Fascinating Canada. John Robert Colombo

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      PREFACE

      The Dominion of Canada is a remarkable country in many ways, but some of these ways are contradictory — and that is what makes the country so fascinating. It is seen as a young country, yet it is one of the world’s oldest functioning democracies. It is seen to be spacious, yet its landscape is sparsely populated. It is seen to be a country that is neither capitalist nor socialist, for it has a “mixed” economy and many of its most binding social institutions reflect a combination of private initiative and public undertaking — the so-called “crown” corporations. It is seen to be a multicultural country (it pioneered the use of that term to describe a policy that is falling into disfavour), while it retains two official languages and promotes no official culture. It is seen to be a democracy, yet it is a monarchy with not one but two constitutions. It is seen to be a peaceful country (we were the first proponents of international peacekeeping and have adopted a police force as a national symbol), yet we have fought valiantly in most major military engagements. It is seen to be a haven in a heartless world, and indeed more than one-third of its population is foreign-born and most everyone here boasts of his or her ethnic roots. It is seen to be a country with a cold climate, yet the weather differs little from that enjoyed by the citizens of other northern nations. Similarly, it is seen to be a Northern nation, yet most of its inhabitants live as far south as possible. So Canada is a fascinating country indeed!

      That is Canada in the abstract, the skeleton of the country that informs the present book. But the present work isn’t about Canada as an abstraction — it is instead about the country and its people in their multitude of particulars. The country is a collection of initiatives and interests, many of them quite fascinating for their wisdom and their folly. About seventy years ago, newspaperman Bruce Hutchison described the spirit of this country and its people in a memorable book titled The Unknown Country: Canada and Her People. Today, we might argue with the pronoun her in the book’s subtitle, because we aren’t inclined to classify countries by gender, but the adjective unknown remains the operative word. Many of us seem to have lost touch with our innate curiosity, especially with regard to this great country, and that is unfortunate, because curiosity is a great and essential gift. Curiosity is a trait that encourages us to wonder about ourselves and other selves, about the sciences and the arts, and ultimately about man’s fate and human destiny. In some cultural traditions, this driving force is known as holy curiosity, and indeed I hold curiosity to be holy, or at least very special, for it confers the power to enliven and enlighten everyday attitudes, interests, and concerns

      For a long time, I have been especially curious about subjects of specific Canadian interest — what is known as Canadiana. I find it fascinating. For the last half-century, I have devoted an hour or so of each day to researching subjects like the ones discussed in this book, and I do so by bombarding myself and friends and the specialists I meet with a barrage of questions, so many questions that at times I must seem to be a know-nothing! Not long ago I met a friend from my university years who upon graduation took a postgraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and then settled in a suburb of Washington, D.C. He has enjoyed a notable career, initially as director of the Congressional Budget Office, later as an associate of the American Enterprise Institute, and currently as senior fellow with the Urban Institute. I innocently asked him if he had an explanation for the fact that he had been so successful in life, since even he had admitted surprise at the trajectory of his professional career. He pondered this question for a while and then replied, “Yes, I have an explanation.”

      “What is it?” I inquired.

      “I ask questions,” he said, innocently. I waited. Then, following a dramatic pause, he added, with a twinkle in his eye, “I ask dumb questions.”

      We both laughed, but then we began to discuss the implications of the word dumb. Why would an intelligent, professional person want to ask a dumb, stupid, or silly question? Certainly not to elicit dumb, stupid, or silly answers.

      Perhaps the act of asking a peculiar or a provocative question, one that would not immediately occur to a bright person, is a good way to test, to challenge, to brainstorm, to suggest that there are other ways of thinking and acting, ways that are different and more effective than the old ways. A seemingly senseless or insensitive question often leads to a thoughtful and suggestive response. My friend, a political economist by training, found that questioning the basic assumptions and the accepted procedures was a way to probe strengths and weaknesses. Forming the question is a way of framing the answer. In effect, my friend was agreeing with the late Marshall McLuhan, who used to quip, “Ask me a question. Learn something.”

      In my books I have tried to make available, to the general reading public, important or interesting facts and fictions about the lore, history, and culture of this land and its people. While there are nationalistic and patriotic reasons for this activity, what has motivated me is the need to encourage self-knowledge and, with it, national knowledge. I have always felt that if we learn more about the spaces we inhabit, as well as our national past and our possible future, in the process we will acquire knowledge about ourselves ... as human beings — what we are, what we were, and what we may be.

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