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Friday 24 December 2010
Today, as 2010 draws to its end, I was fortunate to pick up a book my wife had just finished; I read it in two sittings, spellbound by the dramatic events and memorable people between its covers.
John Ralston Saul deserves the salute of all Canadians for his significant work, Louis-Hippolyite LaFontaine & Robert Baldwin.
One of The Extraordinary Canadians series, it was published this year by Penguin Group (Canada); the series is described in this site.
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| Baldwin and LaFontaine on Parliament Hill, Ottawa |
Saul writes about these two gifted men who – more than any other Canadians – laid the foundations for the remarkable political and social entity that is modern Canada, during turbulent times, when success was not at all sure.
He summarizes their influence thus:
Over the past century and a half we have thought of LaFontaine and Baldwin as colonial figures in a distant past very unlike today, men who won out over the local compacts, a handful of uncooperative British governors and some distracted British cabinet ministers. Apart from the narrowly defined concept of government responsibility, no other ideas are thought to have been at play. And the responsibility in question is always presented as little more than a tried-and-true British idea.
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