That choice set Canada on a communitarian path summed up by peace, order and good government, while the United States elevated individual liberty as its guiding star. 

In conversation with Dr. Paul Marshall, a political theorist from Baylor University, we walk along the border where these ideals collide. From Loyalist flags and bishops founding universities, to Sunday closing laws and the Charter of Rights, we trace how Canada balanced personal freedom with social cohesion—and how it rapidly secularized, even as the U.S. wrestled with a renewed push to restore mid-century moral norms. We also unpack the contested label of Christian nationalism and focus on what most believers actually seek: protection for life, conscience and family; without confusing political power for spiritual authority. 

For listeners who care about political theology, Canadian history, U.S. culture wars, and the future of faith in public life, this conversation offers clarity without clichés and history without hagiography. If you'd like to learn more from Dr. Paul Marshall, you can purchase one of his most recent books, go to his website or follow him on Facebook. 

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Transcript

Opening And The 51st State Remark

Brian Stiller 0:10

Canadians rose from their stadium mast when they heard the American president suggest that Canada would be better off if it joined the USA as its 51st state. This country north of the United States is the second largest country by landmass in the world. With its history of being founded in 1867, it's a country with a rather clear sense of it not being an American and somewhere between Europe and the United States. In my over seven decades of living here, I have never witnessed such an outburst of indignation and anger. Using our hockey metaphor of keeping up your elbows, the national response was both humorous and revealing. Paul Marshall has entered this debate with a remarkable insight into her founding. A political theorist, a Canadian now teaching at Baylor University in Texas, is Christian Roots, and this opportunity of looking through that lens gives an interesting and valuable lesson of history, an application of that history to today, and how we might then think as Christians of this dust-up of Northern American neighbors. And thanks to you for joining me. Please consider sharing this episode with a friend. If you haven't done so already, please hit the subscribe button. You can also join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Well, when I read your article analyzing why we in Canada got our elbows up when Trump suggested

Loyalist Origins Of English Canada

Brian Stiller 2:00

we become the 51st state. It was a fascinating insight that I had never read before.

Paul Marshall 2:06

Well, thanks. It was um what hit me, you know, Trump's first month, he sort of talks about taking over the Panama Canal, taking over Greenland and whatever. And then with Canada, you should become the 51st state. Uh the other thing smoothed out. It's basically, you know, Trump's a real estate guy, makes this maximum deal, and then you sell for something else. So we've got control of the two ends of Panama and that sort of. But Canada, the reaction was, you know, so deep to what was probably a joke and um long-lasting. And you know, it shaped the elections and uh Canada's reaction since. Americans probably don't even remember. Um my question is, why this reaction and why aren't Americans aware that this would happen? And I said it's deeply rooted in history. Because Canada, English Canada, Quebec is, in all I'm saying, Quebec is its own different thing. Canada was formed by people who rejected being Americans. My simple way of putting this is uh the American Declaration of Independence didn't create just one country in the Antiquity II, the other being Canada. Because when uh the American colonies rebelled against the British, lots of people didn't go along with it. Tens of hundreds of thousands didn't go along with it. They wanted to remain British. Uh they wanted to maintain an established, loosely established church. So they wanted the church and the crown. And so they opposed it. And life became very rough for them in the years after um American independence. You know, there's a war going on for seven years, and they're on the Brit side. So many fled to Canada. And even after uh American independence, others went there. So uh English Canada was being formed by people who left the United States who didn't want to be American. And by significant numbers? Yeah, by about 1805, three-quarters of English Canadians were people who'd left the United States, or the children of people who'd left the United States. That for English Canada in the East, that's who they were. We don't want to be Americans. We want to maintain our ties to the crown. Of course, that that still exists. You know, we we have a you know, can Canada has a King Charles again. So and um many Canadians aren't, Americans certainly aren't aware of that. Uh many Canadians aren't. Uh filming this in the province of Ontario, on whose flag it says, Loyal she was, loyal she remains. Loyal to what? To Britain, to the crown. And um the people who uh came north, but you know, were called United Empire Loyalists. And they they were the the core, the flag of New Brunswick in Canada has as a uh similar thing. Until 50 years ago, uh if you were descended from those people, you could actually put UEL after your name.

