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“Courage my friends, ‘tis never too late to build a better world.” This optimistic exhortation was given to us by “The Greatest Canadian” (in a CBC contest), Tommy Douglas, and it hangs on the wall of my parliamentary office.
Is this the statement of an idealist? Although Douglas would have said he was not a philosopher, I contend that his beliefs and more importantly his actions situate him solidly in the tradition of Canadian thought analysed by Meynell. Was Tommy Douglas talking about a better world just for me or for all of us? Achieved alone or together? Was he suggesting that we shared something in common as we tackled the project he imagined or was he telling us to strive for our own well-being above all?
I have no doubt that Tommy Douglas understood that our human journey had to be a collective project, something we would, could, and should do together for and with each other, as a community of free individuals. Freedom, in this view – an idealist view – has enormous positive potential, not just for individuals but for all people as part of a fabric of diverse communities.
- Jack Layton from the foreword to Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom: C.B. Macpherson, George Grant, and Charles Taylor by Robert Meynell.
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