Tag Archives: Canada

History’s People – Margaret MacMillan

“Our understanding and enjoyment of the past would be impoverished without its individuals, even though we know that history’s currents — its underlying forces and shifts, whether of technology or political structures or social values — must never be ignored.” – History’s People

In the 1980s, it was believed that stress caused ulcers. Dr. Barry Marshall, a relatively unknown internal medicine specialist in Australia, believed it was bacteria that caused ulcers and indeed most stomach cancers, but the medical establishment remained highly skeptical, as did the drug companies, which were making a considerable profit on antacids and antidepressants. To convince them, Marshall downed a mix made of bacteria from the stomach of one of his patients. He did indeed get ulcers. He took antibiotics and got better. And in 2005 he got the Nobel Prize for medicine. (He now works on flu vaccines).

Learning history by reading biographies is tricky; it is always hard to tell if the hero makes the times, or the times the hero. History’s People avoids that issue entirely, arguing that both clearly matter, but that regardless studying biography gives us insight into history in a way that more general studies can never do. She chooses 5 themes–leadership, hubris, daring, curiosity, and observation—and chooses a handful of figures from history, both Canadian and international, to illustrate and illuminate the idea.

MacMillan is one of the world’s preeminent historians, and as usual her writing is clear and compelling. History’s People is based on a series of radio lectures she gave (The Massey lectures), and rather than attempting to present full biographies, she introduces brief vignettes that give us a flavour of their lives and the trait she is trying to demonstrate. The method works very well, and manages to achieve both breadth and depth. This book won’t teach you history, but if you like history, you’ll relish reading it.

The Holmes Manual – Mike Holmes

“We can’t live without water, but it can be a real pain.”

The HVAC system (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) is the lungs of your house. There’s some fascinating work looking at the microbe colonies that life on and around our bodies – when you enter a work environment, your colonies mix with those of your coworkers, and over time they become more uniform. If your house or work recirculates air, that’s a much more dramatic process: if it takes in air from outside, then you’ll get more exposure to different microbes. This may help increase your resistance to some things, and make for a healthier environment – work is ongoing.

There, something you may never have thought about. I was reminded of these studies reading Mike Holmes’ book (the Holmes Manual, of course) on home renovations: he very much sees a house as a living organism, one that must be allowed to breath easily. Not a perspective I usually take.

Holmes is a bit of a cult figure in Canada, with multiple TV shows to his name. His book is not really a DIY guide: Holmes only believes in doing work to the highest possible standard, often to a level beyond what the everyday homeowner could achieve. As a guide to the best possible solution to any household problem though, the gold standard of construction if you will, he’s excellent. He spends most of his time on parts of the house homeowners may never see, including the HVAC, foundations, attics, and roofs: he wisely suggests that if you do good work on these parts of the house, you carefully document and photograph it, so that for resale you can provide evidence. Often, such investments can more than pay for themselves, in value at sale and in savings in energy bills (particularly in Canada), but without evidence people tend to assume mediocre work at best, since that is the norm.

The Holmes Manual is an unusual book for this blog, I know, but I happened to pick it up – better, I sometimes think, to read the wisest book from many different disciplines, then hit diminishing marginal returns by reading too many in the same field.

Shopping for Votes: How politicians choose us and we choose them – Susan Delacourt

“Where politicians once made church basements the fixture of their campaign road trips, the refreshment-stop of choice is no the ubiquitous Tim Hortons…Canadian politics no longer bears much resemblance to the church (except maybe the occasional sermon) but our marketing politicians seem right at home among sales posters, advertising and cash registers.”

Reading the newspaper, it would be easy to believe that politicians make judgments based on polls: 42% support for X, 27% support for Y. The truth, argues Shopping for Votes, is significantly more complicated.

As technology has improved and politicians have gotten better at identifying individual voters, the ability of political parties to target messages more precisely has also increased. Parties now divide voters into archetypes: Zoe, the yoga-loving left wing younger condo owner, or Dougie, a single tradesman who liked to hunt (both archetypes are drawn from the 2006 Conservative strategy in Canada). Zoe would never vote for the Conservatives, so could be safely ignored – Dougie was a potential supporter, and so a key target. In the event, the Conservatives managed to identify 500,000 individual voters they needed to convince to vote Conservative: the millions of others were either already voting Conservative, unlikely to ever vote Conservative, or in non-marginal constituencies. National polls of average support become totally irrelevant, even if everyday voters follow them closely.

