The Rowell-Sirois Commission and the Remaking of Canadian Federalism investigates the groundbreaking inquiry launched to reconstruct the federal system and reveals its legacy for Canadian federalism today.In 1937, the Canadian confederation was broken. As the Depression ground on, the provinces faced increasing obligations but limited funds, while the dominion had fewer responsibilities but lucrative revenue sources. The commission was struck to review the system. Overcomi...

New ways of thinking about literature and history have radically changed how we think about or even “define” a region like the Prairie West. In fact, the very concept of “defining” has come into question by new theoretical approaches and it may now seem a hopeless endeavour. But the process of defining can be just as important as the actual production of a definition.Toward Defining the Prairies highlights recent approaches to thinking about the Prairie West. Bounded by pi...

The Canadian Prairie has long been represented as a timeless and unchanging location, defined by settlement and landscape. Now, a new generation of writers and historians challenge that perception and argue, instead, that it is a region with an evolving culture and history. In a collection of ten essays, History, Literature and the Writing of the Canadian Prairies explores a more contemporary prairie identity, and reconfigures “the prairie” as a construct that is non-linear and di...

July 1st 1867 is celebrated as Canada's Confederation - the date that Canada became a country. But 1867 was only the beginning. As the country grew from a small dominion to a vast federation encompassing ten provinces, three territories, and hundreds of First Nations, its leaders repeatedly debated Canada's purpose, and the benefits and drawbacks of the choice to be Canadian. Reconsidering Confederation brings together Canada's leading historians to explore how the provinces, territories, ...

In 1910, young Pierre Maturié bid farewell to his comfortable bourgeois existence in rural France and travelled to northern Alberta in search of independence, adventure, and newfound prosperity. Some sixty years later, he wrote of the four years he spent in Canada before he returned to France in 1914 to fight in the First World War. Like that of so many youthful pioneers, his story is one of adventure and hardship—perilous journeys, railroad construction in the Rockies, panning for gold in...

These true stories of people who work and live in the spectacular mountain wilderness of Alberta and British Columbia are filled with humour, keen observations about man and nature, and memorable human and animal characters. Old-time cowboys Johnny and Cal offer their no-nonsense brand of homespun wisdom. Wasp, the talented saddle horse, teaches his rider more than just horsemanship. From life-and-death drama to peaceful meditations, these tales capture the danger and beauty of the mountai...

One hundred years ago, a young doctor from Cleveland by the name of Robert Newcomb, travelled north to a place called Temagami. It was as far north as one could travel by any modern means. Beautiful beyond any simple expletive, the Temagami wilderness was a land rich in timber, clear-water lakes, fast flowing rivers, mystery and adventure. Newcomb befriended the local Aboriginals -- the Deep Water People -- and quickly discovered the best way to explore was by canoe. Bewitched by the spiri...

Finally, after over 30 years of hagiographies, comes a book that sets the record straight and tells us the truth about Pierre Elliott Trudeau.In this unprecedented and meticulously researched sweep of the record, Globe and Mail bestselling author Bob Plamondon challenges the conventional wisdom that Trudeau was a great prime minister. With new revelations, fresh insights, and in-depth analysis, Plamondon reveals that the man did not measure up to the myth.While no one dispu...

Part survey of the field of Indigenous literary studies, part cultural history, and part literary polemic, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter asserts the vital significance of literary expression to the political, creative, and intellectual efforts of Indigenous peoples today.In considering the connections between literature and lived experience, this book contemplates four key questions at the heart of Indigenous kinship traditions: How do we learn...

Exploring a variety of topics—including health, politics, education, art, literature, media, and film—Aboriginal Canada Revisited draws a portrait of the current political and cultural position of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. While lauding improvements made in the past decades, the contributors draw attention to the systemic problems that continue to marginalize Aboriginal people within Canadian society.From the Introduction: “[This collection helps] to highlight areas whe...

The oil sands. Global warming. The National Energy Program. Though these seem like modern Canadian subjects, author Mary Janigan reveals them to be a legacy of longstanding regional rivalry. Something of a "Third Solitude" since entering Confederation, the West has long been overshadowed by Canada's other great national debate: but as the conflict over natural resources and their effect on climate change heats up, 150 years of antipathy are coming to a head. Janigan takes readers back to a...

Winner of the 2007 B.C. Award for Canadian Non-fictionA Globe and Mail Best 100 Book (2006)National Post Best Books (2006)A bold cultural portrait of contemporary Canada through the work of its most celebrated novelists, short story writers, and storytellers.Stories are the surest way to know a place, and at a time when the fabric of the country seems daily more uncertain, Noah Richler looks to our authors fo...