Why this book on Canadian nationalism is even more relevant today - Michael Enright

Fifty years ago, in 1965, McGill Queen's University Press brought out a slim book which blew the doors off the Canadian political establishment, changed the way we practice journalism and altered forever our view of ourselves and of Canada itself. It was called Lament for a Nation.

It was written by an unassuming, brilliant but largely unknown philosopher named George Grant. It became an instant national bestseller. It had a profound impact on Canadian intellectual history and it inspired a fervent wave of Canadian nationalism unseen before in the country.

Ten years ago, the Literary Review of Canada named Lament for a Nation one of the 100 most important Canadian books. In 112 pages, Grant made the following argument: Canada had gone from being a colony of Britain through independence to sovereign nationhood and back to being a colony, this time a cultural colony of the United States. 

The loss of this cultural sovereignty, as he saw it, was at the core of his lament. He later said that he wrote the essay when he was in a boiling anger over what he perceived as the slow but very real Americanization of our politics. 

Here's how that came to be: In 1963, John Diefenbaker, a Prairie populist lawyer from Saskatchewan, was Conservative Prime Minister of Canada, leading a minority government. Dief, as he was called, was reviled by many Canadians. He had cancelled the Avro Arrow, a fighter jet that was the pride and joy of the military; Canada lost thousands of jobs. And he was considered a country boob, a hick from the wilds of the empty west, unsophisticated in the extreme.

Meanwhile in the US, Camelot was flourishing. Its young dazzling knight, John Kennedy, was the darling of Canadian media and the country's political elites. Kennedy loathed Diefenbaker, calling him "that SOB." For one thing, Diefenbaker had refused to go along with the American boycott of all things Cuban. He thought JFK's handling of the Bay of Pigs fiasco was outrageous. Kennedy and his Pentagon wanted to install on Canadian soil, Bomarc missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. Diefenbaker was dead set against the proposal.

The Opposition Liberals, lead by Lester Pearson, were in favour of having the missiles in Canada. NDP Leader Tommy Douglas, later Saint Tommy, sided with the Pearson Liberals to defeat the Tory minority in the Commons. In the 1963 election, the Liberals drove Diefenbaker from office. The defeat sent Grant into a fearsome rage, which culminated in his Lament for a Nation.

To Grant, Pearson in collusion with the media, the political establishment and big business, had sold out the country to the Americans. Grant was by no means a blind Diefenbaker loyalist, but he admired the old man's guts and his robust brand of Canadianism. He painted Dief as a vigorous Canadian nationalist who lead a progressive government "that was brought down for standing up to the Americans." 

Grant became something of a celebrity because of his book. Over the years his lament has been called a fateful prediction of things to come and a wrong-headed view of Canadian political reality. 

I'm not sure George Grant was entirely wrong in his assessment 50 years ago. Our cultural industries are still dominated by the American version, we have been drawn ever closer into the US economic ambit with NAFTA and following 9/11, we share vital military and security interests. And any lively discussion about the state of Canadian nationalism has gone with the wind.

George Grant died in Halifax in 1988 at the age of 70. There is an interesting footnote to his story. In something of a devilish irony, in 2008, his nephew, Michael Ignatieff, became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, the party his uncle hated.