It was Sir John A. Macdonald's last campaign. His Conservatives had dominated Canadian politics since Confederation. Their National Policy, which protected Canadian manufacturers from foreign competition, was well established and affection for the "Old Man" was deep and widespread. The Liberal leader, Wilfrid Laurier, was new in the job and uncertain that a Roman Catholic from Quebec had any chance of winning votes outside his home province. But Macdonald's decision to hang Louis Riel had ...

Between the morning of Wednesday, November 4, and the morning of Thursday, November 5, 1981, a fateful drama unfolded that changed Canada forever.In one last attempt to renew the constitution with the consent of the provinces, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau met behind closed doors in Ottawa with the ten premiers. It was the culmination of more than five decades of constitutional wrangling, and has been called the most important conference since the Fathers of Confederation g...

Death on Two Fronts, part of The History of Canada series, examines the tragic transformation of Newfoundland’s political culture between 1914 and 1934. For many people throughout Canada and the rest of the world, 1914 was important because it marked the beginning of the First World War. While the year became significant for the same reason in Newfoundland, it was not originally so. Newfoundland’s economy depended on the sea, and the seal hunt was vital. During the spring of 1914, seventy-...

Margaret Conrad's history of Canada begins with a challenge to its readers. What is Canada? What makes up this diverse, complex and often contested nation-state? What was its founding moment? And who are its people? Drawing on her many years of experience as a scholar, writer and teacher of Canadian history, Conrad offers astute answers to these difficult questions. Beginning in Canada's deep past with the arrival of its Aboriginal peoples, she traces its history through the conquest by Eu...

Most of us know bits and pieces of our history but would like to be more sure of how it all fits together. The trick is to find a history that is so absorbing you will want to read it from beginning to end. With this book, Desmond Morton, one of Canada’s most noted and highly respected historians, shows how the choices we can make at the dawn of the 21st century have been shaped by history.Morton is keenly aware of the links connecting our present, our past, and our future, and in ...

One of the most important, exciting biographies of our time: the definitive, major two-volume biography of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.Written with unprecedented, complete access to Trudeau’s enormous cache of private letters and papers, bestselling biographer John English delves beyond existing portraits of Trudeau to reveal the man and the multiple influences that shaped his life as one of Canada’s longest-serving heads of government. In doing so, he provides the full...

A sly, insightful and wonderfully original book from one of Canada's most popular political analysts, Chantal Hébert, and one of Quebec's top political broadcasters, Jean Lapierre.Only the most fearless of political journalists would dare to open the old wounds of the 1995 Quebec referendum, a still-murky episode in Canadian history that continues to defy our understanding. The referendum brought one of the world's most successful democracies to the brink of the unk...

“An intricate thriller that begins with a missing girl and ends up in unexpected territory” from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of If You Tell (RT Book Reviews, 4 stars).A schoolgirl found it on a nature hike. A severed human foot wearing pink nail polish. A gruesome but invaluable clue that leads forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman down a much darker trail—to a dangerous psychopath whose powers of persuasion seem to have no end...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.“Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment WeeklyA world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready?In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade...

The CBC Literary Award–winning title story from Claire Battershill’s debut collection, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award, and a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association Emerging Writer Award and the PEN International / New Voices Award.For as long as Susan can remember, the circus has been part of her family’s DNA – her mother was a gifted contortionist, and her grandfather played the role of a man-wrestling bear. Coming from suc...

This true story began in August 1929. A group of eight prospectors, led by C.D.H. MacAlpine of the Dominion Explorers, flew into the Arctic in search of mineral wealth. Grossly underequipped, the expedition ran out of fuel and was stranded above the Arctic Circle. Within days, Western Canada Airways sent a rescue team headed by Captain Andy Cruickshank, in what was to become the most extensive aviation search in Canadian history.The searchers encountered trouble: turbulent weather,...

When the Free Grants and Homestead Act was first introduced in 1868, fierce debates erupted in Ontario's Legislature over whether land in the Muskoka region should be opened to settlement or reserved for the Aboriginal population. From the beginning, many people vented serious doubts about the free grant scheme, citing the district's poor agricultural prospects. In the end, such caution was ignored by overeager boosters.The story in Hardscrabble also takes readers to Brita...