The capacity of elites to mobilize public opinion depends largely on their ability to select symbols and rhetoric that will resonate with deep-seated cultural myths and metaphors. In this statement we find clues to why the themes underpinning the drug war mentality have fared so differently after crossing the border and landing on Canadian soil.

While clinging tenaciously to our share of prejudices, resentments and grievances, Canadian bigotry was not forged in the furnace of slavery, civil war and reconstruction. Our traditions of bitterness skate on the perennially thin ice of French-English and regional tensions. And since drug use is not associated in any significant way with language or region, traditional Canadian prejudices have not been sufficiently primed by the issue of drugs to spur demands for massive public investment.

Certainly, some racial associations with drugs have been made and particular minority groups have suffered seemingly unwarranted attention from police authorities (McCabe-Lokos 2002). But these groups lack the critical mass necessary to mobilize enough politically useful animosity to make the project of fanning the embers of racial acrimony worthwhile. Attempts have been made in Ontario to prime class divisions by linking illicit drug use with welfare recipients through the policy of mandatory drug tests. How effective this issue frame is at creating the notion of a dangerous underclass in the Canadian context remains to be seen, but there just might be too little of the “other” in Canada’s poor to make the effort truly worth the candle.

Furthermore, attempts to mobilize the patriarchal models of the family and religion are unlikely to garner the same reaction in Canada that they achieve with American audiences. The difference between Canadians and Americans reaches right into the most intimate aspects of private life. Canadians have accepted a more flexible definition of family including a greater acceptance of non-traditional relationships, sex outside of marriage, and same-sex relationships. Currently, one in three children are born to parents who are living together but not married, and fewer than half of Canada’s families conform to the traditional nuclear model (Statistics Canada 2002). While in the U.S. common-law marriage and the birth of children “out of wedlock” is taken as a sign of moral decay and disintegration of society, it is a trend that goes essentially unnoticed in politics in Canada (Adams 1997). In this context, the power of the right’s rhetoric, so centrally tied to the Strict Father metaphor, to resonate with Canadian audiences is considerably diluted.

In fact, Adams (1997) maintains that within the time-span of a single generation, Canadians have thrown off their renowned acquiescence to authority in the family and just about everywhere else, replacing it with a deep distrust of institutions in all their forms--secular and religious. In the late 1940s, 60% of Canadians reported attending church services weekly. By 1999 fewer than 20% of Canadians over the age of 15 were attending weekly religious services and 16% of Canadians were reporting no religious affiliation whatsoever, a figure that has more than doubled since 1981 (Statistics Canada 2001).

Americans, on the other hand, and despite their adherence to ideals of personal autonomy have much greater confidence in religion, state, family and the marketplace. Almost all (95%) of Americans claim to believe in God and nearly half think that the Deity has been giving America His special protection throughout its history. Close to two-thirds of Americans believe children raised with religious faith will grow up to be more moral than non-religious children, 85% say it would be a good thing if religion had greater influence on American life, 58% believe the strength of their society is predicated on the religious faith of its people, and more than half admit to harbouring negative views towards atheists (Pew Research Centre of the People and the Press 2002).