Brian Stiller 5:44

United Empire Loyalists.

Paul Marshall 5:47

So this goes deep within Canada. We're not Americans, we're not different. We want a different type of country up here. We don't have want to have war or hate them all the time. Uh but we're not them. We don't want to be there. So Trump's comments, you know, touch this nerve. Most people couldn't articulate it. Uh don't know the history of sort of Canada's continuing rejection of America and seeing the United States

Identity, Church, And Crown

Paul Marshall 6:20

as fundamentally unchristian as compared to Canada. Uh but it's in our genes or collective memory or whatever expression we want to do. And that that touched that nerve. So Canada is uh uh, you know, Canada, which is gentle in everything except a hockey rink, is um, you know, is figured he up in arms and you know, put the elbows up, uh condemnation of the United States. And then also because there are tariffs involved, having to look at the economy and reorient it. But uh Trump kicked a Hornet's nest and didn't know that. And uh I tried to explore historically why it is such a Hornet's nest.

Brian Stiller 7:03

And most Canadians didn't understand the nature of this Hornet's nest. They just had this visceral response to an attack on our identity, our sense of being, uh, our collective vision of what it means to be a Canadian as compared to being an American. Yeah. Uh and now, and then it devolved into anger over tariffs and economic issues. But but you're saying it has more of an historical kind of a cultural national identity issue more than economics.

Paul Marshall 7:35

Uh going back in the article, you mentioned I you know quote various people, uh bishops, and when bishops were powerful in the 19th century, so you're very much rejecting. Seeing America's unchristian, for one thing, slavery. Now, there were slaves in the early years in Canada. Some people, some of the loyalists brought slaves with them. And by the way, uh about uh 5,000 Indian Americans came north. The five Six Nations Reserve around Brantford was largely people uh who more moved north who wanted to stay loyal to the crown.

Brian Stiller 8:11

So they were essentially United Empire loyalists as well, but Indigenous to the American.

Paul Marshall 8:18

So they they basically thought they had treaties with Britain.

Brian Stiller 8:24

The Aboriginal, the Indigenous people.

Paul Marshall 8:26

Yeah. And it's difficult because in Canada, Canadians don't use the word Indian. United States, we still do. They still do. They had treaties with the British Crown. So they had some sort of protection, they had some sort of guarantee. If there's a new country coming up, you don't know what what deals you're gonna get. So let's let's stick with the Brits. So Americans rejected that because Canadians rejected that because um within the British Empire, slavery was abolished much earlier than um than in the US. And that continued. America would you know was seen as violent. You know, Canadian Prime Minister Wilfred Lawyer got a speech of his. So it continues through that. And I'd be saying this is deeply rooted in it, and it's a fascinating change because Canada's now so in many ways much more secular than the US. Um, but it always stressed its deep-rooted Christianity and its peace and order and good government as against the Americans. Canadians saw themselves as a much more Christian country than the Americans, which you know, which seems strange to most Christians now, or to most Americans.

Brian Stiller 10:06

Because today, uh, much of your more conservative uh uh allegiance in the U.S. seems to be wrapped around a particular kind of Protestant, even Catholic vision of God and country, whereas our country seems to um move away from that as fast as it can.

Paul Marshall 10:29

Yeah, and uh lots of people are. And that tendency we mentioned in Canada to sort of move away from uh strong identification with the country, at least with flags and God. Um

Moral Contrasts And Early Slavery Debates

Paul Marshall 10:45

you've had that in the United States, and what we're seeing now in the sort of make America great again movement is a reaction to that. A reaction against sort of secularizing an individual and changing Mores and things like that.

