The Almanac of Canadian Politics

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

This is one of the most grotesquely mistitled books I know, one for
which the publisher deserves to be censured. Any reader picking it up
would expect to find an almanac covering all of Canadian politics;
instead what we have is a constituency-by-constituency study of the 1988
free trade election (and data on by-elections to 1991). This is a book
of tables for the most part, arranged by province. After a brief account
of the candidates and campaign in each riding, we get the results
compared to the previous election, the details on turnout, and a social
and economic profile of the riding. Happily, we are also given
educational data, and details on how much people in the constituency
contributed to the parties. All this is very useful and hitherto
inaccessible, but an almanac it ain’t. The authors have also collected
some general tables showing the best/worst finishes for each party, the
best/worst turnouts, and the highest/lowest family incomes. All enhance
the volume’s utility. What is lacking, however, is an overview of the
general election that focuses on the national campaigns. If this
“almanac” is to be repeated after the next election, providing such
an overview would make it much more useful.