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A Rare Bird on the Earth:
Identities and Nationalisms in Ramsay Cook's Canada(1)Marcel Martel

Introduction
On July 14, 2016, scholars of Canada learned in disbelief that renowned
historian Ramsay Cook had passed away. Cook was a remarkable scholar, having
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had received numerous honorary doctorates and prestigious awards, among them
the Order of Canada, the Royal Society of Canada̓s Tyrrell Medal, the Governor
General̓s Literary Award for Non-Fiction for his book The Regenerators: Social
Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada, and had been named to Japan̓s Orderof the Sacred Treasure. Several of his books were translated in French and inJapanese. Let me mention and thank professor Yuko Ohara, who died in 2017, forthe translation of The Maple Leaf Forever and professors Norie Yazu and Takashi
Konami for Canada, Quebec, and the Uses of Nationalism. He was a dedicatedteacher and an outstanding supervisor for 37 doctoral students, including myself.
Cook was a historian and public intellectual who helped his fellow citizens tounderstand the transformations that had affected Canada in the post-1945 era. In
particular, he explained the challenges that the country faced when Quebec went
through the period of profound social, economic and political change known as the
Quiet Revolution in the 1960s.
While a doctoral student at York University in the late 1980s, I remember myÀUVWPHHWLQJZLWK5DPVD\&RRNLQKLVRIÀFHORFDWHGLQ9DQLHU&ROOHJHRQWKH.HHOHFDPSXV2QDVKHOILQKLVRIÀFHWKHUHZDVDSLFWXUHRIWKH4XHEHFKLVWRULDQ/LRQHO*URXO[,QHYHUDVNHG&RRNZK\KHNHSWDSLFWXUHRI*URXO[LQKLVRIÀFH$IWHUDOO
Groulx was the opposite of Cook: Cook was hostile to any form of ethnic nationalism,
and very wary of the more benign form of nationalism called civic nationalism.
Cook wrote in 1966 that Canada did not suffer from a weak national consciousness.
On the contrary, there had been͆too much, not too little, nationalism in Canada,
and that our various nationalisms are the chief threat to the peace and survival– 61 –

of Canada.͇(2) Cook repeated his argument in The Maple Leaf Forever, publishedÀYH\HDUVODWHU(3) Furthermore, Groulx was a priest, and Cook was a lay professor.
Although Cook̓s father, Russell Cook, had been a United Church minister in
Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Cook did not claim any adherence to institutionalized
religion.(4) However, despite the fact that Groulx did not have much in common with
Cook in terms of ideology, they shared something important: a passion for history
and for the causes that they supported.
Later on, after I joined the York University History Department as a faculty
member in 1998, I visited Ramsay Cook̓s office at the University of Toronto̓s
Robarts Library during his tenure as co-editor of the Dictionary of Canadian
Biography from 1989 to 2005. He had retired from York University in 1995. Thistime, I discovered on his desk the photograph of another Quebec historian: Jean
Hamelin, who had died in 1998. As before, I never asked why he had a pictureof Hamelin on his desk, but I suspect that it was because the Université Lavalhistorian was the co-editor of the DCB when Cook joined this important intellectual
endeavour.
Why do I mention these photographs? Maybe they reveal something about Cook:his intellectual curiosity about French Canada and Quebec, and at the same time,
his desire to analyze Quebec history. By publishing about French Canada andQuebec in English, he wanted to help other English-speaking people to better
understand what was happening in Quebec in the 1960s. His first collections of
essays, Canada and the French-Canadian Question, published in 1966, and The
Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada, publishedin 1971, dealt with Quebec, the relations between French Canada and English
Canada, and nationalism. According to Cook, the͆mal canadien͇was not due toa weak national consciousness. On the contrary, Canadians had had too much ofnationalism. Because some politicians, intellectuals and media pundits lamented
that Canadians had weak nationalist feelings in the 1960s, Cook insisted on theexcess of nationalism as a way to remind everyone that they had a poor knowledgeof their history. If they had been better informed, they would not conclude that
Canada was suffering from weak nationalist sentiments. In Canada and the FrenchCanadian Question, Cook began his introduction by stating:͆It has always seemed

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be less bewildering if each partner knew a little more of the other̓s history.͇(5) For
Cook, a lack of historical knowledge explained Canada̓s problems in the 1960s,– 62 –

DQGSURPRWLQJQDWLRQDOLVPZDVGHÀQLWHO\QRWWKHVROXWLRQ%HFDXVHDV&RRNZURWH
͆nationalism is an emotion which hides real problems behind an abstraction.͇(6)My contribution in this paper is divided into three parts. First, the historicalcontext. I begin by describing the 1960s, a period of turmoil in the Western
Hemisphere with the rise of the counterculture movement, feminism, and theadvent of hippies, as well as western society feeling the impact of the movementfor decolonization in the so-called Third World. Although these cultural, social andpolitical movements affected Canada, the development of what is known as the
Quiet Revolution also shaped this period of time. Second, Ramsay Cook as a public
historian. This second part will explore how Cook dealt with this period of turmoil,
and his solutions to the challenges that the Canadian federation was facing. Finally,
understanding Ramsay Cook. This last section deals with the other areas of study
undertaken by Cook, because limiting his intellectual contribution to his workon Quebec is misleading. Cook published on women̓s issues, the secularization
process, the environment and Indigenous people.

