Mel Watkins fancies himself a radical (even comparing himself to the "Marxist" Cheddi Jagan). But in reality he's just another bourgeois economist with social-democratic leanings. Lacking any serious class analysis, he lumps all Canadians together as if we all share a common "national" interest.

It's a distortion of reality to suggest that Canadian "sovereignty" is a major preoccupation of the Council of Canadians, or the Parkland, Polaris, or Rideau Institutes. None of these independent think-tank/lobby groups represents anything resembling what Watkins calls a "vibrant sovereignty movement". Such a movement does not exist in Canada today outside of Quebec - for the simple reason that Canada's sovereignty is not a real issue.

Watkins tries to equate Canadians' distaste for imperialist war with nationalism. He thinks that it was nationalism that kept Canada "out of the Iraq war and the missile defense system". But he's wrong on both examples: Canada did plenty to support the Iraq war - arms sales, military command personnel, deploying warships to the Persian Gulf, and of course sending troops to spell off the Yanks in Afghanistan so that they could concentrate on destroying Iraq. As for our keeping out of the missile defence system, that particular myth has been well debunked by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade on more than one occasion. In any event, the anti-war left is not about Canadian nationalism - it's about challenging the imperialist agenda of the Canadian ruling class and its government.

Watkins's claim that the Waffle showed "remarkable prescience" on two matters is tenuous at best. The Waffle was hardly the first organization on the Canadian left to recognize Quebec's claim to nationhood. And even Watkins acknowledges that the Waffle waffled on the question of "Canadianizing" the affiliates of international unions. Some prescience!

The Waffle's nationalist blinkers and lack of roots in the real struggles of Canadians were responsible for the other notable failings of the Waffle vision for Canada, some of which Watkins himself acknowledges. The manifesto did not recognize the potential (or even acknowledge the actuality) of the women's liberation movement. It failed to recognize the rights and the struggles of aboriginal Canadians. It had nothing to say about protecting the environment. It hysterically and wrongly identified "the very survival of Canada" as the most urgent issue for Canadians. It declared - again wrongly - that "an independent Canadian capitalism" did not exist!

The Waffle was wrong in 1969 and subsequent events have only served to confirm that.