The Shortlist 2010

Perverse Cities: Hidden Subsidies, Wonky Policy and Urban Sprawl

Pamela Blais / UBC Press

Urban sprawl – low density subdivisions and business parks, big box stores and mega-malls – has increasingly come to define city growth despite decades of planning and policy. Pamela Blais argues that flawed public policies and mispricing create hidden, “perverse” subsidies and incentives that promote sprawl while discouraging more efficient and sustainable urban forms.

Pamela Blais is a city planner and principal of Toronto-based Metropole Consultants.

Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights

Tom Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara & André Le Dressay with foreword by C.T. (Manny) Jules / McGill-Queen’s University Press

While land claims made by Canada’s aboriginal peoples continue to attract attention and controversy, there has been almost no discussion of property rights that have been in place since the Indian Act of 1876, or the ways in which First Nations lands are managed. Challenging current laws and management, the authors propose the creation of a new system that would allow First Nations to choose to have full ownership of property, both individually and collectively.

Tom Flanagan is professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary. Christopher Alcantara is assistant professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. André Le Dressay is director of Fiscal Realities Economists and holds a PhD in Economics from Simon Fraser University. C.T. (Manny) Jules is chief of the First Nations Tax Commission and a former chief of the Kamloops Indian Band.

Le CHUM: une tragédie québécoise

Robert Lacroix & Louis Maheu / Les Éditions du Boréal

The story of CHUM, the university hospital centre that was to open its doors in 2005, is well known. Studies, extensions, evasions, new contradictory studies, power struggles, theatrics – one followed the other yet no ground was broken. Less well known is that the project of building a Université de Montréal hospital dates back to 1927. Nearly a century has passed and Montreal still awaits its French teaching hospital. Why does the largest Quebec university and one of the most prestigious francophone universities in the world not have a hospital matching its stature?

Robert Lacroix, an economist, was the president of Université de Montréal from 1998 to 2005. Louis Maheu, a sociologist, was a member of the Université de Montréal management team and represented the institution on the CHUM Board of Directors.

Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World

Doug Saunders / Knopf Canada

Doug Saunders argues that migration is one of the most important trends of the twenty-first century, one that has profound implications for the success of local, national and international economies. These transitional spaces [arrival cities] are where the next great economic and cultural boom will be born, or where the next explosion of violence may occur.

Doug Saunders is the European Bureau Chief of The Globe and Mail and the author of a popular and award-winning column devoted to intellectual ideas and social developments behind the news. He has won four National Newspaper Awards.

Oka: A Political Crisis and its Legacy

Harry Swain / Douglas & McIntyre

This book is an unvarnished, revealing narrative of the dramatic events that shocked a nation. Swain provides a robust, frank assessment of mistakes made and lessons learned, and offers readers unsettling insights into how government operates in times of crisis.

Harry Swain worked in nine federal departments between 1971 and 1995, serving as deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs from 1987 to 1992. He is currently director of the Canadian Institute for Climate Studies and a research associate at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Global Studies.