What Are We Lamenting? George Grant’s High Toryism as a Form of Canadian Nationalism

Abstract

In this paper, I will argue that Grant’s critique of liberal modernity is significant because it demonstrates a deeper or more substantive critique of liberalism, a critique that implies the falsity of a fashionable objection to Grant. This objection, represented by Michael Ignatieff, suggests that Grant’s attachment to British Toryism is simply an outdated idiosyncrasy unworthy of attention, and certainly not central to the continued significance of Grant. If my reading of Grant’s critique of liberal modernity is correct, however, this objection is flawed. Grant’s attachment to the British way of politics was not simply nostalgia; rather, he saw it as the only viable way to stop, and after 1963—slow—the gradual erosion of Canadian sovereignty. Thus, Grant’s Anglo-Canadian Toryism is at the very heart of his Canadian nationalism, properly understood.