Nicholas Langer Published Article in The Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law

Second Year History MA student, Nicholas Langer, published an article in the latest edition of The Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law (Vol. 19 No. 2 June / juin 2025). Based on a Fourth Year paper written for Prof. Norman Hillmer’s seminar on Canadian history, Nicholas’ article, entitled “Defining a Modern Commonwealth: The Role of Canada and Queen Elizabeth II in the 1973 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting,” explores the unexpected role played by Pierre Trudeau and Arnold Smith in bringing Queen Elizabeth II to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Ottawa in 1973. Given growing divisions within the old imperial Commonwealth—a function of the process of decolonization—Canada’s ability to bring the Queen, as Queen of Canada, to the meeting enabled, Langer argues, the Commonwealth to transform itself from a post-imperial to a multilateral association.