A History of Law in Canada from the beginning until Confederation

In this podcast, Greg Marchildon interviews Philip Girard, the co-author, along with Jim Phillips and Blake Brown, of A History of Law in Canada, Volume 1: Beginnings to 1866 published by the University of Toronto Press in 2018. Girard explains the ways in which Canadian legal culture historically draws upon Indigenous, French and British legal traditions. He also discusses the historical pathways that led to the legal pluralism that so marks the development of law in Canada. Philip Girard is one of Canada’s most accomplished legal historians and is currently a law professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Among his many other books is his outstanding biography of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Bora Laskin for which the Champlain Society awarded him the Floyd S. Chalmers Award. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.