For much of the twentieth century, United Grain Growers was one of the major forces in Canadian agriculture. Founded in 1906, for much of its history UGG worked to give western farmers a “third way” between the competing poles of cooperatives like the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the private sector. At its peak, more than 800 UGG elevators dotted the Canadian prairies and the company had become a part of western Canada’s cultural psyche. By 2001, then known as Agricore United, it was the largest grain company on the Prairies. The UGG’s history illuminates many of the intense debates over policy and philosophy that dominated the grain industry. After the Second World War, it would be a key player as the western Canadian grain industry expanded into new international markets. Through the rest of the century, it played an important role in resolving major disputes over regulation and grain transportation policy. Despite its many innovations, the company’s final decade and eventual demise illustrated the tensions at the heart of the grain industry. In 1997, to finance the rebuilding of its grain elevator network, UGG went public and entered equity markets. While successful at first, this strategy also weakened the company’s cooperative structure. In 2007, it was purchased by Saskatchewan Pool in a hostile takeover. The disappearance of Agricore United marked the end of a century of voluntary farmer-control of the grain business in western Canada. Paul Earl’s history reveals UGG’s central role in the growth and transformation of the western grain industry at a critical period. With meticulous research supplemented by interviews with many of the key players, he also delves into the details and the debates over the company’s demise.

The subjects inquired into by Canadian federal royal commissions have ranged over such a wide field that the reports and special studies prepared by the 400 commissions since Confederation have become an essential part of any research in Canadian studies. In many cases the special studies which are always prepared by the best experts available stand as the most important works ever to appear on a given subject. For example, the studies used by the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (1937-1940) are still used as required reading in both graduate and undergraduate university courses almost thirty years later. In the author's work as Government Documents Librarian, he witnesses the daily use of royal commission material. The importance attached to royal commission documents and the considerable difficulty in locating many of the earlier reports let Henderson to undertake the compilation of this checklist four years ago.

Perhaps one of the most influential Canadian premiers of the Twentieth Century and one of the leading political intellectuals of his generation, Angus L. Macdonald dominated politics in Nova Scotia for more than twenty years, serving as premier from 1933 to 1940 and again from 1945 until his death in 1954. One rival referred to him as "the pope" out of respect for his political infallibility. From 1940 to 1945 Macdonald guided Canada's war effort at sea as Minister of National Defence for Naval Services; under his watch, the Royal Canadian Navy expanded faster than any other navy in the world. This new work by T. Stephen Henderson is the first academic biography of Macdonald, whose life provides a framework for the study of Canada's pre- and post-war transformation, and a rare opportunity to compare the political history of the two periods. Generally, Macdonald's political thinking reflected a progressive, interwar liberalism that found its clearest expression in the 1940 Rowell-Sirois report on federal-provincial relations. The report proposed a redistribution of responsibilities and resources that would allow poorer provinces greater autonomy and reduce overlapping jurisdictions in the federal system. Ottawa abandoned Rowell-Sirois in the postwar period, and Macdonald fell out of step with the national Liberal party that he had once seemed destined to lead. Within Nova Scotia, however, his ardent defence of provincial powers and his commitment to building a modern infrastructure enabled him to win election after election and transform the face and identity of his province.