"Ajzenstat's body of work has shown the absolute necessity of returning to, and taking seriously, the words and deeds of the central figures of the founding period. Unless one does this, one cannot write responsibly about their thought and achievements. And when one does take them seriously, as Ajzenstat has done, the results are often surprising." Rainer Knopff, political science, University of Calgary "This convincing study of the Canadian founding advances understanding of the influence of Locke while restoring understanding of the Canadian rights tradition." Filippo Sabetti, political science, McGill University
Product Description
Convinced that rights are inalienable and that legitimate government requires the consent of the governed, the Fathers of Confederation - whether liberal or conservative - looked to the European enlightenment and John Locke. Janet Ajzenstat analyzes the legislative debates in the colonial parliaments and the Constitution Act (1867) in a provocative reinterpretation of Canadian political history from 1864 to 1873. Ajzenstat contends that the debt to Locke is most evident in the debates on the making of Canada's Parliament: though the anti-confederates maintained that the existing provincial parliaments offered superior protection for individual rights, the confederates insisted that the union's general legislature, the Parliament of Canada, would prove equal to the task and that the promise of "life and liberty" would bring the scattered populations of British North America together as a free nation.
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