Theorising the anti-nation: George Woodcock,anarchism, and Canadian nationalism

George Woodcock was anarchism's most influential historian and an important public intellectual in Canada. This article focuses on his engagement with Canadian nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that a ‘philosophical anarchism’ was at the heart of his intellectual project, and this informed his reading of Canadian cultural development and subsequent political challenge to Pierre Elliott Trudeau's civic nationalism. Woodcock decoupled the concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in order to develop a radically different model for Canada—the ‘anti-nation’—defined by regionalism, federalism and direct democracy. His reading of Canada's cultural history supporting this position was therefore part of a strategy to repurpose nationalist rhetoric towards anti-state ends.     

Ambitious deep energy retrofits of buildings to accelerate the 1.5°C energy transition in Canada

Scientists advise limiting global warming to 1.5°C with substantial actions by 2030. Our viewpoint argues that climate response strategies in Canada have underemphasized and underestimated the potential contribution deep energy retrofits can make to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, leading to inadequate responses in the building sector, and that Canada can (and should) be ambitious with building retrofits over the next decade. GHG savings from building retrofits can be realized more quickly than GHG reductions from other sectors, and either deliver net cost savings or are cost‐effective when compared to other mitigation measures. Retrofits can also provide social and economic benefits, such as improved health and comfort, and lower energy costs. This paper reviews energy use and building retrofits in Canada and argues the following should be implemented: (1) focus innovation on deep energy retrofit processes, not singular retrofit actions; (2) maximize both social and environmental benefits; (3) improve data gathering and availability for analysis and delivery; (4) innovate for a process of decisions and to avoid “dropouts” during the retrofit process; and (5) focus innovation on business models that maximize benefits.     

Scaling just transitions: Legitimation strategies in coal phase-out commissions in Canada and Germany

Climate change mitigation triggers both spatial and moral complexities, as demonstrated by the contentious issue of phasing out coal power. The success of the Paris Agreement depends on, among other things, the acceptability of climate policy measures and thus, from a moral perspective, on the ability to organize transition processes in ways that do not damage the livelihoods of workers, communities, and entire regions. Spatially, the unequal distributions of burdens and advantages of both climate change and respective mitigation measures provoke struggles over their legitimacy in contexts ranging from local to global. Phasing out coal mining and the respective power generation capacity thus triggers processes of structural transformation that cut across geographic scales, vertical levels of policy and politics, as well as sectoral boundaries.In light of the urgency of the climate crisis, countries such as Canada and Germany have established stakeholder-driven commissions to develop proposals for just transition pathways for phasing out coal production and consumption. We argue that these commissions are arenas in which spatial, moral, and sectoral (re-)negotiations materialize. Comparing the Canadian and German stakeholder commissions through expert interviews with their members, the article traces how governments use commissions to legitimize their transition policies. Expectations at different levels and from different actors in turn place commission members under pressure to justify their involvement and the outputs of the commissions. We find that the Canadian task force showed greater commitment to collecting and reflecting the needs of communities in its coal regions, and to communicating these to the federal government. In the German coal commission, legitimation strategies focused mainly on a broad representation of interests, and on government spending for affected regions, workers, and industries. In that case, a compromise was reached that satisfied most, but not all, of the diverse requirements.     

A tale of two trails: Lessons from a comparative account of the Trans Canada Trail and the Sendero de Chile

A new generation of greenways has emerged in recent years, the most ambitious of which are nationwide, interconnected networks of multi-use, multi-purpose greenways and trails, clustered under a single national vision. However, because these initiatives have been the focus of so few research studies, opportunities to glean lessons from their planning and implementation have been limited. This paper contributes to addressing this knowledge gap by presenting a comparative account of two networks, the Trans Canada Trail in Canada and Sendero de Chile in Chile. Using document analysis and interviews with officials closely involved in their development, the evolution of both networks is documented over time, emphasizing similarities and differences related to their planning and implementation. Both initiatives have faced significant challenges in reaching their connection goals and have availed themselves of a diverse range of opportunities and strategies to advance their agendas. A simple model of a virtuous cycle is proposed to highlight the positive feedback—between political and public support, sustained funding, partnership development, accessibility for urban residents, and connectivity of the network—generated by sustained network expansion over time. It is hoped that the insights offered from this analysis may offer guidance to inform the development of similar scale projects elsewhere.     

Current archaeological research in the Middle Atlantic region of the eastern united states

A major theme of current archaeological research in the Middle Atlantic region of Eastern North America is the recognition of cultural variability across space and through time. The most significant culture change experienced during the entire time frame of regional prehistory occurred ca. 5000 B.P., when there were major changes in regional environments. Before 5000 B.P., adaptations were characterized by small groups of mobile hunters and gatherers. After 5000 B.P., there were continued growth in regional populations and increases in sedentism, intensive use of a limited range of food resources, social group size, and social complexity.     

