Neglectful Disrespect

The unkindest remark about Canada in this book is right in the title. Readers keen to crank their nationalistic dander up another notch should skip to page 85. That is where the excerpts from Jonah Goldberg’s article “Bomb Canada: The Case for War” appear.

“Despite Canada’s self-delusions,” Goldberg writes, “it is, quite simply, not a serious country anymore. It is a northern Puerto Rico, with an EU sensibility.”

And there is plenty more to offend where that came from. However, this article, which appeared after 9/11 in the right-wing National Review, is a deliberate provocation: a Swiftian “Modest Proposal” seeking to make the point—however heavy-handedly—that Canada should spend more on defence.

Very little of the rest of Chantal Allan’s material is as piquant.

The best of it is tart, intelligent and sometimes chauvinistic—but hardly “unkind.” Although it makes for occasionally amusing reading, it is not...