Reviews for Brief History of Canada

The average rating for Brief History of Canada based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-18 00:00:00 William Woolley The question that most maddens Canadians coming from Americans, or so Canadians have told me, is, “What is the difference between Canada and the United States?” The implicit assumption in this question is that Canada is further north in North America, but other than that, more or less the “same” as the U.S. A reading of Roger Riendeau’s “A Brief History of Canada” provides a different answer, in fact, many different answers. First of all, Canada is a nation in its own right that should no more be evaluated in a U.S. context than any other country. And then: Canada is a country of two primary languages, English and French, and two primary cultures, English and French, that has successfully drawn so many immigrants from around the world that soon “others” will outnumber the Canadians who are descendents of the original English and French settlers. Canada, like the United States, occupies a geographical space that was populated before the arrival of European explorers, traders, and settlers. Conflict between indigenous peoples and these Europeans did occur, just as in the U.S., during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, but Canada’s treatment of indigenous peoples has been, on the whole, more respectful and less violent. Once Great Britain assumed political control of Canada from France, in 1760, it managed to remain in control, sans revolution as in the U.S., until Canada peacefully attained constitutional self-rule under the British North America Act of 1867. And even then, the mother country retained responsibility for Canada’s foreign affairs and international security. Great Britain’s primacy in Canadian affairs did not alter the fundamental fact that Quebec largely remained French in language and culture, however. Today English and French are “official” languages, the defeat of several separatist efforts in Quebec during the latter half of the 20th century notwithstanding. Like the United States, Canada is a continental, or transcontinental, country, but it is punctuated in the center by the massive Canadian Shield, a barren region of Precambrian rock. Further, most of its population clusters in a narrow band along the border with the U.S., Canada’s north being inhospitable for European settlement. That population is about one tenth of the U.S. population, closely linked to the fate of the U.S. economy, its largest market, and sustained by Canada’s extraordinary resources: more coastline than the United States, more fossil fuel reserves, extraordinary deposits of iron, nickel, other valuable minerals, vast tracts of softwood timber, and a huge breadbasket full of wheat and other grains. More than 60% of the world’s lakes are located in Canada, including four of the five Great Lakes. Only Russia, with its 11 time zones, is physically larger than Canada. Canada’s problem, then, hasn’t been a lack of natural resources. It has been the challenge of a strong English/French heritage compounded by a strong tradition of federal prerogatives that the country’s major provinces (and regions) have exercised in varying ways and at varying times. The poor Maritimes to the east, bordering the world of the Atlantic, have little in common with the richer parts of Canada in the west, occupying a perch on the edge of the Pacific. Once poor, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in the center, have gained influence thanks to advances in agricultural productivity and fossil fuel extraction. The two major historic provinces of Canada, Ontario and Quebec, remain centers of finance, manufacturing, media and politics, with Toronto gradually outstripping Montreal as the dominant Canadian metropolis. Through Canada’s history, its great political leaders—prime ministers like Macdonald, Laurier, King, St. Laurent, and Trudeau—have walked tightropes as they balanced English and French, east, west, and central political influences. Initially, they sought to establish Canada’s sovereign field of action independent of but coordinated with Great Britain and the Empire. Then they assumed new responsibilities within the Commonwealth. Ultimately, World War II and the Cold War connected Canada intimately with the United States, and yet all the time Canadians knew they were not Americans or Brits or Frenchmen. Their problem set was that of a rising middle power with a strong economy limited by a relatively small population—far smaller than the population of the U.K., France, and comparable European countries like Germany. One of the most perplexing chapters in Riendeau’s history of Canada has to do with the failure of the Trudeau administration to achieve energy independence, shielding the Canadian economy from world oil-price increases. As noted, Canada has vast petroleum reserves, natural gas, hydroelectric and wind power. If any nation should be able to provide its own energy, it’s Canada, but “protecting” the Canadian marketplace from U.S. influence apparently is almost impossible. When Americans will pay more for Canadian energy, it’s difficult for Canadians not to sell it to them at a handsome profit. Over the course of its history, Canada, like the U.S., has seen its rural/agricultural population decline to about 2% as its urban population has burgeoned. As this transformation occurred, traditional Canadian folkways—state fairs, church-based social life, handicraft pursuits and the like—withered, to be replaced by the media world aptly foretold by a Canadian, Marshall McLuhan, whose concepts, “The medium is the message,” and “the global village,” reflected changes wrought by radio, television, and film that have now been exponentially accelerated by internet connectivity. As a parliamentary democracy, always wrestling with massive regional and cultural divisions, Canada has outdone the United States in social policy (Canada’s health system provides Canadians the same drugs Americans use at a fraction of the cost) and international peacekeeping commitments (Canada has been part of just about every U.N. peacekeeping mission since the U.N. was founded.) But again, there is no reason to give or take away points based on how Canada conducts its business in comparison with U.S. standards. Canada, as Riendeau’s history demonstrates, has pursued its own unique path and dealt with its own unique challenges.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-03-21 00:00:00 Brooke James Even though I lived right next to Canada and visited often I am learning about their unique history and political development.