This article originally appeared in Without Diminishment.
By Daniel Dorman, April 15, 2026
It is one thing to read textbook summaries, and it’s another to experience snippets of history for yourself.
In an effort to fill in the gaps of my education, gaps left by a meagre public school curriculum and its pervasive cynicism towards Canada’s history and institutions, I recently finished reading Great Canadian Speeches, selected and edited by Dennis Gruending. I closed the book feeling something largely unfamiliar to Canadians of my generation, I think you call it patriotism.
Direct contact with Canadian history leaves me with the conviction that Canada is, in fact, a great country, a distinct and worthwhile national project, and a place of high ideals, talent, and vision. I came away from the speeches with a few specific insights.
First, “not American” is actually a reasonably good identifier for the Canadian way of life and system of government. Not in a reactive, shallow, “elbows up” way, but in a profound way.
Canada was founded against the threat of being absorbed into the American republic. “We must see the hazardous situation in which all the great interests of Canada stand in respect to the United States”, said Sir John A. Macdonald in 1865. But resistance to annexation by the U.S. wasn’t blind prejudice. George-Étienne Cartier, another Father of Confederation and one of Macdonald’s closest allies, referred to Canada’s moderate democratic institutions as an “advantage over our neighbours the Americans, who have extreme democracy.”
Thomas D’Arcy McGee, often called the poet of Canadian Confederation, explained it this way: “I have not a particle of prejudice against the United States . . . I do not believe that it is our destiny to be engulfed into a Republican union, renovated and inflamed with the wine of victory, of which she now drinks so freely; it seems to me we have theatre enough under our feet to act another and a worthier part.”
Our founders believed that Canada could resist the excesses of American revolutionary tendencies, and that we could create a land “of the fullest religious and civil liberty”, to cite McGee again, without getting drunk on that freedom and throwing off the moderating institutions of British heritage. Canada’s history may help us understand why, in 2026, we’ve not fallen into the extremes of polarisation and populism gripping our neighbours to the south.
Second, nothing is new under the sun.
Concern about American dominance is far from the only issue that has persisted for Canada’s 158-year post-Confederation history. The related issue of free trade with the U.S. was the election issue of 1891 and again 97 years later in 1988.
Similarly, the desire for barrier-free interprovincial trade was a motivating principle for Confederation and has been grappled with ever since. The rights of Indigenous people to benefit from the development of the resources on their lands, specifically disputes around mining, show up as early as 1848 in a speech from Chief Peau de Chat of the Fort William Indians in Ontario. His words may offer a window into similar conflicts and cooperation that go back to some of the earliest interactions and trading partnerships between Indigenous peoples and French and English newcomers at sites like the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the coast of Hudson Bay. And questions about what it means to be a Canadian have persisted to the present day: are we two distinct nationalities, English and French, or one unhyphenated Canadian nationality, as McGee or Diefenbaker would argue?
Many, if not all, of the present points of controversy between Alberta and Ottawa, primarily control over natural resources and federal taxes on oil, were present in a speech to the Alberta legislature delivered by Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed nearly half a century ago, in 1980.
In a handful of present-day policy misfires, Canada is simply repeating the mistakes of the past or failing to live up to the ideals set out for us. Wiser Canadians than you or I have already tackled many of these issues. One take is to say our forebears failed to resolve them entirely. Another is to recognise that their writing and speeches have left us an invaluable resource from which to learn.
Third and finally, the current crop of political leaders in Canada doesn’t hold a candle to generations past. Even just a few decades ago, Canadian leaders spoke with gravity and incisiveness.
A good example of this came in 1995, when Paul Martin, then finance minister, introduced significant cuts to government spending to control the deficit. “After extensive review, this budget overhauls not only how government works but what government does. We are acting on a new vision of the role of government in the economy. In many cases this means smaller government; in all cases it means smarter government”, said Martin. I find it difficult to imagine any present-day politician speaking a hard truth with such directness or offering such uncompromising leadership.
But beyond any individual insight, reading these Great Canadian Speeches altogether made me proud to be Canadian. It gave me hope that Canada could restore its deeper roots and return to the grander vision of its founders.
As McGee wrote in 1868, “All we have to do is . . . to welcome every talent, to hail every intention, to cherish every gem of art, to foster every gleam of authorship, to honour every requirement and every natural gift, to lift ourselves to the level of our destinies, to rise above all low limitations and narrow circumscriptions, to cultivate that true catholicity of spirit which embraces all creeds, all classes, and all races, in order to make of our boundless province, so rich in known and unknown resources, a great new northern nation.”
Daniel Dorman is the Managing Editor and Director of Operations at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
