A Matter of Survival: Canada in the 21st Century

David Robinson is an economics professor and dean of the Faculty of
Social Sciences at Laurentian University.

Diane Francis has a very simple message: Canada is doomed “unless ...
[it] dismantles both its political and its welfare state structure.”

Francis, a nationally known business writer and editor of The Financial
Post, knows her audience. It likes the UN, hates taxes and unions, fears
Asians and American gun laws, and responds to rhetoric. The value of
this book lies as much in what it reveals about that audience as in what
it reveals about the world.

Sloppiness is a problem in places. The preface makes reference to the
New Domocratic Party. The introduction makes the powerful (but false)
claim that “[o]bviously the Canadian economic pie is shrinking.”
Francis even pushes user fees for medical care, despite a total lack of
evidence that they are effective.

A Matter of Survival is vintage Diane Francis. Some readers will be
offended by the stereotyping and lack of balance; others will enjoy the
vivid prose and panoramic scope.