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PREFACE

The Dominion of Canada is a remarkable country in many ways, but some of these ways are contradictory — and that is what makes the country so fascinating. It is seen as a young country, yet it is one of the world’s oldest functioning democracies. It is seen to be spacious, yet its landscape is sparsely populated. It is seen to be a country that is neither capitalist nor socialist, for it has a “mixed” economy and many of its most binding social institutions reflect a combination of private initiative and public undertaking — the so-called “crown” corporations. It is seen to be a multicultural country (it pioneered the use of that term to describe a policy that is falling into disfavour), while it retains two official languages and promotes no official culture. It is seen to be a democracy, yet it is a monarchy with not one but two constitutions. It is seen to be a peaceful country (we were the first proponents of international peacekeeping and have adopted a police force as a national symbol), yet we have fought valiantly in most major military engagements. It is seen to be a haven in a heartless world, and indeed more than one-third of its population is foreign-born and most everyone here boasts of his or her ethnic roots. It is seen to be a country with a cold climate, yet the weather differs little from that enjoyed by the citizens of other northern nations. Similarly, it is seen to be a Northern nation, yet most of its inhabitants live as far south as possible. So Canada is a fascinating country indeed!

That is Canada in the abstract, the skeleton of the country that informs the present book. But the present work isn’t about Canada as an abstraction — it is instead about the country and its people in their multitude of particulars. The country is a collection of initiatives and interests, many of them quite fascinating for their wisdom and their folly. About seventy years ago, newspaperman Bruce Hutchison described the spirit of this country and its people in a memorable book titled The Unknown Country: Canada and Her People. Today, we might argue with the pronoun her in the book’s subtitle, because we aren’t inclined to classify countries by gender, but the adjective unknown remains the operative word. Many of us seem to have lost touch with our innate curiosity, especially with regard to this great country, and that is unfortunate, because curiosity is a great and essential gift. Curiosity is a trait that encourages us to wonder about ourselves and other selves, about the sciences and the arts, and ultimately about man’s fate and human destiny. In some cultural traditions, this driving force is known as holy curiosity, and indeed I hold curiosity to be holy, or at least very special, for it confers the power to enliven and enlighten everyday attitudes, interests, and concerns

For a long time, I have been especially curious about subjects of specific Canadian interest — what is known as Canadiana. I find it fascinating. For the last half-century, I have devoted an hour or so of each day to researching subjects like the ones discussed in this book, and I do so by bombarding myself and friends and the specialists I meet with a barrage of questions, so many questions that at times I must seem to be a know-nothing! Not long ago I met a friend from my university years who upon graduation took a postgraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and then settled in a suburb of Washington, D.C. He has enjoyed a notable career, initially as director of the Congressional Budget Office, later as an associate of the American Enterprise Institute, and currently as senior fellow with the Urban Institute. I innocently asked him if he had an explanation for the fact that he had been so successful in life, since even he had admitted surprise at the trajectory of his professional career. He pondered this question for a while and then replied, “Yes, I have an explanation.”

“What is it?” I inquired.

“I ask questions,” he said, innocently. I waited. Then, following a dramatic pause, he added, with a twinkle in his eye, “I ask dumb questions.”

We both laughed, but then we began to discuss the implications of the word dumb. Why would an intelligent, professional person want to ask a dumb, stupid, or silly question? Certainly not to elicit dumb, stupid, or silly answers.

Perhaps the act of asking a peculiar or a provocative question, one that would not immediately occur to a bright person, is a good way to test, to challenge, to brainstorm, to suggest that there are other ways of thinking and acting, ways that are different and more effective than the old ways. A seemingly senseless or insensitive question often leads to a thoughtful and suggestive response. My friend, a political economist by training, found that questioning the basic assumptions and the accepted procedures was a way to probe strengths and weaknesses. Forming the question is a way of framing the answer. In effect, my friend was agreeing with the late Marshall McLuhan, who used to quip, “Ask me a question. Learn something.”

In my books I have tried to make available, to the general reading public, important or interesting facts and fictions about the lore, history, and culture of this land and its people. While there are nationalistic and patriotic reasons for this activity, what has motivated me is the need to encourage self-knowledge and, with it, national knowledge. I have always felt that if we learn more about the spaces we inhabit, as well as our national past and our possible future, in the process we will acquire knowledge about ourselves ... as human beings — what we are, what we were, and what we may be.

At the same time, I enjoy positioning our regional knowledge in a national setting and our national setting in a global context. Patriots, jingoists, and boosters like to boast about superlatives: Canada has “the first of this,” “the biggest of that,” or “the best of everything.” In this book there are such points of distinction, to be sure, because I am not immune to their appeal. But I try to back away from simply making or repeating such claims, for such boasting is self-defeating and a form of bullying. As well, one’s superlatives are always being called into question or in time are surpassed by other peoples’ superlatives. A good instance of this is Toronto’s CN Tower, which was “the world’s tallest, free-standing structure” from 1976 to 2010, when it was finally eclipsed by the Burj Dubai, now known as the Burj Khalifa, which stands even higher.

