1968 in Canada: A Year and Its Legacies

by Michael K. Hawes (Editor), Andrew C. Holman (Editor), Christopher Kirkey (Editor)

Overview

The year 1968 in Canada was an extraordinary one, unlike any other in its frenetic pace of activities and their consequences for the development of a new national consciousness among Canadians. 

It was a year when decisions and actions, both in Canada and outside its borders, were thick and contentious, and whose effects were momentous and far-reaching. It saw the rise of Trudeaumania and the birth of the Parti Québécois; the articulation of the new nationalism in English Canada and an alternative vision for Indigenous rights and governance; a series of public hearings in the Royal Commission on the Status of Women; the establishment of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, nation-wide Medicare and CanLit; and a striving for both a new relationship with the United States and a more independent foreign policy everywhere else. And more. Virtually no segment of Canadian life was untouched by both the turmoil and the promise of generational change.

Published in English with chapters in French.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780776637075
Publisher:	University of Ottawa Press
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Series:	Mercury Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Michael Hawes est PDG à Fulbright Canada et professeur d’études politiques à l’Université Queen’s. Il a été professeur invité à Berkeley UC, à l’Université Tsukuba, à IUJ, USC et à UBC.
Andrew C. Holman est professeur d’histoire et directeur du Programme d’études canadiennes à l’Université Bridgewater States dans le Massachusetts.
Christopher Kirkey est le directeur du Centre d’études canadiennes et de l’Institut des études québécoises à la State University of New York à Plattsburg.

Michael K. Hawes is CEO at Fulbright Canada and professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University. He has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, Tsukuba University, IUJ, USC and UBC. 

Andrew C. Holman is a professor of history and the director of the Canadian Studies Program at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. 

Christopher Kirkey is Director of the Center for the Study of Canada and the Institute on Quebec Studies at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh. 

Read an Excerpt

“To keen observers watching global events unfold, the world seemed to be on fire, and Canada was dangerously close to the conflagration. Few were more prescient than Nanaimo’s Wilma Sharpe, who saw in January 1968 that a great test of character lay ahead. By June, the Lethbridge Herald editor worried that the massive malaise spreading around the globe would infect Canada. By December, in his Christmas message to the nation, Prime Minister Trudeau was certain that it had.”

Table of Contents

Abstract

Résumé

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Dean F. Oliver.

Introduction

Michael K. Hawes, Andrew C. Holman, and Christopher Kirkey

Chapter 1

Bobby and Pierre

Paul Litt

Chapter 2

A Very Canadian Revolution: The Transformation of Backroom Power in Canada’s 1968

P. E. Bryden

Chapitre 3

1968, vue du Québec

Jocelyn Létourneau

Chapter 4

The Nationalists of 1968 and the Search for Canadian Independence

Stephen Azzi

Chapter 5

Equality, Equity, and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women

Jane Arscott

Chapter 6

The 1968 Thinkers’ Conference and the Birth of Canadian Multiculturalism

Michael Temelini

Chapter 7

Defending Indigenous Rights against the Just Society

Andrew Gemmell

Chapter 8

Between Canadians and Culture: The First Year of the CRTC

Ira Wagman

Chapter 9

Portrait of a Publisher: Jack McClelland and McClelland&Stewart in 1968

Laura K. Davis

Chapter 10

Immigration and “Medical Manpower”: 1968 and the Awkward Introduction of Medicare in Canada

David Wright and Sasha Mullally

Chapter 11

1968: A Turning Point for Language in Canada and Quebec

Graham Fraser

Chapter 12

Standing on Guard for Our Waters: Ottawa’s Response to the Transit of Alaskan Oil

Christopher Kirkey

Chapitre 13

L’Union nationale à la croisée des chemins

Alexandre Turgeon

Chapter 14

Canada and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968

Andrea Chandler

 

Chapter 15

The Libreville Conference and Federalism in Canadian Foreign Relations

Robin S. Gendron and David Edward Tabachnick

Chapter 16

“Flowers have been getting a lot of publicity this year”: 1968 and David Helwig’s “Something for Olivia’s Scrapbook

I Guess”

Will Smith

Contributors

Index in English (Index en anglais)

Index en français (Index in French)

Editorial Reviews

Cultural change happens slowly, and typically displays an S-curve pattern from first emergence, through accelerating growth, until it reaches a tipping-point and becomes dominant. Institutional change, on the other hand, can occur very abruptly. Organisations are established or dissolved; legislation is renewed; and new persons take up public office.

1968 in Canada examines how that year’s sometimes dramatic events – especially personified in the new prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau – can best be understood, both as climacteric tipping points in larger, slower processes of cultural change, and in their wider historical and geopolitical contexts.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/868557 - Keith Battarbee

A marvelously rich collection of essays on the Canadian experience of 1968 and a significant contribution to our understanding of that eventful year. Here, a talented group of scholars explore the internal and external forces that shaped Canada in 1968 and bequeathed legacies that have continued to influence Canada.

3 March 2021

It is a book that will spark discussion; it is ideally suited to the classroom. Students will grasp the relevance of the topics and enjoy the vibrant cross-current of ideas. Overall, this is a book that makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of today’s Canada.
(To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2024.2359145)

Jennifer Andersonn Review of Canadian Studies