20th Century Canada Research Articles

Not a Contradiction in Terms: Exploring the Progressiveness of the Progressive Conservatives

ABSTRACT Understanding the history of the political right in 20th-century Canada requires analyzing the most visible political expression of right-of-center policies and views of the post-Second World War period: the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party of Canada. For its first five decades, it was the de facto government-in-waiting when the Liberals were in office. It won six federal elections, governing 1957–1963, 1979–1980, and 1984–1993. While sometimes derided as centrist by commentators on the far right, its members defined themselves as conservatives, and their beliefs and policies incorporated elements of this ideology. The party had a more progressive wing—sometimes referred to as Red Tories—who believed the better off in society had responsibilities to care for the less fortunate. This article considers the role that progressive values and policies played within the PC Party, and how the party and its leadership responded to changing understandings of what it meant to be progressive in Canada.

Intensifying the Assimilation of Indians in the Сontext of Implementing the Indian Act

The article examines the policy of Canadian authorities toward the indigenous population (Indian policy) within the framework of implementing the Indian Act. The analysis concerns the policies from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century and the long-lasting effects of those, which remained existential in the second half of the 20th century, the Oka crisis in particular. The literature shows it is necessary to identify the whole range of the factors that determined the implementation of assimilationist policies and to trace the influence they had on subsequent events in the historical perspective. To provide a comprehensive outlook, taking into account such processes as territorial consolidation, colonization and demographic tendencies, the research is based on inductive assumptions. The central assumption why such policies arose is the demographic factor, being the key cause of the inter-racial and inter-ethnic imbalance. This, in turn, provoked the assertive stance taken by the political elites toward the indigenous. It is due to the Anglo-Saxon chauvinism that shaped the attitudes of the Canadian elites and thus became the ideological trend of the late 19th ‒ early 20th century Canada. The Anglo-Canadian nationalists’ intention to ensure the predominance of the Britishness element in the emerging Canadian society is demonstrated to have stemmed from the transatlantic ties with the former metropole. The discriminatory measures taken under the Indian Act that were explored in the text demonstrate that the processes of the Canadian state’s evolution and the ideological tendencies were marred by innate discrimination. The connection between the political measures implemented in the past and the current situation is considered. The Indian policy laid down the foundation for the inter-ethnic tensions that can manifest themselves in modern Canada. The Oka crisis of 1990 serves as the example. The scientific discussion of the effects of the Indian policy and of that particular case that involved the indigenous population and the military was analyzed, and alternative perspectives perceiving the Canadian soldiers as peacekeepers were scrutinized. The dominant scientific position based on criticizing the assimilationist Indian policy, discriminatory measures against the First Nations and ethnic intolerance is concluded to be justified. And therefore the study is politically and historically relevant: it is important to understand that the discriminatory ethnic policy is often integral to the development of seemingly respectable political regimes, which maintains the effects, sometimes hidden, of such discrimination on modern social (dis)integration.

À l'invisible nul n'est tenu : les conditions spatiales de l’identification métisse au Canada au XIXe siècle

Le « peuple oublié » (the forgotten people), telle est l’image qui collait aux Métis du Canada au tournant des années 1970. Il s’agit d’une époque cruciale où de jeunes intellectuels métis de l’Ouest canadien amorcent un long processus de réhabilitation de leur passé et de remise en question d’une historiographie canadienne qui les dépeint jusqu’alors comme des insurgés demi-sauvages et des menaces directes au développement du Canada moderne. En effet, suite à leur soulèvement en 1885, à l’intervention militaire des forces canadiennes et à la pendaison de leur leader politique, les Métis ont été, dans une large part, et pour la majeure partie du XXe siècle, relégués aux marges géographiques et sociales de l’ensemble canadien. À l’heure de la réconciliation nationale et du renouvellement des relations de l’État avec les peuples autochtones, cette réaffirmation métisse est certes dans l’air du temps. Elle s’accompagne toutefois d’un effet secondaire. À l’ombre de cette réalité métisse de l’Ouest, se multiplient aujourd’hui des communautés se réclamant de l’identité métisse et d’une histoire qui leur est propre, et cela bien au-delà du territoire des Prairies auquel est généralement associé cet espace identitaire au Canada. Ces revendications soulèvent des défis relativement à la définition des Métis comme peuple autochtone : d’une part, les communautés d’affirmation récente souffrent d’une invisibilité politique (reconnaissance) qui n’a d’égale qu’une certaine invisibilité historique (rareté des traces documentaires); d’autre part, ces revendications remettent profondément en question les représentations historiques et géographiques sur lesquelles reposent les processus d’identification de l’autochtonie. Cet article propose un nouveau regard géo-historique sur la question métisse dans l’Est, sensible aux jeux d’échelle et à la pertinence des preuves indirectes dans la construction des savoirs géographiques. Nous tirons profit d’une vingtaine d’années d’expérience en recherche fondamentale sur les questions métisses au Canada et d’une recherche plus appliquée découlant de notre rôle à titre de témoin expert pour une cause judiciaire au Québec.

