Canada Is Not Back

In October 2015, Canadians elected a prime minister who promised to rehabilitate Canada's reputation globally. Justin Trudeau, "the free world's best hope" according to Rolling Stone Magazine, cultivated his image as a staunch advocate for a generous, liberal international order: maintaining peace, helping migrants and refugees, seeking dialogue and enhancing relations with other countries, and reengagement with the UN. Foreign affairs expert Jocelyn Coulon had a front row seat as a key Liberal party advisor during the election and early days of the Trudeau government. Coulon describes the ambitious policy proposals of candidate Trudeau. He analyses some key actions of Trudeau the prime minister. What he sees is more of the same approach that came from the ten years of Harper government. Coulon focuses on the Trudeau campaign to win a UN Security Council seat in 2020 — a campaign he sees as doomed to failure. He describes how an election commitment to re-engage Canadian forces in peacekeeping yielded a carefully-developed plan to send troops to Africa — which Trudeau and his closest advisors killed at the last minute. In other areas, like relations with China, the United States and Russia, looking good in the media triumphs over careful policy making to advance Canadian interests. Readers interested in Justin Trudeau's approach to international affairs will find this a timely, engaging, and revealing book.

Popular political pundit Bill Scher--whom the Hartford Advocate has called "one of the sharpest political minds around"--presents a bold, pragmatic plan to revitalize America Frustrated liberals are mired in the political wilderness, while disgruntled Democrats and Republicans have grown weary of unprincipled politics, shoddy governance, and the general ineptitude of our public servants. "Look, it would be a lot easier to cut and run to Canada," say Janeane and Sam in their foreword, "but we all have an obligation not to." To those willing to stay and fight, Bill Scher offers a 10-step plan to rally popular support for a better, more effective, more liberal vision of government. To achieve this vision, Scher arms his readers with an arsenal of attitude and practical, actionable advice on how to: • defuse the right-wing culture war • communicate directly with the news media and encourage them to cover underreported stories • protest in a way that reaches those outside the ranks of activist organizations • join the growing online liberal community to effectively exert pressure on the political establishment • embrace the term liberal as often and as openly as possible Scher, whose Web log LiberalOasis.com is one of the go-to political sites in the rapidly expanding--and increasingly influential--blogosphere, articulates his strategies in a straightforward, vibrant, and accessible style that explodes the stereotypes of the liberal wimp or egghead.

In this warm and honest memoir, celebrated academic Njoki Wane shares her journey from her parents' small coffee farm in Kenya, where she helped her mother in the fields as a child, to her current work as a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Moving smoothly between time and place, Wane uses memories, painful and tender, to show how her early lessons and the support given by her family allowed her to succeed as a woman of colour in the academy, and to later lift up her students facing their own difficult journeys.

Talking Back to the Indian Act is a comprehensive "how-to" guide for engaging with primary source documents. The intent of the book is to encourage readers to develop the skills necessary to converse with primary sources in more refined and profound ways. As a piece of legislation that is central to Canada's relationship with Indigenous peoples and communities, and one that has undergone many amendments, the Indian Act is uniquely positioned to act as a vehicle for this kind of focused reading. Through an analysis of thirty-five sources pertaining to the Indian Act--addressing governance, gender, enfranchisement, and land--the authors provide readers with a much better understanding of this pivotal piece of legislation, as well as insight into the dynamics involved in its creation and maintenance.

A wave of optimism has swept the African continent in the past decade. The pace and extent of social change in recent years, when measured in life expectancy, child and infant mortality rates, literacy, numeracy and the completion of higher education, is quite remarkable. The urban middle class is emerging and expanding in many African countries, while political democracy is developing and strengthening. These positive changes are generating economic growth and attracting foreign investment across the continent, especially in the resource sector. But Africa is still viewed by many as the “dark continent” dealing with serious problems — civil wars, ethnic division, corruption, HIV/AIDS, poverty, food security and the disastrous effects of climate change — and these issues may well impede the upward trajectory of Africa. Canada-Africa Relations: Looking Back, Looking Ahead — the 27th volume of the influential Canada Among Nations series — analyzes the ebb and flow of Canada’s engagement with Sub-Saharan Africa through different lenses over the past few decades and also looks to the future, highlighting the opportunities and the difficulties that exist for Canada and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is clear that a new Africa is emerging, and Canada must be prepared to change the nature of its relationship with the continent.

Paul Heinbecker has a compelling vision for the future of Canadian foreign policy and argues that Canada still has a role to play in the rehabilitation of global governance. Has Canada lost its place in the world? Are we destined for a future as a middle power, denied a seat at the "grown-ups table"? Some would argue yes, that decades of neglect and inattention have rendered Canadian foreign policy ineffective at best and non-existent at worst. Paul Heinbecker disagrees. The golden days of Lester B. Pearson may be long gone, he contends (and perhaps they weren’t quite as "golden" as we’d all like to remember), but Canada still has a part to play. In Getting Back in the Game, Heinbecker presents his compelling vision for the future of Canadian foreign policy, a future in which Canada can work both with the United Nations and apart from it; in which our government can take a stand and effect change on issues of the day from climate change to the Middle East; in which this country has a key role to play in the rehabilitation of global governance.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2020 TORONTO BOOK AWARD WINNER OF THE OLA EVERGREEN AWARD FINALIST FOR THE WRITERS' TRUST SHAUGNESSY COHEN PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE RAKUTEN KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE *UPDATED with new foreword, postscript, and educator's guide* In this bracing, revelatory work of award-winning journalism, celebrated writer and activist Desmond Cole punctures the naive assumptions of Canadians who believe we live in a post-racial nation. Chronicling just one year in the struggle against racism in this country, The Skin We're In reveals in stark detail the injustices faced by Black Canadians on a daily basis: the devastating effects of racist policing, the hopelessness produced by an education system that fails Black children, the heartbreak of those separated from their families by discriminatory immigration laws, and more. Cole draws on his own experiences as a Black man in Canada, and locates the deep cultural, historical, and political roots of each event. What emerges is a personal, painful, and comprehensive picture of entrenched, systemic inequality. Updated with a new foreword, postscript, and an extensive educator's guide, The Skin We're In is essential reading for all Canadians, and a vital tool in the fight against racism.

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.