Canadian State Trials, Volume V: World War, Cold War, and Challenges to Sovereignty, 1939-1990

by Barry Wright (Editor), Susan Binnie (Editor), Eric Tucker (Editor)

Overview

The fifth and final volume of the Canadian State Trials series examines political trials and national security measures during the period of 1939 to 1990. Essays by historians and legal scholars shed light on experiences during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath, including uses of the War Measures Act and the Official Secrets Act with the unfolding of the Cold War and legal responses to the FLQ (including the October Crisis), labour strikes, and Indigenous resistance and standoffs. The volume critically examines the historical and social context of the trials and measures resulting from these events, concluding the first comprehensive series on this important area of Canadian law and politics.

The fifth volume's exploration of state responses to real and perceived security threats is particularly timely as Canada faces new challenges to the established order ranging from Indigenous nations demanding a new constitutional framework to protestors challenging discriminatory policing and contesting public health measures.

(Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487546038
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	11/09/2022
Series:	Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Barry Wright is a professor emeritus of law and history at Carleton University.
Susan Binnie is an independent scholar living in Toronto.
Eric Tucker is a professor emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Osgoode Society

Acknowledgments

Preface
Douglas Hay

1. Introduction: World War, Cold War, and Challenges to Sovereignty
Barry Wright, Susan Binnie, and Eric Tucker

2. Constitutional Wrongs: The Wartime Constitution and Japanese Canadians c.1942–1946
Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger Ross

3. Prosecuting Kurt Meyer: The Abbaye d'Ardenne War Crimes Trial
Craig Forcese

4. The Gouzenko Affair: From Star Chamber to the Court Room
Reg Whitaker

5. The Enemy Within: Review and Comparison of Early Cold War Canadian and American Spy Trials
Barbara J. Falk and Tyler Wentzell

6. Labour versus the Injunction: Insights into the Surveillance State and Public Order Policing during the 1966 Lenkurt Electric Strike
Chris Madsen

7. The FLQ and Judicial Guerrilla Warfare, 1963–1972
Jean-Philippe Warren

8. The 1971 Trial of the Montréal Five: Seditious Conspiracy and the FLQ
Darren Pacione

9. The McDonald Commission Investigates the RCMP Security Service, 1977–1983
C. Ian Kyer

10. Standoffs at Meares and Lyell Islands, 1984–85: Civil Disobedience and the Indigenous Land Question in British Columbia
Benjamin Isitt

11. Sovereignty and Legality in the Pines: The Oka Crisis of 1990
Mark D. Walters

12. Epilogue: Canadian State Trials in Retrospect
Barry Wright

Appendix: Previous Titles in Series

Supporting Documents

List of Contributors

Index

What People are Saying About This

Larry Hannant

"From trials that were sensational at the time to those ignored for decades and little known still today, Canadian State Trials Volume V illuminates significant political cases that Canada — with its self-image as a decent state that does not stoop to persecute — prefers to forget. Read it and remember."

R. Blake Brown

"This collection of essays is an impressive final volume in the monumental Canadian State Trials series. The contributors to Canadian State Trials Volume V explore state responses to protest, violence, and espionage, demonstrating how law served as both a tool of repression and resistance. The volume includes definitive analyses of the role of the law in several key events in Canadian history, including the Gouzenko Affair, FLQ Crisis, and Oka."

Gregory S. Kealey

"This fifth and final volume of the extraordinary Canadian State Trials project is as timely as the series's origins in the 1970 October Crisis and P.E. Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act. Justin Trudeau's recent use of the similar, albeit heavily amended, Emergencies Act raises fundamental human rights issues which are fully examined here as in previous Canadian State Trials works. This latest volume combines critical interdisciplinary scholarship with historical and legal analysis of the highest order."

Editorial Reviews

"This fifth and final volume of the extraordinary Canadian State Trials project is as timely as the series's origins in the 1970 October Crisis and P.E. Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act. Justin Trudeau's recent use of the similar, albeit heavily amended, Emergencies Act raises fundamental human rights issues which are fully examined here as in previous Canadian State Trials works. This latest volume combines critical interdisciplinary scholarship with historical and legal analysis of the highest order."—Gregory S. Kealey, Professor Emeritus of History, University of New Brunswick
"This collection of essays is an impressive final volume in the monumental Canadian State Trials series. The contributors to Canadian State Trials Volume V explore state responses to protest, violence, and espionage, demonstrating how law served as both a tool of repression and resistance. The volume includes definitive analyses of the role of the law in several key events in Canadian history, including the Gouzenko Affair, FLQ Crisis, and Oka."—R. Blake Brown, Professor of History, Saint Mary's University
"From trials that were sensational at the time to those ignored for decades and little known still today, Canadian State Trials Volume V illuminates significant political cases that Canada – with its self-image as a decent state that does not stoop to persecute – prefers to forget. Read it and remember."—Larry Hannant, Adjunct Associate Professor of History, University of Victoria

From the Publisher