Relations between Canada and the European Union as the Subject of Political Research

The given article is dedicated to peculiarities of studying foreign policy of Canada, in particular their relations with the European Union. Regardless of their distant geographic location, Canada has a long history of relations with the countries of the European continent. In particular, in the 20th century Canada played the role of the security donor for Europe and paid a substantial contribution into the victory in both world wars and its active participation in suppression to the Soviet threats during the Cold war. These circumstanced influenced the formation of Canadian foreign policy towards European countries. New division of the world powers as a result of the process of democratization of the Eastern part of the European continent resulted in widening and deepening European integrational processes, thus opening new perspectives and restrictions on the way of implementing Canadian national interests. These peculiarities are also caused by the unique character of the Canadian state-building policy, the fact of their bilingual society, geographic location, direct neighboring with the United States of America. However, common values and social-political orientations encouraged maintaining transatlanting ties and common positions in dealing with problems of global development both in Europe and Canada. It is stated that in the sphere of political research the Canadian scholars are given the biggest dominance. Moreover, there hasn’t been enough strictly conceptual or valid theoretical material among the articles published until recently. Changed became noticeable at the edge of the 80s-90s in the last century. However, articles didn’t signify the formation of the powerful, self-confident academic sphere in studying Canadian foreign policy. It is explained by the low interest towards foreign policy of this North-American State by overseas scholars. It is also analyzed that the Ukrainian researchers didn’t make thorough investigation in this sphere, although they have constantly demonstrated their interest in political aspects of Canada’s development as well as their Euro-integration issue. Key words: political science; foreign policy; Canada; the European Union.

“Laissez faire has had its day”: Land Use, Waste, and Propertied Improvement in Early Canadian Planning

ABSTRACTLand use control has become a ubiquitous part of contemporary planning, but in early 20th century Canada such controls were under constant debate. I review these debates and interrogate planning-led anxieties around waste to show how planners used categories of waste to encourage land use control and to facilitate the improvement of people’s lives and property. I think through the frictions that emerged when such planning ideas, mobilized through professional networks, touched down in the cities of Vancouver and Winnipeg. Land use regimes warrant increased scholarly attention: early conversations have contemporary relevance, as their discursive logics are foundational to modern methods of land use control.

The CCF and Canada's Socialist Streak

In the early 20th Century Canada saw the rise of a prominent socialist movement led by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The CCF's influence on Canadian politics was essential to the creation of Canada's modern political ideology, which can be described as reform liberal. This ideology took hold due to the pressure that the CCF exerted on the two major federal parties, which could both be characterized as classical liberal. Due to the settlement pattern of the prairies and the actions of the federal government in response to the Great Depression, the CCF was able to secure a strong support base that propelled it to federal politics and allowed it to form a provincial government in Saskatchewan. Though it never formed a federal government, the CCF pushed for old age pension, reforms of corporate taxation, and Medicare. As a provincial actor and a "third force" upon the two ruling federal parties, the CCF and its successor the New Democratic Party’s contributions to Canadian identity and policy are beyond dispute.

Worth Fighting For: Canada's Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror ed. by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney

