December 1, 1971

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CANADA'S INDEPENDENCE INVENTORY: the cupboard is ours, but the stock is fast becoming theirs

Every bottle in the Canadian pine cupboard at right represents a key sector of Canada, and if you examine the contents carefully two facts leap out. The first is that Canadians still firmly control some key sectors of their native land. According to the most recent report — that for 1968 — compiled under the Corporations and Labor Union Returns Act, we hold 71% of investment companies, 81% of public utilities, 69% of retail trade.

YOUR VIEW

I am certain that another letter concerning the pleasure that subscribers receive from the “new” Maclean’s will not be out of order. Letters to editors are not written frequently, but I wanted to take out a few minutes just to say what an excellent job you have done on a magazine which I feared was going to perish.

HAVE A CHAUVINISTIC CHRISTMAS DINNER

You may have spent half a lifetime thinking that every warmhearted Canadian should eat turkey and plum pud ding at Yule. But the true chauvinist knows that turkey is as Canadian as the Pilgrim Fathers and plum pudding belongs to Tiny Tim. A real Canadian Christmas dinner, like the one that's pictured so lushly here, should have all traces of Washington and London removed from the menu and make use of only the best homegrown ingredients. By SONDRA GOTLIEB9 min

THE TABLE TALK OF ROY THOMSON

The outrigger spectacles, with lenses as thick as bottle-bottoms, magnify his glinting blue eyes. They peer out with Mister Magoo-like good humor plus a touch of Heinrich Himmler’s icy cunning, and even though the conversation has barely started already you know there is no one else like Roy Herbert Thomson, the first Baron of Fleet. By Peter C. Newman8 min

THE VIEW FROM HARTLAND N.B.

HOME IS A PLACE THEY’VE WRAPPED IN FOIL

In the middle of New Brunswick, there’s a small farm. It forms the centre of a star. The star’s points are the villages of Lakeville, Centreville, Hartland (and Premier Richard), Waterville, Woodstock and Florenceville, home of McCain Foods. By WILHELMINE THOMAS5 min

November 11971