Canada’s 1960s
Describing the 1960s in Canada as a period of turmoil is an understatement.
According to the 1961 census, there were 18,238,247 people living in the country,
and 70% lived in urban centres. The baby boom generation was about to transform
Canada.(7)6WDWLVWLFV&DQDGDGHÀQHVWKHEDE\ERRPDV͆a sudden rise in the numberof births observed from year to year. It ends when a sudden drop in the numberof births is observed.͇Between 1945 and 1964,͆more than 8.2 million babies
were born, an average of close to 412,000 a year.͇(8) The birth of millions of babies
became a demographic phenomenon. The educational system had an incredible
challenge to deal with as the baby boomers moved through it.͆In 1965/1966, there
were 3.8 million Canadians in elementary schools, 1.3 million in secondary schools,
and 210,000 in universities and colleges. In contrast, there were 2.8 million inelementary schools, 650,000 in secondary schools and only 79,000 in universities
and colleges in 1956/1957.͇(9) Universities would expand in the Sixties, in order toaccommodate the arrival of students. Born in 1931, Ramsay Cook was not part of
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and then from 1969 at York University̾these institutions, like many others in the
country, went through a period of growth and change in order to accommodate this– 63 –

turbulent generation of young people.
The baby boom generation would challenge what they defined as conservativesocial values that emphasized well-defined gender roles, which sought toconstraining women to be housekeepers and men to be breadwinners. These\RXQJSHRSOHZRXOGEHGHÀDQWVRPHZRXOGVD\EROGO\E\TXHVWLRQLQJDXWKRULWLHV
and elites, by promoting equality, sexual freedom, and greater democracy. They
denounced consumerism, colonialism, and imperialism. The American military
involvement in Vietnam triggered social unrest mostly in the United States, but
in Canada, where 50,000 American draft dodgers and deserters were more or lesswelcomed with open arms, baby boomers questioned the role of their country in thisFRQÁLFW%DE\ERRPHUVGHÀHGVRFLDOFRQYHQWLRQVDQGVRFLDOO\DFFHSWDEOHEHKDYLRXU
and hippies with their unkempt hair and unconventional clothing symbolized this͆Zeitgeist͇or͆spirit of the time͇or the͆Sixties moment͇of a new cultural era

affecting Western countries. Canada was no exception. Baby boomers were vocal,
SROLWLFDOO\DFWLYHDQGGHÀDQWLQWKHVHFRQGKDOIRIWKHV(10)It was during this period that Canadians took part in celebrations marking thefoundation of their federation in 1967. This was the year of Expo, an Internationaland Universal Exposition called͆Man and His World͇that took place in Montreal,
but it was also the summer of love. According to Pierre Berton, writing thirty years
later, it was͆the last good year,͇a moment of unity and optimism that would
JLYH ZD\ WR SROLWLFDO FRQÁLFW DQG GHFOLQH %HVLGH WKH FRXQWHUFXOWXUH PRYHPHQW LW
was also a period of social and cultural transformation with the development offeminism and Indigenous self-assertion, but also Francophone political activism.
1967 was celebratory for Canadians, but Quebec and Canada were also in year
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political, economic, social, cultural and ideological transformation. Althoughscholars tend to agree that the starting point of this revolution was the electionof the Liberal party in Quebec, led by Jean Lesage, they are still debating when
it ended. If for some it was the defeat of the Liberals during the 1966 provincial
elections, others have argued that it was 1970 with the October Crisis; still others
contend that the election of the Parti Québécois led by René Lévesque in 1976
marked the end of the Quiet Revolution. For his part, Ramsay Cook made an
original contribution to the debate by arguing that the Quiet Revolution ended
with the major economic recession that hit North America in 1981. This meantthat the Parti Québécois, still in power despite losing the 1980 referendum on– 64 –

