1968 in Canada: A Year and Its Legacies

The year 1968 in Canada was an extraordinary one,unlike any other in its frenetic pace of activities andtheir consequences for the development of a newnational consciousness among Canadians.It was a year when decisions and actions, both inCanada and outside its borders, were thick andcontentious, and whose effects were momentous andfar-reaching.

It saw the rise of Trudeaumania and thebirth of the Parti Qubcois; the articulation of thenew nationalism in English Canada and an alternativevision for Indigenous rights and governance; a series ofpublic hearings in the Royal Commission on the Statusof Women; the establishment of the Canadian Radioand Television Commission, nation-wide Medicare andCanLit; and a striving for both a new relationship withthe United States and a more independent foreignpolicy everywhere else. And more. Virtually no segmentof Canadian life was untouched by both the turmoiland the promise of generational change.Published in English with chapters in French.