JANET AJZENSTAT

Janet Ajzenstat died on Tuesday, May 27, 2025, at the Shalom Village nursing home in Hamilton, Ontario. Her son, Sandor, was with her. She was 89. Janet's academic work helped revolutionize Canadian political history, arguing, against prevailing opinion, that the Canadian founders were political philosophers, with strong, distinct, and learned ideas about the nature of liberal democracy and the extent to which it could make room for particularities. She wrote several books, the first of which, The Political Thought of Lord Durham, was published in 1988 and is still in print. Her most influential work might prove to be Canada's Founding Debates, on which she was lead editor. This work offers excerpts from the debates on confederation in all of the colonial parliaments, debates that treat the nature of democracy, liberty, rights, and law, the nature of the best governmental forms, and the nature of Canadian nationality; the volume also includes annotations and explanatory essays. These debates had not previously been published; the book is therefore an essential resource. In her intellectual autobiography, Discovering Confederation: A Canadian's Story, 2014, she says that she is "sometimes referred to as a conservative but should by rights be regarded as a defender of the political constitution that ensures unconstrained and continuing deliberation among parties, interests, and philosophies of all political stripes." Her awards include the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012), the John T. Saywell Prize (2009), the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and the Jules and Gabrielle Léger Fellowship (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 1985). Born Janet Leslie MacDonald, she grew up in Toronto, attending Branksome Hall and then the University of Toronto where she studied Art and Architecture. In 1959, she married Sam Ajzenstat (d. 2013) and the two of them moved to Philadelphia, where she became immersed in political activism, marching and letter writing against the Vietnam War and in favour of civil rights. When they moved back to Canada she took classes in Political Science at McMaster University, and eventually did graduate work at Toronto, where she studied with Allan Bloom and completed a PhD under the supervision of Peter Russell. She had visiting professorships at Brock University and at the University of Calgary University (one of her happiest years), and in 1993 was hired full time at McMaster. At the time of her death she was an emeritus professor there. Janet is survived by her sister, Kady MacDonald Denton, her brother, Angus MacDonald, their children and grandchildren; and her son, Sandor Ajzenstat; daughter, Oona Eisenstadt; and granddaughter, Eila Planinc. She was a remarkable woman, good at everything she turned her hands to. Sandor writes: "A few days ago I told Oona that I didn't want Mum to ever die, but a while before that we had agreed that life without death would be meaningless. So, it is her spirit that will be living on, within our hearts, and in the hearts of others who have loved her." A funeral will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 29th, at United Hebrew Memorial Chapel, at 28 Ewen Road, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 3C4. Memorial Contributions may be made to Shalom Village Nursing Home, Hamilton.