THE IGNATIEFF ENIGMA $6.00 LRCLiterary Review of Canada Vol. 14, No. 5 • June 2006 Lowell Murray Born-again bilingualism Peter Desbarats Suzuki under his own microscope Suanne Kelman Death and diamonds in Sierra Leone Arthur Kroeger Gomery vs. Harper on accountability David Laidler Why monetary union with the U.S. won’t work Elspeth Cameron Atwood as scientist + David Biette on Canada in the world+ Dennis Duffy on building Canada + Ingeborg Boyens on genetically modified wheat + Paul Wells on jazz writing + Lawrence Hill on Joe Fiorito’s Toronto + Poetry by Olive Senior, Karen McElrea and Joe Cummings + Fiction reviews by Graham Harley and Tomasz Mrozewski + Responses from Marcel Côté, Gordon Gibson and David Chernushenko ADDRESS Literary Review of Canada 581 Markham Street, Suite 3A Toronto, Ontario m6g 2l7 e-mail: [email protected] LRCLiterary Review of Canada reviewcanada.ca T: 416 531-1483 Vol. 14, No. 5 • June 2006 F: 416 531-1612 EDITOR Bronwyn Drainie 3 Beyond Shame and Outrage 18 Astronomical Talent [email protected] An essay A review of Fabrizio’s Return, by Mark Frutkin ASSISTANT EDITOR Timothy Brennan Graham Harley Alastair Cheng 6 Death and Diamonds 19 A Dystopic Debut CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Anthony Westell A review of A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and A review of Zed, by Elizabeth McClung the Destruction of Sierra Leone, by Lansana Gberie Tomasz Mrozewski ASSOCIATE EDITOR Robin Roger Suanne Kelman 20 Scientist, Activist or TV Star? POETRY EDITOR 8 Making Connections A review of David Suzuki: The Autobiography Molly Peacock A review of Building Canada: People and Projects that Peter Desbarats ASSISTANT POETRY EDITOR Shaped the Nation, by Jonathan Vance Moira MacDougall Dennis Duffy 22 NAMU and the Neoliberals A review of Towards North American Monetary Union? COPY EDITOR Madeline Koch 9 Accountability: Three Approaches The Politics and History of Canada’s Exchange Rate An essay Regime, by Eric Helleiner PROOFREADERS Ted Brown, Alastair Cheng, Cassandra Arthur Kroeger David Laidler Drudi, Madeline Koch, Claire Laville, Beth 12 Jazz in Strange Places 24 Living under the Radar MacKinnon, Lorna MacPhee A review of Some Hustling This! Taking Jazz to the A review of Union Station: Love, Madness, Sex RESEARCH World, 1914–1929, by Mark Miller and Survival on the Streets of the New Toronto, Cassandra Drudi Paul Wells by Joe Fiorito PUBLICITY Lawrence Hill Jennifer Long 13 Born-Again Bilingualism [email protected] A review of Sorry, I Don’t Speak French: 25 “Whatever Happened to Canada?” DESIGN Confronting the Canadian Crisis That Won’t Go Away, A review of Canada Among Nations 2005: Split Images, James Harbeck by Graham Fraser edited by Andrew F. Cooper and Dane Rowlands, ADVERTISING/SALES Lowell Murray and In the Canadian Interest? Assessing Canada’s Michael Wile Phone: 416-531-1483 • Cell: 416-806-6178 International Policy Statement, edited by David J. [email protected] 16 Hatch Bercuson and Denis Stairs Shelter PUBLISHERS David N. Biette Mark Lovewell Garden Snail [email protected] Gastropoda 28 The Wal-Mart-ization of Wheat Helen Walsh A review of The Economics of Genetically Modified [email protected] At The Slave Museum Wheat, by Colin Carter, Derek Berwald and Al Loyns Poems Ingeborg Boyens Olive Senior ADVISORY COUNCIL 29 Scientist of the Human Heart Michael Adams Ronald G. Atkey, P.C., Q.C. 17 Progression of the Disease A review of The Tent, by Margaret Atwood A poem Alan Broadbent, C.M. Elspeth Cameron James Gillies, C.M. Karen McElrea 31 Letters & Responses Carol Hansell 17 Bright Light Donald Macdonald, P.C., C.C. Marcel Côté, Gordon Gibson, David Trina McQueen A poem Chernushenko Grant Reuber, O.C. Joe Cummings Don Rickerd, C.M. Reed Scowen Anthony Westell founded in 1991 by p.a. dutil The Literary Review of Canada is published 10 times a year by the Literary Review of Canada Inc. Cover art and pictures throughout the issue by Aino Anto. Aino Anto is a Toronto-based freelance illustrator with interests in editorial illustration and children’s books. Her first work, ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Len Gasparini’s A Christmas for Carol, was published by Seraphim Editions in . More examples of her work can be seen Canada ; the rest of the world us. Libraries at <www.antostudio.com>. in Canada ; in the rest of the world us. Price includes postage. ©2006 The Literary Review of Canada. All rights, including translation into other languages, are reserved by the pub- lisher in Canada, the United States, Great Britain and all other countries participating in the Universal Copyright Convention, FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS the International Copyright Convention and the Pan-American Copyright Convention. Nothing in this publication may be repro- duced without the written permission of the publisher. We acknowledge the financial support of the ISSN 1188-7494 Government of Canada through the Canada Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 1479083. Magazine Fund towards our editorial and Postmaster: Please send address changes to the above address. production costs. The Literary Review of Canada is indexed in the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index and the Canadian Index and is distributed by Gordon & Gotch and the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association. 