the sovereignty-association option, had to implement economic policies based on
neoliberal principles such as cutting public services, welfare programs, and taxes,
which was contrary to the social-democratic principles of the party. Since the Quiet
Revolution meant that the provincial state would extend its activities notably byimplementing welfare programs and expanding state services, having to reverse
course by implementing budget cuts due to the economic recession meant that the
Quiet Revolution had ended.
Without a doubt, the Quiet Revolution was a period of fundamental change inQuebec. The provincial state became the engine for implementing changes such as
the nationalization of electricity in 1962, and welfare measures for families andyouth among others. At the same time, French-speaking intellectuals and social
activists expressed a sense of alienation. In his book The Empire Within,(11) Sean
Mills documented how in 1960s Quebec, decolonization theory had fuelled a sense ofalienation, and had helped make sense of the struggle faced by French Canadians,
famously defined by Pierre Vallières as the͆White Niggers͇of America. French
Canada and Quebec seemed to have reached a boiling point. The Front de libération
du Québec was formed, resulting in dozens of bombing incidents in Quebec. In

reaction to this turmoil, as well as the sense of alienation and frustration about
the place of French Canada in Canada, Prime Minister Lester Pearson appointed
a Royal Commission aimed at studying relations between French-speaking andEnglish-speaking Canadians.
In 1965, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism released its
preliminary report. It gave ammunition to those who felt that Canada was going
through more than just turmoil. Members of the Commission stated that͆Canada
without being fully conscious of the fact is passing through the greatest crisis in
its history.͇(12) Writing about the release of the preliminary report, Ramsay Cookagreed with this statement.(13)This sense of crisis continued to grow. In 1967, French President Charles de67 and exclaimed͆Vive Le Québec Libre͇from the balcony of
Gaulle visited Expo ̓Montreal City Hall. This triggered a crisis in France-Canada relations, de Gaulle
was criticized, and he decided to go back to France instead of continuing his trip.
In November 1967, French Canadians from Quebec and outside the province
gathered in Montreal as part of the États généraux du Canada français. Theirrepresentatives̾some elected and others designated by various unions and culturalorganizations̾ZHUHLQYLWHGWRUHÁHFWRQWKHIXWXUHRIWKHQDWLRQDQGWRXSGDWHWKH

– 65 –

nationalist narrative. The adoption of a motion recognizing the right of French
Canada to self-determination led to the fragmentation of the idea of French Canada.
French Canada was no longer viewed as a common national reference for Frenchspeaking people in the country. According to the new nationalist ideology known as
neo-nationalism in Quebec, French-speaking minority groups outside Quebec weredoomed to be soon assimilated. The survival of French Canada was now centeredon Quebec, where French-speaking people formed the majority and, crucially,
controlled state institutions. Furthermore, French Canadians in Quebec who were
defining themselves as Québécois, transformed the theory of the two founding
nations. Their theory came to form the basis of contemporary French Canadiannationalism, which had developed in reaction to school crises in New Brunswick in
1871, in Manitoba from 1890 to 1896, and in Ontario from 1912 to 1927. According
to the neonationalists, Quebec had become one of the two nation states in Canada.(14)At the same time, several scholars were publishing pessimistic assessments ofFrench Canadians and how unsuccessful Confederation had been for them. In 1963,
Father Richard Arès wrote in the journal Relations about͆la grande pitié de nos
minorités françaises.͇Using the results of the 1961 Canadian census, Arès argued
that Confederation had accelerated the process of linguistic assimilation, creating
a situation in which more than half a million French-speaking people outsideof Quebec had lost touch with their language. He stated that the cultural andlinguistic assimilation of French Canadians in the rest of the country would haveterrible consequences for the survival of Confederation:͆le drame des minoritésfrançaises au Canada est aussi celui de toute la Confédération canadienne; ledestin de celle-ci est lié au sort de celles-là. Si les premières meurent, il ne restera
plus à la seconde qu̓à descendre, elle aussi, dans la tombe...͇(15) In 1967, François
Hertel published a book entitled Cent ans d’injustice? Un beau rêve: le Canada (Onehundred years of injustice? A sweet dream: Canada). For its part, the Revue d’histoirede l’Amérique française published a special issue on Confederation, in which thejournal̓s editor warned readers that there was not much to celebrate.
In reaction to the turmoil in 1960s Quebec, many politicians, intellectuals andaverage citizens in the rest of Canada began to ask:͆What does Quebec want?͇(16)They received conflicting answers from Quebec political and nationalist elites
and intellectuals: special status, associate states, equality between two nations,renewed federalism, and the independence of Quebec. There developed a battle
over legitimacy: who was speaking on behalf of Quebec? Was Daniel Johnson,– 66 –

Premier of Quebec, the legitimate voice of Quebec when he argued that the province
wanted equality with the rest of Canada? In his 1965 book Égalité ou indépendance,
he wrote about a new constitution that͆should, in my opinion, be conceived sothat Canada is not only a federation of 10 provinces but a federation in which
two nations are equal in law and in fact.͇(17) Some pointed out that a majorityof Quebeckers rejected Johnson̓s views despite the fact that he was Premier ofQuebec. Did Quebec want associate state status? This was also an expression usedduring the Quiet Revolution, and would be referred to as͂special status̓and͂distinct society̓in the 1970s and 1980s.

