Compton - Stanstead
Gary Caldwell
Gary Caldwell is a farmer, municipal politician and public intellectual. Born in Toronto he, and his family to be, moved to a farm in Ste- Edwidge-de-Clifton in Compton-Stanstead in 1972.
Graduate of both the University of Toronto (York) and Université Laval, he came to the Eastern Townships to “return to the land”. In the seventies and eighties he was a professor at Bishop’s University and a senior researcher at the “Institut québécois de recherche sur la culture”. He resigned from Bishop’s in 1979 and from the IQRC in 1992.
Since the mid-seventies, his family has operated their mixed family-farm, raising sheep until 1995 and fermenting vegetables since, while developing their wood-lot. During the last thirty-five years he has been active in the local civic affairs as a credit union president, school board member, and since 1990 as a municipal councilor. He is presently the deputy mayor of Ste-Edwidge. He also served on the Eastern Townships “Future of Québec Commission” and the Québec “Estates General on Education” as well as on the “private forests” and “water ways” committees of the local county council.
Gary writes in journals of social and political commentary “L’Agora”, “Inroads” and “Égards”. His most recent book is La Culture Publique Commune: les règles du jeu de la vie publique au Québec et les fondements de ces règles. He is presently preparing a similar effort in English on the Canadian “public culture”. His most recent articles deal with the question of the role of the state in public education in Québec.
Gary Caldwell is the nominated candidate for the Green Party of Canada in the riding of Compton - Stanstead.
