Hegel in Canada: Intellectual Tradition or Philosophical Mythology?

Many Canadian thinkers have devoted works to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Two relatively recent books, Robert C. Sibley’s Northern Spirits (2008) and Robert Meynell’s Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom (2011), have upheld the thesis that there is a Hegelian tradition native to Canada. For Sibley and Meynell, Hegelian philosophy is a point of intersection that brings together important figures in Canadian political thought of the 19th and 20th centuries. In their view, this group of philosophers represents a distinctive Canadian school. The goal of this article is to provide a critical evaluation of this hypothesis. Is there a specifically Canadian Hegelian school of thought? I aim to show that while Hegel’s thought has indeed been received in Canada, this has not led to the formation of a distinct Canadian philosophical school or tradition.