Some important, some astonishing, and some truly appalling things all Canadians should know about our country - by Mel Hurtig.
Quickie Recap: According to Hurtig, everything, absolutely everything about Canada is horrid and wrong and disgusting - except of course, for this one small (unvoiced) exception - our freedom of speech. But everything else, from our education system to our ability to negotiate free trade agreements, is an utter and complete mess beyond all redemption.
Quickie Review: Remind me never to have this guy over to dinner! Honestly, this book comes off as whiny, petty, and most puzzling of all, pompous. I hated it from the get-go. If Canada was half as bad as Hurtig thinks it is, we'd have been left to die on the side of the road by now. I can't even say that he overstates the facts because he offers them without any context at all. He may say, for example, that our country has fewer acute care beds than country X without ever offering any possible explanations (perhaps country X has a more aged population that REQUIRES this discrepancy?), which is bad science, terrible research, and a huge sin, possibly the hugest, as far as statistics go. I think Hurtig should be a little more grateful to be living in a country that allows blow-hards like him to publish such astonishing loads of crap.
Quickie Recommendation: What, do you really have to ask?
p.s. I've also never read such a complainy book that offers no advice whatsoever towards improvement. What, then, is its point? If you're not part of the solution, Mel, you're part of the problem!
3 comments:
Personally, I'm a big fanada Canada. :)
Good boy. :)
The thing about some Canadian is that they don't realize how good we have it compared to other countries. We're not perfect, but we're not North Korea, or Haiti either.
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