Other French-speaking people argued for the independence of Quebec. According
to them, the British North America Act could not be amended, and the Canadianfederation could not be reformed in order to accommodate demands expressedby Quebeckers who wanted to live in their own country. However, promoters ofQuebec̓s independence experienced a legitimacy gap in the 1960s. Political parties
promoting this option, such as the Rassemblement pour l’indépendance nationale andthe Ralliement national, attracted little support. Only 9 percent of the electorate
supported this option during the 1966 provincial election.(18)The fact that legitimate voices in Québec could promote special status, sovereignty
association, and renewed federalism as possible answers to the what-does-Quebecwant-question, intrigued observers of the political scene. Perhaps this prompted
Jacques Godbout to write Les têtes à Papineau.(19) In his novel, his main character
was born with two heads: Charles embraced the Anglo-Saxon culture, and François
was a proud promoter of French. This individual with two heads was a curiosity,
but at the same time his condition was unsustainable. Surgery was required, whichmeant that he was destined to lose one of his heads.

Ramsay Cook’s “Excitement”: Addressing Real Issues
Some could argue that this turmoil and the emergence of a viable politicalmovement for the independence of Quebec had a goal: to trigger constitutionalchange. Other voices invited Canadians to pause, lower the rhetoric of mistreatment
DQGFRORQLDOLVPDQGUHÁHFWRQZD\VWRUHFRQFLOHRXUGLIIHUHQFHVDQGPDNHRXUZD\through this latest crisis. Ramsay Cook was one of these latter voices. For Cook, thiswas a period of͆excitement.͇(20) He embraced the challenge, since he hoped that
UHDOGHEDWHVZRXOGHPHUJHZKLOHWKHVXSHUÀFLDOLW\RISROLWLFVZRXOGGLVDSSHDUDQG

– 67 –

there would be an opportunity to tackle the͆real issues,͇such as French-CanadianQDWLRQDOLVPSURYLQFLDOIHGHUDOUHODWLRQVDQG$PHULFDQLQÁXHQFH(21) He became abridge between Quebec and the rest of the country.
Born in Manitoba in 1931, Cook moved to Ontario to pursue a Master̓s Degree
at Queen̓s University in Kingston, Ontario. It was there that he encountered
Quebec in an unusual way. Kingston was not known for being home to a large
community of French-speaking people. On the contrary, Kingston was a unilingual
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Macdonald grew up. Despite the fact that Kingston was not known for its Frenchspeaking roots, Cook started reading about Quebec and French Canada on theadvice of his MA supervisor, Arthur Lower. By becoming an avid reader of Le Devoir,
the main daily favoured by the French-speaking intelligentsia, and Cité Libre, Cookbecame familiar with French Canada.
Eager to better understand Quebec, Cook developed a network of acquaintances.
Who were they? Among them, there was André Laurendeau, editor of Le Devoir
until his appointment as co-chair of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism andBiculturalism, in 1963. Following Laurendeau̓s appointment, Cook got to know
Claude Ryan, who succeeded Laurendeau, and he accepted his invitation to
publish a weekly column in Le Devoir. Besides journalists, Cook became a friendof Michel Brunet, a scholar who taught American History at the Université deMontréal. However, Brunet was not known for his work on the United States. On
the contrary, Brunet was a public historian, involved in French-speaking nationalist
organizations such as Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, writing briefs on
French Canada and its constitutional demands and expectations. Cook formed aclose friendship with Marc Lalonde, who worked in the office of Prime Minister
Lester Pearson. But it was his relationship with a professor of constitutional law,
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, which over time became an intellectual friendship, an
expression used by Cook.(22)In his book The Teeth of Time, Cook recounted his͆discovery͇of Trudeau. CookÀUVWHQFRXQWHUHG7UXGHDXZKLOHVWXG\LQJDW4XHHQ̓s University in 1955, when heread Trudeau̓s famous essay on French Canadian nationalism, published in thebook on the 1949 Asbestos Strike. Six years later, he met Trudeau at the weddingof Blair Neatby, an historian whom Cook had got to know while doing research in
Ottawa. As he wrote in his book, Cook began to argue with Trudeau but not for
too long. After all, they were at a wedding, and usually you do not engage in long

