spartan26

The Canadians (1997)

High Quality Canadian History

Like _Life and Times (1996)_ (qv), this should be required viewing for all Canadians to vaccinate against the inundation of American culture that we receive from our southern brethren (often presented with an understandable, though false, US-centric point of view). We have many great Canadian heroes who go largely unsung when pitted against the marketing forces of first, our largely British-written history, followed by the behemoth of the post-war American media. It is disappointing to hear fellow Canadians refer to 'American' examples like Edison, Farnsworth, and Sarnoff, without equal reference or knowledge of Ahearn (who sold his patent on the electric light bulb to Edison) and Fessenden (who patented a working television, but (arguably) had his ideas 'stolen' by Farnsworth), or who are completely ignorant of the contributions Canadians made to the U.S. space program (too numerous to mention), Hollywood ('Mary Pickford' (qv), 'Lorne Greene' (qv), 'William Shatner' (qv), etc.), world economics ('John Kenneth Galbraith' (qv)), and a host of other fields. Hopefully, this show, along with _Life and Times (1996)_ (qv) will help to redress the balance.