Back to Blakeney: Revitalizing the Democratic State”
edited by David McGrane, John D. Whyte, Roy Romanow, and Russell Isinger
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Keith Foster
$34.95
ISBN 9780889776418
Back to Blakeney: Revitalizing the Democratic State is the political biography of Allan Blakeney, a political giant who served as Saskatchewan's tenth premier from 1971 to 1982.
This 342-page volume stems directly from a 2015 conference held at the University of Saskatchewan in which fifteen academic essayists discussed and evaluated Blakeney's legacy to the democratic state in Canada. It's wholly appropriate that academics discuss Blakeney as he himself was an academic, achieving early distinction as a Rhodes scholar.
Back to Blakeney contains fourteen chapters divided into three sections. The first looks at Blakeney as a statesman, public administrator, and social democrat. The second section evaluates Blakeney's constitutional legacy. Chapters in the third section discuss how to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Some of Blakeney's policies courted controversy, like the resource wars of the 1970s over the extraction and taxation of potash and, to a lesser extent, uranium. The other major issue of contention was over Medicare in the early 1960s, which Blakeney later described as “the most defining political experience of his life,” according to essayist Gregory P. Marchildon. Blakeney's influence also extended beyond Saskatchewan, notably in the “notwithstanding clause” in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
This collection of essays contains endnotes, bibliographical references, brief biographies of the essayists, and an index.
Sometimes answers to current and potential future problems can be found by examining the past and how leaders handled the problems of their day. In looking at the achievements and legacy of a great man, Back to Blakeney: Revitalizing the Democratic State looks back to find a way forward.
