Canada The Unknown Country

“The popular symbol of this naïve, youthful, self-confident Canadianism came to be the cartoon figure of Jack Canuck. Jack was a young, clear-eyed, and a highly muscular personage, whose rolled-up shirt sleeves, stiff-brimmed hat, breeches, and [boots] appeared to suggest a kind of cross between the working clothes of a farmer and the uniform of a trooper in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and whose ingenious and open countenance radiated with honesty, uncorrupted virility, and shining moral purpose. Supposedly, Jack looked forward to the future with radiant assurance. But in actual fact, there was—or there ought to have been, a puzzled frown upon his face. For he had yet to complete the restatement of Canada’s foreign policy…”

“Our objective must be to defend society from its enemies. But who are its enemies? How can a society, which agrees on nothing, whose diversity must be inclusive of everyone, defend itself? Add to this, that our enemies are among those we cannot exclude. It is an extraordinary position to be in, an indefensible position, and quite untenable. We have been systematically led—by our leaders—to deny the existence of our enemies. Denial is seen as a path to peace, and peace is the thing we value more than courage, more than justice, more than our own existence. This is where we have arrived, and it is a very dangerous place to be.”