Research Catalog

Title

The Canadian founding : John Locke and parliament / Janet Ajzenstat.

Author

Ajzenstat, Janet, 1936-

Publication

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c2007.

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Holdings

Details

Description

xvi, 199 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

Convinced that rights are inalienable and that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed, the Fathers of Confederation - whether liberal or conservative - looked to the European enlightenment and John Locke. Janet Ajzenstat analyzes the legislative debates in the colonial parliaments and the Constitution Act (1867) in a provocative reinterpretation of Canadian political history from 1864 to 1873. Ajzenstat contends that the debt to Locke is most evident in the debates on the making of Canada's Parliament: though the anti-confederates maintained that the existing provincial parliaments offered superior protection for individual rights, the confederates insisted that the union's general legislature, the Parliament of Canada, would prove equal to the task and that the promise of "life and liberty" would bring the scattered populations of British North America together as a free nation.--Publisher's description.

Series Statement

McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas ; 44

Uniform Title

McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas ; 44.

Subject

• Locke, John, 1632-1704 > Influence
• Confederation of Canada (1867)
• 1867
• Representative government and representation > Canada > History
• National characteristics, Canadian
• Gouvernement représentatif > Canada > Histoire
• Canadiens
• Canada > Politics and government
• Canada > History > Confederation, 1867
• Canada > Politique et gouvernement
• Canada > Histoire > 1867 (Confédération)

Genre/Form

• History
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Making parliament -- 2. Popular sovereignty in the confederation debates -- 3. Human rights in 1867 -- 4. Civic identity -- 5. The political nationality -- 6. Celebrating 1791 : two hundred years of representative government -- 7. Canada's first constitution : Pierre Bedard on tolerance and dissent -- 8. Modern mixed government : a liberal defence of inequality -- 9. Collectivity and individual rights in "mainstream liberalism" : John Arthur Roebuck and the patriotes -- 10. Parliament and today's discontent.

ISBN

• 9780773531529 (bound)
• 0773531521 (bound)
• 9780773532243 (pbk.)
• 0773532242 (pbk.)

OCLC

79256085

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library