The danger, argues Delacourt, is that as a result politics is more polarized than ever. Politicians don’t look for broad, uniting policies: they look for ones that will target their key groups, ignoring the impact or effect on others. The result is that as consumers increasingly shop for the best party, choosing not to identify with any one group, parties also shop for the right voters, offering finely tuned products to different groups. The government is no longer the home of bold national projects or grand ideas, but rather small, carefully targeted ones. As a result, creating a national brand often falls to the private sector. In Canada, that has mean Tim Hortons and Molson ad campaigns are responsible for nationalism, not the government.

It’s a powerful – and interesting – message, and one that I suspect resonates with a lot of voters. The book is a great insight into how political hacks, as opposed to voters, think about elections, and how elections are being changed by trends like big data and better econometrics. An important and useful read, and if nominally targeted towards Canada, relevant to most electoral systems.

Lament for a Nation – George Grant

“Like most other human beings, Canadians want it both ways. We want through formal nationalism to escape the disadvantages of the American dream; yet we also want to the benefits of junior membership in the empire.”

In light of the recent Scottish referendum, Lament for a Nation seemed somewhat appropriate, a Canadian classic on fears about cultural hegemony. It’s written by one of the foremost Canadian political philosophers (confession: that isn’t a large comparison group, but he’s still very good), and in Lament George Grant worries about the future of Canada and its possible end as a sovereign state due to US cultural encroachment.

His thesis is that with technology, cultural differences are almost impossible to maintain: economies must modernize to participate in the world, but as you modernize education and culture, you lose what makes you distinct. Even worse, he argues, early capitalism had restraint because of cultural restrictions: a Protestant work ethic, a British sense of self-restraint. In the age of technology such restraints disappear, and capitalism goes unchecked. Modern conservatives are thus doomed because to be popular they must accept technology, but to do so, they are no longer conservatives.

It’s a classic of small-c conservatism. In some ways, it’s interesting because that voice is diminished in modern politics, where the choice can often be between social liberals and economic liberals (in the traditional sense of liberal, not the American left-wing sense). Though Canada has to some extent preserved its culture, current Middle Eastern politics are in some sense a response to the same feelings of insecurity against American cultural hegemony. There may, of course, be things we like about American culture, such as human rights or individual freedom, but the question of how to encourage their adoption without making cultures feel attacked is fundamental, at both an individual and social level.

Empire’s Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan – Klassen and Albo

“The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980’s: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.” – Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Afghanistan is the 42nd most populous country in the world and was a major stop on the Silk Road linking China and Europe. As a result of its central location, it has also been the site of multiple military campaigns, from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan, and more recently by the British, Soviets, and NATO. Before the Taliban destroyed them, it had some unbelievably important ancient sites and relics.

The war in Afghanistan is an enduring source of controversy; not as widely condemned as Iraq, perhaps, but still much debated. Both wars tend to be seen as American wars, since the US contribution in blood and treasure has dominated the total effort. At a per capita level, however, many countries have contributed far more: the Netherlands and Canada in particular are known both for large contributions and for being willing to take on relatively large tasks, in contrast to the Germans, for example, who heavily restricted the possible roles their troops could take.

Since the start of the war, Afghanistan has seen marked progress on some indicators, like women’s education or schools, but the violence has persisted and to many it is not clear it can be satisfactorily ended. Klassen and Albo’s collection of essays on the topic is one of those: a selection of Marxist essays taking a critical perspective on the war and trying to understand Canada’s involvement through a broader lens of analysis, including the history of Afghanistan, the motivations for the intervention, and the anti-war movements.

Such analyses are often worthwhile, but unfortunately the book suffers two challenges. First, the last 6 months have seen significant events in the Middle East, and so many essays already feel out of date. Unavoidable but unfortunate. Still, some essays maintain their relevance, perhaps particularly John Warnock’s history of the country. More disappointing for the non-specialist, however, is the lack of solutions. For all the analysis, in the end the book offers little that hasn’t already been suggested by left and right; cooperate more with surrounding countries, convince the Taliban to give rights to minority groups, etc. For a specialist seeking to review some articles about Canada and Afghanistan that’s fine, but for a layperson I suspect it will be frustrating.

Disclosure: I read Empire’s Ally as an advance reader copy – it is available August 26th.

George-Etienne Cartier: Montreal Bourgeois – Brian Young

“Tied to a specific mid-nineteenth-century milieu, Cartier, in his family, life-style, social ambitions, politics, and professional and business interests, serves as one barometer of the Montreal bourgeois experience.”

