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Reply to Comments on “The Mixed Constitution and the Separation of Powers in Canada”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Philip Resnick
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia

Extract

Both Janet Ajzenstat's and Rod Preece's comments on my article are welcome, not least in allowing me to further develop, by way of reply, some of the implications of the type of theorizing I have been engaged in. For quite aside from the particulars of my interpretation of Montesquieu's doctrines, of Professor Preece's reading of the wisdom of the Canadian founding fathers, or of Professor Ajzenstat's “Blackstonean” reading of the British North America Act, there is the larger question of the uses of classical political theory in the understanding of Canadian politics and the state that we need to address.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1987

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References

1 Ajzenstat, Janet, “Comment: The Separation of Powers in 1867,” this JOURNAL 20 (1987), 117–20Google Scholar; Preece, Rod, “Comment: Montesquieuan Principles of Canadian Politics?” this JOURNAL 20 (1987), 121–24.Google Scholar

2 Preece, Rod, “The Political Wisdom of Sir John A. Macdonald,” this JOURNAL 17 (1984), 459–86.Google Scholar

3 Resnick, Philip, Parliament vs. People: An Essay on Democracy and Canadian Political Culture (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1984), sees. 2 and 3.Google Scholar

4 Siegfried, André, The Race Question in Canada (Toronto: Carleton Library, 1966), 114.Google Scholar

5 Smith, Bruce James, Politics and Remembrance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 114, note 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See, for example, the articles by Carl Berger, “The True North Strong and Free,” and Harris, Cole, “The Myth of the Land in Canadian Nationalism,” in Russell, Peter (ed.), Nationalism in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1966)Google Scholar for Montesquieuan-type arguments about Canadian “northernness” and climate.

7 Compare, Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois, bk. 20, especially chap. 4, and Hirschman's, Albert O. incisive essay, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).Google Scholar