Reviewed by: Worth Fighting For: Canada's Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror ed. by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney Nathan Smith Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney, eds., Worth Fighting For: Canada's Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror (Toronto: Between the Lines 2015) The edited collection, Worth Fighting For, is an important addition to historical literature about Canada. The nineteen different contributors provide insight into the politics, activism, institutions, social movements, and individuals that make up a long tradition of Canadian war resistance. The volume contains valuable historical information, engaging and important stories, and thought-provoking commentary. It certainly supports the editors' claims that "military conflict and mobilization in Canada have never gone unchallenged or unquestioned," and that "Canada's war resisters were a complex, active, and multifaceted group." (11) In addition to the editors' introduction, the book is composed of seventeen chronologically organized chapters, dealing with matters as far back as the Militia Act of 1793 and as recent as public debate about Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. The 20th-century and English Canada receive the bulk of the attention. Jonathan Seiling's discussion of the historic peace churches during the War of 1812 in Chapter 1 provides evidence of the complex reaction to that conflict in Canada, and of the significance of requisitioning and billeting as experiences of the burdens of war. Ross Fair impressively surveys the efforts of pacifist sects to secure exemption from military duty in Upper Canada and Canada West in Chapter 2. But that is where the book's pre-Confederation history ends. Pre-20th-century history ends with the next chapter, in which Amy Shaw offers a welcome new perspective on the Anglo-Boer War by reviewing opposition to Canada's first foreign war. The first three chapters suggest a relationship between war resistance and the extent of mobilization. The small-scale of mobilization for the war in South Africa must partly explain the "muted anti-war voice in Canada" (48) that Shaw analyzes. In sharp contrast is the War of 1812, which threatened homes and communities, and made demands Canadians could often not ignore. Whereas the War of 1812 transformed social life in parts of British North America, the Anglo-Boer War did not, however important it was politically. The practical and material realities of war played at least a role in determining the level and nature of opposition to war. The book offers 20th-century comparisons to these 19th-century conflicts in the form of the world wars, in which Canada mobilized on a massive scale, and the Cold War, which shaped Canadian politics and society for forty years, but led to participation in only one war, the Korean War. Two chapters in the book deal with the First World War and three with the Second World War. Seven of the remaining nine chapters look at the postwar period and Cold War issues, and the last two chapters are about the War on Terror. That nearly half of the book is about Cold War Canada means it is hardly even its historical coverage, but since a great deal has been written about conscription and the World Wars there is [End Page 316] reason to showcase scholarship on an era currently generating increased interest. One of the historical trends the chapters suggest is the declining importance of religion for war resistance. Of the eight chapters covering the period 1812–1945, five deal explicitly with religion, whereas the remaining nine chapters on the period after 1945 do not. This periodization proposes a pattern of secularization that is doubtlessly over-simplified, but it at least asks us to consider how moral philosophies and faith traditions have been important for war resistance over time. The book's chapters might lead to the conclusion that the ideological roots of modern Canadian war resistance are in internationalism and humanitarianism, especially their feminist versions. It is possible, however, that the peace activism addressed in several of the post-1945 chapters was partially informed by religion, or shaped to some extent by religious institutions. What is clear is that a moral or...

Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources ed. by Peter Baskerville and Kris Inwood

Reviewed by: Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources ed. by Peter Baskerville and Kris Inwood Lisa Dillon Peter Baskerville and Kris Inwood, eds., Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press 2015) The edited volume Lives in Transition: Longitudinal Analysis from Historical Sources has arrived at a propitious moment when academic researchers are foregrounding the critical importance [End Page 382] of early life conditions on later-life outcomes at the same time that public concern for intergenerational social inequality has intensified. This collection touches on both issues, and more. The chapters in this volume are grouped into four themes – transnational migrations, mobility in the rural world, mobility in the urban world, and ethnicity and war – and encompass 19th and 20th-century Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. While most of the chapters address the lives of free white male groups such as farmers, industrial labourers, and migrating settlers, some chapters address marginalized populations such as convicts and Aboriginals. This book is particularly notable for its integration of methodological innovations with path-breaking evidence on historical life course patterns. This volume serves as an excellent primer on various approaches to constructing linked data sets, usually via census-to-census linkage, but often with the integration of other historic sources. Some of the studies relied upon high-performance computing and machine-learning to develop automatic record linkage programs. Luiza Antonie, Peter Baskerville, Kris Inwood and J. Andrew Ross linked women and men between the 1871 and 1881 censuses to study Canadian occupational mobility while Gordon Darroch linked census microdata from 1861 and 1871 Ontario to study factors conditioning entry into farming. In his analysis of factors predicting movement and persistence in rural Perth County, Ontario, 1871–1881, Baskerville focused on 1871 residents in a smaller geographic unit but then searched for each resident across Canada and the United States in the censuses of 1880/1881; by doing so, Baskerville situated his population at the crossroads of micro- and national history. Kenneth M. Sylvester and Susan Hautaniemi Leonard traced farm operators and their households over time, drawing upon both personal and agricultural schedules of the Kansas census from selected communities. Other scholars broadened their studies by tapping into complementary resources. In his study of US social mobility between 1900 and World War II, Evan Roberts used a survey of Chicago working-class families conducted in 1924 and 1925, linking survey respondents backward to the 1920 census and forward to the 1930 census. John Cranfield and Inwood drew upon the personnel records of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (cef) 1914–1918, linking them to the 1901 Canadian census. Sherry Olson linked Montréal residents enumerated in the 1881 census to the 1901 census, but also attached addresses and rental values from the municipal tax roll to her data, consulted Catholic and Protestant marriage records to help with the matching effort, and used gis to estimate distances between households. By linking aboriginals and mixed-race men in the cef records back to the 1901 Canadian census, Allegra Fryxell, Inwood, and Aaron van Tassel discovered that “Aboriginal participation in the war was considerably more extensive than has been recognized.” (270) The two studies of British convicts transported to Tasmania drew upon British convict records which meticulously recorded extensive details of convicts’ origins, physical characteristics, and experience under sentence, as well as surgeon-superintendent voyage journals. Rebecca Kippen and Janet McCalman used this source to identify a unique set of “character” variables in terms of convicts’ behaviour under sentence; the researchers then searched across a wide variety of genealogical sources for the destiny of each convict. Lenihan also used crowd-sourced genealogical information, a register of 6,243 immigrants of Scottish birth arriving [End Page 383] in New Zealand before 1921. Kandace Bogaert, Jane van Koeverden and D. Ann Herring consult largely qualitative sources, including recruitment materials, church records, advertisements and letters in newspapers and army records, to understand the origins and spread of influenza in 1918 in the Polish Army Camp at Niagara-on-the-Lake. The various papers demonstrate two basic approaches: a national-level or provincial/state-level study which uses...

