David M. Thomas is the retired Vice-President Academic of Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, BC. Educated in the United Kingdom, France, and Canada, he has held a number of senior academic administrative appointments in addition to teaching. He has a PhD in political science from the University of Calgary; is author of Whistling Past the Graveyard: Constitutional Abeyances, Quebec, and the Future of Canada; was a co-editor of Braving the New World: Readings in Contemporary Politics; and is the editor of the first two editions of Canada and the United States: Differences that Count.