Men, Masculinity, and the Indian Act
Canada’s Indian Act is infamously sexist. Through many iterations of the legislation a woman’s status rights flowed from her husband, and even once it was amended to reinstate rights lost through marriage or widowhood, First Nations women could not necessarily pass status on to their descendants.
That injustice has rightly been subject to much …
A Human Rights Based Approach to Development in India
Over the last twenty years, India has enacted legislation to turn crucial goals such as food security, primary education, and employment into legal rights for its citizens. But enacting laws is one thing and implementing them through an imperfect institutional structure is another. A Human Rights Based Approach to Development in India examines a di …
Resisting Rights
From 1948 to 1966, the United Nations worked to create a common legal standard for human rights protection around the globe. Resisting Rights traces the Canadian government’s changing policy toward this endeavour, from initial opposition to a more supportive approach. Jennifer Tunnicliffe takes both international and domestic developments into ac …
At the Bridge
At the Bridge chronicles the little-known story of James Teit, a prolific ethnographer who, from 1884 to 1922, worked with and advocated for the Indigenous peoples of British Columbia and the northwestern United States. From his base at Spences Bridge, BC, Teit forged a participant-based anthropology that was far ahead of its time. Whereas his cont …
Flawed Precedent
In 1888, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled in the St. Catherine’s case. This precedent-setting decision would define the legal contours of Aboriginal title in Canada for almost a hundred years. In Flawed Precedent, preeminent legal scholar Kent McNeil examines the trial and its context in detail, demonstrating how erroneous assump …
The New NDP
The New NDP is the definitive account of the evolution of the New Democratic Party’s political marketing strategy in the early twenty-first century. In 2011, the federal NDP achieved its greatest electoral success – becoming the official opposition under Jack Layton’s leadership. David McGrane argues that the key to the party’s electoral su …
The Political Economy of Resource Regulation
Industrialist John Paul Getty famously quipped, “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.” Throughout history, natural resources have been sources of wealth and power and catalysts for war and peace. The case studies gathered in this innovative volume examine how the intersection of ideas, interest groups, international ins …
To Be Equals in Our Own Country
“When the history of suffrage is written, the role played by our politicians will cut a sad figure beside that of the women they insulted.” Speaking in 1935, feminist Idola Saint-Jean captured the bitter nature of Quebec women’s prolonged fight for the right to vote. To Be Equals in Our Own Country is a passionate yet even-handed account of t …
Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii
Colonialism in settler societies such as Canada depends on a certain understanding of the relationship between time and Indigenous peoples. Too often, these peoples have been portrayed as being without a future, destined either to disappear or assimilate into settler society. This book asserts quite the opposite: Indigenous peoples are not in any s …
Enforcing Exclusion
In Canada’s liberal dream, the law extends its benefits to everyone. But the law also determines who is included in that “everyone.” Migrant workers, long welcomed in Canada for their labour, are often excluded from both workplace protections and basic social benefits such as health care, income assistance, and education due to their lack of …
Moving Aboriginal Health Forward
There is a clear connection between the health of individuals and the legal regime under which they live, particularly Aboriginal peoples. From the early ban on traditional practices to the constitutional division of powers (including who is responsible for off-reserve Indians under the Constitution), this is an historical examination of Canadian l …
The Honour and Dishonour of the Crown
In Canada, the fundamentals of law relating to Aboriginal peoples are unclear and Indigenous communities lack appropriate guidance in terms of efficiently accessing the legal system to address breaches of their rights. This is yet another injustice endured by Aboriginal peoples in Canada. However, the Supreme Court of Canada has begun to place grea …
Two Families
First Nations Elders interpreted treaties as instruments that gave Europeans the right to settle here, share resources, and build a relationship of equality with those who were here before. These elders did not intend the treaties to allow the subjugation and impoverishment of First Nations, or give settler governments the right to legislate every …
The Terrific Engine
What do we mean by left wing or right wing? People started using the language of a political spectrum when early twentieth-century political parties began to distinguish their platforms by offering different approaches to income distribution. The Terrific Engine examines how income taxation modernized political language over the period from the 191 …
Truth and Conviction
