Peter H. Russell

Peter Howard Russell (16 November 1932 – 10 January 2024) was a Canadian political scientist and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, where he taught from 1958 to 1997.

Education
Russell was an alumnus of the University of Toronto Schools, Trinity College in the University of Toronto, and Oriel College, Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He was also a member of the Toronto chapter of Alpha Delta Phi.

Academic career
Russell was the principal of Innis College, at the University of Toronto, from 1971 to 1976. He authored several books including: Two Cheers for Minority Government: The Evolution of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy, Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?, Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English Settler Colonialism and Canada's Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests.

Russell was director of research for the McDonald Commission on the RCMP, a member of the federal Task Force on Comprehensive Land Claims, president of the Canadian Political Science Association, and chair of the Research Advisory Committee for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Death
Russell died on 10 January 2024, at the age of 91.

Awards and recognition
Russell received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

He was the 2012 winner of the American Political Science Association's Mildred A. Schwartz Award.

Having been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in 1987, in the 2022 Canadian honours Russell was promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada (CC).