1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910789627303321

Autore

Ajzenstat Janet <1936->

Titolo

The Canadian founding : John Locke and parliament / / Janet Ajzenstat

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Montreal : , : McGill-Queen's University Press, , 2007

©2007

ISBN

0-7735-8041-7

1-282-86640-0

9786612866401

0-7735-7593-6

Descrizione fisica

1 electronic text (xvi, 199 pages) : digital file

Collana

McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas ; ; 44

Disciplina

320.471

Soggetti

Representative government and representation - Canada - History

National characteristics, Canadian

Canada Politics and government

Canada History Confederation, 1867

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Making parliament -- Popular sovereignty in the confederation debates -- Human rights in 1867 -- Civic identity -- A political nationality -- Celebrating 1791 : two hundred years of representative government -- Canada's first constitution : Pierre Bedard on tolerance and dissent -- Modern mixed government : a liberal defence of inequality -- Collectivity and individual rights in "mainstream liberalism" : John Arthur Roebuck and the patriotes -- Parliament and today's discontent.

Sommario/riassunto

Convinced that rights are inalienable and that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed, the Fathers of Confederation - whether liberal or conservative - looked to the European enlightenment and John Locke. Janet Ajzenstat analyzes the legislative debates in the colonial parliaments and the Constitution Act (1867) in a provocative reinterpretation of Canadian political history from 1864 to 1873. Ajzenstat contends that the debt to Locke is most evident in the debates on the making of Canada's Parliament: though the anti-confederates maintained that the existing provincial parliaments



offered superior protection for individual rights, the confederates insisted that the union's general legislature, the Parliament of Canada, would prove equal to the task and that the promise of "life and liberty" would bring the scattered populations of British North America together as a free nation.