Eugene Forsey combined vision with protest and erudition with wit. A legacy for the common good: Eugene Forsey’s wit and wisdom. Feisty and erudite, Eugene Alfred Forsey (1904-1991) was an activist scholar, labour researcher, constitutional expert, and senator who fought all his life for the common good. His speeches, articles, and letters informed and provoked Canadians for more than 60 years, and now his daughter brings that legacy back to life in this fascinating and relevant book. One of Canada’s foremost constitutional experts, Forsey was also a provocative voice for social justice. Legendary for his sharp wit and high principle, he brought encyclopedic knowledge, irascible tenacity, and common sense to the causes of democracy, justice, and equality for all. Those themes resound through this book and resonate strongly in the Canada of today. Forsey never managed to toe a party line obediently. Raised a Conservative, he converted to social democracy as a young academic in the 1930s. He spent the following decades working for the labour movement and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF, now the New Democratic Party) and calling governments to account in speeches, articles, and pithy letters-to-the-editor. From 1970 to 1979, he sat in the Senate as a Trudeau Liberal, but soon afterward resumed his more natural role as non-partisan critic and gadfly. In labour halls, university classrooms, broadcasting studios, and the Senate chamber, Forsey entertained even as he educated. So, too, does this account of his works and life, which blends the personal and the political to provide a rich resource for Canadians facing the challenges of the 21st century. Helen Forsey, like her father, Eugene, is a social activist and writer, who worked overseas with CUSO and other international voluntary organizations. An ardent feminist and environmentalist, she winters in Ompah, Ontario, and summers at Pouch Cove, Newfoundland.

This little book is written for Canadians who care about our democracy and the future of our planet. The Senate, surprisingly, could make major contributions to both. A People’s Senate for Canada explains how we can make that happen. What if we had a Senate that was independent of party politics, truly committed to “sober second thought” and dedicated to the common good? What if Senate appointments focused on experience, integrity and creativity, and flowed from a non-partisan participatory process based on merit and reflective of our country’s diversity? What if senators were able to fully devote themselves to their proper legislative and investigative work, cooperating wherever possible, free of party control and electoral worries, and financially accountable to the Auditor General? As Helen Forsey demonstrates, such a People’s Senate would not require risky and questionable constitutional amendments: the needed changes could be made within the present framework. In fact, some hopeful initiatives are already under way. A People’s Senate for Canada combines grassroots experience, thorough research and critical commentary to create a people’s resource for positive change. This book offers a rationale, an analysis and a feasible proposal for an upper house that would restore citizen participation and help check government power. It is an antidote to cynicism and a prescription for a truly honourable Senate, one that would make us proud.

This book corrects an imbalance in Canadian political literature through offering a conservative account of Canadian political thought. Across 15 chronologically organized chapters, and with a mixture of established and rising scholars, the book offers an investigation of the defining features and characteristics of Canadian conservative political thought, asking what have Canadian conservative political thinkers and practitioners learned from other traditions and, in turn, what have they contributed to our understanding of conservative political thought today? Rather than its culmination, Canadian Conservative Political Thought will be the beginning of conservative political thought’s recovery and will spark debates and future research. The book will be a great resource for courses on Canadian politics, history, political philosophy and conservatism, Canadian Studies, and political theory.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government has reversed the trend of its predecessors by giving the Crown a higher profile through royal tours, publications, and symbolic initiatives. Based on papers given at a Diamond Jubilee conference on the Crown held in Regina in 2012, Canada and the Crown assesses the historical and contemporary importance of constitutional monarchy in Canada. Established and emerging scholars consider the Canadian Crown from a variety of viewpoints, including the ways in which the monarch relates to Quebec, First Nations, the media, education, Parliament, the constitution, and the military. They also consider a republican option for Canada. Editors D. Michael Jackson and Philippe Lagassé provide context for the essays, summarize and expand on the issues discussed by the contributors, and offer a perspective on further study of the Crown in Canada. Contributors include Richard Berthelsen, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Bolt (Office of the Judge Advocate General), James W.J. Bowden, Stephanie Danyluk (Whitecap-Dakota First Nation), Linda Cardinal (University of Ottawa), Phillip Crawley (CEO, The Globe and Mail), John Fraser (Massey College), Carolyn Harris (University of Toronto), Robert E. Hawkins (University of Regina), Ian Holloway (University of Calgary), Senator Serge Joyal, Nicholas A. MacDonald, Christopher McCreery (Office of Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia), J.R. (Jim) Miller (University of Saskatchewan), Peter H. Russell (University of Toronto), David E. Smith (Toronto Metropolitan University), and John D. Whyte (University of Regina).

Visionary social entrepreneur David Pecaut’s life demonstrates how to make a positive impact on a community. City builder David Pecaut has been called a visionary and a pragmatist, passionate and compassionate, a bridge builder, a catalyst, and a trailblazer. Though David was a business leader and management consultant, most of these accolades flow from his volunteer work as a civic entrepreneur. A native of Sioux City, Iowa, David chose Toronto as the beneficiary of his formidable enthusiasm. When Toronto was in the doldrums because of the SARS scare, David helped the city restore its tourism industry by chairing the Toront03 Alliance, launched by a flamboyant Rolling Stones concert. David was perhaps best known for co-founding Luminato, the international festival that each spring showcases the world’s finest artists to audiences of over a million. As chair of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, David worked as easily with the homeless, minorities, and poverty activists as with billionaires, corporate CEOs, and labour leaders to tackle pressing social and economic issues. He was the driving force behind the Career Edge youth internship program, the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force, the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, DiverseCity, the Emerging Leaders Network, the task force on modernizing income security, and Greening Greater Toronto. David’s efforts to make Toronto the most socially and culturally dynamic urban centre in the world were cut short when he succumbed to cancer in December 2009. When it became obvious that his time was running out, he took copious notes and recorded interviews with friends, colleagues, and family, all of which are the basis for this book, a memoir by his wife Helen Burstyn.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau – radical progressive or unavowed socialist? His legacy remains divisive. Most scholars portray Trudeau’s ties to the left as evidence either of communist affinities or of ideals that led him to found a progressive, modern Canada. The Constant Liberal traces the charismatic politician’s relationship with left and labour movements throughout his career. Christo Aivalis argues that although Trudeau found key influences and friendships on the left, he was in fact a consistently classic liberal, driven by individualist and capitalist principles. While numerous biographies have noted the impact of the left on Trudeau’s intellectual and political development, this comprehensive analysis showcases the interplay between liberalism and democratic socialism that defined his world view – and shaped his effective use of power. The Constant Liberal suggests that Trudeau’s leftist activity was not so much a call for social democracy as a warning to fellow liberals that lack of reform could undermine liberal-capitalist social relations.

Situated between two different constitutional traditions, those of the United Kingdom and the United States, Canada has maintained a distinctive third way: federal, parliamentary, and flexible. Yet in recent years it seems that Canadian constitutional culture has been moving increasingly in an American direction. Through the prorogation crises of 2008 and 2009, its senate reform proposals, and the appointment process for Supreme Court judges, Stephen Harper's Conservative government has repeatedly shown a tendency to push Canada further into the US constitutional orbit. Red, White, and Kind of Blue? is a comparative legal analysis of this creeping Americanization, as well as a probing examination of the costs and benefits that come with it. Comparing British, Canadian, and American constitutional traditions, David Schneiderman offers a critical perspective on the Americanization of Canadian constitutional practice and a timely warning about its unexamined consequences.