Spring/Summer 2005 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

POLITICAL SCIENCE / ECONOMICSContinentalizing CanadaThe Politics and Legacy of the Macdonald Royal CommissionGregory J. InwoodSTUDIES IN COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMY AND PUBLIC POLICYFree trade has been a highly contentious issue sincethe Conservative government of Brian Mulroneynegotiated the first deal with the United States inthe 1980s. Tracing the roots of Canada’s contemporaryinvolvement in North American free tradeback to the Royal Commission on the EconomicUnion and Development Prospects for Canada in1985 – also known as the Macdonald Commission– Gregory J. Inwood offers a critical examination ofthe commission and how its findings affectedCanada’s political and economic landscape, as wellas its present-day reverberations.Using original research – including contentanalysis, interviews, archival information, and surveysof relevant literature – Inwood argues that theMacdonald Commission created an atmosphereand political discourse that made the continentalizationof Canada possible by way of free tradeagreements with the U.S. and Mexico. Throughthe use of a suspect research program, and withthe aid of a select oligarchy within theCommission and the government bureaucracy,opposition to continentalism from both themajority of the Canadian population and evenseveral commissioners was ignored. Accessible toreaders interested in Canadian politics, policy, oreconomy, Continentalizing Canada offers a thoroughexamination into the MacdonaldCommission and the resulting discourse in theCanadian political economy.Gregory J. Inwood is an associate professor in theDepartment of Politics and the School of PublicAdministration at Ryerson University.Approx. 480 pp / 6 x 9 / February 200513 tablesCloth ISBN 0-8020-8729-9 £48.00 $75.00 E44