Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Political Science Labor & Industrial Relations

Restraining Equality

Human Rights Commissions in Canada

by (author) R. Brian Howe & David Johnson

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jan 2000
Category
Labor & Industrial Relations, Social Policy, Human Rights
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802082633
    Publish Date
    Jan 2000
    List Price
    $40.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802044822
    Publish Date
    Jan 2000
    List Price
    $62.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442679276
    Publish Date
    Dec 1999
    List Price
    $77.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

"Restraining Equality" addresses the contemporary financial, social, legal, and policy pressures currently experienced by human rights commissions across Canada. Through a combination of public policy analysis, historical research, and legal analysis, R.Brian Howe and David Johnson trace the evolution of human rights policy within this country and explore the stresses placed on human rights commissions resulting from greater fiscal restraints and society's rising expectations for equality rights over the past two decades.

The authors analyse sources of these tensions in relation to the delivery of equality rights in both federal and provincial jurisdictions since the Second World War. Through a series of interviews with human rights commission officials and a survey of advocacy groups, business organizations, and human rights staff the authors explore the performance and the internal workings of these. Howe and Johnson also analyse human rights commissions in light of the theoretical literature and empirical data, and discuss the political and legal contexts in which the commissions operate, and the reform measures that have been implemented.

About the authors

R. Brian Howe is a professor of political science and Katherine Covell is a professor of psychology at Cape Breton University. They are co-directors of the university’s Children’s Rights Centre and the authors of numerous articles on children’s rights and human rights in Canada. Their books include The Challenge of Children’s Rights for Canada (WLUP, 2001) and Empowering Children: Children’s Rights Education as a Pathway to Citizenship (2005). Katherine Covell is the author of the UN report Violence against Children in North America (2005).

R. Brian Howe's profile page

David Johnson, a professor of political science at Cape Breton University, has studied and taught Canadian politics, government, and the constitution for over thirty years. He is the author of Thinking Government: Public Administration and Politics in Canada, 4th ed, a leading university textbook. His columns appear regularly in the Cape Breton Post. He lives in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

David Johnson's profile page