Michael Ignatieff, in True Patriot Love, on national vision for Canada

In his latest book True Patriot Love, four generations in search of Canada, Michael Ignatieff writes like a leader, shares his passion for and belief in the country, and provides an insight into the major challenges he sees facing the nation.

He does it all most effectively while telling the stories of his great grandfather, George Monro Grant who travelled with Sandford Fleming to map the railway line across Canada; his grandfather, William Lawson Grant who served in World War I, returning home with belief that Canada earned right to be sovereign nation, and his uncle, George Grant, who believed that Canada had gone from colony to nation and back to colony -- the second time of the United States.

Now that he has stated his case so eloquently, Mr. Ignatieff, who is the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada , has to convince Canadians that he has the right stuff to meet the challenges facing Canada as prime minister.

Mr. Ignatieff suggests that the Trans Canada highway should be four lanes across the nation as we "pretend" we have a national highway today. "In many places -- northern Ontario or the interior of British Columbia -- it dwindles down to two lane blacktop, and the local residents will tell you these narrow sections make the national highway a death trap." Having lived in northern Ontario most of my life and for the past 20 years in the interior of British Columbia, I could not agree more with Mr. Ignatieff.

He cites the high speed railways used to tie Europe together, while after "fifty years of studies" we are still considering a high speed link between Windsor to Quebec City, Vancouver to Calgary and Calgary to Edmonton. "If we want to tie Canadians together, if we want to be nation builders, we would start on them right now." Agreed!!!

He argues that we are one of the few countries that has never created a petroleum reserve to protect citizens from fluctuations in supply from foreign countries. He asks if it makes sense that we ship oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the United States but import lage quantities to meet demand in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

Mr. Ignatieff raises other issues too, all in the context of telling the stories of his own family members, suggesting that our ancestors would ask what is the "national vision of our age." It has been a long time since I heard a Canadian politician of any political party speak of a national vision for Canada.

True Patriot Love is a good read, and a starting point for a national conversation on the future of Canada.