Download or read book The Canadian Department of Justice and the Completion of Confederation 1867 78 written by Jonathan Swainger and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The federal Department of Justice was established by John A. Macdonald as part of the Conservative party's program for reform of the parliamentary system following Confederation. Among other things, it was charged with establishing national institutions such as the Supreme Court and the North West Mounted Police and with centralizing the penitentiary system. In the process, the department took on a position of primary importance in post-Confederation politics. This was particularly so up to 1878, when Confederation was "completed." Jonathan Swainger considers the growth and development of the ostensibly apolitical Department of Justice in the eleven years after the union of 1867. Drawing on legal records and other archival documents, he details the complex interactions between law and politics, exploring how expectations both inside and outside the legal system created an environment in which the department acted as an advisor to the government. He concludes by considering the post-1878 legacy of the department's approach to governance, wherein any problem, legal or otherwise, was made amenable to politicized solutions. Unfortunately for the department and the federal government, this left them ill-prepared for the constitutional battles to come. One crucial task was to establish responsibilities within the federal government, rather than just duplicate offices which had existed prior to union. Others were the establishment of national or quasi- national institutions such as the Supreme Court (1875) and the North-West Mounted Police (1873), the redrafting of the Governor-General's instructions (which was done between 1875 and 1877), and centralization of the penitentiary system (completed by 1875). The Department benefited from a deeply rooted expectation that law was both apolitical and necessary. This ideology functioned in a variety of ways: it gave the Department considerable latitude for setting policy and solving problems, but rationalized the appearance of politicized legal decisions. It also legitimized Department officials' claim that it was especially suited to review all legislation, advise on the royal prerogative of mercy, administer national penitentiaries, and appoint judges to the bench. Ultimately, the fictional notion of law as apolitical and necessary placed the Department of Justice squarely in the midst of the completion of Confederation. The Canadian Department of Justice and the Completion of Confederation will be of particular interest to students and scholars of Canadian legal and political history.

Download or read book The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History written by Carolyn Strange and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Confederation to the partial abolition of the death penalty a century later, defendants convicted of sexually motivated killings and sexually violent homicides in Canada were more likely than any other condemned criminals to be executed for their crimes. Despite the emergence of psychiatric expertise in criminal trials, moral disgust and anger proved more potent in courtrooms, the public mind, and the hearts of the bureaucrats and politicians responsible for determining the outcome of capital cases. Wherever death has been set as the ultimate criminal penalty, the poor, minority groups, and stigmatized peoples have been more likely to be accused, convicted, and executed. Although the vast majority of convicted sex killers were white, Canada’s racist notions of "the Indian mind" meant that Indigenous defendants faced the presumption of guilt. Black defendants were also subjected to discriminatory treatment, including near lynchings. In debates about capital punishment, abolitionists expressed concern that prejudices and poverty created the prospect of wrongful convictions. Unique in the ways it reveals the emotional drivers of capital punishment in delivering inequitable outcomes, The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History provides a thorough overview of sex murder and the death penalty in Canada. It serves as an essential history and a richly documented cautionary tale for the present.

Download or read book Prime Ministerial Power in Canada written by Patrice Dutil and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2017-05-26 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Canadians lament that prime ministerial power has become too concentrated since the 1970s. This book contradicts this view by demonstrating how prime ministerial power was centralized from the very beginning of Confederation and that the first three important prime ministers – Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden – channelled that centralizing impulse to adapt to the circumstances they faced. Using a variety of innovative approaches, Patrice Dutil focuses on the managerial philosophies of each of the prime ministers. He shows that by securing a firm grip on the instruments of governance these early first ministers inevitably shaped the administrations they headed, as well as those that followed.

Download or read book Westward Bound written by Lesley Erickson and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Westward Bound debunks the myth of Canada’s peaceful West and the masculine conceptions of law and violence upon which it rests by shifting the focus from Mounties and whisky traders to criminal cases involving women between 1886 and 1940. Erickson’s analysis of these cases shows that, rather than a desire to protect, official responses to the most intimate or violent acts betrayed an impulse to shore up the liberal order by maintaining boundaries between men and women, Native people and newcomers, and capital and labour. Victims and accused could only hope to harness entrenched ideas about masculinity, femininity, race, and class in their favour. This fascinating exploration of hegemony and resistance in key contact zones draws prairie Canada into larger debates about law, colonialism, and nation building.

