"We wish nothing more, but we will accept nothing less. Masters in our own house we must be, but our house is the whole of Canada."
Photo Credit: Warren Kinsella

As the first decade of the 21st century passes into its final year, most Canadians will continue to have much to be thankful for.

Our country is a nation rich in history, security, freedom and resources and remains one of the most culturally diverse on the face of the Earth.

For those of us who became politically conscious during the early 1970’s, few can refute the claim that a great deal of our current Canadian identity was forged by the indomitable figure of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

For all his many critics, it is hard to deny that Trudeau left an indelible stamp on the rest of the world as to what it is to be Canadian.

He envisioned a country that was proud of its dual heritage, one that welcomed immigrants to become a part of the tapestry of this land, one that saw itself not as a global conqueror but rather as a global partner in the stewardship of this nation, our planet and all humankind.
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Clearly, one of the main reasons the Liberals recruited Michael Ignatieff was for nostalgic and pragmatic purposes. They wanted another Pierre Trudeau. With polls suggesting the Liberals under Ignatieff are hemorrhaging support and the Conservatives are gaining support, this bold initiative seems to have withered into a false start.

Those bright, bookish types sometimes have it hard. When they are rising in the polls, their articulate communication and serious demeanor are used for favourable comparisons with charismatic leaders like Obama, Trudeau, and John F.Kennedy. When they sink in the polls, those same traits are used for disparaging comparisons to diffident, “egghead” leaders like Adlai Stevenson and Stephane Dion.

It does appear to be true that intellectuals generally do not do well in politics. According to psychologist Martin Seligman, their tendency to ruminate and their lack of optimism turns the electorate off. Canadian Political Scientist Stephen Clarkson agrees and cites Trudeau as an exception to the rule. But is he really an exception? I believe that Trudeau deserved his intellectual reputation, but he often did not behave like most intellectuals. A lot of his writing for example was polemical and argumentative in style, which does not mean he was a lightweight, but is a very different approach from most academics. Furthermore, during election campaigns, his gunslinger pose and his visionary and optimistic speeches were not anything like the staid, quiet lectures of an Oxford don. On those occasions when he did appear professorial (most notably his Philosopher King campaign of 1972), the results were near disastrous.
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