If You Love This Country: 15 Voices for a Unified Canada

J.L. Granatstein is a professor of history at York University, the
co-author of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Empire to
Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s, and the author of The Good
Fight.

Canadian constitutional crises often bring out the best in Canadians. We
are a curious breed, we Canadians, deeply patriotic and nationalistic,
but afraid to wear our patriotism on our sleeves. We watch the
Americans, for example, as they salute their flag and shout “USA,
USA” at sports meets with condescension, but in fact we are not all
that different. The Quebec referendum of 1995 brought out this side of
Canadians, though perhaps more quietly than in the first referendum in
1980. This book is one indication of the love Canadians feel for their
nation (if not always for each other). Many of the usual suspects are
here—Peter Newman, Laurier LaPierre, Joe Clark—but there are some
new faces. Neil Bissoondath and Roch Carrier speak for the arts, Matthew
Barrett for bankers, Matthew Coon Come for the Quebec Cree—these and a
dozen others offer their views on what we have and why it deserves to be
kept intact. The book is printed in French and English; it is at times
sentimental and at others times hard-headed, and it deserves an
audience.