The year 1968 in Canada was an extraordinary one, unlike any other in its frenetic pace of activities and their consequences for the development of a new national consciousness among Canadians.
It was a year when decisions and actions, both in Canada and outside its borders, were thick and contentious, and whose effects were momentous and far-reaching. It saw the rise of Trudeaumania and the birth of the Parti Québécois; the articulation of the new nationalism in English Canada and an alternative vision for Indigenous rights and governance; a series of public hearings in the Royal Commission on the Status of Women; the establishment of the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, nation-wide Medicare and CanLit; and a striving for both a new relationship with the United States and a more independent foreign policy everywhere else. And more. Virtually no segment of Canadian life was untouched by both the turmoil and the promise of generational change.
Edited by Michael K. Hawes, Andrew C. Holman and Christopher Kirkey
Published in English with two chapters in French.
Michael K. Hawes is President and CEO of Fulbright Canada, and a professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University (on leave). He has been a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, Tsukuba University, the International University of Japan, USC, and UBC.
Andrew C. Holman is Professor of History and Director of the Canadian Studies Program at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts.
Christopher Kirkey is Director of the Center for the Study of Canada and Institute on Quebec Studies at the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh.