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The Liberal Party has governed Canada for much of the country's history. Yet over the past two decades, the 'natural governing party' has seen a decrease in traditional support, finding itself in opposition for nearly half of that time. In Divided Loyalties, Brooke Jeffrey draws on her own experience as a party insider and on interviews with more than sixty senior Liberals to follow the trajectory of the party from 1984 to the leadership of Stéphane Dion in 2008. Riven by internal strife, leadership disputes, and financial woes, the Liberal Party today faces unprecedented challenges that threaten its very future. Conventional wisdom attributes the origins of the disarray to personal conflict between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. However, Jeffrey argues that this divisiveness is actually the continuation of a dispute over Canadian federalism and national unity which began decades earlier between John Turner and Pierre Trudeau. This dispute, as evidenced by recent leadership crises, remains unresolved to this day. An insightful examination of the federal Liberal Party, Divided Loyalties sheds much-needed light on an increasingly fissured party.
An examination of the role that British Columbia has played in the evolving Canadian unity debate. Philip Resnick explores what makes British Columbia stand apart as a region of Canada and looks at the views of politicians, opinion-makers and ordinary citizens on various issues.
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Bill Bennett is an eyewitness account of B.C. premier W.R. (Bill) Bennett's eleven years in power, from 1975 to 1986. Never seen as a populist or a great communicator, Bennett nevertheless won three elections in a row, a feat surpassed only by his father, W.A.C. Bennett, who won six. The younger Bennett also twice captured the highest percentage of the popular vote of any premier since the Second World War. Among his very significant and undervalued achievements, Bennett dramatically changed the way British Columbia is governed and the way in which it came to be perceived on the world stage; chaired Canada's provincial premiers during the repatriation of the constitution; built the Coquihalla highway; created the Whistler ski resort; and brought the Port of Prince Rupert, Sky Train and BC Place Stadium to the province.
On 2 January 1988, Canada and the United States signed what was then the most comprehensive free-trade agreement that the world has seen. Decision at Midnight is the story of the FTA negotiaions themselves, the preparations for and conduct of those negotiations and the ideas and issues behind them. From their unique perspective as participants, Hart, Dymond, and Robertson capture the drama and the personalities involved in the long struggle to make a free-trade deal. They describe the extensive consultations, the turf-fighting among insiders, the innate caution of both politicians and bureaucrats, and the need to cultivate powerful constituencies in order to overcome the inertia of conventional wisdom. Althought they tell the story from a Canadian perspective, the authors also include their perception of what was taking place in the United States and the wider world to create the circumstances that would make the negotiations desirable, possible, and ultimately successful. Throughout, they skilfully mix personalities, events, and issues to provide a compelling narrative and convincing analysis.