A country in love with itself

The entire back wall of Indigo bookstore’s Bay and Bloor branch in Toronto is plastered with the slogan “The World Needs More Canada” — or at least it was when I visited recently. It’s a phrase associated with U2 lead singer Bono, who used it at the Liberal party’s leadership convention in 2003, where he appeared at the invitation of new leader Paul Martin to praise Canada and demand more foreign aid from us. Unfortunately, not many years later Canadians decided that whatever Bono and the world might think they themselves didn’t need more of Mr. Martin.

But now “The World Needs More Canada” is the title of a new coffee table book from Indigo, published in honour of Canada’s 150th birthday. In the nature of book campaigns these days, you can also get T-shirts, coffee mugs, tea towels and other paraphernalia, all emblazoned with “The World Needs More Canada,” a slogan which, the front-matter pages of the book inform us, is now a trademark of Indigo Books and Music, Inc., with “All rights reserved.” I hope I haven’t infringed any by using the phrase three times in two paragraphs.

The book is the latest handsomely produced version of what is possibly the most common Canadian book genre of all time: the “what-Canada-means-to-me” compendium. This one features thoughts by well-known cultural and other worthies (Peter Mansbridge, Cynthia Dale, Robert Lantos, Alanis Morissette, Karen Kain, Norman Jewison and so on), as well as several others whose love for their country is, they tell us, profound and enduring, if not quite strong enough for them to actually live here. The great majority of contributors, as always in these volumes, are English-Canadian. It’s harder to find French Canadians who will rhapsodize unreservedly over Canada. Céline Dion does make an appearance but her statement is an ambiguous “Je serais un Québécois-Canadien. Je viens du Québec et je le dis chaque fois que je visite un autre pays. C’est mes racines, mes origines, et la chose la plus importante pour moi.” (That is, she considers herself, above all, a Quebecois-Canadian and lets everyone know it).