Download or read book Hunger Horses and Government Men written by Shelley A.M. Gavigan and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2012-10-24 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars often accept without question that the Indian Act (1876) criminalized First Nations. In this illuminating book, Shelley Gavigan argues that the notion of criminalization captures neither the complexities of Aboriginal participation in the criminal courts nor the significance of the Indian Act as a form of law. Gavigan draws on court files, police and penitentiary records, and newspaper accounts and insights from critical criminology to interrogate state formation and criminal law in the Saskatchewan region of the North-West Territories between 1870 and 1905. By focusing on Aboriginal people’s participation in the courts rather than on narrow categories such as “the state” and “the accused,” Gavigan allows Aboriginal defendants, witnesses, and informants to emerge in vivid detail and tell the story in their own terms. Their experiences stand as evidence that the criminal law and the Indian Act operated in complex and contradictory ways that included both the mediation and the enforcement of relations of inequality.

Download or read book Canada s Governors General 1847 1878 written by Barbara Jane Messamore and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oft-ignored in the study of Canadian history or dismissed as a vestige of colonial status, the governor general's office provides essential historical insight into Canada's constitutional evolution. In the nineteenth century, as today, individual governors general exercised considerable scope in interpreting their approach to the office. The era 1847-1878 witnessed profound changes in Canada's relationship with Britain, and in this new book, Barbara J. Messamore explores the nature of these changes through an examination of the role of the governor general. Guided by outmoded instructions and constitutional conventions that were not yet firmly established, the governors general of the time - Lord Elgin, Sir Edmund Head, Lord Monck, Lord Lisgar, and Lord Dufferin - all wrestled with the implications of colonial self government. The imprecision of the viceregal role made the character of the appointee especially important and biographical details are thus essential to an understanding of how the new experiment of colonial self-government was put into practice. Messamore's book marries constitutional history and biography, providing illumination on some of the key figures of nineteenth-century Canadian politics.

Download or read book Law and Politics in British Colonial Thought written by S. Dorsett and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection that focuses on the role of European law in colonial contexts and engages with recent treatments of this theme in known works written largely from within the framework of postcolonial studies, which implicitly discuss colonial deployments of European law and politics via the concept of ideology.

Download or read book Ghost Dancing with Colonialism written by Grace Li Xiu Woo and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some assume that Canada earned a place among postcolonial states in 1982 when it took charge of its Constitution. Yet despite the formal recognition accorded to Aboriginal and treaty rights at that time, Indigenous peoples continue to argue that they are still being colonized. Grace Woo assesses this allegation using a binary model that distinguishes colonial from postcolonial legality. She argues that two legal paradigms governed the expansion of the British Empire, one based on popular consent, the other on conquest and the power to command. Ghost Dancing with Colonialism casts explanatory light on ongoing tensions between Canada and Indigenous peoples.

Download or read book Macdonald at 200 written by Patrice Dutil and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here are fifteen fresh interpretations of Canada's founding Prime Minister, published for the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth in 1815. Well researched and crisply written by recognized scholars and specialists, the collection throws new light on Macdonald's formative role in our nation.

Download or read book The John A Macdonald Retrospective 2 Book Bundle written by Ged Martin and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2014-10-29 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This special 2-book bundle contains a number of perspectives on a man who was arguably Canada’s most famous political leader, a figure of legendary proportions in the history of Canada’s birth and development. Ged Martin’s biography tells Macdonald’s story. Shocked by Canada’s 1837 rebellions, Macdonald sought to build alliances and avoid future conflicts. Thanks to financial worries and an alcohol problem, he almost quit politics in 1864. The challenge of building Confederation harnessed his skills, and in 1867 he became the country’s first prime minister. He drove the Dominion’s westward expansion, rapidly incorporating the Prairies and British Columbia before a railway contract scandal unseated him in 1873. He conquered his drinking problem and rebuilt the Conservative Party to regain power in 1878. The centrepiece of his protectionist National Policy was the transcontinental railway, but a western uprising in 1885 was followed by the controversial execution of rebel leader Louis Riel. Although dominant nationally, this popular hero had many flaws. Macdonald at 200 presents fifteen fresh interpretations of Canada’s founding prime minister, published for the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth in 1815. Crisply written by recognized scholars and specialists, the collection throws new light on Macdonald’s formative role in shaping government, promoting women’s rights, managing the nascent economy, supervising westward expansion, overseeing relations with Native peoples, and dealing with Fenian terrorism. A special section deals with how Macdonald has (or has not) been remembered by historians as well as the general public. The book concludes with an afterword by prominent Macdonald biographer Richard Gwyn. Macdonald emerges as a man of full dimensions — an historical figure that is surprisingly relevant to our own times. Includes John A. Macdonald Macdonald at 200

Download or read book Hard Time written by Ted McCoy and published by Athabasca University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The success and failure of prison reform and the corresponding social history of punishment in Canada.