– 68 –

arguments at a wedding reception.(23) Following this encounter, Cook discovered in
Trudeau an intellectual who held͆many of the same basic ideas about major publicquestions, both Canadian and international.͇(24) Cook translated Trudeau̓s articles
for the Canadian Forum, and Trudeau encouraged Cook to publish articles in theleading French-language intellectual magazine, Cité Libre.
As a public historian, (25) Cook wrote articles for various newspapers. He
contributed to the Canadian Forum , and he became a commentator for the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Cook wrote essays that analyzed the causeof the Canadian malaise or turmoil. At the same time, he argued that the apathy
affecting the Canadian patient had been misdiagnosed. If the consensus was that
Canada was suffering from a weak sense of self-identity, he argued the opposite,
pointing out that Canada had endured too many nationalist episodes. For instance,
the school crisis in Ontario from 1912 to 1927 and the conscription crisis of 1917
had divided French Canadians and English Canadians. For Cook,͆two issues
dominated Canadian public life: the French-Canadian question and the Americanquestion. They were not new issues for, indeed, they have dominated the whole ofCanadian history.͇(26) Not new issues? According to Cook, these issues͆GHÀQHRXU
political life just as they defined Canadian Confederation. The French-Canadianpresence, among other reasons, meant that Canada had to be a federal state. The
American presence, among other reasons, meant that Canada had to be a highly
centralized federal state.͇(27) These were choices that the Fathers of Confederation
had made over 100 years before. What was new in the 1960s was how these choices
were remerging, and how Canadians would deal with them. French Canadians
had become critical of Confederation, and they denounced their treatment by the
English-speaking majority. This led some Quebec nationalist leaders and politicians
to argue that French Canadians were seen as second-class citizens. In July 1963,
Cook published a remarkable piece for the Canadian Forum. Entitled͆A Time to
Break Silence,͇KHLGHQWLÀHGLVVXHVWKDWWKHFRXQWU\ZRXOGWDNHDOPRVW\HDUVWR
resolve, with the patriation of the Constitution in 1982:
The task before English Canadians who desire to prevent their country fromlapsing into chaos is to break silence. First we must try to understand what
is taking place in Quebec, and why it is taking place. Second we must try to
respond positively by attempting to formulate for ourselves what we believe tobe the reasons for the present͂passive resistance̓of French Canadians toward– 69 –

Confederation. Having done this, we must then 㸫 and this is more important 㸫
begin to think about what we are willing and able to do to redress the legitimate
grievances of French Canada. There are a number of questions which we must
seriously ask ourselves. Are we in the English-speaking provinces willing toreconsider our past, deplorable attitude to public support for the kind of schoolsthat would satisfy the cultural aspirations of French Canadians outside Quebec?
Are we ready to reconsider our attitude to the status of the French language inthe legislatures, law courts and publicly owned corporations in English Canada?
Are we willing to alter practices respecting the French language in businessand commercial activities? Are we willing to make an offer to provide the means
for increased bilingualism among at least the better educated groups in English
Canada? Are we willing to explore even the possibility that our federal system
may require some radical modification to meet the changed circumstances of
the 1960s?(28)In his article, Cook acknowledged some of the grievances that French Canada had
had with Confederation since 1867: inadequate access to French-language schools
outside of Quebec, the lack of French-language services from the federal government
and provinces, and the poor use of French in the country. Without referring tonationalism, Cook crafted these issues in terms of rights. French Canadians had toreceive education and services in their language.
&RRNZDVQRWWKHÀUVW&DQDGLDQLQWHOOHFWXDOWREHFULWLFDORIQDWLRQDOLVP+HZDV
in the company of Frank Scott and Harold Innis and inspired by Lord Acton, Elie
Kedourie and George Orwell.(29) However, he seized on the Quebec moment in orderto educate, to enlighten but at the same time to shape the public debate in sucha way that society would not cave in to nationalist agendas. After all, Cook had
EHHQDPRQJWKHÀUVWVFKRODUVWREULQJQHZSHUVSHFWLYHVRQ4XHEHF6LQFHKHZDV
concerned about nationalism and what nationalists did in the rest of the world, he
was afraid of how Canadian politicians were contemplating answering the Quebec
challenge. Granting special status to Quebec or recognizing Quebec as a nationstate were dangerous strategies to consider. Cook believed that French Canadiandemands could be answered without granting special constitutional status toQuebec. In the 1960s, Cook was a member of the New Democratic Party, but assoon as the NDP became supportive of granting special status to Quebec, Cook quit
the party in 1968.(30) Amending the Canadian constitution in order to confer special– 70 –

