The Canadian West: an economic engine with a history of grievance against federal power emanating from the east. The New Politics of Western Canada grapples with the West’s complex, multifaceted past to promote a better understanding of this vast region’s political realities and the challenges that lie ahead.

Contributors re-examine the historical and contemporary meanings attached to “the West” as a form of identity, through themes such as colonialism, gender, and class. They develop a nuanced analysis of Western political ideology, from resentment-based populism to the regional left. And they explore pressing Western economic and policy concerns, such as labour, health care, and Indigenous democratic participation and protest.

Together, these themes provide intelligent new ways of interpreting underexplored aspects of Western Canadian politics, adding depth to earlier attempts to explain the region as a political, economic, or sociological space.

CHARLES SMITH is an associate professor and department head of Political Studies at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. He is the co-editor of the labour studies journal Labour/Le Travail and co-author of Unions in Court: Organized Labour and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He lives in Saskatoon.

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Tom McIntosh is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, and Research Faculty at the Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Branch, University of Regina.

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