Lester Pearson on Trial

There is no shortage of volunteers to hammer nails into the coffin of Liberal Canada. The results of the last federal election might have seemed enough, leaving a rump of a Liberal Party clinging onto political party status and under the leadership of a spirited but desperate former NDP premier. The current Conservative prime minister seems as interested in destroying the very possibility of a Liberal resurrection as he is in running a government. It is hard not to sense the Conservative glee at the prospect of fighting future elections with the NDP as the genuine party of opposition. Adios the party—and the Canada—of Pierre Trudeau, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Lester Pearson.

Yves Engler, too, picks up the hammer to crush the lingering remnants of the Liberal tradition in Canada in The Truth May Hurt: Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping. What does he have in mind? What is the surviving vestige of Liberalism that needs smashing? Apparently, it is the...