Download or read book Laws and Societies in the Canadian Prairie West 1670 1940 written by Louis A. Knafla and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-11-01 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging myths about a peaceful west and prairie exceptionalism, the book explores the substance of prairie legal history and the degree to which the region's mentality is rooted in the historical experience of distinctive prairie peoples. The ways in which prairie peoples perceived themselves and their relationships to a wider world were directly framed by notions of law and legal remedy shaped by the course and themes of prairie history. Legal history is not just about black letter law. It is also deeply concerned with the ways in which people affect and are affected by the law in their daily lives. By examining how central and important the law has been to individuals, communities, and societies in the Canadian Prairies, this book makes an original contribution.

Download or read book Crime Gender and Sexuality in Criminal Prosecutions written by Louis A. Knafla and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-07-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knafla and his contributors explore the common problems and issues that emerge from the study of class and gender in criminal prosecutions, ranging from late medieval Europe to the early 20th century. The chapters demonstrate that conceptions of crime and criminal behavior are influenced decisively by the roles of class, gender, and later race as societies evolve in search of continuity and conformity. The seven chapters in this volume, together with a major book review essay and critical reviews of sixteen major works in the area, reinforce the series as a major forum for exploring new directions in criminal justice research as it relates to issues and problems of class, gender, and race in their historical, criminological, legal, and social aspects. The chapters explore common themes and issues that emerge from the study of class and gender through policing and criminal prosecutions in the local community to growing attempts of the new nation state to gain control of the prosecutorial system. Trevor Dean and Lee Beier examine prosecutorial energy in local communities of 15th and 16th century Europe, and see instruments of peace (agreement) and war (prosecution and conviction) as worthy institutions of social control. Andrea Knox studies the prosecution of Irish women, finding that they were prominent as perpetrators of crime as well as victims. Antony Simpson shows how sexual indiscretions developed the law of blackmail in the 18th century, influencing subtle changes in gender roles. David Englander's study of Henry Mayhew reinterprets the role of class in the criminal prosecutions of the 19th century, while Arvind Verma and Philippa Levine extend the roles of class and gender that had been developed in the criminal justice system into the imperial colonies of south-east and east Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. An important resource for scholars, students, and researchers involved with legal, political, social, and women's history, criminal justice studies, sociology and criminology, and criminal law.

Download or read book Fishing a Borderless Sea written by Brian J. Payne and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2010-02-16 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the centuries, processing and distribution of products from land and sea has stimulated the growth of a global economy. In the broad sweep of world history, it may be hard to imagine a place for the meager little herring baitfish. Yet, as Brian Payne adeptly recounts, the baitfish trade was hotly contested in the Anglo-American world throughout the nineteenth century. Politicians called for wars, navies were dispatched with guns at the ready, vessels were seized at sea, and violence erupted at sea. Yet, the battle over baitfish was not simply a diplomatic or political affair. Fishermen from hundreds of villages along the coastline of Atlantic Canada and New England played essential roles in the construction of legal authority that granted or denied access to these profitable bait fisheries. Fishing a Borderless Sea illustrates how everyday laborers created a complex system of environmental stewardship that enabled them to control the local resources while also allowing them access into the larger global economy.

Download or read book Strange Things Done written by Ken S. Coates and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2004-04-28 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Klondike lore is full of accounts of the exploits of Dangerous Dan McGrew, Sergeant Preston of the Mounted, and the Mad Trapper of Rat River. The stories vary from outright fabrications to northern fantasies and, on occasion, real-life accounts. Strange Things Done investigates a series of murders in the pre-World War II Yukon, exploring the boundaries between myths and historical events. The book seeks to understand both the specific events, carefully reconstructed from court evidence and police records, and the broader social and cultural context within which these violent deaths occurred. The murder case studies provide a unique and penetrating perspective on key aspects of Yukon history, such as Native-newcomer relations, mental illness and the folklore about cabin fever, the role of immigrants in northern society, violence in the gold fields, and the role of the police and courts in regulating social behaviour. The investigation of these capital cases also illustrates the fear and paranoia which gripped the territory in the aftermath of a murder, and the societys insistence on quick and retributive justice when offenders were caught and convicted. The Yukon experienced fewer murders than popular literature would suggest, and fewer than most would expect given the region's intense and dramatic history, but those that did occur illustrate the passions, frustrations, angers and human frailties that are present in all societies. The manner in which the murders occurred and the way in which Yukoners reacted also reveals specific and important aspects of territorial society.

Download or read book The Grand Experiment written by Hamar Foster and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume reflect the exciting new directions in which legal history in the settler colonies of the British Empire has developed. The contributors show how local life and culture in selected settlements influenced, and was influenced by, the ideology of the rule of law that accompanied the British colonial project. Exploring themes of legal translation, local understandings, judicial biography, and "law at the boundaries," they examine the legal cultures of dominions in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to provide a contextual and comparative account of the "incomplete implementation of the British constitution" in these colonies.

Download or read book A Consolidation of the Constitution Acts 1867 to 1982 written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: