Imperfect Pasts, Conflicting Presents, Sustainable Futures – Recent Canadian Environmental Scholarship

Friesen, Gerald. The Canadia11 Prairies: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. Haydon, A.L. The Riders ofthe Plai11s: A Record ofthe Royal North-West Mou11ted Police of Canada, 1873-1910. London: Melrose, 1910. MacBeth, R.G. Policing the Plains: Being the Real-life Record ofthe Famous RoyalNorthWest Mou111ed Police. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1921. Macleod, R.C. "Canadianizing the West: The North-West Mounted Police as Agents of the National Policy, 1873-1905." The Prairie West: Historical Readings. Eds. R. Douglas Francis and Howard Palmer,eds. Edmonton: Pica Pica Press, 1992. Miller, J.R. "Farewell to 'Monks, Eunuchs, and Vestal Vtrgins': Recent Western Canadian Historical Writing." Journal of Canadian St11dies 20.3 (1985): 157-66. Moffat, Aileen. "Great Women, Separate Spheres, and Diversity: Comments on Saskatchewan Women's Historiography." "Other" Voices: Historical Essays 011 Saskatchewan Women. Eds. Dave De Brou and Aileen Moffatt. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1995. 10-26. Morton, W.L. The Progressive Party in Canada. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1950. Newman, Peter C. Company of Adventurers. Toronto: Viking, 1985. Siggins, Maggie. Riel: A Life of Revolution. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1994. Stanley, George F.G. The Birth of Western Canada: A History of the Riel Rebellions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960 (originally published in 1936). 172 STEVE HEWITT U11iversity ofSaskatchewan Impeifect Pasts, Conflicting Presents, Sustainable Futures - Recent Canadian Environmental Scholarship THE GREENING OF CANADA: FEDERAL INSTITUTIONS AND DECISIONS. G. Bruce Doem and Thomas Conway. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. PASSING THE BUCK: FEDERALISM AND CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. Kathryn Harrison. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996. FISHERIES AND UNCERTAINTY: A PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH TO RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. Daniel V. Gordon and Gordon R. Munro, eds. Calgary: University ofCalgary Press, 1996. ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . Ann Dale and John B. Robinson, eds. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996. LIFE IN 2030: EXPLORING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR CANADA. John B. Robinson, David Biggs, George Francis, Russel Legge, Sally Lerner, D. Scott Slocombe, and Caroline Van Bers. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996. Viewed on a day in late June 1997, Metropolitan Toronto stretches north and is lost in a yellow haze - an import, in part, from Ohio mills and power plants. News reports that day told not only of smog, but of a UV alert, and of the failure of the Earth Summit, 1997 edition, that week in New York. Less than a month before, the environment had played only a bit part in the federal election campaign, appearing as menace, in the form of a swollen Red River. Such weighty matters as national unity and jobs evidently could be discussed as ifthey related not at all to a landscape that has shaped our national story, and that remains a foundation of both production (forests, Revue d'etudes canadiennes fish, food) and consumption (especially tourism). Perhaps we really can take air, water and land for granted, at least until prodded from the south - by floodwaters, dirty winds or news of a failed conference. But this apparent dependence on environmental imperatives from elsewhere is not entirely accurate. During the last 25 years a distinctive Canadian environmental politics has emerged, played out through diverse environmental instirutions and perspectives, and reacting with our profligate use of resources, and with changes in the global environment. This emergence has been chronicled by a substantial academic 1.iterarure , providing interpretations of the recent history of Canadian environmental politics, explorations ofcontemporaryenvironmental issuesand conflictsand projections ofpotential sustainable furores for Canada. Imperfect Pasts Most of the instirutions of contemporary Canadian environmental politics came into existence in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Environment Canada led the way: cobbled together from both existing and new federal units, it owed its existence to an expanded sense of government responsibilities, the ambitions offederal bureaucrats and politicians , and pressure from environmentalists and an alarmed public. G. Bruce Doern and Thomas Conway provide in The Greening of Canada: Federal Institutions and Decisions a highly useful account of this complex entity, from its origins in the late 1960s to the implementation of the Green Plan of the early 1990s, and the Earth Summit in 1992. Drawing on an array of published and unpublished government documents, as well as interviews with many of those involved in the events described, Doem and Conway...