A Knight's Tale
“The 19th Century was the century of the U.S.; the 20th Century will be the century of Canada.” -Wilfrid Laurier
We can learn a lot from Lords. As a mere Knight, a good deal down the peerage ladder, I am not often privy to their company, though I have had the privilege of being scrutinized by one particular Lord on two occasions.
The first time I had my wares inspected by Conrad Black was in 1997. He was dressed resplendently in a black tunic escorting Queen Elizabeth II on an inspection of our pressed red tunics, gleaming bayonets, shining shoes, and fluffed bearskin hats. I was a Guardsman; he was a Colonel. I had a gun; he had a sword. A decade later, he was an incarcerated Lord.
The second time was this past American Independence day, Lord Black of Crossharbour (currently Prisoner #18330-424) spent a couple of weeks of his National Post column dissecting the misguided ways of Corporate Knights. He dismissed our coverage of anthropogenic global warming as an “exotic notion,” citing such reputable sources as the Polish Academy of Sciences. He also ventured his own definition of “real” corporate knights, as “people who stand unapologetically for something useful.” Donald Trump, for example.
Lord Black also questioned the economics of our magazine, concluding that we were heavily subsidized. For someone whose idea of a business expense is a personal trip to Bora Bora with his wife on the company’s private jet, it must be hard to fully grasp the lean new media publishing ethos of a group like Corporate Knights.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of all this, beyond taking comfort that our distribution had expanded into the US prison population. But after looking over more of Lord Black’s recent writings, a funny thing happened. I found myself agreeing with him on his call to stop underestimating ourselves as Canadians, and to be bold and imaginative in the great tradition of Sir John. A Macdonald. Our late Prime Minister’s unswerving determination to connect Canada with its first transcontinental railway was a major reason for our fledgling nation’s survival.
I almost saw Sir John A’s dream die in 1995 as a freshman at McGill. I remember running home through east Montreal with “Oui” signs on what seemed like every spiral staircase. My roommate Stéphane, an ardent sovereigntist asked me "Pourquoi devrais-je voter non?" I didn’t have anything convincing enough to change his mind.
