Canadian Political, Social and Historical (Re)visions in 20th and 21st Century

Marcin Gabryś / Magdalena Marczuk-Karbownik /
Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek (eds.)

Canadian Political, Social and
Historical (Re)visions
in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries

Contents

Marcin Gabryś, Magdalena Marczuk-Karbownik, Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek

Marcin Gabryś, Magdalena Marczuk-Karbownik, Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek

The publication has been divided into two parts. The first one is devoted to the analysis of the position of Canada on the international stage. It opens with a chapter by David Carment and Richard Nimijean, Assessing Canada’s Liberal Internationalism: Where is Canada Headed on the Global Stage? The authors evaluate two competing visions of Canadian foreign policy, the one implemented by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government seeking to restore Canada as a proud and principled country taking tough stands on such issues as terrorism, collective security or the Middle East and Trudeau’s Liberal government promising to restore liberal internationalist values in Canadian foreign policy. Finally, they offer a prediction as to what the fate of the idea of Canada as a middle power might be under conditions of its declining influence and engagement internationally.

Chapter Two by Tomasz Soroka, Feminism and Gender Equality in Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy, presents the conceptual vision and main goals of Justin Trudeau’s self-described feminist foreign policy. Soroka analyses Trudeau’s rhetorical promises and commitments and reevaluates them, assessing the effectiveness of the practical actions, programs and initiatives his government has implemented or undertaken internationally.

Chapter Three by Magdalena Marczuk-Karbownik, Big Change or Continuation? Canada’s Policy Towards the situation in Ukraine under Justin Trudeau (2015–2020), presents a comparative evaluation of Canadian policy towards Ukraine under Harper’s Conservative and Trudeau’s Liberal governments. The author presents Ottawa’s engagement in the region aimed at the stabilization of the political and economic situation in Ukraine, being the victim of Russian aggression.

Chapter Four by Joel J. Sokolsky and Joseph T. Jockel, Rejecting the Colorado Springs Playbook? NORAD in the Age of Trump offers a brief overview of the history of the binational, Canadian-American command as well as examination of contemporary issues, particularly those related to rising tensions with the great power rivals China and Russia, threats, ballistic missile defence and matters concerning North American homeland defence and security, including the prospects for changes in the command arrangements. The authors conclude by discussing whether the policy of President Donald Trump will lead to substantial revisions in United States-Canada defence relations.

Part two of the volume, entitled Canadian state and society, focuses on various aspects of Canadian internal and social policy. Its chapters present several (re)visions implemented in response to the following challenges: Quebec separatism, maintaining transport infrastructure, shaping immigration policy, special planning and management in the Arctic and veteran care problem.

Chapter Six by Jeremy Elmerich, Constitutional Memories in Canada: Devising the Revision in the Peril of Disunion offers a (re)vision of the debate on the history of Canada’s French-English founding duality. It analyses the parallel constitutional and identity trajectories that led to a turning point in 1995, when the stake was Canada’s unity itself. The author argues that Canada still has not learned the lesson from the conflicting patterns of misunderstanding and division among its founding peoples and has since remained in a long constitutional winter.

Chapter Seven by Luc Ampleman, Transport Infrastructures and Land Use Geopolitics in Canada discusses the complex conflictual nature of transport initiatives linked to the development, abandonment, transformation and maintenance of transportation systems in Canada. Its author argues that one can capture the complexity of Canadian political geography through an analysis of the land-use implementation of its transport systems and identifies a series of geopolitical paradigms structured around some transport development milestones in the relatively recent national record.

Three subsequent sections of the volume are devoted to different aspects of immigration policy. In Chapter Eight by Iwona Wrońska, The Provinces and Canadian Immigration Policy. Evolution and Trends, the Canadian system of immigration management is discussed. Its author presents how the vision of a federally shaped Canadian immigration policy has been challenged by attempts of provinces and territories to manage their own immigration programs allowing to attract highly skilled economic class immigrants.

Chapter Ten by Anna Reczyńska, Remarkable and Unexpected Returns from Canada to Poland constitutes a revision of the mainstream of emigration studies in the Polish-Canadian context, where more emphasis has always been put on emigration to Canada rather than return migration to the countries of origin. Its author presents specific and complex vicissitudes of the lives of four people who re-emigrated from Canada to Poland, reconstructing and analysing the circumstances, motivations and conditions which influenced the decisions about returning and points out the necessity to investigate immigrants’ return more thoroughly.

Chapter Eleven by Marcin Gabryś, Frobisher Bay as a Model City of the Future in the Canadian Arctic, focuses on the late 1950s plan of transforming Frobisher City (today’s Iqaluit) into a futuristic city with a system of connected skyscrapers covered by a giant dome. It presents a mid-20th century architectural and urban projection of what modern life might be like in the Arctic, revealing also the patronizing attitude of the federal bureaucracy in Ottawa. At the same time, it offers a chance to see how ideas of Arctic development have changed in Canada over the last sixty years.

In Chapter Twelve, From Shell Shock to Operational Stress Injury - Canadian (Re)Visions of Approach Towards the Psychological Consequences of Participation in Military Operations, Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek focuses on the factors which have led to the introduction of new standards of assessment, treatment, prevention and support for soldiers and veterans suffering from operational stress injury. She puts special emphasis on the instrumental role of veterans whose personal engagement has helped transform the Canadian attitude to service-related mental health problems.