Canada's fate: Principal Grant, Sir George Parkin and George Grant

In Lament for a Nation (1965), George Parkin Grant says that his lament for the disappearance of Canada as a sovereign country was "a celebration of m emory," in particular "the memory of that tenuous hope that was the princip le of my ancestors," This essay examines this claim in relation to the poli tical ideas of Grant's grandfathers, Principal G.M. Grant of Queen's Univer sity and Sir George Parkin, Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships. Both were strongly committed to the ideal of imperial federation and believed that c ontinued association with the British Empire was key to Canada's survival a s a nation in North America. The connection between the though of Parkin an d G.M. Grant is more clear if we examine Grant's early work The Empire: Yes or No? (1945).