Nothing is rotten in the state of Canada if you believe Searching for Certainty, the joint work of The Globe & Mail’s longtime Ottawa correspondent Edward Greenspon and veteran pollster Darrell Bricker. Canadians don’t mind paying high taxes on their piddling salaries because they value the country’s quality of life so much; the nation’s multicultural symphony is drowning out the duelling banjos of French and English nationalism; an educated citizenry is toppling old knowledge oligarchies; and, with our finances in order, we are finally ready to compete with the best in the world.

And I, as Dorothy Parker once wrote, am Marie of Roumania. The authors fail to apply the requisite skepticism to observations gleaned mainly during an economic boom, mistaking good-time euphoria for a new self-confident nationalism. The cliché-clogged text also fails to explain why so few Canadian companies have been able to achieve the global domination allegedly within their grasp and does not devote enough ink to the significant cadre of Canadians who are ill-equipped to survive, let alone strive for victory in, the new economy.

Though the book’s perspective on matters political and economic is on the overly rosy side, its analysis of our changed private lives is excellent. Using anecdotes and market research to great effect, the authors provide fresh perspectives on such oft-discussed issues as changes wrought by the Internet, the “laziness” of Generation X, our growing assertiveness in accessing health care, and our altered attitudes toward employment. They also aptly employ thumbnail historical sketches to explain just how we arrived at the last bullish moment.

But that’s where the book stays: in the last moment. Searching for Certainty fails to make the essential critical move of comparing what is to what ought to be and supplementing description with useful proscriptions for policy-makers and citizens. Greenspon and Bricker have not parlayed their privileged access to the nation’s pulse into a careful, balanced diagnosis of the country’s health.