I can’t think of a better book to read right now than How Canada Works: The People Who Make Our Nation Thrive by Peter Mansbridge and Mark Bulgutch. As one of Canada’s most respected journalists, Mansbridge served as the chief correspondent for CBC News and anchor of The National, for more than 30 years. During this tumultuous time of threatened tariffs by President Donald Trump and the concurrent Canadian federal election, reading How Canada Works is a soft-landing after days and nights of political turbulence.
How Canada Works Summary
Mansbridge writes about the working lives of those we often refer to as “ordinary” Canadians, yet there is something extremely special about each of the people he describes. Mostly, he concentrates on their work. We are introduced to multiple Canadians such as an indigenous chief, an air traffic controller, a midwife, a high school principal, a zookeeper, a mall manager and a wedding planner. They come from across Canada and represent a wide cross-section of professions, yet each of them has one thing in common and that is a love of their job, a respect for the people they serve, and an honest interest in making their community better.
Mansbridge’s Journey and Career
Mansbridge is an expert in portraying their stories, not just because he is a long-time journalist, but because he has the people’s touch and knows how to question and bring out the best selves of those who aren’t usually interviewed for a chapter in a famous man’s book. As he explains, by the time he was seventeen years old, he had “given up on high school” and began a series of jobs including a counsellor and lifeguard at an all-boys summer camp, a stint in the Royal Canadian Navy, a gas station attendant in Ottawa, and then a move back to the prairies where he grew up.
“One day, while sitting in the bus depot in Winnipeg,” writes Mansbridge, “I noticed a newspaper ad: TRAFFIC AGENT WANTED. And I thought, why not?” Mansbridge got the job where he was sometimes a flight announcer for a regional airline. “By a fluke, it was a CBC radio executive hearing my voice announcing flights that got me my next job as a late-night radio host, which led to a series of jobs first as a reporter in Winnipeg, then as The National’s correspondent in Regina, a parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa, the weekend anchor in Toronto, then the full-time anchor, and finally as chief correspondent of CBC News. Go figure.”
Exploring Canadian Resilience Through the Book – How Canada Works
Similar to many of the people profiled in How Canada Works, Mansbridgelanded the best job he could imagine through a combination of innate talent, learned skills, hard work, human decency, and a fair sprinkling of good luck. Everyone from the Funeral Director to the Space Operator, everyone in this book knew in their bones how they wanted to spend their work life – so they tried, succeeded and made the most of their talents and ambitions. Each of those profiled possesses a special talent, just like Mansbridge does. He’s a natural. When I think back to the hundred upon hundreds of times I turned on CBC television to the National, or a special news report that would help me to understand the world around me, or give me the information I needed to feel secure, it was Peter Mansbridge’s manner and voice, his steady, friendly demeanour that took me through the shattering events of the period between 1988 and 2017.
Now that Canada finds itself in onerous times, it’s important to pause and reflect on what lies ahead. Much like Peter Mansbridge, who spent his career asking questions that uncovered every facet of our nation, we too can look to the future and ask the questions that will help guide us. How do we preserve Canadian democracy and our way of life? What kind of legacy do we want to leave for the next generation of Canadians? These questions help us think not just about our country’s future, but about our own future, as we seek to create security and peace of mind in our own lives. For those of us retired or nearing retirement, these questions become even more important. By asking the right questions today—about finances, opportunities, and how to safeguard our well-being—we can shape the retirement we deserve and build a foundation of stability for ourselves and those who follow.
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