Alan Cairns

Hugh Alan Craig Cairns (born 1930) is a Canadian retired political science professor.

Born in Galt (now part of Cambridge, Ontario), he received a B.A. in 1953 and a M.A. degree in 1957 from the University of Toronto. In 1963, he received a D. Phil from St Antony's College, Oxford. He was a member of the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia from 1960 until his retirement in 1995 and served as head of the department from 1973 to 1980.

Cairns' most famous piece of writing on Canadian politics may be his 1971 article "The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and its Critics" which discusses judicial activism in Canada. It is often listed as one of the most-cited academic documents regarding Canadian politics.

Honours

In 1982, he received the Molson Prize. In 1998, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2003, he was inducted into the City of Cambridge Hall of Fame. He has received honorary degrees from Carleton University (1994), the University of Toronto (1996), the University of British Columbia (1998) and the University of Saskatchewan (2002).

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