National Network for Equitable Library Service

Indigenous peoples around the world are seeking greater control over tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In Canada, issues concerning repatriation and trade of material culture, heritage site protection, treatment of ancestral remains, and control over intangible heritage are governed by a complex legal and policy environment. This volume looks at the key features of Canadian, US, and international law influencing indigenous cultural heritage in Canada. Legal and extralegal avenues for reform are examined and opportunities and limits of existing frameworks are discussed.

The legacy of residential schools has haunted Canadians, yet little is known about the day and public schools where most Indigenous children were sent to be educated. In What We Learned, two generations of Tsimshian students – elders born in the 1930s and 1940s and middle-aged adults born in the 1950s and 1960s – add their recollections of attending day schools in northwestern British Columbia to contemporary discussions of Indigenous schooling in Canada.

Does our current system for dealing with young offenders -- which focuses on punishment -- work? Not according to the authors of this compelling and thought-provoking book. It simply ensures that we jail more youth than any other country, including the United States. Green and Healy argue that a new approach is needed and offer ample evidence from around the world, and our own back yard, to make the case for a shift to restorative justice. The voices of their young clients illustrate the very real human costs of doing nothing.

This vibrant biography of Griffintown, an inner-city Montreal neighbourhood, brings to life the history of Irish identity in the legendary enclave. As Irish immigration dwindled by the late nineteenth century, Irish culture in the city became diasporic, reflecting an imagined homeland. Focusing on the power of memory to shape community, Matthew Barlow finds that, despite sociopolitical pressures and a declining population, the spirit of this ethnic quarter was nurtured by the men and women who grew up there.

Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past illuminates how Canada’s participation in the United Nations’ peacekeeping efforts from 1956 to 1997 was used as a symbol of national identity – in Quebec and the rest of the country. Delving into four decades’ worth of documentaries, newspaper coverage, textbooks, political rhetoric, and more, Colin McCullough outlines continuity and change in the production and reception of messages about peacekeeping.

Truth and Honour explores the 2011 murder of Saint John businessman Richard Oland, of the prominent family that owns Moosehead Breweries, the ensuing police investigation and the arrest, trial, and conviction of the victim's son, Dennis Oland, for second ­degree murder. Oland's trial would be the most publicized in New Brunswick history.

High finance, wilderness adventures, violence, and questionable legal tactics all played important roles in the history of the North West Company. William McGillivray, head of the company from 1804 until 1821, was arguably the most powerful businessman in Canada in the early nineteenth century. William McGillivray emigrated from the Scottish Highlands to work for his uncle Simon McTavish when he was twenty years old and became head of the NWC in 1804 upon McTavish’s death.

Daggers Unsheathed: The Political Assassination of Glen Clark is the story of the Glen Clark era in British Columbia politics. From the 1995 announcement of his NDP leadership aspirations to the day in 2002 when he was acquitted of criminal charges in a BC court, Glen Clark was the dominant personality in West Coast politics. Clark's style and politics as premier of BC ensured that everyone had a reaction to him. Opinions varied widely and emotions ran high, not only among opposition politicos, but also within his own party, the media, the public, and even, some say, the RCMP.

In July 1924, Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was murdered in Vancouver’s wealthy Shaughnessy Heights. Her killer was never apprehended, but the investigation had shocking consequences. Twenty years later, Molly Justice was stabbed to death in a Saanich park. Her murderer has never been charged, even though police were virtually certain of his identity for over 50 years.

They endured the torments of scurvy and the vagaries of deep fogs, adverse winds, and contrary currents. They suffered through appalling quarters and rotting food. They spent years away from their homes and families, never knowing whether they would return. Their orders from Spain might well arrive long after they were needed, six months or longer into the journey. For more than two centuries, Spaniards ranged the coast of the Americas, penetrating almost to the Bering Strait from their bases in Mexico and charting the convoluted coastline of the Pacific Northwest.