The Politics of Resentment

Since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, the question of Quebec’s status within Confederation has held centre stage in the Canadian unity debate. Comparatively little has been written about British Columbia, a province that for so long has seen itself on the periphery of the Canadian federation. The Politics of Resentment is the first book to examine the role that British Columbia has played in the evolving Canadian unity debate. Resnick explores what makes B.C. stand apart as a region of Canada. He looks at the views of politicians, opinion-makers, and ordinary British Columbians on the challenges posed by Quebec nationalism, on their sense of estrangement from central Canada, and on what they see as the future of Canadian unity. He concludes with an examination of the likely B.C. response in the event of a “yes” vote in any future Quebec referendum on sovereignty.

Clearly written and provocative, The Politics of Resentment provides a new way of thinking about British Columbia’s place within the Canadian federation. It draws on a wide range of sources – from government documents and from the media, to the work of B.C. authors and commentators, to the academic literature on regionalism and nationalism – to capture what underlies the often fractured relationship between Canada’s westernmost province and the rest of the country.