Solidarity

The year 1983 began like any other year in Canada’s West Coast province. Then suddenly everything changed. The newly elected provincial government announced an avalanche of far-right legislation that shocked the country. A resistance movement called Solidarity formed across British Columbia and there were massive street protests, occupations, plans for an all-out general strike. Revolution in one province?


Filled with revealing interviews and lively, insightful prose, David Spaner’s Solidarity goes behind the scenes of one of the great social uprisings in North American history. This book is a documentation of the Solidarity months of 1983 and more than that — 1983 is intimate storytelling, mixing popular culture and rebel politics, finding political answers in the personal lives of those touched by Solidarity. Like other uprisings — from France in 1968 to the anti-racism protests of 2020 — Solidarity arrived unexpectedly and rocked social foundations. In recreating this one singularly dramatic event, 1983 becomes the history of 20th century B.C. that hasn’t been written — exploring its great divides and unions, cultures and subcultures, conflicts that continue into the 21st century. The book 1983 brings Canadian history to life like never before.