Canadian independence was rather less traumatic than the American experience, lacking a revolutionary war or even (so far) a civil war. Nevertheless, involved significant institutional change, as a country that initially consisted of only four provinces in Eastern North America attempted to develop its own institutions, culture, and society. One of the leaders in this process was George-Etienne Cartier, a French-Canadian statesman and partner of John A MacDonald.

I don’t really expect anyone who isn’t a Canadian history buff to have heard of Cartier, and since Brian Young’s book quotes liberally from French sources without translating, I wouldn’t recommend the book to anyone who wasn’t one either, or at least to anyone who doesn’t speak French. The book is interesting though: rather than attempting to retread old ground, it focuses on Cartier’s origins and bourgeois background, before skipping to his political life.

It is his political activities, in the context of a young country trying to grow, that are particularly interesting. He was instrumental in codifying the laws of Quebec, which still operates under a different legal code than the rest of Canada; helped establish the school system of Quebec, imposing a tax-supported system on a reluctant population; and most of all bringing Quebec into Confederation, his alliance with MacDonald instrumental in convincing Quebec to join. Cartier was a French nationalist, but one who believed that Quebec was better off in a union within a greater Canada, rather than outside it or paired only with Ontario.

Canada still struggles to reconcile the French and English elements within it, a cause that has endured from Cartier’s day. Without him, though, and people like him, Canada might never have existed as it does today.

Learning To School: Federalism and Public Schooling in Canada – Jennifer Walker

“The evidence therefore indicates that the provinces have defied the odds and found a way to develop and maintain similar policy activities and fashion a de facto pan-Canadian policy framework for elementary and secondary education without the direct intervention of the federal government.”

Canada is the only OECD country without a national department of education. It might be reasonable, therefore, to expect it to have a highly fragmented system, with each province pursuing a unique educational strategy. In reality, however, there is a large amount of standardization between provinces, in terms of financing, curriculum, and assessment.

Whether left or right, all of us find silver bullets appealing: we confront problems or challenges in the world, and we look for the one thing that can solve it all. Of course, most silver bullets seem to corrode when exposed to sunlight, but one that has mostly kept its appeal is education: teach people to be good citizens, to act morally, to be responsible, and a whole lot of problems disappear.

I’m not convinced it’s that easy, but it still means understanding education has a certain appeal. Unfortunately, though I think Learning to School might appeal to specialists, it’s heavy for a general reader: it can read like a phd thesis at times. Her central finding is that the subnational governments do cooperate often without federal intervention, and that learning and cooperate can lead to significant policy similarity – an important finding, but honestly exactly what I would have expected. I had hoped to have an analysis of the effectiveness of those policies, but the book instead focuses on how they evolved. If you want to understand how policies, particularly those about education, can evolve in a federal state, the book is comprehensive: if you want to learn about education, I think there are better choices.

David Suzuki

Not a book review today, I’m afraid – a talk review instead!

I happened to attend a talk by David Suzuki this morning, the Canadian academic, media personality, and environmental activitist. He’s a strong proponent of environmental sustainability and preserving our forests, waters, and other natural resources, instead of exploiting them into oblivion. To achieve this, he’s currently launching an attempt to change the Canadian constitution to guarantee access to a healthy environment, as is true in 110 other countries, as well as unite with other groups to change the Canadian culture more generally.

I’m very sympathetic to his aims: we need to do a far better job protecting the environment than we currently do, and let me say I enjoyed his talk generally: he’s very funny and makes some good poings. What I found striking, though, was that I just don’t believe his solutions will work. Constitutional change in Canada is a morass of unpleasantness, evoking as it does divisions over language and culture, and past attempts to change it in any way have failed: no matter how popular his suggestions might be, opening up a constitutional reform will lead to a huge argument with no consensus likely.

More generally, though, I think he falls into a common error in environmentalist thinking. To me, environmentalism actually makes more sense as a right wing issue than a left wing: ideals of conservation and Christian stewardship have a long history on the right. The left, however, having decided the right is evil, simply dismiss them out of hand, and in so doing lose the opportunity to find allies that could really make a difference. This morning, a young guy identified himself as Christian, and asked how Suzuki’s arguments could motivate Christians to save the environment. Rather than engage, Suzuki insulted Christianity and shut him down, managing to change what was a supporter into an annoyed and defensive critic. Christianity and the environmentalist movement surely have their differences, perhaps particularly over science, but dismissing others motivations to achieve your goals seems narrow-minded at best. Even business has more in common with the environmentalist movement than the environmentalist movement seems to recognize: what environmentalists call sustainability business calls preservation of capital, and both see them as the highest possible good. I’m always amazed they can’t seem to see that in each other.

