"Stephen Leacock was part of that curious and perhaps indigenously Canadian species which has been given the name of “Red Tory”                        

– Alan Bowker     

"Many writers have asserted that there is a common ground between conservatism and socialism; perhaps the most frequently cited similarities are an organic view of society, distrust of pure individualism, and a willingness to use the state to assert the rights of society, as distinct from the interests of powerful individuals. When both ideologies have legitimacy within a political culture, a  hybrid known as the Red Tory may emerge."                

– Ian Robertson   

"At McGill, as at Ottawa Collegiate, I was blessed with exceptional teachers. Stephen Leacock, head of the Department of Economics and Political Science, was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known….He was an ardent Conservative (though, also, like Sir Sam Hughes, a fierce Canadian nationalist."

-Eugene Forsey 

"Leacock was a great writer—one of the greatest we have ever  possessed."

-Robertson Davies

Leacock’s Historic Context  

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) lived through a period of Canadian political and economic history in which two economic theories dwelt both in tension and in a confrontational mode. Canada was still very much part of the British Commonwealth ethos in Leacock’s maturing years, the notion of free trade was waxing, Canadian nationalism was emerging and many were the Canadians that supported closer economic integration with the United States. Where did Leacock stand in these conflicting theories (and their application) and why?

Leacock is mostly remembered in Canada and beyond for his many compact books laced with humour, political commentary ever-present. But, Leacock taught in the Department of Political Economy all of his academic life at McGill University. The larger economic questions were front and centre for Leacock in his maturing years, hence it is quite apt and significant, when doing his PHD at the University of Chicago, his thesis was entitled The Doctrine of Laissez Faire and completed in 1903. Needless to say, Leacock’s use of “doctrine” made it abundantly clear, that the economic battle had become a new religion of sorts, forms of orthodoxy, heterodoxy and heretical positions the new sacred reality for many.