On the advent of the European to North America some four centuries ago, the Indian population of what is now Canada, according to the best estimates of anthropologists, was about 200,000. It dwindled following the first shock of contact with civilization with its outriders of vice and disease, and for a time the race seemed fated to die out. Then it began slowly to recover and in recent years it has shown a fairly steady increase; it is now 125,000 in round figures.

It is believed that the Indians came in successive migrations in prehistoric times from North Asia. They are divided into a number of distinct linguistic stocks, and many tribal subdivisions with widely differing physical and psychological characteristics.

Their affairs are administered exclusively by the Dominion government. Under the French régime, the Indians were treated kindly, even benevolently, but the French government never recognized them as having any special legal rights. The British, on the other hand, from their first contact with the Indians of North America recognized an Indian title or interest in the soil, to be parted with or extinguished, only by formal bilateral agreement. This was the beginning of the system of Indian treaties and surrenders which has been the fundamental basis of Indian policy, both in Canada and the United States. At the outset this policy doubtless was dictated in the main by protective motives designed to secure the very necessary goodwill of the warlike natives. As time passed, however, and the Indians ceased gradually to be a threat to the existence of the white settlements, it became an ethical and moral obligation, which on the whole and with some reservations, has been respected and fulfilled in both countries.

This study examines perceptions of party competence in four issue areas: inflation, unemployment, international affairs and Canadian unity. Using Gallup poll data from a 35-year period, the study shows that in three of the four issue areas Canadians clearly distinguish between parties. These distinctions do not merely reflect party popularity and are durable rather than immutable; perceptions change slowly but do respond to government performance. Canadians see the greatest differences between parties with respect to international affairs and Canadian unity; the Liberals enjoy a substantial lead on these two questions. On inflation, perceived competence tends to reflect popularity while on unemployment, Canadians have greater confidence in the New Democratic party. On all issues, the Conservative party image has substantially improved under the Mulroney government.

Provincial constitutional documents have not usually been the subject of scrutiny by those concerned with the governmental process at the provincial level. It has been assumed that the major characteristics of provincial government have been shaped by constitutional rules derived from the British North America Act and from the conventions of British-style parliamentary government. A case study of the British Columbia Constitution Act shows that such assumptions are only partially true. The powers of the provinces to shape their governmental structures through constitutional adaptation are extensive and have been used in the case of British Columbia to make broad modifications to the style of constitutionalism in the province since its entry to Confederation in 1871. It is not that the term provincial constitution should become a household word but that the investigation of the operation and potential of provincial constitutions should be seen as an essential component to an understanding of the provincial governmental process.

A common finding in cross-sectional survey studies of adult political activity in the US and several other democratic states is a curvilinear or approximate normal curve relationship between age and voting and political interest: young adults are less likely to turn out to vote and be interested in politics, middle-aged persons (in their late forties and early fifties) are more likely to vote and report election interest, and elderly persons are less likely to show involvement on either count (though they are often reported to be as active as young adults). This is a rather widely cited phenomenon in prepositional inventories by political scientists, political sociologists, and social gerontologists. These age relationships have been interpreted as support for the idea that voting activity and interest in elections generally increase from young adulthood through middle age and then decrease for those past middle age, though perhaps not to the level characteristic of very young adults.

Government in the Northwest Territories (NWT) of Canada is structured on the cabinet-parliamentary model and follows most of the principles of British-style “responsible government.” The territorial assembly, however, differs in two fundamental ways from the traditional parliamentary model: it has no political parties, and a majority of its members are natives, whose political culture is far removed from the tenets underlying British parliamentarism. This article examines the interplay of structure and culture in the NWT Legislative Assembly, through an evaluation of the so-called “consensus government” system. Although cabinet is clearly pre-eminent, private members have unusual influence in the NWT. More generally, distinctive Northern adaptations to the British model—unique parliamentary structures and procedures—are central to the workings of the legislature. In its internal operations, the NWT Assembly is found to have successfully adapted important elements of British parliamentarism to Northern circumstances, though its legitimacy within the native population remains problematic.

Theorists of contentious politics have been divided over the influence on agency behaviour of ideational or cultural factors on the one hand, and rational strategic calculations of opportunities on the other. Based on an Israeli nonparliamentary opposition movement to the peace process, this study presents an integrative approach in which ideational variables are elevated to the level of independent motivating forces in which the objectives of the movement are embedded. Argumentation at the strategic level provides the movement with opportunities for increasing its support basis beyond the natural constituency with which it shares ideology and, ultimately, for mobilizing protest. The case illustrates how a political context that limits activity actually mobilizes contention, while a context of more open opportunity can demobilize protest activity.

