Ben Franklin’s Genius and the Missed Chance of 1776

If you were living in the time of Benjamin Franklin, it would have appeared in all likelihood that Canada was most certainly going to be a 14th member of the 13 colonies that united to declare independence from the British Empire… but something happened and history unfolding in another manner. This may be a difficult story to hear for many Americans, Europeans and especially Canadians. This difficulty is due in large measure to fact that hate for the USA is at an all-time high with the consensus that the republic was never anything more than a hypocritical nation built upon slavery and empire from day one and that it is the sole heir to the British Empire that “disappeared” from politics in 1945. In Canada, it is a bit more difficult as a century of propaganda and social engineering has crafted generations of Canadians who believe that their greatest victory and claim to any national identity is that… “we’re not American”! In this inaugural lecture which kicks off a new class cycle on the th