Canada's Founding Debates

Canada's Founding Debates
Author: Janet Ajzenstat
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2017-06-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487516703

Canada's Founding Debates is about Confederation—about the process that brought together six out of the seven territories of British North America in the years 1864-73 to form a country called Canada. It presents excerpts from the debates on Confederation in all of the colonial parliaments from Newfoundland to British Columbia and in the constituent assembly of the Red River Colony. The voices of the powerful and those of lesser note mingle in impassioned debate on the pros and cons of creating or joining the new country, and in defining its nature. In short explanatory essays and provocative annotations, the editors sketch the historical context of the debates and draw out the significance of what was said. By organizing the debates thematically, they bring out the depth of the founders' concern for issues that are as vital today as they were then: the meaning of liberty, the merits of democracy, the best form of self-government, the tension between collective and individual rights, the rule of law, the requirements of political leadership, and, of course, the nature of Canadian nationality. Canada's Founding Debates offers a fresh and often surprising perspective on Canada's origins, history, and political character. Previously published by Stoddart Publishing, 1999.

Canadian Founding

Canadian Founding
Author: Janet Ajzenstat
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 0773575936

Convinced that rights are inalienable and that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed, the Fathers of Confederation - whether liberal or conservative - looked to the European enlightenment and John Locke. Janet Ajzenstat analyzes the legislative debates in the colonial parliaments and the Constitution Act (1867) in a provocative reinterpretation of Canadian political history from 1864 to 1873. Ajzenstat contends that the debt to Locke is most evident in the debates on the making of Canada's Parliament: though the anti-confederates maintained that the existing provincial parliaments offered superior protection for individual rights, the confederates insisted that the union's general legislature, the Parliament of Canada, would prove equal to the task and that the promise of "life and liberty" would bring the scattered populations of British North America together as a free nation.

Compact, Contract, Covenant

Compact, Contract, Covenant
Author: James Rodger Miller
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802097413

"Compact, Contract, Covenant" is renowned historian of Native-newcomer relations J.R. Miller's exploration and explanation of more than four centuries of treating-making.

Violence, Order, and Unrest

Violence, Order, and Unrest
Author: Elizabeth Mancke
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2019-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 148752370X

This edited collection offers a broad reinterpretation of the origins of Canada. Drawing on cutting-edge research in a number of fields, Violence, Order, and Unrest explores the development of British North America from the mid-eighteenth century through the aftermath of Confederation. The chapters cover an ambitious range of topics, from Indigenous culture to municipal politics, public executions to runaway slave advertisements. Cumulatively, this book examines the diversity of Indigenous and colonial experiences across northern North America and provides fresh perspectives on the crucial roles of violence and unrest in attempts to establish British authority in Indigenous territories. In the aftermath of Canada 150, Violence, Order, and Unrest offers a timely contribution to current debates over the nature of Canadian culture and history, demonstrating that we cannot understand Canada today without considering its origins as a colonial project.

The Trouble with Canada

The Trouble with Canada
Author: William Gairdner
Publisher: BPS Books
Total Pages: 499
Release: 2007-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0978440226

The original edition of this bestselling and country-changing book. Beginning in the 1970s, Canada abandoned its historical foundations and fell under the spell of socialism. This best-selling classic, which galvanized the generation now leading the counter-attack, explains in plain language how Canadians got into their present predicament, and how to get out. He deals with such topics as the great welfare ripoff; the waste in foreign aid giveaways; radical feminism's attack against the family; the mediocrity of the health-care system; and the politicization of the church.

Canada's Odyssey

Canada's Odyssey
Author: Peter H. Russell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2017-05-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487514484

150 years after Confederation, Canada is known around the world for its social diversity and its commitment to principles of multiculturalism. But the road to contemporary Canada is a winding one, a story of division and conflict as well as union and accommodation. In Canada’s Odyssey, renowned scholar Peter H. Russell provides an expansive, accessible account of Canadian history from the pre-Confederation period to the present day. By focusing on what he calls the "three pillars" of English Canada, French Canada, and Aboriginal Canada, Russell advances an important view of our country as one founded on and informed by "incomplete conquests." It is the very incompleteness of these conquests that have made Canada what it is today, not just a multicultural society but a multinational one. Featuring the scope and vivid characterizations of an epic novel, Canada’s Odyssey is a magisterial work by an astute observer of Canadian politics and history, a perfect book to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Constitutional Odyssey

Constitutional Odyssey
Author: Peter H. Russell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2004-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442690488

