A History of Law in Canada is an important three-volume project. Volume One begins at a time just prior to European contact and continues to the 1860s, Volume Two covers the half century after Confederation, and Volume Three covers the period from the beginning of the First World War to 1982, with a postscript taking the account to approximately 2000. The history of law includes substantive law, legal institutions, legal actors, and legal culture. The authors assume that since 1500 there have been three legal systems in Canada – the Indigenous, the French, and the English. At all times, these systems have co-existed and interacted, with the relative power and influence of each being more or less dominant in different periods. The history of law cannot be treated in isolation, and this book examines law as a dynamic process, shaped by and affecting other histories over the long term. The law guided and was guided by economic developments, was influenced and moulded by the nature and trajectory of political ideas and institutions, and variously exacerbated or mediated intercultural exchange and conflict. These themes are apparent in this examination, and through most areas of law including land settlement and tenure, and family, commercial, constitutional, and criminal law.

This is the second of three volumes in an important collection that recounts the sweeping history of law in Canada. The period covered in this volume witnessed both continuity and change in the relationships among law, society, Indigenous peoples, and white settlers. The authors explore how law was as important to the building of a new urban industrial nation as it had been to the establishment of colonies of agricultural settlement and resource exploitation. The book addresses the most important developments in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, including legal pluralism and the co-existence of European and Indigenous law. It pays particular attention to the Métis and the Red River Resistance, the Indian Act, and the origins and expansion of residential schools in Canada. The book is divided into four parts: the law and legal institutions; Indigenous peoples and Dominion law; capital, labour, and criminal justice; and those less favoured by the law. A History of Law in Canada examines law as a dynamic process, shaped by and affecting other histories over the long term.

How was it that the Torrens system, a mid-nineteenth-century reform of land titles registration from distant South Australia, gradually replaced the inherited Anglo-Canadian common law system of land registration? In The Law of the Land, Greg Taylor traces the spread of the Torrens system, from its arrival in the far-flung outpost of 1860s Victoria, British Columbia, right up to twenty-first century Ontario. Examining the peculiarity of how this system of land reform swept through some provinces like wildfire, and yet still remains completely unknown in three provinces, Taylor shows how the different histories of various regions in Canada continue to shape the law in the present day. Presenting a concise and illuminating history of land reform, he also demonstrates the power of lobbying, by examining the influence of both moneylenders and lawyers who were the first to introduce the Torrens system to Canada east of the Rockies. An exact and fluent legal history of regional law reforms, The Law of the Land is a fascinating examination of commonwealth influence, and ongoing regional differences in Canada.

This introductory text is intended to demystify the law and to provide information on the key components of the Canadian legal system including chapters on: The nature of law and competing theories of law Legal pluralism - how the Canadian legal system interacts with various religious legal systems Sources of Canadian law including legislation and caselaw The legal history of Britain, the reception of English law in Canada, the history of Civil Law in Quebec, and the bijural system The Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The structure of Canadian government Courts across Canada and the work of judges and lawyers Problems regarding access to justice Substantive law including Criminal Law, Property Law, Contract Law, and Tort Law Procedural laws governing civil disputes and criminal prosecutions.

The Royal Society of Canada’s mandate is to elect to its membership leading scholars in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences, lending its seal of excellence to those who advance artistic and intellectual knowledge in Canada. Duncan Campbell Scott, one of the architects of the Indian residential school system in Canada, served as the society’s president and dominated its activities; many other members – historically overwhelmingly white men – helped shape knowledge systems rooted in colonialism that have proven catastrophic for Indigenous communities. Written primarily by current Royal Society of Canada members, these essays explore the historical contribution of the RSC and of Canadian scholars to the production of ideas and policies that shored up white settler privilege, underpinning the disastrous interaction between Indigenous peoples and white settlers. Historical essays focus on the period from the RSC’s founding in 1882 to the mid-twentieth century; later chapters bring the discussion to the present, documenting the first steps taken to change damaging patterns and challenging the society and Canadian scholars to make substantial strides toward a better future. The highly educated in Canadian society were not just bystanders: they deployed their knowledge and skills to abet colonialism. This volume dives deep into the RSC’s history to learn why academia has more often been an aid to colonialism than a force against it. Royally Wronged poses difficult questions about what is required – for individual academics, fields of study, and the RSC – to move meaningfully toward reconciliation.

The central aim of "The West and Beyond" is to evaluate and appraise the state of Western Canadian history, to acknowledge and assess the contributions of historians of the past and present, to showcase the research interests of a new generation of scholars, to chart new directions for the future, and stimulate further interrogations of our past.-- The book is broken into five sections and contains articles from both established and new scholars that broadly reflect findings of the conference "The West and Beyond:-- Historians Past, Present and Future" held in Edmonton, Alberta in the summer of 2008.-- The editors hope the collection will encourage dialogue among generations of historians of the West and among practitioners of diverse approaches to the past.-- The collection also reflects a broad range of disciplinary and professional interests suggesting a number of different ways to understand the West.

The UN Refugee Agency considers resettlement – the selection and transfer of refugees from the state where they seek asylum to another state that volunteers to take them – a tool of refugee protection and an expression of international burden sharing. In this account of Canada’s resettlement program from the Indochinese crisis of the 1970s to the Syrian crisis of the 2010s, Shauna Labman explores how rights, responsibilities, and obligations intersect in the absence of a legal scheme for refugee resettlement. In particular, she examines the role of the law on the voluntary act of resettlement and the effect of resettlement on asylum policies. This pathbreaking book looks at the interplay between resettlement and asylum in one of the world’s most successful refugee protection programs and shows how resettlement can either complement or complicate in-country asylum claims at a time when refugee crises and fear of outsiders are causing countries to close their borders to asylum-seekers around the world.

Delving behind Canada’s veneer of multiculturalism and tolerance, Policing Black Lives traces the violent realities of anti-blackness from the slave ships to prisons, classrooms and beyond. Robyn Maynard provides readers with the first comprehensive account of nearly four hundred years of state-sanctioned surveillance, criminalization and punishment of Black lives in Canada. While highlighting the ubiquity of Black resistance, Policing Black Lives traces the still-living legacy of slavery across multiple institutions, shedding light on the state’s role in perpetuating contemporary Black poverty and unemployment, racial profiling, law enforcement violence, incarceration, immigration detention, deportation, exploitative migrant labour practices, disproportionate child removal and low graduation rates. Emerging from a critical race feminist framework that insists that all Black lives matter, Maynard’s intersectional approach to anti-Black racism addresses the unique and understudied impacts of state violence as it is experienced by Black women, Black people with disabilities, as well as queer, trans, and undocumented Black communities. A call-to-action, Policing Black Lives urges readers to work toward dismantling structures of racial domination and re-imagining a more just society.