Janet Ajzenstat is one of Canada's most respected thinkers on the moral and philosophical foundations of responsible government and Confederation. Discovering Confederation is a study of political science over the last forty years through the intellectual lens of her career.Ajzenstat details her academic journey, from her early years as a hopeful, radical activist in the 1960s, through her graduate studies at McMaster University and the University of Toronto, her commitmen...

Distinguishing between the Internet a communication system and cyberspace an environment for human exchange the author provides a framework for exploring the metaphors and images used in cyberspace to represent and model social reality. He clarifies how these symbolic interactions are linked to the technologies used to create store and transmit them and to their social context. Drawing on examples from digital games web design film and photography the author shows how individual experiences a...

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 t...

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 co...