The name “Donald Marshall Jr.” is synonymous with “wrongful conviction” and the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada. In Truth and Conviction, Jane McMillan – Marshall’s former partner, an acclaimed anthropologist, and an original defendant in the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision on Indigenous fishing rights – tells the story of h …
Our Voices Must Be Heard
In 1844, seven widows dared to cast ballots in an election in Canada West, a display of feminist effrontery that was quickly punished: the government struck a law excluding women from the vote. It would be seven decades before women regained voting rights in Ontario. Our Voices Must Be Heard explores Ontario’s suffrage history, examining its idea …
Wages for Housework
In this first-ever international history of the influential feminist movement Wages for Housework, Louise Toupin draws on extensive archival research and interviews with the movement’s founders and activists from Italy, England, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and Canada. Featuring previously unpublished conversations with Silvia Federic …
Reconsidering Radical Feminism
What’s the right way to be a feminist? Reconsidering Radical Feminism is not only a clear, precise summary of late-twentieth-century feminist debates about the politics of heterosexuality. It’s also an examination of how we become invested in arguments that position us as particular kinds of feminists – and as gendered subjects. Through the l …
Enforcing Exclusion
Migrant workers, though long welcomed in Canada for their labour, are often excluded from both workplace protections and basic social benefits such as health care, income assistance, and education. Through interviews with migrants and their advocates, Marsden shows that people with precarious migration status face barriers in law, policy, and pract …
Hunting the Northern Character
Canadian politicians, like many of their circumpolar counterparts, brag about their country’s “Arctic identity” or “northern character,” but what do they mean, exactly? Stereotypes abound, from Dudley Do-Right to Northern Exposure, but these southern perspectives fail to capture northern realities. During decades of service as a legislato …
Intercultural Deliberation and the Politics of Minority Rights
Achieving socio-political cohesion in a community with significant ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity is a challenge in contemporary liberal democracies. Public policies and institutions shaped by the needs of the majority can inadvertently marginalize minority interests. Intercultural Deliberation and the Politics of Minority Rights articul …
Who Controls the Hunt?
As the nineteenth century ended, Ontario wildlife became increasingly valuable. Tourists and sport hunters spent growing amounts of money in search of game, and the government began to extend its regulatory powers in this arena. Restrictions were imposed on hunting and trapping, completely ignoring Anishinaabeg hunting rights set out in the Robinso …
Health Care and the Charter
Since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, individuals and organizations have increasingly turned to the courts to try to bring about policy change in areas such as health care. Health Care and the Charter explores the systematic use of Charter litigation in the area of health care and the ultimate policy impact …
Abortion
When Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s best-known abortion rights advocate, died in 2013, activists and scholars began to reassess the state of abortion in the country. In this volume, some of Canada’s foremost researchers challenge current thinking about abortion by revealing the discrepancy between what Canadians believe the law to be after the 198 …
Aboriginal Peoples and the Law
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission urged a better understanding of Aboriginal law for all Canadians. This book responds to that call, outlining significant legal developments in straightforward, non-technical language. Jim Reynolds provides the historical context needed to understand the relationship between Indigenous peoples and settlers and …
Mike’s World
Although fifty years have passed since Lester Pearson stepped down as prime minister, he still influences debates about Canada’s role in the world. Known as “Mike” to his friends, he has been credited with charting a “Pearsonian” course in which Canada took on a global role as a helpful fixer seeking to mediate disputes and promote intern …
Aboriginal Peoples and the Law
As part of the process of healing and reparation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission urged a better understanding of Aboriginal law for all Canadians. This book responds to that call, outlining significant legal developments in straightforward, nontechnical language. Jim Reynolds provides the historical context needed to understand the relatio …
Disabling Barriers
Disabling Barriers analyzes issues relating to disability at different moments in Canadian and American history. In this volume, legal scholars, historians, and disability-rights activists explore how disabled people have been portrayed and treated in a variety of contexts, including within the labour market, the workers’ compensation system, the …