Michael Ignatieff, True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2009.
Michael Ignatieff could become the next Prime Minister in Canada. This means it is of some importance to know what Ignatieff thinks and why.
Ignatieff is the child of two important Canadian families: the Grant and Ignatieff clans. Michael has written of the roots of the Ignatieff family in The Russian Album. True Patriot Love is a turn to the better known Grant side of the family, and an exploration of how four generations of Grants have tried to make sense of what it means to be Canadian.
Those with even a minimal understanding of Canadian history, culture, education and politics cannot miss the central role the Grant family has played on the stage of Canadian life. True Patriot Love probes just what the Grant family means to both Michael Ignatieff and Canada. The missive is divided into five chapters: 1) True Patriot Love, 2) Ocean to Ocean, 3) After the Somme, 4) Lament for a Nation, and 5) The Inheritance. There is little doubt that Ignatieff, in True Patriot Love, is judiciously weighing his unique inheritance. It is a book in which Ignatieff does a Yes and No to the line and lineage that did much to shape his understanding of Canadian identity.
‘True Patriot Love’ sets the stage for the book. George Monro Grant (1835-1902) is the main actor in ‘Ocean to Ocean’. Ignatieff’s grandfather, William Lawson Grant, enters the drama in the following chapter, ‘After the Somme’. Both great-grandfather and grandfather Grants were shapers and makers of Canadian intellectual and public life at a variety of significant levels. The most interesting and provocative chapter in True Patriot Love, though, is ‘Lament for a Nation’. Ignatieff, in this chapter, comes head to head with his famous uncle, and, without much doubt, one of the most important political philosophers in Canada, George Grant (1918-1988). The parting of paths at an intellectual and public level could not be more obvious than in ‘Lament for a Nation’. Ignatieff is very much his father’s (George Ignatieff’s) son when it comes to the Liberal-Tory divide. George Ignatieff worked closely with Lester Pearson, and Grant thought Pearson (by capitulating to Kennedy and American power) was the consummate comprador and traitor to the older Canadian nationalist way. Michael Ignatieff, in many ways, in his embrace of the American empire reflects and echoes the Pearsonian liberal way in opposition to the older Grantian Tory way. ‘Lament for a Nation’ clearly demarcates where Ignatieff stands in the search for Canada and why. The final chapter, ‘The Inheritance’, concludes and embodies Ignatieff’s understanding and interpretation of what true patriot love means for himself as a predictable and well heeled liberal.
True Patriot Love is a must read for a variety of reasons: Canadian history is told in a readable manner, Ignatieff’s family inheritance on the Grant side of the family is placed on the evaluative scales, and Ignatieff’s authorized and liberal read of what it means to have true patriot love in Canada is clearly suggested and articulated. There are some serious gaps and gaffs in this missive, but for those who are interested in where Michael Ignatieff might take Canada when he becomes Prime Minister should read True Patriot Love as a primer on the topic.
Ron Dart
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