Management of Atlantic walrus (<i>Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus</i>) in the arctic Atlantic

We review the management of Atlantic walruses (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) past and present in the four range states—Canada, Greenland, Norway and Russia—which have permanent populations of Atlantic walruses. Populations in all four countries have been depleted, although the extent of depletion is not well known. Inuit in Arctic Canada and Greenland hunt Atlantic walruses for subsistence while they have been protected at Svalbard (Norway) since 1952 and in the western Russian Arctic since 1956. Since the second half of the 20th Century Canada and Greenland have increased protection of their walrus. Generally the number of walruses landed in Canada is governed by the number of hunters and/or people in the settlement and not by stock-specific quotas. Although quotas have been set in few communities, it is not known if they are adequate to prevent overhunting. A quota system for walrus hunting in Greenland began in 2006. The current control system is largely effective in ensuring the quotas are applied and that reporting is correct. Greenland currently sets quotas based on recommendations from scientific assessments using recent population estimates to allow population growth from a depleted population. A challenge with respect to managing walrus hunting remains the variable and sometimes high rates of lost animals. Since the 1960s changes in socio-economics in hunting areas of Arctic Canada and Greenland (and the use of snowmobiles instead of dog sleds in Canada) have led to a general decrease in interest in hunting of walruses and reduced harvest on walrus stocks in these countries. Although there is an active ongoing cooperation between Canada and Greenland scientists regarding assessments of shared populations of walruses currently there is no formal agreement between the two range states on co-management of shared stocks. Protection of walrus from other anthropogenic impacts generally focusses on large-scale industrial activity. The level of protection afforded to walrus habitat in many areas depends entirely on the rigor with which the Environmental Impact Assessments are conducted. Basic information on walrus such as numbers and stock discreteness is often lacking and sufficient lead-time is required to collect baseline data. Moreover, although most environmental protection legislation considers ‘cumulative impacts’, practical application remains problematic. The effectiveness of environmental protection regulations depends on industry compliance and the management authorities’ ability to enforce compliance. Because walrus are found in remote locations, enforcement remains a challenge. Increased human activity allowed by the current change in distribution and quality of arctic sea ice poses new threats to walrus if not well regulated. International agreements have varying importance for management within and among member states. Regulations governing international trade serve to identify illegally obtained products and to encourage range states to have a sustainable quota system. International cooperation in information sharing has had clear benefits for management of walruses in the past. The maintenance and expansion of these international efforts will improve the management of Atlantic walruses in the future.

Margaret Atwood’s "The Blind Assassin" as a Social Chronicle of 20th Century Canada

Margaret Atwood’s "The Blind Assassin" as a Social Chronicle of 20th Century Canada

Tracking people over time in 19th century Canada for longitudinal analysis

Linking multiple databases to create longitudinal data is an important research problem with multiple applications. Longitudinal data allows analysts to perform studies that would be unfeasible otherwise. We have linked historical census databases to create longitudinal data that allow tracking people over time. These longitudinal data have already been used by social scientists and historians to investigate historical trends and to address questions about society, history and economy, and this comparative, systematic research would not be possible without the linked data. The goal of the linking is to identify the same person in multiple census collections. Data imprecision in historical census data and the lack of unique personal identifiers make this task a challenging one. In this paper we design and employ a record linkage system that incorporates a supervised learning module for classifying pairs of records as matches and non-matches. We show that our system performs large scale linkage producing high quality links and generating sufficient longitudinal data to allow meaningful social science studies. We demonstrate the impact of the longitudinal data through a study of the economic changes in 19th century Canada.

