In the news...

• Op-ed submission in Edmonton Journal, 27 August 2008: How Will Canada Handle 2010 Protests?
• British Columbia's controversial freedom of information policy: Vancouver Sun, 28 November 2007.
  • Gary Mitchell, Provincial Archivist of British Columbia, responds: Vancouver Sun, 4 December 2007.
• The Summer of Love in 1967 and social protest in the Sixties: Vancouver Sun, 14 August 2007.
• The legacy of the baby boom generation in Canada: Globe and Mail, 1 June 2007.
• Race and human rights in: "The rising recognition of ‘white privilege’ in Western academia": Ubysee, 29 January 2007.
• The Gouzenko affair and the 2006 arrests of suspected terrorists in Toronto: Toronto Star, 2006.

Areas of Study

• Social Movements
• International Human Rights (law and activism)
• Women’s History
• Law and Society
• Post-Confederation Canadian History
• Canadian and Australia Labour History

Research Interests

My most recent work is a book titled Canada's Rights Revolution.  It was an ambitious study of an entire social movement with a focus on the emergence of civil liberties and human rights associations in Canada since the 1930s.  Some of the key issues raised in the book include the ideological divisions between civil liberties and human rights, the nature of social activism as shaped by the baby boom generation, the unique obstacles facing the formation of national social movement organizations in Canada, and the potential of NGOs to resist cooption through state funding.  Part of the book is organized around four case studies: the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Ligue des droits de l’homme, and the Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Association.  These ‘rights associations’ offer us a window into how ideas about human rights have evolved throughout the twentieth century.  Movements are defined by the beliefs they propagate, but they are composed of the people who articulate and shape, sometimes imperfectly, those beliefs.  Among the human rights controversies I examine in my work are compulsory treatment of drug addicts, police brutality, censorship, denominational education, the October Crisis of 1970 and the rights of welfare recipients and prisoners. My research places Canada in an international context.  

The ability of the powerless to assert their interests is the cornerstone of much of my current work.  I am interested in contrasting working class activism with post-materialist movements and the ability of women and minorities to challenge marginalization. In addition, I seek to explore how the state expands and legitimizes power, as well as the role of social movements and rights discourse in challenging state power.  The vast majority of the literature on human rights assumes human rights to be an inherent good; few scholars have questioned the implications of a discourse which conceives of social change as legal change.  ‘New’ social movements challenge power through the formation of new cultural codes.  By linking the study of human rights with the study of social movements, it is possible to determine if human rights activism is capable of 'making power visible'.  At this time I am writing a book on the intersection of human rights discourse with feminist discourses of power using the women's movement as a case study. I am also finishing articles on the history of the Jewish Labour Committee, human rights commissions in Newfoundland and British Columbia, and history of racism in the Toronto police force.