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Is the Canadian government contributing to its own underperformance? An insider’s guide to steering our nation toward greater efficiency.
 
Canada is struggling. Our growth is anemic, our standard of living is stagnant, our housing is unaffordable, and our health care system is nearing a breaking point. To make matters worse, the government fails to deliver core services and avoid management fiascos like the ArriveCan and Phoenix scandals.
 
These failures are systemic and interconnected. What connects them is a fatal flaw in how the federal government operates, makes decisions, and takes action. Power has shifted from Cabinet to the Prime Minister and Prime Minister’s Office with political staff taking on a larger role relative to the Public Service, and parliament has lost its ability to call the elected government to account. 
 
With 50 years of combined experience in leadership positions in government, authors Lynch and Mitchell offer an expert’s perspective on how to restore accountability and rebuild a culture of excellence by proposing a new blueprint for reshaping government. As Canadians face uncertainties at home and abroad, these practical and straightforward recommendations offer a path forward to ensure our nation’s prosperity.

From the quiet beauty of sugar maple forests to the high-tech, high-stakes world of syrup production, this book takes you on a remarkable journey into one of Canada’s most cherished traditions. Led by Peter Kuitenbrouwer, a forester with a deep appreciation for the land, this beautifully illustrated narrative uncovers the rich Indigenous heritage of maple syrup, explores its cultural significance and reveals the complex industry that sustains it today, where vast warehouses store a product so valuable it became the target of the Great Maple Syrup Heist, one of Canada’s most infamous thefts.

Blending history, culture and science in a story that stretches from eastern Canada and into the northeastern US, Maple Syrup stands as a testament to the resilience, communal joy and economic intricacies that define maple syrup, and is the perfect read for anyone who loves Canada, its heritage and the irresistible taste of spring.

In 2023, after weeks of investigation, United Nations Special Rapporteur Tomoyo Obokata came to a scathing conclusion: Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker program is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.” Workers complained of excessive hours and unpaid overtime; of being forced to perform dangerous tasks or ones not specified in their contracts; of being physically abused, intimidated, and sexually harassed; and of overcrowded, unsanitary living conditions that deprived them of their privacy and dignity.

In Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers, Marcello Di Cintio ranges across the country speaking to those who have come from elsewhere to till our fields, bathe our elderly, and serve us our Double Doubles, uncovering stories of tremendous perseverance, resilience, and humanity, but also of precarity and vulnerability. He shows that vast swathes of our economy depend on the work of people we don’t see, while expanding our awareness of what migrant work now entails, and revealing that our mistreatment of the most vulnerable among us diminishes our own dignity.

Canada is the only country with complete decriminalization of abortion: no gestational duration limitations, no parental consent obligations, and no waiting periods. In recent years, other countries (New Zealand, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico) have made strides toward this, while the United States has notoriously lost ground. Amidst the tumult, nurse and scholar Martha Paynter uses historical context and contemporary issues to explain why experts advocate against laws governing abortion.

Despite decriminalization, Canadian federal and provincial legislation and regulations about health funding, delivery, and human rights all shape how abortion care is delivered. Barriers persist in uneven access, unclear information, and belief-based denial of care. In accessible plain language from the expansive perspective of a clinician, researcher and activist, Paynter describes abortion policy, practice and experience and discusses how to resolve challenges that continue more than three decades after Canada became the world’s most legally progressive jurisdiction for abortion. 

National security expert Dennis Molinaro reveals the shocking details of Beijing’s five-decades-long effort to influence and interfere in Canadian political life. From cultivating future political leaders at the end of the Cultural Revolution to the foreign-interference scandals that have shaken present-day Ottawa, this definitive book addresses one of the most urgent global issues of our time.

Amidst heightened tensions between Western nations and China, Canadians have found themselves astonished by hostage crises, cyberattacks, harassment of members of our government, and theft of intellectual property worth untold billions of dollars. Guided by Molinaro’s experience as a historian and China specialist, Under Assault focuses on the actions of the People’s Republic of China’s government and its governing party, the Chinese Communist Party, against Canada during the past fifty years.

We are excited to announce the 2026 J.W. Dafoe Book Prize Longlist!

Our jurors have selected these titles as the top ten books published this year on Canada, Canadians, or Canada’s place in the world. Pick up any of these books to learn more about a fascinating aspect of the country we call home.

We will share more about each of these fantastic titles before naming our shortlist on September 28th and our winner on October 13th.

Eric M. Adams and Jordan Stanger-Ross. Challenging Exile: Japanese
Canadians and the Wartime Constitution. UBC Press.

Marcello Di Cintio. Precarious: The Lives of Migrant Workers. Biblioasis.

Peter Kuitenbrouwer. Maple Syrup: A Short History of Canada’s Sweetest
Obsession. Doubleday Canada.

Allan Levine. The Dollar a Year Men: How the Best Business Brains in
Canada Helped to Win the Second World War. Barlow Books.

