Janet Ajzenstat - Discovering Confederation: A Canadians Story

JANE ERRINGTON, Editor

The life stories of individual women and men who were participants in interesting events help nuance larger historical narratives, at times reinforcing those narratives, at other times contradicting them. The Footprints series introduces extraordinary Canadians, past and present, who have led fascinating and important lives at home and throughout the world.

The series includes primarily original manuscripts but may consider the English-language translation of works that have already appeared in another language. The editor of the series welcomes inquiries from authors. If you are in the process of completing a manuscript that you think might fit into the series, please contact her, care of McGill-Queens University Press, 1010 Sherbrooke Street West, Suite 1720, Montreal, QC H3A 2R7.

And what do you do? The question is the usual polite one at a social gathering. How should I respond? I write books on the history of Canadian constitutional law. As a conversation opener the admission is a non-starter. The response is usually, how interesting, followed by a change of subject.

Constitutional law is boring; that is received opinion in this country. The history of constitutional law is even less attractive. An argument for abolishing the Senate may receive attention; an argument for revising the electoral system is tolerable. But the history of law?

Are you talking about the British North America Act? My interlocutor is doing her best. But it is a struggle. When it becomes evident that I am proposing a discussion of the Canadian constitutions strengths, she suggests a trip to the wine bar.

Discovering Confederation is an intellectual autobiography. It tells the story of a woman who stumbled into the field of law. She was originally enamoured of the progressive politics of the 1960s and hoped to establish a career as a radical activist; in those days she believed that the good in politics can be determined once and for all and should be resolutely grasped and promulgated. In the 1960s she entered the political science program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, completing her undergraduate and Master of Arts In 1979, she returned to McMaster as a part-time night-time instructor in Canadian politics and, after some years, won a tenure-track appointment. At the core of this book lies her discovery of the argument for parliamentary democracy in the debates on Confederation in the British North American parliaments and her dawning appreciation of parliamentary democracy as sufficient security for political freedom and individual rights.

The book concludes with a sketch of todays mature woman, todays aging woman, a retired professor of political science. She is sometimes referred to as a conservative but should by rights be regarded as a defender of the political constitution that ensures unconstrained and continuing deliberation among parties, interests, and philosophies of all political stripes.

The author thanks Sam Ajzenstat, Sandor Ajzenstat, George Breckenridge, and Louis Greenspan for editorial assistance and commentary.

DISCOVERING CONFEDERATION