status had the potential to destroy the country. Maybe watching Trudeau andreading his views as expressed in Cité LibreDQGRWKHUSXEOLFDWLRQVFRQÀUPHGWKDW
constitutional change should address past grievances but at the same time should
offer a way forward to all Canadians.
In the introduction to The Craft of History, published in 1973 and edited by his
wife, Eleanor Cook, repositioned the famous͆What Does Quebec Want?͇by linking
the future of English Canada and French Canada together. He wrote,͆Why does
Canada, divided as it is between French and English and living alongside the mostpowerful nation the world has ever known, exist? How does the past help to answer
this question? ͇(31) In reshaping the Quebec issue, Cook linked the survival ofQuebec to the viability of a larger entity, Canada. At the same time, he pointed outthat every generation had a tendency to revisit past issues, such as how to reconcile
the rights and status of two important linguistic communities, as they had done in1864 when representatives from French Canada, the Maritimes and what would
become Ontario, met and designed the foundation of the Canadian federation. In
his introduction, Cook observed that͆the past is thought to be alive because it has
something to say to the present.͇(32) However, in looking to the past for guidance,
Cook warned his readers that the past could be misleading, since we tend to lookbackward in order to find answers to the present. Since there often existed morethan one interpretation of events that had occurred in the past, multiple outcomes
were also possible, because the dialogue between the past and the present is usuallyshaped by the present.
Cook̓s scholarly articles, monographs and commentaries were part of a larger
debate about Canadian history and the rise of social history. Many young historians
questioned the traditional Canadian narrative, and wondered why not much was
written about regions, gender, race and ethnicity. (33) Cook made a remarkable
contribution to this great debate. In revisiting the concept of limited identities,
Philip Buckner wrote that Cook used this expression in 1967.(34) Writing on theissue of͆lack of unity and identity͇, Cook argued,͆Perhaps instead of constantly
deploring our lack of identity, we should attempt to understand and explain theregional, ethnic and class identities that we do have. It might just be that it is inthese limited identities that͂Canadianism̓is found.͇(35) Three years later, Cookrevisited this issue of weak national consciousness by attacking certain politicians
and intellectuals. He concluded that Canada͆ stubbornly refuses to exchange
its occasionally anarchic pluralism for a strait-jacket identity. Perhaps it is this– 71 –

heterogeneous pluralism itself that is the Canadian identity.͇(36)Cook published again on Quebec in the 1980s, when he opposed the Meech Lake
Accord that granted distinct society status to Quebec. As Cook did in the 1960s, heused his best weapon: his pen. He published an extraordinary article entitled͆Alicein Meechland or the Concept of Quebec as a͂Distinct Society̓.͇He demonstrated
WKDWWKHQRWLRQRIGLVWLQFWVRFLHW\ZDVLOOGHÀQHGDQGDVKHZURWHLQ Teeth of Time,
͆$QXQGHÀQHG͂distinct society̓could lead only to claims and counter claims about

LWVPHDQLQJDQGWRSHUPDQHQWFRQÁLFWH[DFWO\WKHFRQWUDU\RIZKDWLWVVXSSRUWHUV
promised.͇(37) To Cook, this ill-conceived concept would only disappoint everyone,
starting with French Quebeckers themselves.

Cook’s Other Areas of Study
It would be misleading to limit Cook ̓s intellectual contribution to French&DQDGDQDWLRQDOLVPDQGFRQVWLWXWLRQDOSROLWLFV$PRQJRWKHUÀHOGV&RRNSXEOLVKHG
on women̓s history. In 1974, he contributed the introduction to the new editionof Catherine L. Cleverdon̓s The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada. In his
introduction, Cook emphasized the merits of this study, first published in 1950
when women̓s history did not exist as a field of study. However, Cook insisted
that studying social issues and the role of social actors reminds us that we should
remain critical of our topic. If social movements had the ability to shape politics,
these social movements were not necessarily mass movements. Cook observed,͆The
number of women who were active suffragists had always been small.͇(38) Despite
that,͆the demand for woman suffrage was merely͂a chapter in the great history of
the emancipation of the individual, black or white, rich or poor, male or female, fromsocial and political disabilities imposed upon him or her on account of birth alone̓.͇(39)Cook also published a remarkable study on the relations between religion, social
reforms and secularization, focusing on the late nineteenth century. Cook analyzed
the actions of some influential Canadians and how their religious beliefs shaped
their understanding of society in the context of the Industrial Revolution. With thedevelopment of urban centres and the social problems that came with industrial
capitalism, such as poverty, class and ethnic divisions and tensions, as well as harshworking conditions, these Protestant men and women mobilized their resources tobuild what they believed to be the Kingdom of God on earth. By pushing for better
housing and working conditions, a ban on child and female labour and alcohol and– 72 –

