The Cross Canada Tour continues as Tina and Asif head out west.  Starting out in beautiful Victoria, BC with the legendary Tony Joe, then heading to Saskatoon with Jill Bird, and finishing up in Winnipeg Manitoba with the past Broker Owner of the Year for Western Canada Akash Bedi.

Western Canada Market Watch 21.1.23. OTM

Greg Marchildon talks to Murray Knuttila about his book, Eroding a Way of Life: Neoliberalism and the Family Farm. 

An analysis of how neoliberal policies have radically restructured farming in Western Canada.

The establishment of a Western Canadian economy dominated by family farming was part of the government’s post-Confederation nation building and industrial development strategy. During this era, Western family farms were established and promoted to serve as a market for Canadian industrial goods and a source of export cash crops, which both played essential roles in the national economy. 
 
In Eroding a Way of Life, Murray Knuttila shows how decades of neoliberal policies, state austerity, deregulation, and privatization have fragmented agrarian communities across Western Canada, a process hastened by the advent of the capitalization of machinery and high-input industrial farming. As a result, earning a living on the family farm has become increasingly impossible. As farmers sell off their land to larger producers, rural communities are watching their railroads, schools, churches, post offices, and hospitals close, and many villages and small towns are being reduced to plaques on the highway.
 
Analyzing the history of prairie agriculture through the lenses of class, federal policies, and global capitalism, Knuttila describes the physical, social, and political reordering of the countryside and the resulting human costs paid by farmers, labourers, and families.

Murray Knuttila is Professor Emeritus at the University of Regina and Brock University. He is the author of several books, including That Man Partridge and Paying for Masculinity. He resides in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Image Credit:  University of Regina Press

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Eroding a Way of Life: Neoliberalism and the Family Farm

Nicole O'Byrne talks to Greg Marquis about his book "Canada's State Police: 150 Years of the RCMP. Drawing upon all of the available literature related to the organization's history, Marquis lays bare what he regards as 150 years of state police action and seeks to challenge what he claims are the carefully constructed myths about the RCMP's role in Canadian life.

Greg Marquis is a historian at the University of New Brunswick. He specializes in Canadian history and criminal justice theory. He has developed a number of courses in the area of law and society, and is on the editorial board of Acadiensis. He is the author of multiple books including, The Vigilant Eye: Policing Canada from 1867-9/11, Truth & Honour: The Death of Richard Oland and the Trial of Dennis Oland, and John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Year That Canada Was Cool. Greg Marquis lives in Quispamsis, New Brunswick.

If you like our work, please consider supporting it: bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.

Image Credit: James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers

Canada’s State Police: 150 years of the RCMP

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New tracks tagged #western canada