An evening with Crowley, Coyne and Hébert

We’re having a big dinner in Vancouver tomorrow night featuring Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hébert and me, to talk about politics, policy and economic trends. The event is a presentation of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and our hosts for the evening are Liberal Senator Larry Campbell and former Conservative cabinet minister John Reynolds. There are still a few places available. Click here to register!

Announcing The Canadian Century

Coming soon: the sequel to Fearful Symmetry

I have had the great good fortune over the last 6 months to work with co-authors Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis on a new book that is essentially a sequel to Fearful Symmetry: “The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow”. This will be the first book of my new national think tank, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and will be published by Key Porter. Here is the blurb from Key Porter about the book, which is due out in May, 2010:

One hundred years ago a great Canadian, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, predicted that the twentieth
century would belong to Canada. He had a plan to make it so.

What happened? Canada lost sight of Laurier’s plan, and failed to claim its century,
dwelling instead in the long shadow of the United States.

In a bold, fascinating and thought-provoking call to arms, Crowley (author of the
national bestseller Fearful Symmetry) and co-authors Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis
envision Canada’s emergence as an economic and social power. While the United States
has been squandering its advantages — including making a series of bad decisions that
precipitated a global economic disaster from which it struggles to emerge — Canada finds
itself on a path leading out of the shadows and into a new prosperity that could — if we
stay the course — make us the envy of the world.

It won’t happen without effort, however. We must be prepared to follow through on
reforms enacted at the end of the twentieth century, completing the work already begun.
If we succeed, Canada can and will become the economic outperformer that Sir Wilfrid
Laurier foretold, a land of work for all who want it, of opportunity, investment, innovation
and prosperity. America’s performance, by contrast, risks trailing ours until they
embrace Canadian-style courageous and far-seeing reform.

Laurier did indeed predict the Canadian Century. He was absolutely right; he was
merely off by 100 years.

Brian Lee Crowley is the author of the national bestseller Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada’s Founding Values. Crowley is Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for Public Policy and is a frequent commentator on political and economic issues for the CBC, Radio-Canada and many other media. His website is www.brianleecrowley.com. He lives in Ottawa.

Jason Clemens is the director of research at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, where he specializes in fiscal policy. His articles regularly appear
throughout Canada and the United States, including the Globe and Mail, the Financial Post, the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in San Francisco.

Niels Veldhuis is vice-president and senior economist at The Fraser Institute. He also
writes a bi-weekly column for the National Post and appears regularly on radio and television
programs across the country. He lives in Vancouver.

Fearful Symmetry on the 2009 “Global Thinkers Book Club list”

Read what Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has to say about Fearful Symmetry in the December 2009 edition of Foreign Policy Magazine. FS is his choice for the Global Thinkers Book Club (“What the smart set is reading”).Of course he suggests the book is an attack on modern Canadian liberalism, and I don’t really agree –… I think of it as a call for the Liberal Party to return to the values that served it, and the country, so well for Canada’s first century. But he certainly sees the book as a reasoned critique of the last 50 years of Canadian public policy, and on that we agree…

Here’s what he says: “It’s an attack on everything I believe, so it’s very bracing and interesting…. He’s saying that Canadian liberalism has damaged Canada, and as the Liberal Party leader I have to disagree. But it’s very intelligent and it’s very important to take your adversaries seriously, so I’m taking him seriously.”

For what it’s worth, I think Michael deserves to be taken a lot more seriously by his adversaries…

Ignatieff, Harper, Martel and who’s reading what

First Chantal Hébert said that Fearful Symmetry should be the Prime Minister’s bedside reading.

Then she said in Le Devoir that if there was only one book that the Quebec political class should read this autumn, it’s Fearful Symmetry.

Then Lise Payette said (also in Le Devoir) that the book should be on the bedside table of every self-respecting Quebecker (yes, it’s true, she wants them to read it so they can see that there is no future for Quebec in Canada, but then she didn’t read the book carefully, because I talk in some detail about how Quebec can and should be accommodated within Confederation. What we agree on: that people should read the book!)

Then Yann Martel, the award-winning Quebec author gets all bent out of shape because he, in common with the rest of the Quebec cultural élite, is still beating the dead horse that says that Stephen Harper is a cultural know-nothing who should read good books (preferably ones suggested by Martel…). Instead, he learns from Chantal Hébert, the PM is reading… You guessed it: Fearful Symmetry. Not a Martel novel? Quel culot…

Not to be outdone, the Leader of Her Majesty’s Official (and Loyal) Opposition, Michael Ignatieff, has just told the National Post that the last book he read was…Fearful Symmetry.

Do I detect a trend here…?

Fearful Symmetry and Canadian politics

Check out Rick Peterson’s comments about Fearful Symmetry on his blog posting of 11th September. He talks about the opportunity that is offered to the Conservative Party by the kind of shifts in values and population described in Fearful Symmetry. He’s right, of course. But as I argue in the book, the founding values of Canada that I rattle on about were also for many years the bedrock values of the Liberal Party of Canada. The Tories were the party of privilege, the Liberals the party of opportunity. I don’t think the values of our founders are the property of any one party, and I think the shifts in values and political power that Fearful Symmetry foretells will shake our institutions to their roots — including our political parties.