Increasingly, I prefer to dwell on subjects of quality, distinction, and ongoing interest. I believe that this approach to national knowledge was in the back of the mind of editor-and-commentator Andrew Coyne when he was interviewed about national goals by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy on March 14, 2007:

It seems to me our goal should be to make ourselves the highest exemplar of universal values. If we think that freedom is a good thing for the people of the world, let’s try to be the freest country. If we think that fairness is a universal human value, let’s try to be the fairest country. Let’s try to be the most democratic country. That won’t necessarily make us different from other countries in terms of the values that we pursue, but I hope that maybe we’ll do a better job at it. It means we share in a common heritage to which most of democratic countries subscribe. The goal of trying to be the best rather than trying to be unique is a better and more appropriate objective of national policy.

The command rings true: “Do a better job of it.” Coyne finds a national purpose in determining what qualities of life are important and then realizing them nationally and internationally.

My approach to deciding what subjects to include in these pages is based on what excites me and on what I believe may excite the readers of this book, fellow Canadians all. I have a taste for the offbeat, and I find when I indulge it, I attract the attention of other people.

Perhaps the best instance of a feature entry is an offbeat one and a personal favourite. It asks the following question: “Have Canadians contributed to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London?” If the wary reader assumes the answer is “yes,” the reader is right, otherwise why would the question be asked in the first place? The original Globe Theatre was built on the south bank of the Thames River in London, England, in 1613; the present-day one, a re-creation of the original, was built in 1997. Here is how my research began: My attention was caught by an advertisement in The Times Literary Supplement for the Globe’s production of Henry IV. It featured an attractively designed coat of arms, arms that appeared too modern to be those of King Henry. This proved to be so when I checked the monarch’s armourial bearings on Google, for his appeared to be ancient, whereas the one in the TLS looked modern. Then I checked the website of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and found that the repertory company had commissioned a series of beautifully designed crests, by a noted English designer, for the season’s productions. Note that so far there was no Canadian connection at all, though later there would be.

In my research I learned about the history of the Globe and the rebuilding of a facsimile of the original stage on the site of the old one on the Thames, now close to the Tate Modern gallery. In the process I kept coming upon the name of Sam Wanamaker, the American actor and producer who led the restoration project, as well as the name of his right-hand man, theatre historian John Orrell. The latter’s name was new to me, so I checked it out. Here, I hit pay dirt! Although born in England, Orrell acquired a doctorate in drama from the University of Toronto and then devoted his academic career to teaching theatre at the University of Alberta. He spent the summers in England, where he researched the skyline of Elizabethan London and advised Wanamaker on the form and structure of the original playhouse. Today, there are plaques on the wall of the reconstructed playhouse to honour both men for their invaluable contributions.

Then I learned about two literature professors in the Maritimes who donated their private libraries of Elizabethan publications to the English company, which named their collection “The Canadian Library.” Finally, I discovered the existence, in Toronto, of the Shakespeare Globe Centre of Canada, supporters of the London playhouse. So, Canadians played an important role in the phoenix-like rebirth of the Globe. I asked myself a follow-up question: As Canadians, do we have any connection with the original playhouse, where Shakespeare’s plays were premiered some four centuries ago? It may have been a dumb question, but it yielded a smart answer.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival is North America’s largest classical repertory theatre. It was established in 1953 in Stratford, Ontario, and Tyrone Guthrie, the Anglo-Irish director, a student of the Elizabethan stage, agreed to serve as its artistic director on one condition: he insisted on introducing the so-called thrust stage, known to Shakespeare and his fellow actors, to the modern world. He was able to do so and thereby set the stage for the innumerable new and renewed playhouses that have appeared over the last sixty years. Through my research I was able to show the synergy of ideas that link the original Globe, the reconstructed Globe, and the Stratford Festival Theatre in Ontario. I wrote up my findings and had them vetted by the specialists in London. All of this may sound a bit odd, but it is an instance of serendipity (being interested in an off-beat subject with no obvious Canadian content) as well as an example of associative thinking (linking Globe I and Globe II with Ontario’s Stratford). It took more than a month to make these connections, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. The entry that I wrote, greatly condensed, may be read in the present book in the section devoted to ideas. Check the index for its location.

To know parts of ourselves we need to know parts of our country. The reverse is also true, for there is little self-knowledge without national knowledge. Over a hundred years ago, an editor in Toronto wrote, “Canada only needs to be known in order to be great.” I believe that this statement applies to the country as a whole but especially to the people who live here. So it is also true that “Canadians only need to be known in order to be great.” I hope that this book contributes in a limited way to offer its readers that necessary national knowledge and to encourage that essential self-knowledge.

The present book consists of 357 short questions and the same number of long answers. They are loosely arranged, not really in any particular order. I resisted the tendency to group the entries by subject or topic, though from time to time they benefit from this treatment. The book is designed for browsing and for making accidental and serendipitous discoveries. Having said that, let me add that the contents will prove to be useful to specialist readers, because the book does have an the overall arrangement of questions and answers in four general sections: People, Places, Things, and Ideas.

The book’s Index consists of more than 500 entries. These references will be of use to the reader, the browser, the researcher, and the specialist in search of names, places, concepts, phrases, etc. Not every reference in the text could be indexed. One caveat: the numbers in the Index are entry numbers, not page numbers.