National Network for Equitable Library Service

Drawing on the insights of Indigenous feminist legal theory, Emily Snyder examines representations of Cree law and gender in books, videos, graphic novels, educational websites, online lectures, and a video game. Although these resources promote the revitalization of Cree law and the principle of miyo-wîcêhtowin (good relations), Snyder argues that they do not capture the complexities of gendered power relations.

The idea of Canada as a consumer society was largely absent before 1890 but familiar by the mid-1960s. This change required more than rising incomes and greater impulses to buy; it involved the creation of new concepts. Buying Happiness explores the ways that key public thinkers represented, conceptualized, and institutionalized new ideas about consumption. Liverant’s fresh approach connects the emergence and diffusion of these ideas with changes in political processes and social policy.

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 1911 election through the Second World War. David Tough controversially argues that income taxation was established by popular demand, first to replace existing taxes and then to address income inequality through equalizing social programs.

The Last Suffragist Standing is an unprecedented study of a pioneering politician, a New Woman who tested Canadian democracy. Laura Marshall Jamieson (1882–1964) was the last suffragist in Canada to be elected to a provincial or federal legislature, and her biography opens a window onto the political and social landscape of her time. She embraced issues such as minimum wage, feminist pacifism, housing, and employment equality throughout her six decades of activism.

Lose weight. Quit smoking. Exercise. For over a century, public health campaigns have encouraged Canadians to adopt healthy habits in order to prolong lives, cost the state less, and produce more efficient workers. Be Wise! Be Healthy! explores the history of public health from the 1920s to the 1970s and its emphasis on health as a responsibility of citizenship. But public health campaigns can stigmatize marginalized populations by implying that poor health is due to inadequate self-care, despite clear links between health and external factors such as poverty.

In the 1990s, headlines about declining caribou populations grabbed international attention. Were caribou the canary in the coal mine for climate change, or did declining numbers reflect overharvesting or failed attempts at scientific wildlife management? Grounded in community-based research in northern Canada, a region in the forefront of co-management efforts, these collected stories and essays bring to the fore the insights of the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, and Sahtú, people for whom caribou stewardship has been a way of life for centuries.

Political Elites in Canada offers a timely look at Canadian political power brokers and how they are adapting to a fast-paced digital media environment. Elite power structures are changing worldwide, with traditional influencers losing authority over prevailing social, economic, and political structures. This volume explores the changing landscape for power brokers, the ascent of new elites, and how they are using digital communication to connect with Canadians in unprecedented ways.

The 1940 Ogdensburg Agreement entrenched a formal defence relationship between Canada and the United States – but was Canadian sovereignty upheld? Sovereignty and Command combines historical narrative with conceptual analysis of sovereignty, command and control systems, military professionalism, and civil-military relations to document the sometimes fractious Canada–US continental air defence relationship.

As a national network of roads and hostels spread across Canada, so did the practice of hitchhiking. Thumbing a Ride examines its rise and fall in the 1970s, drawing on records from the time. Many equated adventure travel with freedom and independence, but a counter-narrative emerged of girls gone missing and other dangers. Town councillors, community groups, and motorists demanded a clampdown on a transient youth movement they believed was spreading anti-establishment nomadism.

Too often Indigenous 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 sense “out of time” in our contemporary world. Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii shows how Indigenous peoples in Canada not only continue to have a future, but are at work building many different futures – for themselves and for their non-Indigenous neighbours.