“Voices within Canada: Of hockey, Medicare and Canadian dreams” written by Stephen J. Toope questions what we want to be as Canadians as we approach our 150th birthday. Toope is the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, and is well qualified to question our country’s dreams as we approach an intimidatingly stormy future. To his audience of Canadians of all ages, Toope questions if current Canadian state is the best that can be done. Should hockey and Medicare be the defining features of a country that has sustained democratic rule for so long? He approaches the topic immediately with an emotional appeal to Canadians that motivates the audience to seek answers for what they believe in. Toope’s ideas form
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Appeals are made here both to emotion and to reader interests as a Canadian audience may let the question at hand motivate them to seek answers.
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His focus then shifts more towards precedent when claiming that: “… our democracy has, for much of its history, been a dependent one, first on the United Kingdom and then on the United States” (Toope, 2013, P.223). Toope is taking Canada’s dependence on others in the past and comparing it with its “inability” through 150 years to write its own story as a nation. However, he goes on to make concessions in the following paragraph, stating that Canadians have much to be proud; For example, creating a society marked by relative openness to immigration, its ability to attract large numbers of people from foreign shores, encouraging social integration, its history of social mobility, and the explosion of talent and global recognition in recent years (Toope, 2013, P.224). The concessions made demonstrate Toope’s ability to recognize both sides of the argument without weakening his
Appeals are made here both to emotion and to reader interests as a Canadian audience may let the question at hand motivate them to seek answers.
Page 2
His focus then shifts more towards precedent when claiming that: “… our democracy has, for much of its history, been a dependent one, first on the United Kingdom and then on the United States” (Toope, 2013, P.223). Toope is taking Canada’s dependence on others in the past and comparing it with its “inability” through 150 years to write its own story as a nation. However, he goes on to make concessions in the following paragraph, stating that Canadians have much to be proud; For example, creating a society marked by relative openness to immigration, its ability to attract large numbers of people from foreign shores, encouraging social integration, its history of social mobility, and the explosion of talent and global recognition in recent years (Toope, 2013, P.224). The concessions made demonstrate Toope’s ability to recognize both sides of the argument without weakening his