My new book Magna Carta and Its Gifts to Canada: Democracy, Law, and Human Rights is featured on the 49th shelf, a website devoted to Canadian books and authors. In my article at 49th Shelf, I discuss the Magna Carta of 1215, which was the first example of a King of England accepting limits on his powers imposed by his subjects. I also explain how the significance of this document has evolved over the past eight hundred years. Magna Carta has had a profound impact on Canadian history, politics and law. For the Fathers of Confederation, the constitutional and legal traditions informed by Magna Carta were essential to the creation of the new Dominion of Canada. The limits imposed on King John’s rule were essential to the development of parliament in the mid-thirteenth century and then the constitutional monarchy enshrined by the English Bill of Rights in 1689, which became Canada’s system of government.