drug use, these individuals accelerated, often without fully being aware of it, theprocess of secularization or at least the separation of Church and State, since theState would eventually take control of vast areas of social issues. Some readers
questioned why these individuals did not perceive the ironic impact of their actions
on religious belief. However, Cook was not ridiculing religion. On the contrary, as
Donald Wright says in the introduction to the second edition of The Regenerators,
Cook considered religion͆as fundamental to the human experience and therefore to
the writing of history.͇(40)In the 1990s, Cook turned his attention to Jacques Cartier and the encounter
between two worlds, editing Cartier̓s North American journals describing his
travels in 1534, 1535-36, and 1541. The introduction set the tone for Cook ̓sapproach to the topic. Entitled͆Donnacona Discovers Europe: Rereading Jacques
Cartier̓s Voyages,͇Cook emphasized the descriptions of how Indigenous people
understood the arrival of Cartier and his men, how they interacted with them, andhow they would adjust to them. Instead of concentrating on Cartier, Cook decided
to focus on the meeting between Europeans and Indigenous people, and how theIndigenous population interpreted this encounter. He concluded his introduction byreminding his readers that the Indigenous people were not too impressed with theforeigners who claimed to͆discover͇them. Although Cartier̓s Voyages contained
descriptions of wildlife, geography and landscapes, at the same time,
Their pages record the St Lawrence Iroquoians̓discovery of France, a countryof overdressed and often underfed people, where men grew hair on their faces
and did women̓s work in the fields.͐ Theirs was a religion of churches,
priests, and preachers warring over dogma. From French ports sailed creaking
ships filled with self-confident adventurers and sharp traders who carriedarms, ignorant of local customs. These suspicious, scheming intruders brought
unknown illnesses, frightened native women, told lies, and shamelessly
kidnapped even those who helped them. The French, Donnacona ̓s people
might have concluded,͂are wonderful thieves and steal everything they can
carry off.̓(41)
Who can tell what articles and essays Ramsay Cook might have written if he werestill with us today? Perhaps on Indigenous people and the challenges that Canada
faces in addressing the issues of governance, poverty, violence, mental health, andinequality that characterize Aboriginal societies.

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Conclusion
We could argue that Ramsay Cook benefited from exceptional circumstances.
Although born during the Great Depression, Cook grew up during a period ofDIÁXHQFH+HMRLQHGDFDGHPLDZKHQXQLYHUVLWLHVZHUHDERXWWRHPEDUNRQDSHULRG
of rapid expansion. The Sixties offered hope but also turmoil. If some feared the
Sixties and the counterculture movement, Cook seized the moment. He zeroed in on
the issue of Quebec, which was part of the larger debate about Canadian identity.
He became an intellectual force because of the clarity of his writing and views. He
made an effort to learn about French Canadian demands, and he concluded thatthose demands should be addressed. His encounter with Trudeau allowed him topursue his views.
Without question, Ramsay Cook̓VLQWHOOHFWXDOOHJDF\LVVLJQLÀFDQWDQGRQHFDQ
safely say that for years to come, scholars will debate and write about his views andideas on the many issues that he brought to our attention. Graduate students will
carry on from where he left off, and add new branches to the academic͆family tree͇
that he created. And very soon, we hope, we will all be able to enjoy Ramsay Cook̓sbiography, a much-anticipated undertaking that Donald Wright began with Cook̓s
co-operation, not long before his untimely death.
John Maynard Keynes once said that͆Ideas shape the course of history,͇and
one might add, with regard to Ramsay Cook, that his ideas were able to shape ourunderstanding of Canadian history.
Notes(1) I want to thank Benoit Longval, Serge Miville, Marlene Shore, Molly Ungar and
Don Wright for their comments on this paper.
(2) Ramsay Cook, Canada and the French-Canadian Question (Toronto: Macmillanof Canada, 1966), 4.
(3) Ramsay Cook, The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in
Canada (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1971), x.
(4) Cook told his friend, Carl Berger, that he could be described as an͆atheist for
Niebuhr.͇Donald Wright,͆Introduction to the Second Edition,͇in Ramsay
Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016), xxxv.
(5) Cook, Canada and the French-Canadian Question, 1.
(6) Ibid., 4.
(7) On baby boomers, see Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of theBaby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

