Does Canada Matter?: Liberalism and the Illusion of Sovereignty

Does Canada Matter? by Clarence Bolt

Does Canada Matter?

Liberalism and the Illusion of Sovereignty

by Clarence Bolt

$14.95

  • Spring 1999
  • print ISBN: 978-0-921870-64-7 (0-921870-64-7)
  • ebook ISBN: 978-1-55380-085-9
  • 6″ x 9″ Trade Paperback, 216 pages
  • Social Commentary, History, Community Planning
  • Out of print

In this lucid yet impassioned book Clarence Bolt reveals how Canada is rapidly losing its sovereign status to the liberal, globalizing drive that has, since Confederation, endeavoured to eliminate regional diversity, self-reliance and distinctiveness by blending our regions into a centralized economic and political system. Echoing George Grant, Bolt proposes that Canada can remain a unique, sovereign state only by fostering sustainable regional units in which citizens are committed to the stewardship of their natural and cultural environments.

Click here to read the preface of Does Canada Matter?

Reviews:

“Clarence Bolt has written a book for all those Canadians who feel uneasy about what’s happening to their country, but can’t quite put their finger on what’s going on. He explores the real Canada — the community that has won the UN’s ‘best country’ honours several years running — and details how it is slowly, subtly, eroding away. The corrosive force is a relentlessly grinding and homogenous globalism, made ‘inevitable’ by the capitulation of our national leadership to the mechanistic cant of neoliberal market economics. Does it really matter? A good question that Bolt thinks is worth answering. Otherwise, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell’s famous lament, ‘We won’t know what we got ’til it’s gone.'”
—Professor William Rees, Director of the School of Community and Regional Planning, University of B.C.

“Bolt lucidly argues how Canadian identity is being destroyed by neo-liberal ideology fuelling a global, homogenized, corporate-controlled society. Only a renewed vision of neighbourhood democracy and sustainability can resist this drift into sterile suburban sprawl. A must-read for every thinking Canadian who cares about our future!”
—David Turner, Former Mayor of Victoria, Associate Professor of Social Work