Kevin G. Lynch and James R. Mitchell. A New Blueprint for Government:
Reshaping Power, The PMO, and the Public Service. University of Regina
Press.

Greg Mercer. The Lobster Trap: The Global Fight for Seafood on the
Brink. McClelland & Stewart.

Dennis Molinaro. Under Assault: Interference and Espionage in China’s
Secret War Against Canada. Random House Canada.

Martha Paynter. Lawless: Abortion Under Complete Decriminalization.
Fernwood Publishing.

John Sandlos and Arn Keeling. The Price of Gold: Mining, Pollution, and
Resistance in Yellowknife. McGill-Queen’s Press.

Karin Wells. Women Who Woke Up the Law: Inside the Cases that Changed
Women’s Rights in Canada. Second Story Press.

Our newest jury member is Jean Friesen!

Jean Friesen is a Canadian historian, now retired from the University of Manitoba where she was also the Provost of University College. She has written on issues of Indigenous and Treaty relations in the Canadian West and currently serves as a member of the Speakers Bureau of Manitoba’s Treaty Relations Commission. She was a founding Board Member of the Forks Renewal Corporation, chair of the Heritage Council of Manitoba, founder and editor of Manitoba History magazine, and Chair of the Manitoba Water Council.

Jean was elected to the Manitoba Legislature in 1990 to represent the constituency of Wolseley and served 2 terms in Opposition and 1 term in government as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Deputy Premier.

Dale Barbour is returning as a juror for the JW Dafoe Book Prize.

Dr. Dale Barbour, a graduate of the University of Manitoba/University of Winnipeg Joint Master’s Program, received his PhD in history from the University of Toronto in 2018. Barbour’s scholarship pulls together gender, leisure, urban, and environmental history approaches to examine how people find and create recreation spaces.

What are you looking for from the winning book? 

I’m looking for a book that tells a Canadian story. Ideally, it’s revealing part of the Canadian experience that I haven’t heard before or that I desperately need to learn more about. And with a nod to John Dafoe, who very much saw Canada as a collection of regions working together, I like a book that reveals some of the regional stories that contribute to a national whole.

One of the joys of the Dafoe book prize is that we don’t just pick a winner. We also pick a long list, which gives us a chance to highlight different books telling a different story about Canada and collectively, I think, they give you a good sense of what’s happening in our country.

Why did you want to be a part of the JW Dafoe Book Prize Jury? 

Serving on the Dafoe Book prize jury is a great way to stay engaged with the research and writing that’s happening in Canada, not just in history, which is my home field, but in political studies, Indigenous studies, and a wide range of other fields. 

Why do you think it’s important to read and write about Canada’s place in the world? 

It feels like we live in a world of social media noise and artificial intelligence slop. I think digging in and understanding who we are as Canadians, where we’ve been, and where we’re going it more important that ever. Reading and writing is a chance to define who we are and who we want to be.

Greg Mason is returning as a juror for the JW Dafoe Book Prize.

Appointed Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba in 1974, after completing graduate work at UBC, his initial research focused on transportation, housing and land use planning. His academic interests took a sharp turn in 1981, when he became Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research, which had a primary goal of rehabilitating the data from the Manitoba Basic Income Experiment (Mincome). 

What are you looking for in the winning book? 

It must reveal an important aspect and preferably not a well-known part of Canadian life and society. It also should be both accessible and sophisticated in style and content. Finally, it should appeal to that rare fictional character – the intelligent layperson.  

Why did you want to be a part of the JW Dafoe Book Prize Jury? 

How else am I going to read 60+ books of Canadian authors in 2 months? It also forces me to read physical books, which is a major relief from constantly peering at my phone and computer.

Why do you think it’s important to read and write about Canada’s place in the world?

Canadian authors are an important voice in this increasingly mad world.

All are welcome to join J.W. Dafoe Foundation and the University of Manitoba Press on November 17, 6:00 pm, at the Dalnavert Museum and Visitors’ Centre for a conversation with Gerald Friesen, author of The Honourable John Norquay: Indigenous Premier, Canadian Statesman.

Recounted here by Canadian historian Gerald Friesen, John Norquay’s life story ignites contemporary conversations around the nature of empire and Canada’s own imperial past. This masterful biography of the Premier from Red River sheds welcome light on a neglected historical figure and a tumultuous time for Canada and Manitoba.

Gerald Friesen taught Canadian history at the University of Manitoba from 1970–2011. He has written several books, including The Canadian Prairies: A History and Citizens and Nation, and is co-author of Immigrants in Prairie Cities. Former president of the Canadian Historical Association, he was an advisor on CBC-Radio Canada’s television series Canada: A People’s History.

In addition to the J.W. Dafoe Book Prize, The Honourable John Norquay has won a CLIO History Prize, Manitoba Day Award, and Margaret McWilliams Award.

Let us know you’re coming! Register for free here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2025-jw-dafoe-book-prize-winner-the-honourable-john-norquay-tickets-1950022643219?aff=oddtdtcreator