Reconsidering the Constitution, Minorities and Politics in Canada

Abstract

The constitution and constitutional discourse have loomed large on the agenda of Canadian political science since the 1960s. Over time, political scientists have approached the constitution and its role in society from a number of angles reflecting perceived primary axes of power and dominant cleavages within Canadian society. Thus, federalism, regionalism and British-French dualism have been prominent in explorations of constitutional politics, while such questions as the relation of the constitution to class or gender have been less central.

Engaging with Identity Politics in Canadian Political Science

“…To track the use of the term identity politics in our selected journals we conducted a full text search for both “identity politics” and “politics of identity” for the years 1985–2015, inclusive 3 . The 1985–2015 time frame was chosen because it corresponds with the date the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect and the ensuing concern with political claims-making based on identity (Abu-Laban and Nieguth, 2000; Cairns, 1991; Dobrowolsky, 1998; Morton, 1987). We then manually removed any search results that were not peer reviewed research articles or were false positives 4…”

“…We suggest debates around constitutional reform, multiculturalism and free trade may be historical factors informing the heightened identity politics references in the late 1990s. The non-ratification the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords spurred a national discussion about the role of so-called “special interests,” including women and state-identified groups such as visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples 7 in the failure to arrive at a national consensus (Lusztig, 1994; Tully, 1995, but also Abu-Laban and Nieguth, 2000; Dobrowolsky, 1998 for dissenting perspectives). These constitutional conversations overlapped with discussions of increasingly entrenched state multiculturalism which was introduced in 1971, but not legislated into enduring existence until 1988 8 .…”

Recognition, Re-distribution and Solidarity: The Case of Multicultural Canada

“…Thus, they also stressed the need to support the claims of Aboriginal people, francophones in and outside Quebec, women, and persons with disabilities (Abu-Laban and Nieguth, 2000). Although they were not successful, minorities also pursued constitutional recognition of affordable (higher) education and social programmes designed for all Canadian citizens such as universal health care and old age security (Abu-Laban and Nieguth, 2000).…”

(Re)negotiated identifications : reproducing and challenging the meanings of Arab, Canadian, and Arab Canadian identities in Ottawa

“…Multiculturalism was first introduced into Canadian federal legislation following the release of the fourth volume of a report on biculturalism and bilingualism the Canadian government commissioned in the 1960s with the stated purpose of examining and responding to tensions between Anglo-and French-Canadians. The discursive shift from biculturalism to multiculturalism was set in motion when, during their investigative hearings, the commissioners heard (more than anticipated) from what they referred to as "the other ethnic groups" in Canada who identified as neither French nor British, but mostly as Ukrainian or German Canadians and explicitly rejected the constitutive discourse of biculturalism as further institutionalizing their social, legal, and economic exclusion in Canada (Abu-Laban and Gabriel 2002;Abu-Laban and Nieguth 2000;Kobayashi 2007;Mackey 1999;Mitchell 1993;Wood and Gilbert 2005).…”