The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics (review)

Oxford handbooks are among the most prestigious reference sources available for scholars, students, and the general public. They usually offer articles by leading scholars that discuss the latest research and provide an informed analysis of major topics on the subject. Canadian history is still awaiting its Oxford handbook, but two Oxford companions of Canadian history have provided encyclopedia-style guides to the subject. In 2006 The Oxford Companion to Canadian History, edited by Gerald Hallowell, was published, followed in 2010 by The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History by J.L. Granatstein and Dean F. Oliver. Canadian historians can find a wealth of information in the entries included in both companions, but they will also welcome the publication of The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics edited by John C. Courtney and David E. Smith, two of Canada’s leading political scientists, recently retired from the University of Saskatchewan. Gregory Marchildon is the sole historian included in the majestic collection, however.

Unlike the two companions on Canadian history, Courtney and Smith’s Handbook brings together many of Canada’s leading scholars in political science to offer a portrait of Canada, its institutions, and its politics. The articles, all written in 2007 and 2008, explore the latest research and thinking about twenty-eight major topics in Canadian politics. The editors have divided the Handbook into seven sections that explore constitutional developments, federalism, institutions, the political process, society, and foreign policy. A final section discusses what the editors consider to be the major policy issues facing Canada today and include such topics as health care, social welfare, the environment, science and technology, and democratic reform. Each journal-length essay follows a similar format: overview, historical development, current policy and debates, and a glimpse of the future. Marchildon’s contribution on health care, which the editors remind us Canadians say is the most important service governments now provide, is an excellent example of how the Handbook approaches each topic. Marchildon provides a brief history of medicare, reviews how today’s health care is organized, considers the role of federal and provincial governments in the funding and delivery of medicare, assesses the sustainability of health care as it exists, and concludes with a discussion of the ongoing debate about the public and private delivery models of health care in Canada. As with each chapter, Marchildon includes a useful and up-to-date bibliography.

While each chapter can stand alone as an introduction to the important aspects of Canadian politics, the editors are interested in showing how Canada has been transformed since the end of the Second World War. Other nations have also changed in the period since 1945, but Courtney and Smith claim that what sets Canada apart is the ‘belief that Canada is not a natural country’ (4) given its extremes of climate, its sparse population, its immense size, and its living next door to a superpower. Canada, a small country in every measure except size, continues to feel ‘vulnerable,’ they contend. One defining characteristic of Canada remains its regionalism but, curiously, the editors did not think that the subject warranted its own chapter (although Smith discusses it briefly in his contribution on federalism). Yet fragmentation – an important theme in Canadian political science – is a major theme running through the Handbook and discussed in many chapters, including those on Quebec, Aboriginal peoples, and the political processes. Moreover, as the editors note, ‘modern Canada could be said to have too many histories’ to write a single master narrative (5). And this might be the Handbook’s major contribution: to bring together a series of well-written essays to show that for Canada and its politics, there is no simple portrait that can be painted. Canada is a complex state, constantly changing and evolving as it struggles to work out new accommodations to new dilemmas and challenges as they arise.

What is clear from The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics is that academics and scholars have a difficult time...