Land and the Liberal Project

Land and the Liberal Project explores the “improving” ideas that informed the expansion of Canada from coast to coast, exposing the justifications for state violence and appropriation of Indigenous territory, thus challenging our assumptions about Canadian sovereignty.

Éléna Choquette is an associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais. She has held a postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge University and has been published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Settler Colonial Studies, and the Journal of Political Ideologies.

"The book as a whole is a model example of settler studies working toward decolonization."

Michael Ledger-Lomas:

"Éléna Choquette’s Land and the Liberal Project is a relentless though instructive attempt to expose nation building as a front for genocide."

Matthew Wildcat, assistant professor, Native Studies, University of Alberta:

Éléna Choquette challenges the collective perception Canada has of itself as a peaceable kingdom. Her scholarship sets a new standard on the political history of the Canadian Northwest.

Daniel Sims, associate professor, First Nations Studies, University of Northern British Columbia:

Land and the Liberal Project is an excellent and much-needed accounting of colonialism during the period surrounding Confederation. It challenges nationalistic narratives regarding the formation of Canada.