Quill and Quire

REVIEWS

« Back to
Book Reviews

Loyal No More: Ontario’s Struggle for a Separate Identity

by John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson, a columnist with the Globe and Mail, is a brave writer. While he could have limited the scope of Loyal No More to the current impasse between Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill, Ibbitson wrote a book chronicling Ontario’s relationship with the federal government over the past 150 years. Canadian history might still be a required course in the high school curriculum, but by the time those students leave school the history of our country often survives as a tenuous string of vaguely connected facts. Given the difficulty of engaging an audience with a historical account in these ahistorical times, Loyal No More is all the more remarkable for its readability.

Ibbitson lays out the drama behind the major episodes in Ontario’s history, inserting anecdotal gems and analytical insights throughout. We read about how the Queen’s Park-Ottawa relationship began with the vision of a loose Confederation linked by “some joint authority,” a vision that was quickly transformed into one where the central government commanded the bulk of legislative powers. Ibbitson also examines how much Ontario’s position within the country has traditionally owed to the personal strengths and foibles of its premiers, and how the Harris government has begun to recognize the joy of spending money, especially when that money comes from the federal government’s coffers rather than from the province’s.

Ibbitson occasionally favours historical personalities over the contextual forces at work behind them, but he manages to include enough information on broader national and international factors to satisfy more serious history buffs. And although the subject of technology is included almost as an afterthought in the closing chapters, Ibbitson’s analysis of how the mobilizing efforts of the two world wars helped shift power to the federal government is fascinating. Loyal No More is a lucid account of Ontario’s shifting identity throughout the history of Confederation. That Ibbitson has managed to make the story engaging indicates his formidable gifts for storytelling.

 

Reviewer: Jennifer Szalai

Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

DETAILS

Price: $35

Page Count: 225 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 0-00-200030-X

Released: Apr.

Issue Date: 2001-5

Categories: Politics & Current Affairs