The region is back in town. Galloping urbanization has pushed beyond historical notions of metropolitanism. City-regions have experienced, in Edward Soja’s terms, “an epochal shift in the nature of the city and the urbanization process, marking the beginning of the end of the modern metropolis as we knew it.”

Governing Cities Through Regions b …

By the mid-1960s Toronto was well on its way to becoming Canada's largest and most powerful city. One real estate firm aptly labelled it Boomtown. Expressways, subways, shopping centres, high-rise apartments, and skyscraping downtown office towers were transforming the city. City officials were cheerleaders for unrestricted growth.

All this "progres …

Governments and social agencies tackle the toughest social problems their citizens face -- poverty, homelessness, mental and physical illness, violence, abuse, and more. Yet these problems persist in Canada -- in many cases, they are worsening -- and the costs of the social safety net continue to rise.

New approaches have been developed by innovator …

"May you live in interesting times." So goes the ancient Chinese curse. In Quebec, we are always living in "interesting" times. Where else in Canada, perhaps even the world, do you have official language police that patrol the highways and byways of the province looking for missing accents, illegal apostrophes and on/off switches in the wrong langu …

As middle-class incomes stagnate in advanced economies while the rich experience record income gains, the eleventh semi-annual Munk Debate pits wealth redistribution supporters Paul Krugman and George Papandreou against Newt Gingrich and Arthur Laffer to debate taxation — should the rich pay more?

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For some the answer is obvious: redistribute the …

Connecting Canadians represents the work of the Community Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking (CRACIN), the largest national and international research effort to examine the burgeoning field of community informatics, a cross-disciplinary approach to the mobilization of information and communications technologies (ICT) for comm …

On January 22, 2005, Inuit from communities throughout northern and central Labrador gathered in a school gymnasium to witness the signing of the Labrador Inuit Land Claim Agreement and to celebrate the long-awaited creation of their own regional self-government of Nunatsiavut. This historic agreement defined the Labrador Inuit settlement area, ben …

As stock markets gyrate, Europe lurches from crisis to crisis, and recovery in the United States slows, the future of the North American economy is more uncertain than ever. Can individual entrepreneurship, corporate innovation, and governments create a new era of sustained economic growth? Or, will the ongoing financial crisis, political dysfuncti …

Long-Term Solutions for a Short-Term World demonstrates the complexity of the challenges that poor countries face and introduces the readers to the concept and impact of participatory research for development. Participatory research requires researchers to work with communities, governments, and other relevant actors to deal with common problems. F …

From Civil Strife to Peace Building examines peace-building efforts in the fragile West African states of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire, with a focus on the role of the private sector in leading the reconstruction initiatives. Given that aid and debt relief, the traditional remedies for dependency and underdevelopment, have not been e …

“This book...avoids the political debates about Jean-Bertrand Aristide that dominate so many current writings about Haiti. Its focus is the society itself, the sources of difference, the origins of violence, and the possibility of change....The superb work done by the editors has established a high standard for future efforts.” (Terry Copp and …

The early twenty-first century has seen the beginning of a considerable shift in the global balance of power. Major international governance challenges can no longer be addressed without the ongoing co-operation of the large countries of the global South. Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, ASEAN states, and Mexico wield great influence in …

Canada and the Middle East: In Theory and Practice provides a unique perspective on one of the world’s most geopolitically important regions. From the perspective of Canada’s diplomats, academics, and former policy practitioners involved in the region, the book offers an overview of Canada’s relationship with the Middle East and the challenge …

In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a pe …

Iraq’s streets are unsafe, its people tormented, and its identity as a state challenged from within and without. For some, Iraq is synonymous with internal hatred, bloodshed, and sectarianism. The contributors to this book, however, know another Iraq: a country that was once full of hope and achievement and that boasted one of the most educated w …

The book focuses on the International Development Research Centre as a unique institution that has funded research in the developing South—research proposed and undertaken by Southern researchers—and how, as a result, it has had tremendous impact despite a relatively small budget. The IDRC is much better known in the developing South than in Ca …

Backpacks Full of Hope: The UN Mission in Haiti describes the experience of a Chilean general as Deputy Force Commander of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) during the particularly turbulent year September 2005 to September 2006. It details the realities of commanding more than 7,000 men from eleven countries while workin …

Two high-level commissions—the Sutherland report in 2004, and the Warwick Commission report in 2007—addressed the future of the World Trade Organization and made proposals for incremental reform. This book goes further; it explains why institutional reform of the WTO is needed at this critical juncture in world history and provides innovative, …

The global food crisis is a stark reminder of the fragility of the global food system. The Global Food Crisis: Governance Challenges and Opportunities captures the debate about how to go forward and examines the implications of the crisis for food security in the world’s poorest countries, both for the global environment and for the global rules …

Many have questioned the wisdom of the international intervention in Afghanistan in light of the escalation of violence and instability in the country in the past few years. Particularly uncertain are Canadians, who have been inundated with media coverage of an increasingly dirty war in southern Afghanistan, one in which Canadians are at the frontl …

Canada is a prosperous country, but this prosperity is being stressed by demographics, pressures on the public purse, and low productivity growth. To maintain the nation's high quality of life, prosperity must increase while remaining sustainable. Combining Tom Brzustowski's extensive knowledge of government, industry, and academia, The Way Ahead, …

Suffering from a divided membership, the United Nations is at a crossroads, unable to assure human or national security. The UN has been criticized as irrelevant by its most—and least—powerful members alike because it can’t reach consensus on how to respond to twenty-first-century challenges of global terrorism, endemic poverty, and crimes ag …

In the current age of globalization, collaboration between nations is paramount. In September 2003, a group of academics, government officials, and business leaders gathered at the University of Calgary under the auspices of its Latin American Research Centre (LARC) to discuss issues related to international trade negotiations in agriculture. This …

Over the last few decades, the Westphalian nation-state has lost its hegemonic position in the system of geo-governance. A dispersive revolution has led to the emergence of powerful newly networked business organizations, new subsidiary-focused governments, and increasingly virtual, elective, and malleable communities. This in turn has led to the c …

Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Ottawa from August 18 to 23, 1996. -- Actes du 22e congrès international des sciences généalogique et héraldique à Ottawa du 18 au 23 août 1996.