Description
Book SynopsisIn recent years northern development has increasingly become a controversial issue in Canadian federal politics: the ensuing confusion of economic arguments and political discussion demonstrates the disorderly and inaccurate thinking of most Canadians on the subject. Professor Rea points out that the development of northern Canada has not been the spontaneous natural process which many Canadians seem to think: this traditional view has over-emphasized the climate and other natural influences on development at the expense of the more powerful forces of constitutional law, government policy, native culture, and western technology.
This study offers a more balanced interpretation of the processes of development which shaped and limited the growth of economic and political life in the Yukon and Northwest Territories between the 1890s and the early 1960s. Much emphasis is placed on the role of government policy which was one of “developmental laissez-faire” until afte