TEMPORAL and SPATIAL VARIABILITY OF CANADIAN INVENTIVE COMPANIES and THEIR INVENTIONS: AN ISSUE OF OWNERSHIP

Inventing is an important prerequisite for industrial economies to remain technologically competitive. Yet it is not well known how inventive companies of domestic or foreign ownership can affect a nation's technological base and, ultimately, its spatial-economic system. The present study examines this relationship in Canada by investigating the performance of its indigenous and foreign-owned inventive companies at the national, subnational, and urban levels. The results indicate that: (1) Canada's indigenous inventive companies are distinct from their foreign-owned counterparts in that they are generally smaller, are more apt to have teams of inventors, are more likely to develop product inventions, have come to manage a greater share of this nation's inventions, and are increasing their role in key Canadian industries; and (2) geographically, Canada's two largest cities and its core region were adversely affected by the declining inventiveness of American-controlled companies during the 1980s. L'esprit ?invention est une nécessité pour que les économies industrielles restent en conditions de concurrence technologique. Cependant, on connaît très peu de la manière que les entreprises inventives de propriété domestique ou étrangère affectent la base technologique ?un pays et, enfin, affectent son système spatio-écono-mique. La présente étude considère ces rapports au Canada au niveau national, sous-national et local, en exminant les performances des entreprises inventives indigènes et étrangères. Les résultats indiquent (1) qu'au Canada les entreprises indigènes et inventives diffèrent de leurs analogues étrangers: en général elles sont plus petites, ont plus tendance à consister en équipes ?inven-teurs, sont plus susceptibles de développer les inventions produites, produisent une plus grande part des inventions canadiennes, et sont en train ?augmenter leur rôle dans les industries canadiennes; et (2) que le déclin de ?esprit ?invention dans les entreprises dirigées par les américains a affecté défavorablement les deux villes les plus grandes au Canada, ainsi que la partie centrale du pays, pendant les années 1980. Mots-clés: invention, Canada, propriétéétrangère, technologie, produit     

In Search of Competitive Efficiency: Labour Process Flexibility in Canadian Newsprint Mills

This paper focuses on the strategies for production and work reorganization pursued in the Canadian newsprint industry during the 1990s. Many newsprint mill managers view new pulping technologies and increased labour process flexibility as the important keys to success in their never-ending quest to remain competitive in the U.S. market. These strategies are discussed in the context of two underlying themes: the nature of the particular competitive pressures faced by Canadian newsprint producers in the early 1990s and the specific nature of the labour process in newsprint mills. Evidence points to the central importance of achieving functional labour flexibility in newsprint mills and to the fact that numerical labour flexibility is not a viable strategy, given the continuous-process nature of the industry.
The Economics of Production, Technological Change, and Cost Competitiveness in the Newsprint Industry
Work Practices and Labour Conventions in the Newsprint Industry
Flexibility and the Quest for Competitive Efficiency in Canadian Newsprint Mills     

Norse Animal Husbandry in Liminal Environments: Stable Isotope Evidence from the Scottish North Atlantic Islands

ABSTRACT

This paper employs δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N analysis of bone collagen to explore animal management at large Norse settlement sites in the liminal environments of the Scottish North Atlantic Islands. The Norse period was a time of social, cultural and economic change; the need to feed an expanding population and the demand for trade meant that domestic stock were a crucial resource. Our results indicate that rearing animals in these challenging insular environments required careful management. At all sites, the diet and movement of domestic cattle and sheep were highly similar and carefully controlled and, despite many of the analysed settlements lying close to the coast, there was no use of shorefront grazing or fodder resources. In contrast, pig rearing strategies varied across the island groups. In the Western Isles pig diets were diverse, indicative of household or ad hoc management, whilst on Orkney all pigs consumed a more restricted diet based primarily on terrestrial protein. A comparison of red deer with domestic stock on the Western Isles indicates that both groups were exploiting similar grazing niches.     

Canada’s Israel Policy under Justin Trudeau: Rejecting or Reinforcing the Legacy of Stephen Harper?

Scholars of Canadian politics have noted that the Prime Minister plays a dominant role in shaping domestic and foreign policy. This article examines the role of the Prime Minister in shaping Canadian foreign policy toward Israel since 1993 and shows the central role that the Prime Minister has played on this issue. It specifically argues that Stephen Harper produced a noticeable pro-Israel shift in Canada’s policy and moved Canada away from the multilateralist approach pursued by Jean Chrétien and, to a lesser extent, Paul Martin. But this article also argues that Justin Trudeau has so far embraced a policy that largely reinforces the approach of Harper rather than rejecting it. Thus, one practical implication of the dominant role of the Prime Minister in shaping Canada’s policy toward Israel is that Canada has become more one-sided in its support of Israel in the past two decades.     

Do Minorities Trust Less? Understanding Differences in Social Trust among Canada’s Major Ethno-Racial Groups

Using data from Canada’s General Social Survey, this article assesses ethno-racial differences in social trust. Bivariate findings reveal that the three most culturally distinctive minorities—visible minorities, the French, and Indigenous Peoples—exhibit the lowest trust of all groups. Multivariate analyses show that controls for “ethno-cultural markers” (religion, language, immigration status), socioeconomic influences (education, income), and social engagement indicators (voluntary association activity, ethnic diversity of friendships) explain the lower trust between the French and, less so, among visible minorities. Socioeconomic factors partly account for lower trust among Indigenous Peoples, but they still express comparatively low social trust even with controls. The article discusses how interpretations focusing on “social distance” and “social boundaries” processes help in understanding social trust differences across Canada’s major ethno-racial communities.