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Vol. 27, No. 2
March 2019
Getting the
Word Out
Public Speaking for
Public Servants
by DREW FAGAN
Prose Shaped
by Silence
by LINDA BESNER
PLUS
Colleen Simard, Alanna Mitchell &
George Fetherling
Publications Mail Agreement #40032362. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to LRC, Circulation Dept. PO Box 8, Station K, Toronto, ON M4P 2G1
Vol. 27, No. 2 • March 2019
John Barber is a widely published Dan Falk is a science journalist Elizabeth May is the member of Christopher Waddell is the Carty
journalist and former columnist based in Toronto. His books include Parliament for Saanich–Gulf Islands, Chair in Business and Financial
with the Globe and Mail. The Science of Shakespeare and in British Columbia, and leader of Journalism at Carleton University.
In Search of Time. the Green Party of Canada.
Linda Besner is a writer and poet Artwork by Valéry Lemay, a
with two collections to her name, George Fetherling has published Alanna Mitchell wrote Malignant graphic designer and illustrator from
Feel Happier in Nine Seconds and fifty books of fiction, poetry, and Metaphor: Confronting Cancer Montreal who has contributed to
The Id Kid. cultural commentary, most recently Myths, which won the 2015 Lane Reader’s Digest, LSTW Magazine,
The Carpenter from Montreal, a Anderson Award for excellence in Vice, and numerous other clients.
Michael Bryant, a former attorney novel. He lives in Vancouver. Canadian science writing.
general of Ontario, is the executive
director and general counsel Kate Heron, a corporate Christopher Moore is the author
of the Canadian Civil Liberties communications professional, of 1867: How the Fathers Made a
Association. lives in Toronto. Deal, among other works.
Drew Fagan is a former Ontario David MacKenzie is a history Cecily Ross, an editor with the
deputy minister and policy-maker professor at Ryerson University. LRC, wrote The Lost Diaries of
with the Department of Foreign He edited Canada and the First Susanna Moodie, a novel.
Affairs and International Trade World War and co-wrote, with
(Global Affairs Canada). He is LRC founding editor Patrice Colleen Simard, a registered
now a professor at the University Dutil, Embattled Nation: Canada’s member of Peguis First Nation,
of Toronto’s Munk School of Wartime Election of 1917. is a writer, T-shirt designer, and
Global Affairs and Public Policy, Instagram fashionista.
and a Public Policy Forum fellow.
March 2019 1
Courting Disaster
How did the supreme law of the land lose its supremacy?
MICHAEL BRYANT
Understanding Unconstitutionality:
How a Country Lost Its Way
(An Essay in Three Parts)
Arthur Peltomaa
Teja Press
273 pages, softcover and ebook
ISBN 1999464001
of “supreme law” provided for in our Constitution. examine constitutional cases from a political sci- policy, assisted dying, policing and corrections,
There was a time in Canada when “unconsti- ence perspective. This should mean a freshened language rights, Indigenous rights, queer and trans
tutional” meant something. No longer. Relativism perspective, but too much of the writing is mired rights, and refugee, citizenship, and immigration
has overtaken the judicial interpretation of in overly academic prose in the worst sense — too policy? In this regard, I have a few complaints about
fundamental rights and freedoms in Canada, to specialized, full of jargon and inflated vocabular- the book that are but trifles: it focuses upon federal
the point where words in our Constitution like ies. Any chapters with “punctuated equilibrium” rather than provincial policies, and on govern-
“supreme” and “fundamental” seem misplaced, or “desuetude” in their titles deserve additional ment more than legislatures. A bright spot is Kyle
replaced by weasel words like “temporary” and revision, particularly when those terms are never Kirkup’s chapter, “After Marriage Equality: Courting
“reasonable.” properly explained. Queer and Trans Rights,” where we learn that trans
March 2019 13