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In Talking Past Each Other, Hamish Telford provides an engaging account of the long-running dialogue between the governments of Quebec and Canada on the meaning and purpose of federalism. He argues that the government of Canada has adopted a theory of federalism that enables it to address most issues of "national" importance to the federation irrespective of the formal division of powers in the constitution. The theory of "majoritarian federalism," as he calls it, allows the government of Canada to promote "national" unity and the universality of citizenship. By contrast, Quebec's theory of federalism, which he calls "difference federalism," stresses the importance of provincial autonomy, so as to allow each province, most especially Quebec, to preserve and promote its particularity. These definitions represent irreconcilable constitutional premises. The governments of Canada and Quebec have thus quite literally been "talking past each other" for the last 150 years.
Talking Past Each Other is the first monograph in a generation to recount this story in its entirety.
List of contents
Acknowledgments - One Constitution, Two Theories of Federalism - The Confederation Debates and the Origins of Canada's Federal Discourse - The New Canadian State and Majoritarian Federalism - Quebec and the Rejection of Majoritarian Federalism - The JCPC and the Promotion of Difference Federalism - Majoritarian Federalism and the Origins of the Post-War Social Union - The Quiet Revolution and the Defence of Difference Federalism - Majoritarian Federalism and the Rise of the Parti Québécois - The Rejection of Difference Federalism in the Rest of Canada - The Liberal Party of Canada and the Entrenchment of Majoritarian Federalism - The Conservative Party of Canada and the Emptiness of Open Federalism - All Talked Out? - Index.
About the author
Hamish Telford is an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Rules of the Game: An Introduction to Canadian Politics. He is a past president of the British Columbia Political Studies Association, and he has twice served on the board of the Canadian Political Science Association.
Summary
In Talking Past Each Other: Quebec and the Federal Dialogue in Canada, Hamish Telford provides an engaging account of the long-running dialogue between the governments of Quebec and Canada on the meaning and purpose of federalism.
Report
«In Talking Past Each Other: Quebec and the Federal Dialogue in Canada, 1867-2017, Telford considers the two competing narratives of Canadian federalism, "majoritarian" and "difference," one emanating from English Canada and one from Québéc. [...] However, his well-organized and well-presented book is a fine elucidation of an age-old Canadian issue: one nation or two?»
(Nelson Wiseman, The Ormsby Review 2018)
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