Résumé. Les acteurs individuels comme collectifs s'inspirent des expériences passées au moment de la conception de leurs politiques. Or, nous retrouvons au niveau de la politique européenne d'éducation et du discours que la Commission de Bruxelles élabore afin de justifier ses actions dans ce domaine trois dynamiques qui ont jadis joué un rôle important, dans le cadre étatique, lors du processus de construction nationale, à savoir : la (re)structuration de l'univers spatial des individus appelés à composer la future “ communauté imaginée ”; l'édification d'un cadre culturel commun ou système de significations partagées; enfin, le processus d' “ atemporalisation-naturalisation ” de la communauté en formation.Cette observation suggère que, contrairement à une idée communément admise, si la Commission européenne intervient dans l'éducation depuis le début des années 60, ce n'est pas simplement pour des raisons économiques, c'est-à-dire pour assurer la réalisation pleine et entière du marché unique, mais aussi afin de développer un sentiment d'appartenance à l'Union chez les ressortissants des États membres, autrement dit une identité euro-communautaire jugée nécessaire à la réalisation “ d'une union sans cesse plus étroite entre les peuples d'Europe ”.

Abstract. Decision-makers do not act in a policy vacuum. As they develop their programmes, they are aware of and influenced by available historical examples. If we look closely at the European Commission's education policy (measures as well as discourses), we notice the existence of similarities in the strategies that it deploys in this field and dynamics deployed much earlier by states engaged in nation-building (i.e. the redefinition of peoples' spatial representation of their community of belonging; the creation of a framework of shared values; and the process of ‘detemporalisation-naturalisation’). This observation leads us to believe that if the European Commission decided to get involved in the field of education at an early stage in the integration process, it was not only—as most people believe—to insure an effective implementation of the Common market in 1957 or of the Single Market in 1987. Rather, through its education policy, the Commission also hopes to create and foster a EU identity that the founding fathers and subsequent ‘Europeans’ considered necessary for achieving their goals of creating “ an ever closer union ”.

Abstract. Employing a critical race methodology focused on the notion of law as a hegemonic form of truth telling, I examine the findings and recommendations of the commission of inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild to show how certain stories were told (or not) through legal narratives, and how, in such a judicial forum, specific narratives were framed as more legitimate than others. This forum reproduces colonial assumptions of the Aboriginal “other,” as deserving less priority in the realm of justice and the Aboriginal voice as illegitimate compared to legal actors, thereby weakening notions of equal access to justice in Canada. I argue that the Neil Stonechild inquiry, while important, falls short in advancing justice by failing to address underlying racial factors and motivations, thereby providing an incomplete picture of what happened. As a consequence, the dominant mythology of Canada as a non-racist nation remains unchallenged, to the detriment of meaningful social change.

Résumé. À l'aide d'une méthodologie critique de la race axée sur la notion du droit comme façon hégémonique de dire la vérité, j'examine les conclusions et les recommandations de la commission d'enquête sur la mort de Neil Stonechild afin de montrer comment certaines histoires ont été racontées (ou pas) grâce au récit juridique et comment, dans un tel forum judiciaire, on a accordé une légitimité plus grande à certains récits. Ce forum reprend les suppositions coloniales sur «l'autre» autochtone, qui mériterait une priorité moindre dans le domaine de la justice, et sur la voix autochtone, qui serait illégitime comparativement à celle des acteurs juridiques, affaiblissant de ce fait les notions d'égalité d'accès à la justice au Canada. Je soutiens que l'enquête sur Neil Stonechild, bien qu'importante, ne réussit pas à faire avancer la justice, car les enquêteurs ne sont pas parvenus à aborder les facteurs et les motivations raciaux sous-jacents, donnant ainsi une image incomplète de ce qui s'est passé. Par conséquent, la mythologie dominante voulant que le Canada ne soit pas une nation raciste demeure incontestée, au préjudice d'un changement social significatif.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, a gradual loosening of linguistic obligations in public institutions and governments has been observed in various jurisdictions in Canada. This article argues that in addition to legal requirements to provide minority language services, it is not justifiable for governments to suspend or curtail such services in an emergency situation, for reasons pertaining to public safety and public health. After performing a survey and analysis of government actions against their constitutional, legislative, and policy language obligations to highlight best practices and deficiencies, we discuss the policy implications of these actions. In conclusion, the article considers how governments could better uphold their language obligations in times of emergency.

The purpose of the paper is to provide more firmly based estimates of some aspects of Canadian population growth. In Part I estimates are derived of the natural increase in the Canadian population by decades from 1851 to 1931 based on survival rates derived from life tables. The figures on natural increase then permit the derivation of net migration estimates. In Part II new estimates of immigration are developed that, together with the net migration figures of Part I, yield estimates of emigration by decades. Part III tests some of the results by an examination of the limited information available on other aspects of Canada's economic development in the period.

The life table is a basic tool of population study. The most recent application of the life table to the problem of the reconstruction of Canadian population growth was made by Nathan Keyfitz. While the same method is used here, we feel that we have made more realistic assumptions in deriving a life table designed to represent the mortality characteristics of early Canadian populations.

