It is a privilege and a pleasure to serve as guest editor for this special issue of the London Journal of Canadian Studies, with all of the contributions emanating from distinguished scholars who have given lectures on various aspects of Modern Quebec at the UCL Institute of the Americas over the last five years. It is a privilege because the journal has contributed significantly to our understanding of Canada and the Institute has been the venue not only for these talks but also for many stimulating and congenial events on Canadian and other topics. It is a pleasure because I have enjoyed reading these diverse articles – and I am confident that others will agree and that we will all learn more about these subjects, the ultimate test of a scholarly paper (and a journal). The diversity arises not only from the matters considered but also from the perspectives of the authors, all of whom are well qualified to enlighten us – just as I am sure they informed (and, dare I say it, entertained) those who attended the events at the Institute when they delivered their presentations.
All of us owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Institute, its director Professor Jonathan Bell and its superb professional services staff, who have always made us feel welcome and who have dealt with various needs and obscure demands with friendly efficiency. Students of Quebec and Canada are also grateful for the tremendous work of my friend and frequent collaborator, Dr Tony McCulloch, Senior Fellow in North American Studies (whose North America includes Canada, as he has been responsible for Canadian Studies at the Institute since his arrival), who has made my transition from contributor to guest editor painless, much as he has eased passages for so many participants in events and publications associated with North American subjects.
Note on contributor
Hector Mackenzie is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Oxford University, from where he received his DPhil in Politics (International Relations) on Anglo-Canadian economic relations in the Second World War. After teaching at the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario, he joined the Department of External Affairs as an historian. He has been the Senior Departmental Historian of what is now Global Affairs Canada since 1991. He is an adjunct professor of history at Carleton University, where he frequently teaches courses in Canadian history, and a past president of the Association for Canadian Studies. He has also published extensively on the history of Canada’s international relations. The views expressed in the Introduction are his alone, not those of Global Affairs Canada or the Government of Canada.