Returning Home

In this article, the historical context of home healthcare in early 20th century Canada is examined with an emphasis on key events and groups that shaped nursing in the home as the primary form of healthcare. Ways in which home healthcare evolved are also addressed, including the movement from an emphasis on the home as the point of care for both preventative and curative services, to the separation of healthcare functions into public health, treatment of illness and injury, and pregnancy care-each with its own practitioners and regulators as hospital-based systems became the desirable norm. We conclude that the nature and status of home-based nursing evolved in response to public expectations of what comprised "best care" and who was responsible for providing (and funding) it. At a certain level, the home offered independent-minded nurses a level of autonomy and inscrutability unparalleled in hospital-based settings. As hospitals took preeminence as preferred sites for healthcare, the same geographic, cultural, and economic barriers that complicated access to hospitals also provided nurses unique opportunities in the home as relatively autonomous caregivers.

Making Up the State: Women in 20th-Century Atlantic Canada (review)

Making Up the State: Women in 20th-Century Atlantic Canada (review)

“A Plea for the Prostate”: Doctors, Prostate Dysfunction, and Male Sexuality in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Canada

Historical examinations of medical discourse concerning male sexuality have focused on the perceived linkage between masturbation and sexual neurasthenia. However, more tangible conditions such as prostatic hypertrophy were also linked to the sexual misconduct of young and old men. This paper examines both the medical discourse concerning prostatic hypertrophy and how the development of treatment was influenced by contemporary concerns with both sexuality and masculinity. It argues that mainstream doctors moved away from the Victorian preoccupation with the dangers of illicit sexuality and increasingly regarded the restoration of sexual function as being in the best interests of their patients. This view was particularly evident in their quest for an operative method that would cure prostatic hypertrophy while preserving potency.

The Romantic Aesthetics of Settlement in 19th Century Canada

During the “Settler Revolution” of the pre-Confederation period (1759–1867) in Canada and for some time afterwards, perceptions of the Canadian landscape were filtered through the aesthetics of the sublime and the picturesque. In addition to seeking out and describing sublime and picturesque sites such as Niagara Falls and the Thousand Islands in what is now Ontario, writers used and adapted the two aesthetics to suit the needs of settlement, deploying the sublime to depict, for example, the clearing fires that were deliberately set to deforest large tracts of land, and the picturesque to identify areas of “profitable beauty”– that is, areas whose fertility, terrain, and climate were amenable to successful agricultural settlement and, hence, to the eventual realization of the utopian ideal of independence and freedom based on prosperity. Works such as Thomas Cary’s Abram’s Plains (1789), John Howison’s Sketches of Upper Canada (1821), Oliver Goldsmith’s The Rising Village (1825), Catharine Parr Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada (1836), and Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush (1852) contain passages in which the picturesque aesthetic especially is used to give shape to the landscapes of central and eastern Canada and, indeed, to the country that emerged in 1867.

Supervised Places to Play

In early 20th century Canada, middle-class social reformers campaigned for urban parks and supervised playgrounds to provide children with appropriate places for leisure activities. Drawing on adult memories of participating in playgrounds in London, Ontario, this study explores the issues and complexities of establishing the playground program in London and, more specifically, the opportunities provided for girls and young women to learn and play sport. I consider the implications of social and moral reform initiatives on leisure spaces, and the impact of the delivery of social welfare at the municipal level on the lives of female participants.

Who’s a Public Health Professional? The Struggle for Recognition by Sanitary Inspectors in Early 20th Century Canada

Who’s a Public Health Professional? The Struggle for Recognition by Sanitary Inspectors in Early 20th Century Canada

Public health nursing in early 20th century Canada.

Public health nursing in early 20th century Canada.

Public Health Nursing in Early 20th Century Canada

Public Health Nursing in Early 20th Century Canada

The Natural History Society of Montreal's Museum and the Socio-Economic Significance of Museums in 19th-Century Canada

The Natural History Society of Montreal's Museum, the first science museum in Montreal, was led, throughout the first half of the 19th century, by members of the local anglophone bourgeoisie. It temporarily prospered with the increased involvement of the Geological Survey of Canada with the Society during the 1850s and 1860s, until the economic crisis of the 1870s and the departure of the Survey for Ottawa in 1881 restored it to its amateur status.