Canadian Mosaic Ii

The second volume in a series written by Canadian playwrights.

Immigration policy is a subject of intense political and public debate. In this second edition of the widely recognized and authoritative work The Making of the Mosaic, Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock have thoroughly revised and updated their examination of the ideas, interests, institutions, and rhetoric that have shaped Canada's immigration history. Beginning their study in the pre-Confederation period, the authors interpret major episodes in the evolution of Canadian immigration policy, including the massive deportations of the First World War and Depression eras as well as the Japanese-Canadian internment camps during World War Two. New chapters provide perspective on immigration in a post-9/11 world, where security concerns and a demand for temporary foreign workers play a defining role in immigration policy reform. A comprehensive and important work, The Making of the Mosaic clarifies the attitudes underlying each phase and juncture of immigration history, providing vital perspective on the central issues of immigration policy that continue to confront us today.

Canada is often considered a multicultural mosaic, welcoming to immigrants and encouraging of cultural diversity. Yet this reputation masks a more complex history. In this groundbreaking study of the pre-history of Canadian multiculturalism, Daniel Meister shows how the philosophy of cultural pluralism normalized racism and the entrenchment of whiteness. The Racial Mosaic demonstrates how early ideas about cultural diversity in Canada were founded upon, and coexisted with, settler colonialism and racism, despite the apparent tolerance of a variety of immigrant peoples and their cultures. To trace the development of these ideas, Meister takes a biographical approach, examining the lives and work of three influential public intellectuals whose thoughts on cultural pluralism circulated widely beginning in the 1920s: Watson Kirkconnell, a university professor and translator; Robert England, an immigration expert with Canadian National Railways; and John Murray Gibbon, a publicist for the Canadian Pacific Railway. While they all proposed variants of the idea that immigrants to Canada should be allowed to retain certain aspects of their cultures, their tolerance had very real limits. In their personal, corporate, and government-sponsored works, only the cultures of "white" European immigrants were considered worthy of inclusion. On the fiftieth anniversary of Canada's official policy of multiculturalism, The Racial Mosaic represents the first serious and sustained attempt to detail the policy's historical antecedents, compelling readers to consider how racism has structured Canada's settler-colonial society.

At the time, Canadian policies regarding ethnic communities were preoccupied with the involvement and loyalty these communities had with their homeland's politics and the fear of infiltration from either the left or right of the political spectrum. Focusing on the creation and operation of under-examined government institutions and committees devised to exercise subtle control of minority groups, Ivana Caccia explores the shaping of Canadian identity, the introduction of government-inspired citizenship education, and the management of ethnic relations. An engaging work that offers an important account of nation building in Canada and the treatment of ethnic minorities in times of heightened international tensions, Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime provides crucial insights into multicultural policy and the possibility of parallels with the preoccupations with security and surveillance in the aftermath of 9/11.

Preface from The Vertical Mosaic THIS BOOK is an attempt to examine the hitherto unexplored subjects of social class and power in Canadian society. However, because no one volume can present a total picture of a modern society, or even of some aspect of that society, there is much that is left unsaid in this study, and many fascinating paths that remain for later investigations. I have tried to suggest some of those which time and resources did not permit me to take. The class and power structure of a modern society arouses a great deal of interest. For example, there is the ethical consideration that class differences appear to contradict those values of a democratic society which emphasize equality. Another reason for the interest is psychological: people have ambivalent feelings about power; that is, men of power are respected, idolized, and often endowed with magical qualities, but as well they are viewed with suspicion, as conspirators against the public good. In the middle of the twentieth century there is also the more practical concern that only the ablest people get into top positions, for, at a time marked by keen international competition, no society can rely on a system of privilege as the basis of recruitment to the higher occupational levels. A system of privilege exists where higher occupational levels are preserved, or tend to be preserved, for particular social groups. Where privilege does exist it may be traced to differences in educational opportunity. Consequently, most modern industrial societies have introduced policies to democratize their educational systems, and so help to bring about more equality of opportunity and at the same time to increase the amount of trained ability that is available. At the level of institutional leadership, that is, of elite groups, it is even more crucial that there be no impediments to people of ability getting to the top. Class can be one such obstacle because it seriously impedes the development of skills in persons having initial talent. Those attracted to the subject of power by the "inside dope" that is often found in newspapers and popular magazines will be disappointed with this study. I have included little information that is not readily available to any other researcher. The benefit that I have received from discussions with powerful men is not that I can tell secrets about them, for that has not been my intent, but rather that I have become better oriented to the structures within which these men work. My academic colleagues may be disappointed that I have not presented extensive case studies of particular decisions which elites have made. Valuable and necessary to the understanding of power as such studies might be, my interest has been to look at the institutional context within which decisions are made and to learn something of the type of men who make them. However, I do refer frequently to important decisions, and in the last chapter I try to show how elites co-operate or come into conflict in reaching them. There are many places in this analysis of class and power where I have regretted the inadequacy of the data to give fuller support to the qualified assertions which I have made. Data rarely come in just the form we should like to receive them. Where appropriate I have drawn attention to the tentativeness of the conclusions which must stand as hypotheses for further testing in future investigations. Furthermore, data can be interpreted in different ways according to the theories which investigators use and the values which they hold. Throughout the book I have tried to make explicit the various theories or theoretical considerations about class and power in society which help to make sense of the evidence I have presented. Perhaps less explicit are personal values which have had an influence on the kinds of problems I have sought to analyze. I attach great importance to equality of opportunity on both ethical and practical grounds. I am aware of the criticisms which have been made of the possible development of meritocracies, but I am not convinced that recent extensions of opportunity, particularly in education, are having a detrimental effect on individuals or societies. I believe strongly, too, in the creative role of politics, and in the importance of political institutions as the means through which the major goals of the society can be achieved. Where these values have influenced my interpretation of the facts will, I think, be clear to the reader. In a society which is made up of many cultural groups there is usually some relationship between a person's membership in these groups and his class position and, consequently, his chances of reaching positions of power. Because the Canadian people are often referred to as a mosaic composed of different ethnic groups, the title, "The Vertical Mosaic," was originally given to the chapter which examines the relationship between ethnicity and social class. As the study proceeded, however, the hierarchical relationship between Canada's many cultural groups became a recurring theme in class and power. For example, it became clear that the Canadians of British origin have retained, within the elite structure of the society, the charter group status with which they started out, and that in some institutional settings the French have been admitted as a co-charter group whereas in others they have not. The title, "The Vertical Mosaic," therefore seemed to be an appropriate link between the two parts of the book. -- John Porter, Carleton University, January 1965

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, University of Groningen, language: English, abstract: The paper is about Canadian and American immigration policies. It discusses differences, commonalities and such. Which country has the better immigration system? Over the last decade, the Canadian mosaic and the American melting pot have emerged in North American as concepts to explain Canada’s and America’s angle towards immigration and cultural pluralism. While many Canadians view the American melting pot as the total opposite of the mosaic, the two ideologies have much in common while examining the everyday realities of cultural pluralism in North America. In the following my intension is to illustrate on which concepts both immigration policies are based on, under which circumstances immigrants are allowed to move to the US and Canada by comparing the two immigration procedures, what the distinctive features between them are and in how far they are able to keep their promises towards new immigrants by looking at critics.