For more than 70 years, Bruce Hutchison, now editor emeritus of the Vancouver Sun, has been a keen observer of that discordant and now thoroughly confused phenomenon of the Canadian nation (The Unknown Country). The following are excerpts of his column in the October 5,1991 issue of the Vancouver Sun.
During this decisive period of our history, public discussion will provide a needed educational exercise. It could change public attitudes and thus change everything because everything hangs on the condition of the public mind.
But the future will not be decided by fine legal abstractions and the experts' debating points. No, the paramount question is as simple as it is profound: what kind of people are we and, by our behavior, how well do we deserve to possess one of the fairest estates ever granted to human beings?
That question should be answered, or partially answered, before spring after a winter of troubled thought. Troubled because we are not dealing here with our lives alone, but the lives of our descendants for generations ahead.
Add Your Comments
Parents and teachers want children to have the skills to make a difference. But what can we teach to help them survive their teen years, 20s, and 30s with convictions and charac... 
Why do so many of us have to work where the windows don't open? Engineers, architects, and lawyers have their reasons, but must workplaces be less humane than homes? 
In Santa Ana in California prisoners can buy a cell upgrade. In Dallas, Texas, underachieving children are paid to read books. These are, alas, some of the saner and less offens... 
SIX QUESTIONS . . . The new culture I am making is an attempt to say hold still and look at this. 
Our culture does not know how to deal with legacies. We either treat the dead with some combination of awe and fear, or we think of our forebears as unworthy of remembrance, to ... Nicholas Gafuik covers the recent Manning Networking Conference, and highlights Cardus charitable research in his latest piece in the Calgary Herald: Sound...
Harry Antonides is the founding editor of Comment. ... read more »