Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed Canadian life since it was adopted as part of the Canadian constitution in 1982. The Charter requires judges to make decisions on a wide range of issues that affect all Canadians. In doing so, the courts play a major role in citizens’ lives. Because of the Charter: - The law against prostitution was struck down. - The Harper government"s treatment of child soldier Omar Khadr was found to violate his rights. - Vancouver’s Insite safe injection site was kept open, overriding a federal government decision requiring it to shut down. Ian Greene is a political scientist, and his focus in this book is to highlight the many significant ways the Charter shapes Canadian life. After providing background on the creation and implementation of the Charter, he describes its impact on a wide range of issues — aboriginal affairs, voting rights, freedom of religion, the right to strike, and language rights, among others. Greene describes key decisions in these areas and comments on the often-conflicting views of the judges deciding them. Even though the Charter is a legal document, debated by lawyers and decided by judges, Greene approaches his subject with an eye on the political impact the Charter has on governments and ordinary citizens. Public discussion of the Charter is often framed around the question of who should make these important decisions — elected politicians or unelected judges. This book provides a clear understanding of how the Charter works and how ordinary citizens have succeeded — or failed — to win change from the courts. It offers information that people on every side of public discussion can use regarding the role of the Charter in Canadian life.

Hébert considers various theoretical models to explain aspects of the crisis and concludes that the authoritarian personality model is the most relevant. Right-wing authoritarianism exists everywhere and, he argues, under proper conditions, especially demagogic leadership, can provoke populist explosions of racist and prejudiced sentiment; hence the "cautionary" nature of this Canadian tale.

Canadian politics in the 1990s were characterized by an unwavering focus on the deficit. At the beginning of the decade it seemed that fiscal deficits were intractable, a fait accompli of Canadian politics. Yet by the end of the decade, remarkably, Ottawa had eradicated its budgetary shortfalls. How such a radical change of political course came to pass is still not well understood. In the Long Run We're All Dead offers the first comprehensive account of this vital public policy issue. Lewis deftly analyses the history of deficit finance from before Confederation, through Canada's postwar Keynesianism, to the retrenchment of the Mulroney and Chretien years. He illuminates how the political conditions for Ottawa's deficit elimination in the 1990s materialized after more than twenty consecutive years in the red, and how the decline of Canadian Keynesianism has made way for the emergence of politics organized on the basis of balanced budgets. This important book provides scholars and students of Canadian politics with a new framework by which to understand the adoption of government policy, the economic and fiscal legacy of the Mulroney administrations, and the emergence of the new politics of surplus. Essential for anyone needing to be well informed about Canadian politics, political economy, and public policy.