David M. Thomas was Vice President of Vancouver Island University (formerly Malaspina University College) until he retired in 2007 and was previously the Dean of the Faculty of Community Studies and Professor of Political Science at Mount Royal College. He is the author of a number of books, including the three previous editions of Canada and the United States , and Whistling Past the Graveyard (Oxford University Press, 1997).David Biette is the director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. and was a contributor to the third edition of Canada and the United States .