This article examines the evolving debate over takeover bids by foreign state-owned and influenced enterprises (SOEs) in the context of CNOOC's successful 2012 acquisition of Nexen Inc., historical debates over foreign investment in Canada and the ongoing adaptation of Canadian trade and investment policies to global shifts in economic activity and power. It views SOE-related policy changes as responses to four broad factors: Canada's adaptation to changing global investment patterns as a small, open economy, efforts to diversify Canada's trade and investment relations while balancing domestic regional and sectoral interests, the extension of trade-related principles of reciprocity to investment policies and competition among governmental and economic interests in the allocation of discretion in corporate governance and related regulatory policies.

This article introduces and discusses the findings of the Canada School Choice Policy Index (CSCPI). This is the first index of its kind that measures the development of school choice policies across the Canadian provinces from 1980 to 2020 using eight unique indicators of choice. In contrast to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the CSCPI reveals that although Canada has witnessed an increase in school choice over time, this increase has largely been contained within public education systems rather than in the expansion of private education options. Our findings raise the importance of future research to address growing choice in public education systems across the provinces, in addition to choice in the private sphere.

I have been invited to present to you my thesis regarding Puritanism and Democracy in seventeenth-century England. The thesis in question is simple and obvious, though some of its ramifications are (I hope) neither simple nor altogether obvious. The period of the Puritan revolution was one in which religion and even theology dominated the common modes of thought and expression. Lord Acton, who (unlike some historians) was sufficiently unenlightened to know theology when he saw it, described the period as “the middle ages of Protestantism”. It follows that the concepts whether of liberty or of authority which the Puritans developed, can be fully understood only if they are studied in their proper setting, and their native terminology. Dogma formed that terminology and the Puritan church organization constituted the setting. Without denying the validity of other approaches (the constitutional approach for example, in which the liberals have long had their own way, or the economic, in which the Marxists are, I understand, taking theirs)—without denying the usefulness of these approaches, I suggest the value to the student who would know what really happened, of a third, namely the religious approach. For the Puritan concept of democracy, if it did not spring from Puritan religion, at least sprang up in closest contact with it. Puritan religion constituted the climate of opinion in which the concept was born and nourished. The religious approach has one advantage (shared in measure with the constitutional): it can stay within the period under discussion, and it can afford to rest its case on the actual words used. It does not require a transposition of terms, whereby theology is shown to be a roundabout way of saying economics, and St. Mark's gospel gets spelled with an x. Nor does it ask us to make any large assumptions—to believe that Calvin built better than he knew: he intended a church and it turned out to be a bank! One will no doubt be told that some of the theological argument with which the pamphlets in the Thomason Collection are filled, and most of the reasons urged in the Councils of the Army at Putney and Whitehall, are what are now called “rationalizations”, and that we gain nothing by refusing to recognize this fact. So be it. But if these are rationalizations they involve the terms in which the Puritan viewed his world and they rest upon the convictions with which he was prepared to face not only his fellows, but his Maker. We shall gain nothing by brushing those terms and those convictions aside, though to comprehend them requires patient study and a modicum of historical sympathy. “Nothing”, says Lord David Cecil, “is more baffling to the imagination than the religion of another age.”

Abstract. The 1982 Mexican presidential decision to statize all domestic commercial banks was meant to reset state bank capital relations and salvage some form of state-led capitalism. However, bank statization had the counterintuitive and ultimately unintended consequence of enabling a more rapid transition to neoliberalism, financialization and market-led capitalism than otherwise may have been possible. The implications of this are profound as alternatives to neoliberalism that seek a return to state-led development are ultimately flawed without more collective, local, and substantively democratic calls for the control of credit and, hence, human development.

Résumé. La décision présidentielle mexicaine de 1982 d'étatiser toutes les banques commerciales domestiques avait pour but la reconfiguration des relations capitalistes État-banque afin de récupérer une certaine forme de capitalisme étatique. Or, ce processus eu pour conséquences inattendues l'accélération de la transition au néolibéralisme, à la financiarisation et au capitalisme de marché. Les implications sont profondes pour les alternatives au néolibéralisme qui, cherchant un retour au capitalisme d'État, s'avèrent inefficaces sans un contrôle collectif, local et démocratique du crédit et, par ricochet, du développement humain.

The systematic investigation of party-projected images is a relatively recent development in political science. Past studies into this subject have largely dealt with the perceptions of political parties held by various groups, and the perceived mobility of the parties over time with regard to selected dimensions. For the determination of party images held by individuals, most previous works in the field have made use of the semantic differential technique pioneered by Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum. This approach consists of respondents being asked to rank political parties along a number of seven-point scales, each demarcated by a pair of antonyms such as “good-bad” or “slow-fast.” Tests confirming the reliability, validity and comparability of the measure have also been conducted by Osgood et al., as found in The Measurement of Meaning.

