National Network for Equitable Library Service

Touching on everything from polling to issues of social justice to the way in which political parties package their candidates, Bob Rae identifies the shortcomings of the current Canadian political framework, and what we, as citizens, can do to remedy that. With remarkable insight and startling accuracy, Rae speaks as the voice of reason as he imagines a political forum where citizens are inspired to participate instead of feeling disenfranchised.

Despite its oil abundance, with no strategic reserves, Canada is woefully unprepared for the next global oil supply crisis. Political economist Gordon Laxer proposes a bold strategy of deep conservation and a Canada-first perspective to ensure that all Canadians have sufficient energy at affordable prices. Canada has all the oil, gas, and coal needed to transition to a low-carbon future. Remarkable hydro power resources give Canadians a large base of renewable energy, which can be expanded with wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. Few countries have these options in adequate quantities.

Examines the debate in Canada between a republican movement that believes the monarchy is archaic and anti-democratic and needs abolishing, versus a monarchist movement that stresses the monarchy's importance, claiming that the Queen is a living connection to a political and constitutional tradition going back over a thousand years. 2018.

Follows the story of a famous Ojibwe medicine man, his gifted grandson, and remarkable water drum. This drum, and forty other artefacts, were given away by a Canadian museum to an American Anishinaabe group that had no family or community connections to the collection. Many years passed before the drum was returned to the family. Matthews takes us through this astonishing set of events from multiple perspectives, exploring community and museum viewpoints, visiting the ceremonial group leader in Wisconsin, and finally looking back from the point of view of the drum.

Canadians often see politicians as trained seals who vote on command and repeat robotic talking points. Politicians are torn by dilemmas of loyalty to party versus loyalty to voters. Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada examines the hidden ways that political parties exert control over elected members of legislatures. Drawing on extensive interviews with politicians and staffers across Canada, award-winning author Alex Marland explains why Members of Parliament toe the party line. This book exposes how democracy works in our age of instant communication and increasing polarization.

On August 27, 1927, five women gathered at a house on Edmonton's Southside to sign a letter that would change the course of Canadian history. Those women were Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, and Henrietta Muir Edwards, who would become known as the Famous Five. The meeting of the women had been prompted by Emily Murphy, an Alberta magistrate, whose right to render judgements had been challenged by a lawyer who maintained that only men could be appointed as judges because only men were considered "persons" under the British North America Act.

Halifax women won the Second World War--but not in the ways you might have been told. We all know the stories of Canadian women during the war who trained as machinists, welders, and streetcar drivers to fill the shoes of men who answered the call. We know how women kept the home fires lit while their husbands, brothers, and fathers fought. This is not that story.

In The Queer Evangelist, Rev. Dr. Cheri DiNovo (CM) tells her story, from her roots as a young socialist activist in the 1960s to ordained minister in the '90s to member of provincial parliament. As the New Democratic member representing Parkdale-High Park in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2006 to 2017, DiNovo passed more LGBTQ bills than anyone in Canadian history. She describes the behind-the-scenes details of major changes to the law, including Toby's Law, the first Transgender Rights legislation in North America in a major jurisdiction.

The Keystone XL pipeline was the most controversial North American energy infrastructure project of our time, and its history and demise serve as a cautionary tale for Canada, a country that will remain mired in regulatory dysfunction until it finds common ground between economic value and credible carbon policy. 2017.

For years, the prospect of parliamentary reform has been a hot-button issue in Canada. More and more Canadians find themselves frustrated with how Parliament works (or doesn't) and end up increasingly checked out from politics as a whole, feeling like their voices don't matter to those in power. When he introduced the "Reform Act" bill in 2013, Conservative MP Michael Chong brought the issue of parliamentary reform to the forefront, proposing changes that would empower MPs and hold party leadership accountable to their caucus--and therefore, to all Canadians.