“While Canada Slept” - a call to thinking
I just finished reading “While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World,” by: Andrew Cohen. Every young Canadian should read this book for, in my opinion, this book isn’t a call to action so much as it is a call to thinking. It is also a great teaching tool for I learned things about Canada and its achievements that were never taught to me in school.
Cohen challenges Canadians to wake up to the fallacy that is our national consciousness and begin to think differently about ourselves and how we should act in the world. It poignantly demonstrates our lack of thinking about our foreign policy and how that lack of thinking in recent times has led us to forsake our once pivotal status in world affairs. Canadian was another for peacekeeper in bygone days but complacency and, more especially, our constant navel-gazing with regard to Quebec and our federation, has meant that we have not achieved in recent times the foreign policy successes of past generations. Did you know Canada was once the most generous donor nation? Today we are surpassed by countries as small as Denmark.
In light of this book, I am now more committed to our mission in Afghanistan and to our role in NATO and the UN. Cohen’s call has been answered by some of our politicians, namely those who committed this country to help Afghanistan and those who have the will to see the mission through. Those who would see us leave are still sleeping. It’s time for Canadians to look beyond the days of deficit cutting and sovereignty referendums and look forward to a new era of an active and proud Canada contributing to world affairs like we once did, instead of withdrawing, like we almost did.
