Abstract

Canada's political existence has long been viewed as problematic. In confronting this historical reality, Canadian political philosophers have sought a theoretical discourse that would unite the country's diverse population and regions while respecting those forces that promote difference. If there is one philosopher who has provided this language of reconciliation it is G. W. F. Hegel. ;Canadian political thinkers have turned to Hegel's thought for its possibilities in demonstrating how communities might be established that reconcile cultural and social differences and the freedom of the individual. Even allowing for differences in interpretation, Hegel's philosophy has allowed these thinkers to articulate 'modes of existence' that promote a reconciliation of oppositions aimed at an 'idea' of unity amidst diversity. ;This essay focuses on three Canadian political philosophers---John Watson, George Grant and Charles Taylor---who, either as elaborators or detractors, have found in Hegel a theoretical language with which they could articulate their views on the Canadian political community. In this regard, the two questions to which this essay is a response are these: How have Watson, Grant and Taylor appropriated Hegel's thought to address their concerns about fundamental political matters? And is there anything in their appropriations on which we can still draw to address the continuing 'crisis' of Canada? ;Given such questions, this essay is an inquiry into the animating principles of the Canadian nation-state these three thinkers espoused in responding to the country's problematic existence. Or, put differently, in examining the Hegelian Spirit as it relates to the phenomenon of Canada, I am inquiring into the shifting sensibility of what it means to be Canadian and, indeed, what may be our purposes as a political community, if any. ;I conclude that as Canadians move into the twenty-first century---confronting globalisation, the lure of continentalism, the implications of multiculturalism and immigration and even renewed debated on the merits of 'pre-emptive' imperialism---Hegel still has much to say to us