O’Kane lifts the lid on Google’s failure to build a city of the future on Toronto’s waterfront
The following is an excerpt from Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy, by Josh O’Kane, one of the five finalists for this year’s Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
More than a number: a daughter’s search for her Inuit grandmother identified only by digits on a disc under Canada’s Eskimo Identification system
Norma Dunning explores the impact of the Eskimo Disk System in her book, Kinauvit?: What’s Your Name? The Eskimo Disc System and a Daughter’s Search for her Grandmother.
Separate, not equal: the story of Canada in a Manitoba valley
The following is an excerpt from Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation, by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii). The two authors explore the history of two Prairie communities: one Indigenous, one non-Indigenous living side by side, separate and unequal, and what it means for the rest of us.
Yep, you read it right: author Chris Turner dishes up climate optimism
In How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World, Chris Turner looks at ‘the exhilarating story of real progress’ being made on the climate crisis. And it’s one of the best Canadian political books of the year.
Power of the pen to be lauded by parliamentary crowd at annual black-tie event
The Politics and the Pen event has raised more than $5-million for the Writers’ Trust since 2000, and last year raised $350,000 in one night. Co-chair Elizabeth Gray-Smith describes the evening as ‘a perfect marriage of politics and political writing, and it’s not celebrated enough.’
Eisler probes Saskatchewan’s political and economic change in From Left to Right
The following is an excerpt from Dale Eisler’s book, From Left to Right: Saskatchewan’s Political and Economic Transformation, published by the University of Regina Press, and nominated by the Writers’ Trust as one of the best political books of the year.
Huda Mukbil’s pursuit of patriotism
Former CSIS intelligence officer Huda Mukbil on her book, Agent of Change: My Life Fighting Terrorists, Spies, and Institutional Racism, and why she blew the whistle on workplace Islamophobia and misogyny at CSIS. ‘When you shine a light on on a problem, and risk your career for it, that’s patriotic.’
Internal trade barriers in Canada tell a story of our country’s struggle to pursue an enduring singleness
Ryan Manucha’s Booze, Cigarettes, and Constitutional Dust-Ups: Canada’s Quest for Interprovincial Free Trade is one of five finalists for this year’s Donner Prize. The following is an excerpt.
How will the post-pandemic city and its institutions look, feel, and behave in the era of climate crisis?
Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias is one of the finalists for this year’s Donner Prize, one of the best public policy books written in 2022.
Examining institutions critical when exploring progress on social justice
Joseph Heath, author of Cooperation & Social Justice, said he wanted to write a book that presents a more practical, policy-relevant way of thinking about basic questions of social justice. An excerpt is published here.
