According to assorted popular histories and textbooks, Sir Wilfrid Laurier once proclaimed that “The 20th century would belong to Canada.” Well, not quite. What our seventh prime minister really said, when he wound up a speech to a couple of hundred festive members of the Ottawa Canadian Club on the night of Jan. 18, 1904, was that while “the 19th century was the century of the United States, I think we can claim that it is Canada that shall fill the 20th century.”
Still, it was rather a bold claim–almost unCanadian in its ambition. To be fair, Sir Wilfrid deserves a […]
