Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs, 2000

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, Chile and the Nazis, and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of
Korea.

The Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 2000 is an
indispensable record of a memorable year. Despite warnings and public
fears, the millennium began without electrical failures and computer
breakdowns. The Reform Party morphed into the Canadian Alliance, which
chose Stockwell Day as leader. Parliament passed the Clarity Act, and
Canada established diplomatic relations with North Korea. Foreign
Minister Lloyd Axworthy angrily rejected a charge from California
Senator Dianne Feinstein that Canadian complacency encouraged terrorists
who might attack the United States from a Canadian base. The
Organization of American States met in Windsor, and Canada served the
second of a two-year term on the Security Council of the United Nations.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien visited the Middle East. Former Prime
Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau died, and the mourners included former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The Liberals
triumphed in the federal election of November 27, winning their third
successive majority. At the provincial level, Ujjal Dosanjh (at that
time a New Democrat) became premier of British Columbia. All other
provincial premiers retained their jobs.

Given the increased urbanization of Canada, the editor explains that
the time had come to include a section on municipal affairs. Despite
objections from the suburbs, Quebec’s Parti Québécois government led
by Lucien Bouchard merged all the municipalities on Montreal Island into
the City of Montreal. Likewise, the Ontario government of Mike Harris
merged all the municipalities around Ottawa, Hamilton, and Sudbury into
those three cities. After Harris had downsized the provincial Ministry
of the Environment and downloaded responsibility for the quality of
drinking water to the municipalities, nine residents of Walkerton died.
Two officers of Saskatoon’s police force were suspended because they
had driven a First Nations man to the outskirts and released him on a
bitterly cold night without a coat, after which he froze to death.

Details on these and many other events and decisions from Ottawa, as
well as from all provincial and territorial capitals, are available in
this latest edition of the Canadian Annual Review.