Brian Stiller 11:02

Let's look at the two countries with their understanding of the freedom of individuals. Today the operative word in the U.S. is freedom, is liberty. In Canada, we have various forms and shades of liberalism. So when you look at Canada and the U.S., how would you, as a political theorist, which is your discipline, how would you define the two countries in relationship to its understanding of freedom and liberty for individuals and for community?

Paul Marshall 11:35

Yeah, one of the first things, um liberalism has many meanings. The Europeans use it differently from the Americans, Canada used to, though. That's changing.

Brian Stiller 11:47

Can you define that?

Paul Marshall 11:48

Yeah, it's interest individual freedom. And uh in Canada, that's been less important. It doesn't mean it wasn't, it isn't the case of do you believe in it or don't you. It's how big is it in terms of all the things you're committed to. So Canada developed with a stronger sense of community, uh but identifying sort of universities uh with churches, most of our older universities were founded by bishops. And the if you take uh the sort of Canadian traditional uh motto, Americans have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Canadians have had peace, order, and good government. A stronger sense of community that, you know, we value individual freedom, you don't just lock people up for no reason or whatever. Uh, but as much as possible, you defer to the community and um seek to get along with people and accept established mores. So you want to maintain order. In and in Canada, that's meant you had a sort of traditional conservatism, a Toryism, not focused around markets and things of this kind, but again, uh a sense of order, uh, of respect. Um it was deferential. You see the society as more organic. And you want people to be free, but individual freedom is not the be-all and end all in existence. In the United States, there really hasn't been any strong alternative to liberalism. That is a uh

Brian Stiller 13:35

And they define liberalism in what way?

Paul Marshall 13:37

Uh the uh for Americans, it's about, again, a stress on individual freedom and political order stems from the the consent of the people who are governed. The purpose of government is to facilitate as much individual freedom as possible. Where you get the political division in the US has been what sort of individual freedom do you have? Uh, traditionally, what Americans have called conservatism have stressed a free market and property. The government leaves you alone, and uh you have a safety net for people uh who can't get along, who are ill or injured or whatever. But basically, you leave people alone to work out their own lives in the market and make make their own living.

Freedom In Canada Versus The U.S.

Paul Marshall 14:30

Uh what is now sort of the left liberalism in America is it recently you've stressed uh much more social freedom. So now you get it in terms of, yeah, the latest one is in terms of you know, transsexual. You should be able, you should be free to define whether you're a man or a woman. Or you don't try and impose sexual borrays on people. So uh you want freedom of choice about um when you might die, um about abortion and things of this kind. So the left tends to stress more social freedoms, the right tends to stress more economic freedoms.

Brian Stiller 15:10

So we have these two notions of liberalism or freedom, which which liberalism means, but it's seen more communitarian in Canada, more individualistic in the U.S. Yes. So how how did that evolve when you have this migration of the United Empire loyalists up into Canada? The United States has formed, a hundred years later, Canada has formed, and so today we have this clash when the when when when the president suggests that we should we'd be happy to become their 51st state. How do those ideas of freedom clash?

