The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent

Politics and Policies for a Modern Canada

Edited by Patrice Dutil
Categories: Political Science, Regional & Cultural Studies, Canadian Studies, International Relations
Series: The C.D. Howe Series in Canadian Political History
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774864022, 540 pages, November 2020
Paperback : 9780774864039, 540 pages, July 2021
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774864046, 540 pages, November 2020
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774864053, 540 pages, November 2020
Ebook (MobiPocket) : 9780774864060, 530 pages, November 2020

Table of contents

Foreword / Robert Bothwell and John English

Introduction: Louis St-Laurent’s Leadership in History / Patrice Dutil

Part 1: Style

1 St-Laurent in Government: Realism and Idealism in Action / Patrice Dutil

2 Grandpapa: A Portrait of the Man and His Family / Jean Thérèse Riley

3 The Predominant Prime Minister: St-Laurent and His Cabinet / Stephen Azzi

4 Uncle Lou, Both Old and New: The Marketing of St-Laurent / Paul Litt

5 St-Laurent and the Age of Bureaucracy / Robert Bothwell

Part 2: Structure

6 Thinking Confederation: St-Laurent and the Rowell-Sirois Commission / Robert Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson

7 The Liminality of St-Laurent’s Intergovernmental Relations Strategy / P.E. Bryden

8 St-Laurent: The Last Father of Confederation? / David MacKenzie

9 Defence, Development, and Inuit: St-Laurent’s Modern Approach to the North / P. Whitney Lackenbauer

10 "But There Is Another Source of Liberty and Vitality in Our Country": St-Laurent and Regional Development / Michel S. Beaulieu

11 St-Laurent and Modern Provincial Equality / Mary Janigan

12 St-Laurent and the Modernization of the State / Luc Juillet and Luc Bernier

13 The Cautious Liberal: St-Laurent and National Hospitalization / Gregory P. Marchildon

Part 3: Substance

14 St-Laurent, Quebec, and the French Fact: Belonging and Ambivalence / Xavier Gélinas

15 The Politics of St-Laurent on the Crown, Rituals, and Symbols / Christopher McCreery

16 St-Laurent, Judging, Justice, and the Death Penalty in the Shadow of the Cold War / Philip Girard

17 In Search of the St-Laurent Voting Coalition / Patrice Dutil

18 Winning Words: Party Platforms in the 1949, 1953, and 1957 Elections / Patrice Dutil and Peter M. Ryan

19 "The Greatest Period ... Canada Has Had": Immigration and the St-Laurent Years / Abril Liberatori

20 The Slow Evolution of Indian Policy during the St-Laurent Years / J.R. Miller

21 St-Laurent’s Gray Lecture and Canadian Citizenship in History / Adam Chapnick

22 A Voyage of Discovery: St-Laurent’s World Tour of 1954 / Greg Donaghy

Postscript: Eastern Township Thinking / The Honourable Jean Charest

Contributors; Index

Description

Much of Canada’s modern identity emerged from the innovative social policies and ambitious foreign policy of Louis St-Laurent’s Liberal government. His extraordinarily creative administration made decisions that still resonate today: on health care, pensions, and housing; on infrastructure and intergovernmental issues; and, further afield, in developing Canada’s global middle-power role in global affairs and resolving the Suez Crisis. Yet St-Laurent remains an enigmatic figure. The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent fills a great void in Canadian political history, bringing together well-established and new scholars to investigate the far-reaching influence of a politician whose astute policies and bold resolve moved Canada into the modern era.

Reviews

The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent span[s] a wide range of issues surrounding St-Laurent’s time as prime minister, making clear his importance as well as that of this oft overlooked period.

- Asa McKercher, Royal Military College of Canada

With this superbly-executed, comprehensive book, [St-Laurent] now gets the tribute he would not have asked for — but nonetheless deserves.

- Anthony Wilson-Smith, president & CEO of Historica Canada

The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent is a fine volume, one of the few recent edited collections held together by more than the binding.

 

- J.L. Granatstein