The Journey to Canada

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom, and Chile and the Nazis, and the coauthor of Invisible and
Inaudible in Washington: American Policies To

David Mills IV, the author of this book, is a writer and composer who
knows and appreciates his family’s history. In The Journey to Canada,
he reviews the political and social evolution of the country as seen
through the eyes of family members, especially his grandfather, David
Mills III (1831–1903), who served as a Liberal cabinet minister under
Prime Ministers Alexander Mackenzie and Wilfrid Laurier. Under Laurier,
David Mills III was Minister of Justice (1896–1902), and then,
briefly, a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The book is divided into four parts. In Part 1, written at a level
readable by 12-year-olds, explains that David Mills I left the south of
England for New England at some unspecified point before 1763, when New
France still belonged to France. David Mills II migrated as a United
Empire Loyalist to New Brunswick, but the family later moved to Upper
Canada. After an outline of the 1791 Canada Act, Mills jumps back to the
era of the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Constantine, then forward to
David Mills IV’s low regard for American revolutionaries, who tarred
and feathered opponents despite their professed love of liberty. The
section includes pictures of prominent political leaders of the era and
discussions of the politics and lifestyles of England, France, New
France, and New England. There is no index to guide the reader to any
specific information.

The rest of the book is more scholarly. Part 2 includes two lectures
given by David Mills III when he was Minister of Justice. Part 3 is a
reprint of another opus by David Mills III: “An Evolving Empire: A
Study in Treaties and Trade Agreements Revealing Needs for Changes in
the Empire’s Constitution.” Part 4 covers “[c]ases dealing with
constitutional law and custom of parliament as researched by ... David
Mills [III].”

It is unclear who is expected to buy the book. Arguably, there is
something for everyone: hagiography, history, constitutional law. A
student of law or Canadian constitutional history might want to share it
with a 12-year-old son or daughter; while the child worked through Part
1, the parent could study Parts 2 through 4.