Paul Marshall 15:52

They, well in I would say, you know, they clashed because of use the good word, the communitarian, that uh uh much more of an emphasis in Canada, that we're part of community, we need to fit in, go alongside other people, uh uh, respect traditional morals and patterns. That's been there in Canada more strongly emphasized by the conservatives who were more organic. In Canada, the Liberal Party tended to be the more uh American ones, stressing individual freedom, much more oriented towards markets. Whereas uh conservatives, I'm talking now about you know pre-1960, 1970, uh the the conservatives would be more suspicious of of free markets. Again, it's not do you have it or don't. You're gonna have markets, but you might want to you want to rein them in more uh to protect other things, uh traditional way of life. Um, one of the things um, you know, we were both involved in this was the question of uh Sunday closing laws. And um in the end they were lifted. But a lot of people, you know, not just so traditionalists or Christians or whatever, but it was very strong in the union movement. You know, we want one day of the week where everybody can, almost everybody can be off work, you know, not in hospitals or the police, but but other things. Uh can we have a day which breaks the rhythm um of the week of shopping and everything else? Um, in the end, that went. And that was an attempt to put a fairly small limit on the market to allow other things, uh family life, to make sure most families can be together on that day. Even if they're not going to church, you know, they can go to the beach or whatever, but but they're they're together. And um that would be the sort of more traditional conservative one. You've had a movement now in Canada that again, you still get social conservatives, you know, around things like now medically assist medically assisted suicide, uh, or uh still questions of abortion and so on, you still get that on the sort of right in Canada. But now uh again, it's a stronger stress on markets and economic freedom in the conservative parties than uh than in the liberal parties. In some ways they've shifted. Um the American um the Canadian patterns of I think Canadian politics has become more Americanized. That'll probably annoy Canadians more than Trump.

Brian Stiller 18:46

But just take a moment to unwrap that.

Paul Marshall 18:48

You know, in America, all this is of course a gross oversimplification, but in in America, you know, the conservatives, right-wing Republicans stress economic freedom. Uh in recent

Markets, Morals, And Sunday Laws

Paul Marshall 19:00

years, the uh the left is has tended to stress more social freedom. You know, it's it's tended to lose the working class to the Republicans now. It it's more elite bureaucratic thing. Uh and uh you know, stressing things. Uh you know, getting marriage was a big issue, abortions and other big issues, trans stuff. Um that's what tends to get a lot of the democratic base excited. And the traditional unions and uh working class, those aren't their issues, you know, they want to keep their job or want to stop the factory closing down in the middle of Ohio or something of that kind. So um, but that's a division. So social freedoms on the one hand, economic freedoms on the other. And we start to see that more uh in Canada now, with the uh uh conservatives looking a bit more like the Republicans and the Liberals are looking a bit more like the Democrats, as well, picking up on those um elements. And I think some of that goes back to the uh uh Canadian Constitution Act of 82 of with a uh a charter of rights and freedom, with you know, again strong stress on um individual freedom. And I I think it's meant in Canada the the question of individual freedom has become uh much stronger, and but with debates about what sort of freedom takes priority.

Brian Stiller 20:34

Now, over the last few decades, you've had enormous shift with relationship to faith and politics, especially in the U.S., but it's manifested in Canada as well. But in the early 1900s, the Prime Minister said Canada didn't want to be Americans because Americans aren't Christian enough.

Paul Marshall 20:55

Yeah.

Brian Stiller 20:56

And yet today, if there's one thing that you would hear in the U.S., is that the political right tend to side with uh conservative Protestants or evangelicals and conservative Catholics. In Canada, uh the attempt to uh uh unlink any relationship between faith and politics uh seems to be uh seems to be the the priority of many politicians or many people in the public service. So how did that come about?

Paul Marshall 21:30

I'm not sure all the you know this is a question of how comes Canada secularized so quickly? Um just so back up. We're talking, um uh most of the people watching and listening to the discussion were probably aware of Catholic integralists in the United States.

Brian Stiller 21:51

Catholic integralists.

Paul Marshall 21:54

As an integral.

Brian Stiller 21:55

Yes.

