September 11: Consequences for Canada

Extract

September 11: Consequences for Canada, Kent Roach, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, pp. ii, 272.

This is an important book. It is scholarly, timely, and provocative. It has two chief aims. The first, as the title suggests, is in Kent Roach's words “to provide a critical assessment of the consequences of September 11 for Canada” (18). The second is to suggest how in his estimation Canada's anti-terrorism policies should evolve. To these ends the various chapters in September 11 examine post-9/11 developments in Canadian law and democracy, in Canada's immigration and security policies, and in Canadian sovereignty. In their sum these chapters provide a masterly treatment of the challenges posed to this country by a defining moment in both contemporary international relations and the “special” Canadian-American relationship. Given the depth and scope of this work, no brief review can do justice to it. Its finely-tuned yet erudite legal arguments deserve to be read closely.