Abstract. This article investigates the limits that ideas place on the scope of policy expansion though an empirical puzzle. Canada lacks a nationwide, universal pharmaceutical insurance program, which contrasts with the experience of most mature welfare states and Canada's own broad public hospital and medical insurance. The article find that ideas matter in policy development because of the mechanisms put in place by the pace of change. A slower, incremental process of policy development leads to restricted policy ideas that limit opportunities for program expansion. The article finds evidence of a reciprocal relationship between policy ideas and public expectations in four proposals for nationwide pharmaceutical insurance in Canada between 1944 and 2002.

Résumé. Cet article examine les limites qu'imposent les idées à la portée du déploiement des politiques publiques, et ce à partir d'un paradoxe empirique : le Canada n'a aucun programme national et universel d'assurance-médicaments, ce qui tranche avec la situation de la plupart des États-providence établis ainsi qu'avec son propre système public d'assurance maladie et hospitalisation. L'article montre que les idées influencent le développement des politiques publiques en raison des mécanismes qu'induit le rythme des réformes. Un processus de développement lent et graduel entraîne la formation d'idées restrictives, qui limitent les opportunités d'expansion des programmes. La constatation y est également faite d'une relation de réciprocité entre les idées et les attentes du public dans le cadre de quatre propositions d'établissement d'une assurance-médicaments nationale au Canada, entre 1944 et 2002.

Applying the regime politics approach to the study of judicial behaviour, which regards the Supreme Court as largely operating to preserve the policy agenda of the existing lawmaking majority, this paper evaluates the Court's behaviour during the Conservative government's tenure. There is evidence to support the basic core of the regime politics thesis. The Court rarely invalidates laws passed by the sitting government. Nonetheless, the Court's behaviour during the Conservative government's tenure was distinctive. Incorporating a measure of issue salience—the relative importance of the policies affected—into the analysis demonstrates the Court's impact on the Conservatives' policy agenda stands in sharp contrast to previous governments. It is the only government of the Charter period to have policies in its election platforms blocked by judicial review and the only government in Canadian history to effectively lose all of the constitutional reference cases it posed to the Court.

Abstract. The Kyoto Protocol was a controversial issue within Canadian federalism, especially in Alberta, where the province considered a formal constitutional challenge regarding the implementation of the agreement. This option was not pursued, however, due to existing judicial precedent that limits the jurisdictional authority of the provinces in international affairs. Regardless, these rulings still suggest a level of constitutional ambiguity, which creates motivation for federal-provincial cooperation on foreign trade and environmental policy. As a result, highly valued formalized consultative mechanisms have developed in these issue areas during the past two decades. Ottawa's decision to ratify Kyoto, however, represented a significant departure from previous practices of cooperative federalism. In pursuing the protocol as part of his legacy agenda, Chrétien was aware of the provinces' tenuous constitutional status. It is important to note, however, that the resulting tension between both levels of government was atypical and does not threaten the viability of cooperative federalism in the near future.

Résumé. Le protocole de Kyoto a suscité de nombreuses controverses au sein du fédéralisme canadien, en particulier en Alberta où le gouvernement songea même à contester formellement la constitutionnalité de sa mise en oeuvre. En définitive, il a abandonné cette option en raison de précédents jurisprudentiels qui limitent la juridiction des provinces en affaires internationales. Ces décisions suggèrent néanmoins qu'il existe un certain niveau d'ambiguïté constitutionnelle propre à motiver une attitude de coopération fédérale-provinciale en matière d'environnement et de commerce extérieur. De ce fait, des mécanismes consultatifs très structurés ont été mis au point dans ces domaines au cours des deux dernières décennies. Or, la décision d'Ottawa de ratifier Kyoto contrastait nettement avec les pratiques antérieures de fédéralisme coopératif. En cherchant à faire du Protocole de Kyoto un élément de son héritage, Chrétien était conscient de la fragilité des arguments constitutionnels des provinces. Cependant, il est important de noter que la tension ainsi créée entre les deux niveaux de gouvernement était atypique et qu'elle ne menace pas la validité du fédéralisme coopératif dans l'avenir.

The Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (2015) targets immigrants suspected of engaging in polygamy. While polygamy is already illegal in Canada and non-immigrant polygamous arrangements exist within Canadian borders, the framing of polygamy as a foreign practice portrays this familial arrangement as a threat to Canadian national values. Effects on women and children have traditionally provided a convincing argument for state regulation of polygamy; however, the combination of state under—and over—enforcement suggests that relying solely on a harm framework inadequately captures the complexities of state treatment. In this paper, I argue that the state's primary motivations for defending monogamy are not necessarily rooted in the avoidance of harm but in the preservation of a particular type of citizenship.