Constitutional Odyssey is an account of the politics of making and changing Canada's constitution from Confederation to the present day. Peter H. Russell frames his analysis around two contrasting constitutional philosophies – Edmund Burke's conception of the constitution as a set of laws and practices incrementally adapting to changing needs and societal differences, and John Locke's ideal of a Constitution as a single document expressing the will of a sovereign people as to how they are to be governed. The first and second editions of Constitutional Odyssey, published in 1992 and 1993 respectively, received wide-ranging praise for their ability to inform the public debate. This third edition continues in that tradition. Russell adds a new preface, and a new chapter on constitutional politics since the defeat of the Charlottetown Accord in 1993. He also looks at the 1995 Quebec Referendum and its fallout, the federal Clarity Act, Quebec's Self-Determination Act, the Agreement on Internal Trade, the Social Union Framework Agreement and the Council of the Federation, progress in Aboriginal self-determination such as Nunavut and the Nisga'a Agreement, and the movement to reduce the democratic deficit in parliamentary government. Comprehensive and eminently readable, Constitutional Odyssey is as important as ever.

Arming and Disarming

Arming and Disarming
Author: R. Blake Brown
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2012-10-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1442665602

From the École Polytechnique shootings of 1989 to the political controversy surrounding the elimination of the federal long-gun registry, the issue of gun control has been a subject of fierce debate in Canada. But in fact, firearm regulation has been a sharply contested issue in the country since Confederation. Arming and Disarming offers the first comprehensive history of gun control in Canada from the colonial period to the present. In this sweeping, immersive book, R. Blake Brown outlines efforts to regulate the use of guns by young people, punish the misuse of arms, impose licensing regimes, and create firearm registries. Brown also challenges many popular assumptions about Canadian history, suggesting that gun ownership was far from universal during much of the colonial period, and that many nineteenth century lawyers – including John A. Macdonald – believed in a limited right to bear arms. Arming and Disarming provides a careful exploration of how social, economic, cultural, legal, and constitutional concerns shaped gun legislation and its implementation, as well as how these factors defined Canada’s historical and contemporary ‘gun culture.’

Commemorating Canada

Commemorating Canada
Author: Cecilia Morgan
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2016-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487510772

Commemorating Canada is a concise narrative overview of the development of history and commemoration in Canada, designed for use in courses on public history, historical memory, heritage preservation, and related areas. Examining why, when, where, and for whom historical narratives have been important, Cecilia Morgan describes the growth of historical pageantry, popular history, textbooks, historical societies, museums, and monuments through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Showing how Canadians have clashed over conflicting interpretations of history and how they have come together to create shared histories, she demonstrates the importance of history in shaping Canadian identity. Though public history in both French and English Canada was written predominantly by white, middle-class men, Morgan also discusses the activism and agency of women, immigrants, and Indigenous peoples. The book concludes with a brief examination of present-day debates over Canada’s history and Canadians’ continuing interest in their pasts.

Contemporary Public Debates Over History Education

Contemporary Public Debates Over History Education
Author: Isabel Barca
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1617351091

The 6th book of the International Review of History Education Series, Contemporary public debates over history education, presents public debates on history education as they appear in 14 different areas of the world, in Asia, Europe, North and South America. In alphabetical order: in Brazil, by Maria Auxiliadora Schmidt and Tânia Braga Garcia, in Canada, by Peter Seixas, in England, by Rosalyn Ashby and Christopher Edwards, in Greece, by Irene Nakou and Eleni Apostolidou, in Israel, by Eyal Naveh, in Japan and South Korea, by Yonghee Suh and Makito Yurita, in Northern Ireland, by Alan McCully, in Portugal, by Isabel Barca, in Quebec (Canada), by Jean-Francois Cardin, in Singapore, by Suhaimi Afandi and Mark Baildon, in Spain, by Lis Cercadillo, in Turkey, by Dursun Dilek and Gülcin (Yapici) Dilek, and in the United States, by Peter Stearns. By illuminating common trends, national peculiarities and differences, this collective book further enriches our knowledge about crucial issues concerning public perspectives over history education in diverse parts of the world. It opens new questions and issues to be further investigated by all who are interested in this field, in terms of its historical, educational, global, national, ethnic, cultural, social and political dimensions in the current transitional and multicultural environment. This international dialogue therefore addresses historians, history education researchers, university professors, school teachers, policy makers, publishers, parents and all those who insist that history education is very important, especially if it enables young people to orientate in the present and the future in historical terms