2 Literary Review of Canada “Whatever Happened to Canada?” The world sees a lack of leadership in Canadian foreign policy. David N. Biette predictable, if all of Canada read from the same the United States is either a curse on Canadian Canada Among Nations 2005: Split Images page about Canadian objectives in the world and decision making or a valuable partner in a variety Andrew F. Cooper and Dane Rowlands, editors if past glories guided current practice. But the of areas. McGill-Queen’s University Press world has changed and so has Canada. The end All the essayists emphasize that the world has pages, softcover of the Cold War has shifted alliances; the United changed since the end of the Cold War, and they States emerged as the only superpower. Threats are right. The glory days of to , when now come from private actors as well as from Canada seemed to make a place for itself and was In the Canadian Interest? Assessing Canada’s state actors. Globalization and the explosion of welcomed on the world stage, when prominent International Policy Statement communications technologies have made the Canadians excelled in the exercise of diplomacy, David J. Bercuson and Denis Stairs, editors world a smaller place, calling for new methods of are now history. The decline in Canada’s global Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute dealing with these new challenges. influence and its foreign policy drift are well pages, PDF It would also certainly be easier in the minds described by Andrew Cohen in his book <www.cdfai.org/PDF/InTheCanadianInterestE. of many Canadians if the United States did not While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in pdf> complicate things so. the World. Among the authors of the collections Two collections published late last year focus under review, Andy Knight offers several excuses on Canada’s foreign policy and the IPS. Split for Canada’s drift in his article in Split Images. If ecently an older acquaintance of mine, Images, edited by Andrew F. Cooper and Dane Canada seems to have lost its way in the world, aware that I worked on Canadian issues, Rowlands, is the st consecutive instalment of says Knight, “it is because that ‘world’ is in the Rasked me, “What ever midst of turbulence and transi- happened to Canada? We used to tion. Shifts in Canada’s interna- hear so much about what Canada While foreign policy can anticipate a world tional policy today are reflective did around the world and now of the uncertainty associated we don’t hear anything.” that is desired, it also must focus on the with world order transformation I don’t recall exactly how and the concomitant reconcep- I responded to the question. world at hand. Thus much of the conduct tualization, or reshaping of mul- There is no easy answer but, tilateralism.” Well, obviously! Is it instead, a long set of explanations of foreign policy is necessarily reactive. not the job of the foreign policy that point to the recent crisis in establishment to anticipate and the direction of Canadian foreign policy. Though the Canada Among Nations series, produced by keep up with the changes and adapt to circum- not necessarily the subject of media attention the Norman Paterson School of International stances? While foreign policy can anticipate a outside Canada, Canadian self-reflection on Affairs at Carleton University, this year in world that is desired, it also must focus on the foreign policy, identity and Canada’s role in the cooperation with the Centre for International world at hand. Thus much of the conduct of world has been ongoing for many years, with Governance Innovation. In the Canadian Interest? foreign policy is necessarily reactive. And when an extended formal review culminating, in part, Assessing Canada’s International Policy Statement, Canada has to rely on others for the conduct of with last year’s International Policy Statement published by the Canadian Defence and Foreign its foreign policy (overseas intelligence gather- (henceforth the IPS) that the Martin government Affairs Institute and edited by David Bercuson ing and analysis, for example, or strategic lifts to laboured so long to put out. Articles and publica- and Denis Stairs, dissects many aspects of the deploy Canadian forces and development aid), it tions, conferences and dialogue on foreign policy IPS, the Defence Policy Statement, and Canadian is not in a position to call the shots as it might invariably devolved into a plaintive examination foreign policy in general. Each collection offers otherwise be.