Part 3 - Mediocrity

Continued from part 2

The Waterloo region is a shining example of the virtuous circle of success: excellence spreading from the classroom to the R&D department, to average citizens and maybe even soon to the hockey rink. It’s an example for everyone to follow and its an example that everyone can follow. Because really, the development of modern Waterloo was very simple: businesses feeding off world-class talent research from a nearby university. Unfortunately, it’s the exception rather than the rule, and this doesn’t look to be changing any time soon.

But why can’t it change? What is stopping Canada from funding world-class universities and fostering excellence like they do in other parts of the world?

I sometimes feel that we confuse excellence with elitism, and thereby make excellence into a negative thing. We can all see how Michael Ignatieff is still having to convince Canadians that his Harvard pedigree does not stop him from understanding the concerns of ordinary citizens. Why did Tony Blair not face the same questions about attending Oxford, or Clinton and Bush about attending Yale? It is exactly the same problem that affects Pinchas Zukerman, the Artistic Director of the NAC Orchestra, who despite being revered around the globe as one of the greatest violinists of his time, still has to put up with perpetually negative reviews in the Ottawa Citizen and Globe and Mail. Why do Canadian reviewers have to attack Zukerman for being the best, when the rest of the world has only good things to say?

I think it’s fair to say that many Canadians are not only uninterested in excellence, but actually hostile towards it. I’d love to know where the mental block lies, because objectively, excellence can only do us good. Maybe we’re intimidated by the pressure of our neighbour to the South and prefer to define ourselves as “different” rather than risk loosing in a race for excellence. Maybe we’re a country that likes to claim “we could be the best if we wanted to be” so as never to face the humiliation of trying hard without winning the prize.

At any rate, Canada’s general mediocrity makes it a very unattractive place for ambitious people –most importantly young people who dream of innovating and changing the world. I will certainly admit that given the choice between studying in a top Canadian University or an Ivy League, I would still pick the Ivy League any day. It’s not that I don’t like my own country, but Ivy League Universities offer something better. In the same way, when it comes the time for the NAC to find a new Artistic Director, potential candidates could easily be put off by the negative press reception that Zukerman had to deal with over his whole tenure.

This will only hurt Canada in the long term, and we can call it the vicious circle of mediocrity. It has to be broken and it can be broken, because Canadians have no less brains that Swedes, Germans or Americans. Canada and excellence aren’t friends, but it’s time for them to get back together again.