Legal History Workshop Schedule, Winter/Spring 2020

***Please note the location for this term's sessions***

Anyone wishing to be added to the distribution list, please email Jim Phillips j.phillips@utoronto.ca

OSGOODE SOCIETY LEGAL HISTORY WORKSHOP, 2019-2020:

WINTER TERM 2020

All sessions start at 6.30. All sessions in Betty Ho Classroom, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law (except Wednesday January 15th.) 

Wednesday January 15: Lara Tessaro, University of Kent: ‘Cosmetically Constitutional: A Legal Form for Material Substance, 1932-195?” Falconer Hall room 3 (change from original schedule).

Wednesday January 29: Coel Kirkby, University of Sydney: ‘Out of Africa: Decolonization and the Rebirth of British Jurisprudence’

Wednesday February 12: Joan Sangster, Trent University: ‘The Right to Criticize: Labour Relations Law and the Silencing of Feminist Labour Activists’

Wednesday February 26: Kris Kinsinger, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘To Entrench or Not to Entrench? Canadian Constitutionalism and the Bill of Rights Debate’

Wednesday March 11: Shelley Gavigan, Osgoode Hall Law School: ‘Improper Intimacies and Patriarchal Relations in Canada’s North-West Territories: Methodological, Ethical, and Interpretative Challenges in the Nineteenth-Century Criminal Court Records.’

Wednesday March 25: Elizabeth Koester, University of Toronto: ‘Eugenics in the Ontario Legislature: Dr. Forbes Godfrey and his Private Member's Bills, 1910 to 1921.’

Wednesday April 1: Erika Chamberlain and Rande Kostal, Western University: ‘The reinvention of Canadian private law, 1970-1995: Jordan House as case study"

Alford, Seven Absolute Rights: Recovering the Foundations of Canada's Rule of Law

Coming March 2020 from McGill-Queen's University Press, Ryan Alford, Seven Absolute Rights: Recovering the Foundations of Canada's Rule of Law. 

For 150 years, Canada's constitutional order has been both flexible and durable, ensuring peace, order, and good government while protecting the absolute rights at the core of the rule of law. In this era of transnational terrorism and proliferating emergency powers, it is essential to revisit how and why our constitutional order developed particular limits on the government's powers, which remain in force despite war, rebellion, and insurrection.

Seven Absolute Rights surveys the historical foundations of Canada's rule of law and the ways they reinforce the Constitution. Ryan Alford provides a gripping narrative of constitutional history, beginning with the medieval and early modern context of Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the constitutional settlement of the Glorious Revolution. His reconstruction ends with a detailed examination of two pre-Confederation crises: the rebellions of 1837-38 and the riots of 1849, which, as he demonstrates, provide the missing constitutionalist context to the framing of the British North America Act. Through this accessible exploration of key events and legal precedents, Alford offers a distinct perspective on the substantive principles of the rule of law embedded in Canada's Constitution.

In bringing constitutional history to life, Seven Absolute Rights reveals the history and meaning of these long-forgotten protections and shows why they remain fundamental to our freedom in the twenty-first century.

Anderson, Freeing Trade in North America

McGill-Queens University Press has published Freeing Trade in North America:

An overview of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement by University of Alberta political scientist Greg Anderson. 

Conceived in an era of rapid post-Cold War economic liberalization, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed in 1994, brought together Canada, Mexico, and the United States with the aim of creating a regional trade bloc that eliminated the friction and costs of trade between the three nations.

Without an overarching institutional framework, NAFTA never sought to attain the levels of integration achieved by the European Union - for many it was a missed opportunity - and never quite fulfilled its potential as a single market. And under Donald Trump's administration a trilateral trade agreement has become increasingly precarious.

Freeing Trade in North America explains the theory behind the politics and economics of trade in North America, offering an accessible and concise analysis of the key provisions, shortcomings, and past revision efforts of the governments involved. At a time of increasing protectionism and heightened awareness of trading relationships, the book highlights the lessons to be learned from the fraught history of one of the largest trade blocs in the world.

Chris Moore to speak on Canadian Parliamentary history in comparative context Jan 17/20 at Yorkminster Park

Canadian historian, history blogger, and Osgoode Society author (and friend) Christopher Moore will be appearing as part of the speakers' series at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church on January 17th 2020 (co-sponsored with the Churchill Society for Parliamentary Democracy.)

The lecture will be held at Cameron Hall, 7 pm. (Yorkminster Park is at Yonge and Heath Streets, just north of St. Clair on the east side of Yonge, a few minutes walk from the subway.)

Chris is an engaging and very knowledgeable speaker, and the topic is certainly topical: Parliaments and Power: Canada in the Parliamentary World. It's pay what you can (suggested $10).