Will Ferguson had a good idea, attack the unassailable image
Canadians have of themselves. It takes a traveled ex pat to see
that Canadians swallow a lot of their own propaganda without
applying a critical eye, or at least the same critical eye they
apply to Americans who stumble north. Ask an American, German, or
Japanese why their country is the greatest nation on earth and
they'll make references to contributions to
industry/science/history/culture. Ask a Canadian and he'll point to
a UN survey. Or worse, he'll phrase it in the form of "we're great
because we're not like the USA in these ways..." It's a little sad
and telling that the biggest example of Canadian patriotism in the
last 20 years is the "I Am Canadian" beer commercial, which itself
is little more than an inventory of how Canadians are different
from Americans.
There's probably a very good Globe & Mail Fifth Column piece
hiding in this book. As a book, however, it's over long. Ferguson
pads it with utterly boring p