Paul Marshall 21:56

And they're a very small group of intellectual, and it's like Most of the very right wing stuff. There aren't that many people out there, but they draw a lot of attention. But these are people who think that the problems we now see in America go back to its founding. That liberalism, that that overstress on religious freedom has led America to where we are now. And they want the stress of much more public role for the church, for some of them even having an established church. But pushing to something like Canada was historically, you know, it's peace, order, and good government rather than my freedom, my freedom, don't tread on me, my rights all the time. And this problem goes back to the American founding. The problem was there and it slowly unfolded to what we are now. One reason I wrote that article, uh referring to is this the sort of country you're saying America should try and be is the sort of country uh America was. Indeed, I hadn't checked, but the great

Americanization Of Canadian Politics

Paul Marshall 23:10

evangelical historian, in both senses, he's an evangelical and he's written the history of evangelicals. Mark Knoll says, you know, if the integral, if people want an integralist society, they should just look north of the 49th parallel. And so they say it's just unwound that way. The problem was way back then. My point was, I said, Canada, you know, it stressed peace, order, loyalty, you know, strong role for the church, loyalty to the crown, hierarchy and order. Canada had that, and now it's much more secular in the United States. Uh if if America had the sort of founding that you you think it should have, that's no guarantee it would escape the problems it has now. Life is much too complicated. You do you don't lay out your principles in your Declaration of Independence, and they slowly logically unfold to lead your society. Life is much more complicated than that. So Canada as a uh so more integralist is now more secular. And then the radical example of Quebec, you know, uh, which would be a very strong example of integralism into the 1950s and 1960s.

Brian Stiller 24:34

And integralism again means where you have the church and state to be dominant.

Paul Marshall 24:42

Yeah. Cooperative needn't be an established church, though some of them uh want that. But this there's a close relation with them. And uh this uh state has a role in uh protecting morality.

Brian Stiller 24:56

So you're saying Canada started that way, but through dominant secularization, it has moved, it has devolved that.

Paul Marshall 25:06

Yep.

Brian Stiller 25:06

Whereas the U.S. started the individual rights and freedoms and is becoming more of that?

Paul Marshall 25:13

It's becoming more of that, but I think Canada's more secular than the US. Depends where you are. You know, the Maritimes is very different from downtown Toronto. Uh but my point there is, you know, uh your founding is no guarantee what you're going to be 100 or 200 years later. Life is more complicated than that. Or just take the very strong example of uh uh Quebec. The Catholic Church was not uh legally the state church, but it functions, it was just about. It ran the school system, it ran the hospitals, it ran everything. It was very central. In the 1950s, Jehovah's Witnesses were being imprisoned in Quebec. Uh so this very strong thing. And what is Quebec now, you know, 50, 60 years later, uh, you know, debating um a law banning prayer in public and uh lots of other secular steps. So gone from a very uh church-centered society to the most secular part of Canada. So emphasizing that history is complicated, and so trying to entrench a church uh or a particular morality in the society gives you no guarantees 40, 50, 100 years later. Um we need we need to be uh aware of that. This is a very good argument against state churches. You know, Europe gets to be very secular, even though in in many of the countries uh they do have have established churches. You know, the UK has one, Germany funds its churches,

Charter Rights And Individual Liberty

Paul Marshall 27:00

and um in Scandinavia you still get that.

Brian Stiller 27:04

So here we are as evangelicals, and again, people listening to us from around the world, but we're talking about Canada and the U.S. because of our historic relationship and the dynamic of of religion and politics today. So as evangelicals, we have a uh Jesus is king.

Paul Marshall 27:24

Yeah.

Brian Stiller 27:25

But we also believe that if the cross extends itself, it has this vertical dynamic of relationship to God through Christ, but it has that horizontal dynamic where the gospel speaks into all of all of life. It's salt and light and all the other metaphors that Jesus used. So given the dynamics in the U.S. where there's an attempt by some to create a kind of a Christian nationalism or a Christian supremacy, uh, to go back to to what you talked about the integral notion of church and government being more dominant. Uh so you have the all those at play. What do we make of that as evangelicals in in as an American? You're a Canadian living in the U.S., born in Britain, so you you have you have the mixture of them all. What do how do we live out the gospel then as evangelicals given our theology and our history and our sense of church and life?