I think it’s true of a lot of our causes in general: we identify with a side, and so we fail to reach out to others who, though on opposite ‘sides’, might easily agree with us on a given issue. The far left and the far right have a lot in common on issues of government intervention, environmental activism, and even decentralization of power, but they’re so busy hating each other they never get anything done. It seems a shame.

Fire and Ashes – Michael Ignatieff

“I want to explain how it becomes possible for an otherwise sensible person to turn his life upside down for the sake of a dream, or to put it less charitably, why a person like me succumbed, so helplessly, to hubris.”

Michael Ignatieff is an extremely distinguished academic internationally, having held positions at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and Toronto. He’s won a variety of prizes for his books, including short listing for the Booker prize as well as a variety of non-fiction and academic texts, and also worked as a television and radio broadcaster in the UK. He is also a rather dismal politician.

Fire and Ashes is the story of how Ignatieff took over the leadership of the Canadian Liberal party, traditionally the most powerful party in Canadian politics, and led it to its worst result in history, even losing his own seat. Of course, the vagaries of party politics are hardly attributable to the leader alone, but it suffers in comparison to his professional success elsewhere. Ignatieff attempts to use that experience to draw lessons for those who might come after him, with mixed results.

The book does capture why he struggled as a politician, though perhaps not how he meant it to. Comparing it to Bill Clinton’s autobiography, for example, you can see the difference between someone who thinks deeply about politics, and someone who actually lives as a politician. Ignatieff comes across as wise about politics as an observer, not as a participant.

Ironically, though that may have made him a worse politician, it makes it a better book: one can appreciate his observations without attempting to disentangle political motivations. Perhaps that’s why much good political commentary is written by unsuccessful politicians. A book length reflection on a personal failure is no easy task, however: Ignatieff’s is a mix of astute observations about politics, somewhat bitter discussions of why he didn’t do well that are not as incisive as they needed to be, and some revealing confessions, as when he argues power matters above conscience because without power you can’t do anything (a section I found rather depressing, since if you sacrifice conscience to win power, I’d rather you didn’t). Ignatieff is a smart, analytical man who isn’t meant to be a politician, and his book captures that, both in what he recognizes and what he doesn’t about his performance.

The National Dream – Pierre Burton

“Nothing would ever be the same again. The tight little Canada of Confederation was already obsolete; the new Canada of the railway was about to be born. There was not a single man, woman or child in the nation who would not be in some way affected, often drastically, by the tortured decision made in Ottawa that night.”

It’s easy to forget how important railways were in North American development. Without them, however, history could have been very different in both the US and Canada, not only economically but politically. Railways weren’t just a way to ship goods; they were a lifeline to remote areas, often deciding whether a particular territory would join the larger federation, stay independent, or even join another country, as the US once envisaged for the area between Alaska and Washington (now part of Canada).

Indeed, the 1885 railway across Canada is perhaps the most notable example of the influence of railways, as well as an example of just how much effort it took to get the railways built. The railway crossed thousands of miles of almost unexplored territory, with no other transport links to send construction materials or supplies; bottomless mud (one lake with a mud bottom had 220,000 yards of gravel poured into it before the contractors went bankrupt, while another had piles driven 96 feet below the surface before they hit bedrock); huge mountains; strikes by workers over the terrible conditions; constant drinking as a result of the cold; and continuous accidents and explosions from poorly handled nitroglycerine, which needs to be kept warm to be stable, not an easy task in Canadian winters.

Most of all, though, the book is about political difficulties. The politicians, the contractors, and pretty much everyone else involved in the railroads at that time, both Canadian and American, were, to paraphrase the book, up to their sideburns in corruption. False companies, bribes, patronage, sudden disappearances and falsified bankruptices: no effort was spared, and above it all the worry of some politicians that without the railway, the West Coast would never join Canada at all.

To be honest, the book goes into more detail than I think most would want: unless you have a particular interest in this period, it is perhaps not suitable for a general reader. If you are interested, however, the railways played a key role in the development of the West, and the corruption that went with it makes for entertaining, if mildly depressing, reading.