McLean Family Canadian Studies Series – Serie

We are in the midst of a fundamental re-evaluation of the desired relation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to each other, and of how the former are to be institutionally and constitutionally accommodated within Canada. Words matter. How we think about where we are and about the future goal of our relationship can confine us in an intellectual prison or liberate us from choices we will otherwise regret.In Citizens Plus, Alan Cairns unravels the historical record to clarify the current impasse in negotiations between Aboriginal peoples and the state. He considers the assimilationist policy assumptions of the imperial era, examines more recent government initiatives, and analyzes the emergence of the nation-to-nation paradigm given massive support by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.We are battered by contending visions, he argues – a revised assimilation policy that finds its support in the Canadian Alliance Party is countered by the nation-to-nation vision, which frames our future as coexisting solitudes. Citizens Plus stakes out a middle ground with its support for constitutional and institutional arrangements which will simultaneously recognize Aboriginal difference and reinforce a solidarity which binds us together in common citizenship. Essential reading for those in political science, history, Native studies, public administration, and law, Citizens Plus will also appeal to the general public interested in one of the most important and complex issues on our agenda.Selected as a BC Book for Everybody

This elegantly written and insightful book provides a geographical history of the Indian reserve in British Columbia. Cole Harris analyzes the impact of reserves on Native lives and livelihoods and considers how, in light of this, the Native land question might begin to be resolved. The account begins in the early nineteenth-century British Empire and then follows Native land policy – and Native resistance to it – in British Columbia from the Douglas treaties in the early 1850s to the formal transfer of reserves to the Dominion in 1938.Making Native Space clarifies and informs the current debate on the Native land question. It presents the most comprehensive account available of perhaps the most critical mapping of space ever undertaken in BC – the drawing of the lines that separated the tiny plots of land reserved for Native people from the rest.Geographers, historians, anthropologists, and anybody interested in and involved in the politics of treaty negotiation in British Columbia should read this book.

Focusing on these contrasting views of glaciers between Aboriginal peoples and European visitors in northern Canada and Alaska, Julie Cruikshank demonstrates how local knowledge is produced, rather than discovered, through colonial encounters, and how it often conjoins social and biophysical processes.

When Vincent Massey wrote On Being Canadian in 1948, he acknowledged the importance of the arts to education and the production of good Canadian citizens. What he did not consider was what the arts and artists can tell us about being Canadian.In On the Art of Being Canadian, Sherrill Grace begins with the premise that the arts have shaped and continue to inform Canadian identity. Drawing upon a wealth of artistic expression that spans over a century of painting, fiction, poetry, drama, and film, she traces how the arts and artists have contributed to three key themes in Canadian culture, commemoration, and myth making: the North, war, and iconic national figures such as Louis Riel, Emily Carr, Tom Thomson, and Mina Hubbard.By telling stories in their chosen media and genres about life here or about events and figures from the past, she shows that artists help us to understand the Canadian landscape and to create a shared history. All students of Canada, whether at home or abroad, will find much to savour, enjoy, and reflect on in this beautifully illustrated volume.

"Why don't they just move?" This reductive question is asked whenever reports surface of the all-too-common lack of social services and economic opportunities in Canada's rural and urban communities. But why are certain people and places vulnerable? And who is responsible for a remedy?From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Canadian government relocated people, often against their will, in order to improve their lives. Moved by the State offers a completely new interpretation of this undertaking, seeing it as part of a larger project of development and focusing on the bureaucrats and academics who designed, implemented, and monitored the relocations rather than on those who were uprooted.In this finely crafted history, Tina Loo explores the contradiction between intention and consequence as diverse communities across Canada were resettled. In the process, she reveals the optimistic belief underpinning postwar relocations: the power of the interventionist state to do good.

"Why don't they just move?" This reductive question is asked whenever reports surface of the all-too-common lack of social services and economic opportunities in Canada's rural and urban communities. But why are certain people and places vulnerable? And who is responsible for a remedy?From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Canadian government relocated people, often against their will, in order to improve their lives. Moved by the State offers a completely new interpretation of this undertaking, seeing it as part of a larger project of development and focusing on the bureaucrats and academics who designed, implemented, and monitored the relocations rather than on those who were uprooted.In this finely crafted history, Tina Loo explores the contradiction between intention and consequence as diverse communities across Canada were resettled. In the process, she reveals the optimistic belief underpinning postwar relocations: the power of the interventionist state to do good.