Charlotte Gray, an adjunct research professor at Carleton University, was the 2017 recipient of the English non-fiction Ottawa Book Award for her work The Promise of Canada: 150 Years–People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country.
After about three years of research, Gray released her newest award-winning book in October 2016, with Simon and Schuster Canada.
Gray has written a total of 10 books, with two of them receiving Ottawa Book Awards. Gray said she was shocked at the ceremony in October when it was announced her book was the winner.
It was Gray’s publicist who suggested that she create a new piece to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, as well as celebrate the history of our nation so far.
“Given that my forte is biographies, I thought it would be interesting to do a review of the last 150 years,” Gray said. “I wanted to capture the way Canada has changed from a collective form of British colonies into one of the most successful countries in the world.”
Early on in her writing process, Gray decided that she would not include any prime ministers in her book, even though they were very important figures in Canadian history.
She decided to look past the leadership in Ottawa, and showcase people who have helped to institute social changes within Canada, broken down barriers, and helped to unify groups of people or inspire a generation.
“I wanted to look at it through the ideas which these generations have permeated, and do it through the people who had those ideas,” she said.
Gray’s initial list of figures to include in her book was very extensive, and choosing people to eliminate was one of the hardest parts of her writing process.
“Anybody else’s list would’ve been different, and some of the people I chose to write about were already well known,” Gray said. “I had discussions with people who disagreed with people I put in, and people I decided to leave out.”
Tommy Douglas, George-Étienne Cartier, Margaret Atwood, and Elijah Harper are some of the Canadians that made the final list, and Gray covers them all extensively in her book.
Gray also wanted to have female representatives in her book, including influential women like Emily Carr, and Bertha Wilson.
The first nine chapters of the book look at individuals within successive generations that influenced the evolving set of values that are still primarily with Canadians today.
The tenth chapter looks at Canada today, and how these impacts have shaped the country we have grown up with.
Gray said that it was impossible for her to pick one individual that has made the biggest impact on Canada alone, as each individual’s accomplishments were so diverse and covered completely different historical aspects of Canada.
“There are so many people who have contributed to our history,” she said. “I can’t possibly think of one who’s better than another.”
Gray said she wants young people to understand that Canada is not homogenous—meaning we may all have different races and religion—but there is one thing we all do have in common: Canadian values.
“If you look at Canadian society today, and the one your contemporaries are growing up in, it’s distinctly different from those before them,” Gray said. “We live in a diverse community, where people are born in other countries, or are second-generation Canadians, and Canada still works.”
She also added we should think about this notion of diversity as we move forward as a country.
“What we all should ask is how can Canada continually absorb all these changes it has faced, and adapt to them,” she said.
