The Will of a Nation: Awakening the Canadian Spirit

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

Exhortatory books urging Canadians to awaken their national spirit tend
to be a drug on the market. There are too many, they are usually written
by cranks, and they quickly make it to the remainders bins.
Radwanski’s book deserves a better fate. A former editor of the
Toronto Star, Radwanski has penned a straightforward, clearly written
attack on the Mulroney government’s impact on the country. He looks at
the Free Trade Agreement, pronounces it flawed, and calls for its
abrogation. He examines what has happened to the social safety net and
demands its repair. He writes about Native peoples and
federal–provincial constitutional bungling, and he skewers the right
targets. Above all, his analysis of Mulroney’s attitudes seems
dead-on, especially for the way he reversed course on the FTA and on
Quebec’s place in Confederation. The Prime Minister has now departed
but the problems he created still remain. Radwanski’s implicit
argument is that another party has to take on the job of healing Canada.