How Canada Works

Simon & Schuster/November 2023

By Peter Mansbridge and Mark Bulgutch

Reviewed by Anthony Wilson-Smith

October 17^th, 2023

In the six years since Peter Mansbridge stepped away from anchoring the CBC’s flagship nightly newscast, The National, Canadians have learned something about him: for nearly three decades, while we were all watching Peter, he was watching us back. Over half a century as a journalist, including 29 years as the face and voice of The National, Mansbridge travelled to countless countries, interviewed dozens of world leaders and celebrities, and was, as often as he could, on the scene where major news had broken.

But what really moves him, as we first learned in his 2020 book Extraordinary Canadians, are stories about so-called ‘ordinary Canadians’ doing remarkable things. That book, presented in the first-person voice of his subjects, focused on little-known people across the country who had transcended significant personal challenges to move forward in their lives — to the betterment of everyone around them.

The book, co-written with friend and longtime producer Mark Bulgutch, moved smartly to the top of bestseller lists and sat there for months. It eventually sold more than 50,000 copies — in a country where anything over 5,000 generally constitutes success. That, almost inevitably, called for a sequel, and now we have it: How Canada Works (available for pre-order) again co-written with Bulgutch, follows the same first-person formula and picks up, in many ways, where the previous book left off. This time, alongside those similarities, there is a broader theme. How Canada Works focuses on Canadians who, by virtue of their jobs and related responsibilities, keep things functioning smoothly at a time when it often appears the world is doing the opposite, and when work is being redefined in unprecedented, often impersonal ways.

Collecting first-person stories about work has been done before – most notably by the late American writer/broadcaster Louis ‘Studs’ Terkel in his 1974 book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. Terkel, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the book, demonstrated how a probing questioner and skilled editor could not only make everyday life seem special, but also draw out the character traits and motivations inherent in the way people approached and did their jobs.

By those measures — and others — How Canada Works is a similar success. The authors, in addition to high-end journalistic chops, bring genuine curiosity about their subjects, along with enthusiasm and affection. The range of people and jobs includes, among others, an elected Indigenous band chief, an undertaker, a junior hockey coach, a bakery owner, and a small-town mayor.

All the subjects are people you’d really like to know, and have as friends. They don’t live above or otherwise separate from their fellow Canadians.

They and other subjects share a passion for their work, and a deep understanding of the factors that brought them to it. Virtually all have made their jobs something of a life’s work (one, a grocery store worker during the height of the pandemic, has since moved on to become a construction worker). Some see their work as a calling that brings together interests they have held all their lives. An example is Danielle Cormier, who was given an astronomy book as a young child in the northern Quebec town of Amos. She was smitten, directed her future studies accordingly, and today works as an engineer for the Canadian Space Agency.

Wayne Moonias, elected chief of Neskantaga First Nation in Ontario, was motivated by tragedy. His mother was killed in a small-plane crash during a sudden snow squall. Even as he grieved, Wayne watched the way his Uncle Peter, a councillor who later became chief, steered people through challenges, heartbreaks and frustrations. (That includes the fact that the reserve has now been under a boiled-water advisory for 28 years.) “By the time I was in my twenties,” Wayne recounts, “I knew I wanted to be the Uncle Peter of my generation.” In helping others, he found the sense of purpose to move ahead.

All the book’s subjects seem to share a fundamental decency that manifests itself in a desire to help others. LuAnn Jones took a career-direction test from a guidance councillor at her Toronto high school. It said she should become a funeral director. She was aghast. Upon graduation, she applied for a nursing program at a local college. That required taking another vocation test: she was accepted into the program along with a specific recommendation that she become…a funeral director.  This time, she took the advice to heart, coming to realize the crucial role she could play in giving comfort to those who have lost a loved one. “It’s at that time,” she says, “that we need a funeral director, but more, we need a friend. I try to be both.”

Meanwhile, Rob Wilson became a hockey coach when he realized that his skills as a player weren’t enough to get him to the National Hockey League. After playing several years for teams in Europe, he became a coach in England, Italy and Germany before being hired in 2018 by the junior team he had played for, the Peterborough Petes. While winning games is an essential component of how he is judged as a coach, he is guided overall, he says, by the famous quote from the legendary American basketball coach John Wooden: “A good coach can change a game. A great coach can change a life.”

All the subjects are people you’d really like to know, and have as friends. They don’t live above or otherwise separate from their fellow Canadians. They’re focused on the world immediately surrounding them, doing their best to make it as pleasant for others and meaningful for themselves as they can. As Peter writes in the introduction, they are “the people who do their jobs in a uniquely Canadian way that makes Canada not only work but thrive. And we can learn from the way they approach their jobs with grace, kindness and selflessness.”

As they did in Extraordinary Canadians, Mansbridge and Bulgutch understand that the best way to tell a good story is to leave it to those who know it best. By allowing the subjects to speak for themselves, edited only for space, they break down the wall between the protagonists and those who are curious about them.  Readers are left to learn lessons and make judgments on their own. That said, it’s hard to imagine anyone not liking the people they meet here — and feeling better for knowing that they exist. We are, as the saying goes, sometimes a great nation. If so, it’s because people like those featured in this book make it that way.

Contributing Writer Anthony Wilson-Smith, President and CEO of Historica Canada, is a former Editor in Chief of Maclean’s.