Paul Marshall 28:25

Yeah, I would think just one note, by the way, the sort of I did write a very long academic piece on uh religious nationalism and conclude. If you use the word nationalism in any careful sense, you know, the identifying a nation, a country with a uh particular religion, there's very little of that in the US. Uh there are mainly amongst uh Calvinists, you know, some very extreme Calvinists in Idaho or whatever, and you get the Catholic integralists. Um, but mainly the people often called Christian nationalists are simply conservative Christians. They're concerned about abortion, they're concerned about uh marriage, they're concerned about domestic religious freedom. Now, not so much international religious freedom. Um so sometimes that term is misused, but you you get a certainly a strong move that the uh traditional Christian character of the United States be preserved. What they want would be something like what the United States was in the 1950s or 1960s. And you know, it was not a fascist state. Uh just you know, more traditional and things happening. So um that's one side. What does it mean we should do? I think one of the most striking things, I think it was another article I sent to you, at uh Charlie Kirk, the turning point uh USA guy who was assassinated, shot while speaking on a university campus,

From Integralism To Secularization

Paul Marshall 30:00

there was a big uh rally, you know, filling in 70,000 people in a football stadium. And that was partly troubling because it was part political rally and part memorial service. And I wish you could have a I wish they'd been done separately because they're not the same thing. And the problem is what people think they are. Uh, but the most striking, you know, lots of reactions to um uh Kirk himself. Uh but when his wife Erica stood up there and said, Yeah, the person who killed my husband, I forgive you. That's what Jesus did. And that means that's what I've got to do. There's probably a few people somewhere, but I've never met someone who criticized that. And I think uh those sorts of uh of moments, uh a similar thing when a teen racist teenager killed eight or nine people outside of a black church um in the south. The church said community, we forgive him. I mean, he was 19, probably pretty mixed-up kid as well. Uh when the Amish, um when Amish children were killed by a gunman, they said, We forgive him. And they raised money for the man's widow. Okay, those hit people. And the later, you know uh uh Pope Beniger, uh Benedict 16th, um Cardinal Ratzinger says um we need to act like a faithful minority, but too often we like act like we're a grumpy majority. And I think that's important. Um in in the US, uh evangelicalism in terms of numbers is is far stronger, but there needs to be any recognition, stronger recognition that society is plural. There are different sorts of people. There are people who strongly disagree with us in this country, and they live here, and they're citizens. We've got to find a way to live together. I I think that that's a message which needs to uh be heard more strongly in America. Um I that sort of ethos I described, I think, is already strong in Canada. You know, evangelicals are a much smaller percentage of the population. And as you well know, it depends how you do it. You know, liberalism is a tough word. Evangelical is another tough word. In the US now it's people call themselves evangelical who never go to church because they think it's a political thing. Um, but in Canada, Christians, theologically conservative Christians, uh strongly were a minority. You can't expect uh sort of a strong uh Christian, well, but depends how you define it, strong Christian ethos in Canada. Um but you fight particular things, and again, not just the sort of traditional moral issues, but they're important in in terms of abortion now, medically assisted suicide. Uh these are important fights, but you see you you see in Canada a much stronger element of worry about massive immigration, uh, but more expressed concern for particular immigrants to welcome them and so forth. There's a bigger tendency in Canada to seek to act like a gracious minority, which is leavening with society, pushing on issues, uh, but also also caring for the poor and the weak. That that's a strong compliment here. So um in that sense, while

Christian Nationalism And Mislabels

Paul Marshall 34:00

there's many more people in the United States, I think I prefer the ethos in Canada.

Brian Stiller 34:06

Well, always informative to speak with you. Thanks for joining us today on Evangelical 360.

Paul Marshall 34:12

Okay, thank you very much, Brian.

Brian Stiller 34:14

Thank you for being a part of the podcast today. And remember, you can share this episode or join the conversation on YouTube. And if you haven't subscribed, just hit that button. If you'd like to learn more about today's guest, check the show notes for links and info. Thanks for the time together. Until next time.