In this introduction, we briefly define Canadian philosophy and discuss its importance before introducing the authors who contributed to this special issue and their articles. The history of Canadian philosophy has been understudied, and there is a need for new philosophical work on the challenges facing Canada. Some articles collected in this special issue examine the history of philosophy in Canada, while others subject contemporary issues to philosophical analysis. The contributors to this special issue include Ian H. Angus, Robert Timko, Anna Brinkerhoff, Stefan Lukits, Charles Blattberg, Ronald A. Kuipers, Jérôme Gosselin-Tapp, Delphine T. Raymond, Frédérique Jean, Rémi Poiré, Matthew Robertson, Janet C. Wesselius, and R. Bruce Elder.

Dans cette introduction, nous définissons brièvement la philosophie canadienne et discutons de son importance avant de présenter les auteurs qui ont contribué à ce numéro spécial et leurs articles. L’histoire de la philosophie canadienne a été peu étudiée et il est nécessaire de réaliser de nouveaux travaux philosophiques sur les défis auxquels le Canada est confronté. Certains articles rassemblés dans ce numéro spécial examinent l’histoire de la philosophie au Canada, tandis que d’autres soumettent des questions contemporaines à une analyse philosophique. Les contributeurs à ce numéro spécial incluent Ian H. Angus, Robert Timko, Anna Brinkerhoff, Stefan Lukits, Charles Blattberg, Ronald A. Kuipers, Jérôme Gosselin-Tapp, Delphine T. Raymond, Frédérique Jean, Rémi Poiré, Matthew Robertson, Janet C. Wesselius, et R. Bruce Elder.

Canada has a history of unjust injury inflicted on innocents by institutions, by collectives, and by individuals in personal relationships. There is widespread consensus in Canadian society that a proper response to such injury is an apology. I argue that for moral repair to take place the apology is not a good place to start. Explicit apologies conceal systemic social, political, and hermeneutic questions: by speaking out, they silence. As an alternative, I propose forgiveness, which I fill with meaning drawn from a particular Canadian perspective of diversity and recency in nation building.

Doxastic Partialism in Friendship is the view that part of being a good friend is having positively tilted beliefs about one’s friends. Being a patriot — like being a good friend — is demanding. And there is a case to be made that patriotism — like friendship — demands doxastic partiality, this time towards one’s country. Although doxastic partiality in friendship has been widely discussed in the philosophical literature, comparatively little has been written on its patriotic cousin. Focusing on doxastic partiality in the Canadian context, this article seeks to rectify this lack by considering both motivations and worries for Patriotic Doxastic Partialism.

I argue that Winthrop Pickard Bell’s 1915 prediction that Canada would develop into a nation was accurate by examining two Canadian public figures. First, I examine Bell’s analysis that a nation has its own culture. Second, I analyze Roméo Dallaire’s explanation that his actions in Rwanda were guided by his Canadian background. Third, I turn to Harold R. Johnson who argues that culture is story: we choose which stories to tell about ourselves. I conclude that there is a thread that runs through Bell, Dallaire, and Johnson, a cultural thread about nation, culture, and story.

Canada’s role in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) globally has been, and continues to be, that of both system architect and system participant. The North American Free Trade Agreement’s investment chapter and the investor-state disputes that were ventilated within its framework — particularly those involving Canada as a disputing party — have inspired and shaped other ISDS mechanisms. This article examines how Canada has contributed to a progressive rebalancing of protections for foreign investors and foreign investment through a historical review of Canada’s bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and multilateral trade treaties containing investment protection chapters where Canada is a state party and Canada’s participation as a disputing party in investor-state disputes that have provided definitional clarity with respect to many host state obligations towards foreign investors and their investments under BITs and investment chapters in multilateral treaties.

This article discusses how the state’s failure to respond to the needs of a marginalized community leads to a sense of being undeserving among its members, a sense that significantly shapes their legal consciousness. Focusing on Chinese immigrants’ reluctance to discuss contracts openly and invoke the law to seek redress in Canada, this article challenges the approach of blaming culture for some immigrants’ different perceptions of and relationships with the law in the host country. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this study argues that the host country’s devaluation and non-recognition of foreign credentials, its lack of intervention in predatory practices targeting vulnerable immigrants, and its failure to provide adequate legal resources accessible to immigrants with diverse language and cultural backgrounds, all work in tandem to push Chinese immigrants away from contracts and keep them from turning to law for help in Canada. Drawing on vulnerability theory and legal consciousness scholarship, it develops a multi-level legal consciousness framework to connect micro-level experiences with macro-level forces to understand how individuals who share the same marginalized identities participate in reproducing structural inequalities within their own communities due to state inaction.

In its 2021 Model Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, Canada has sought to preserve regulatory flexibility by using terms like “legitimate policy objectives,” “legitimate public policy objectives,” and “legitimate public welfare objectives.” How can this threefold distinction of “legitimate objectives” impact the interpretation of international investment obligations? Through an analysis of the content of international investment agreements and awards from tribunals that have expressly referred to these terms, this article argues that various forms of “legitimate objectives” do not encapsulate distinct legally significant terms and could lead to unintended consequences.

The political and social preferences of homeowners command significant attention from political scientists. Homeownership appears to make individuals more politically right-wing in their preferences over redistribution and increases their political activism. Comparatively little is known about renters. While often treated as a single group, our main argument is that renters are heterogeneous in their political preferences and behaviour. Our contribution is to differentiate between renters who would like to own, a group we call “prospective homeowners,” and those who would prefer to rent, or “satisfied renters.” We use a first-of-its-kind, nationally representative survey of Canadian renters to show that prospective homeowners are more right-wing than satisfied renters but are not more likely to vote for right-wing parties. Our findings suggest that many of the effects ascribed to homeownership may in fact predate the purchase of a house.