Description
Book SynopsisWas Canada''s Dominion experiment of 1867 an experiment in political domination? Looking to taxes provides the answer: they are a privileged measure of both political agency and political domination. To pay one''s taxes was the sine qua non of entry into political life, but taxes are also the point of politics, which is always about the control of wealth. Modern states have everywhere been born of tax revolts, and Canada was no exception. Heaman shows that the competing claims of the propertied versus the people are hardwired constituents of Canadian political history. Tax debates in early Canada were philosophically charged, politically consequential dialogues about the relationship between wealth and poverty. Extensive archival research, from private papers, commissions, the press, and all levels of government, serves to identify a rising popular challenge to the patrician politics that were entrenched in the Constitutional Act of 1867 under the credo Peace, Order, and good Governmen
Trade Review"This book shows that the history of taxation is not only important - it can also be provocative, infuriating, and exciting. Tax, Order, and Good Government is an essential read for all historians of Canada." Eric Sager, University of Victoria "Elsbeth Heaman's outstanding book places taxation where it belongs, at the heart of Canadian history. She explores with great discernment and lucidity issues ranging from the nature of Confederation, and the changing ideologies of parties and their coal