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(8) Statistics Canada, « Generations in Canada », 30 Sept. 2017, <http://www12.
statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-311-x/98-311-x2011003_2-eng.
cfm>.
(9) Statistics Canada,͆Canadian Statistics in 1967: One hundred years of Canadian
Statistics!͇30 Sept. 2017, <https://www65.statcan.gc.ca/acyb07/acyb07_0012-eng.
htm>.
(10) Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, andthe United States, 1958-1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Dimitry
Anastakis ed., The Sixties: Passion, Politics, and Style (Montreal: McGill-Queen̓s
University Press, 2008); Bryan D. Palmer, Canada’s 1960s: The Ironies of
Identity in a Rebellious Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009); JeanPhilippe Warren, Une douce anarchie: les années 68 au Québec (Montréal: Boréal,2008).
(11) Sean Mills, The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in
Sixties Montreal, (Montreal: McGill-Queen̓s University Press, 2010).
(12) Canada, Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, A Preliminary
Report (Ottawa: Queen̓s Printer, 1965), 13.
(13) Ramsay Cook, The Teeth of Time: Remembering Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Montreal& Kingston: McGill-Queen̓s University Press, 2006), 27.
(14) Marcel Martel, Le deuil d'un pays imaginé: Rêves, luttes et déroute du Canada
français. Les relations entre le Québec et la francophonie canadienne, 1867-1975
Université d̓Ottawa, 1997).
(Ottawa, Les Presses de l̓(15) Richard Arès,͆La grande pitié des minorités,͇Relations (1963), 68.
(16) Alain-G. Gagnon, eds., Le fédéralisme canadien contemporain: Fondements,
traditions, institutions (Montréal, Les Presses de l̓Université de Montréal,
2006); François Rocher, eds., Bilan québécois du fédéralisme canadien (Montréal,
VLB Éditeur, 1992).
(17) Quoted in Kenneth McRoberts, Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National
Unity (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 34.
(18) Ibid., 36.
(19) Jacques Godbout, Les têtes à Papineau (Paris, les Éditions du Seuil, 1981).
(20) Ramsay Cook,͆Federalism, Nationalism, and the Canadian Nation-State,͇
The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada (Toronto:
Macmillan of Canada, 1971), 22-23.
(21) Ibid.
(22) Cook, The Teeth of Time, 8.
(23) Ibid., 14-15.
(24) Ibid., 9.
(25) Patrice A. Dutil,͆Ramsay Cook̓s Quest for an Intellectual͂Phoenix,̓19601968,͇in Michael D. Behiels and Marcel Martel, Nation, Ideas, Identities. Essaysin Honour of Ramsay Cook (Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2000),
41-53.
(26) Ramsay Cook,͆Loyalism, Technology, and Canada̓s Fate,͇The Maple Leaf
Forever: Essays on Nationalism and Politics in Canada (Toronto: Macmillan of– 75 –

Canada, 1971), 45.
(27) Cook,͆Loyalism, Technology, and Canada̓s Fate,͇45-46.
(28) Quoted in Dutil,͆Ramsay Cook̓s Quest for an Intellectual͂Phoenix,̓19601968,͇43-44.
(29) Carl Berger,͆Ramsay Cook: History, Nationalism, and Religion,͇in Ramsay
Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016, 2nd edition), xiv.
(30) Dutil,͆Ramsay Cook̓s Quest for an Intellectual͂Phoenix,̓1960-1968,͇46-47;
Cook, The Teeth of Time, 35, 56-57.
(31) Eleanor Cook, ed., with an introduction by Ramsay Cook, The Craft of History(Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1973), no pages are indicated.
(32) Cook, The Craft of History, no pages are indicated.
(33) Michael Gauvreau,͆Beyond the Search for Intellectuals: On the Paucity of
Paradigms in the Writing of Canadian Intellectual History,͇in Gerald Friesen
and Doug Owram, eds., Thinkers & Dreamers: Historical Essays in Honour ofCarl Berger (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 53-90.
͂Limited Identities̓Revisited: Regionalism and Nationalism(34) Philip A. Buckner,͆
in Canadian History,͇Acadiensis, 30, 1 (Autumn 2000), 4-15.
(35) Ramsay Cook,͆Canadian Centennial Cerebrations,͇International Journal, xxii,
1 (Autumn 1967), 659-63.
(36) Ramsay Cook,͆Nationalism in Canada,͇The Maple Leaf Forever: Essays on
Nationalism and Politics in Canada (Toronto, 1971), 197-214, 240-3.
(37) Cook, The Teeth of Time, 157.
(38) Catherine L. Cleverdon, The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada, introduction
by Ramsay Cook (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), xx.
(39) Sonia Leathes,͆Votes for Women,͇The University Magazine, 13, 1 (February1914), 69, quoted in Cleverdon, The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada ,introduction by Ramsay Cook, xx.
(40) Wright,͆Introduction to the Second Edition,͇xxxix.
(41) H.P. Biggar, The Voyages of Jacques Cartier, with an introduction by Ramsay
Cook (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), xl-xli; Ramsay Cook, 1492
and All That: Making a Garden out of a Wilderness (Toronto: Robarts Centre for
Canadian Studies, 1993).
㸦York University㸧

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