Introduction to Canadian Studies1

Introduction to Canadian Studies
Klára Kolinská
Canada parliamentary elections
NAFTA

Unit 1 – Introduction & Canadian Geography
Conservative government with many Canadian hate, but opposition is very
divided (liberals and NDP)
Isolated people
Nature and landscape influence Canada, and how Canadians think.
People die in cars because there run out of gas and they are out of mobile phone
operators network.
Canada has flag since 1965.
Technically Canadian are the British subjects.
Starts as French Colony (New France – the largest colonial holding).
Canadian Anthem
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Absence of culture
Nature dominates

Canadian Railway – connecting the country from Ocean to ocean
Population
Climate (serious north)
Enormous lake system
Both lake system and the river system very important mean of transport
Biggest reservoir of drinking water.
Natural resources:
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Coal
Cooper
Diamond
Fresh water
Gold

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Lumber (wood)
Oil (Alberta)

Aboriginal people have nothing to do. They sniff the gas.
Mountains + Lakes + Prairies + Islands
Provinces (10) and territories (3)
Newfoundland and Labrador
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Beautiful landscape

Prince Edward Island
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Great tourist destination
Anne of Green Gables

Nova Scotia
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Halifax is the second biggest harbour in the world
Grave of Jack Dowson (John Dowson) and bodies form Titanic disaster

New Brunswick
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The only bilingual province

Quebec
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Centre of French presence in Canada

Ontario
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Most industries

Manitoba
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Prairie province
Manitoba’s agreement
Agricultural

Saskatchewan
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Prairie province
Agricultural (Bread basket of Canada)

Alberta
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Oil
Winter Sports

British Columbia

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Healthy Climate
A lot of pensioner

Yukon Territory
North-West Territory
Nunavut (our land in Inuit language)
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Inuit have they own government

Ann of Green Gables?

Unit 2 – Canadian History
History start
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Natives (Aboriginal history); 80 000 – 12 000 years ago
French colonizers arrived
Date of Independence

History relies on written documentation
The ancestors of aboriginal people came there from Alaska, from North-eastern
Asia (during ice age).
America do not produce a specious of people
Ancient Ancestors’
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The Dorsets (500 CE): predecessors of the Inuit; the skraelings1?
The Algonquians: Mi’kmaq, Abenaki, Beothuk, Anishinaabe (the Great
Lakes)
The Iroquois confederacy2 (Southern Ontario & Qubec)
The Cree (Western plains)
Salish, Dene, Tlingit, Kwakiut (tha pacific coast)

European contact
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Icelandic explorers and sagas: Leif Erikson (1000 CE) – Vinland3? (L’Anse
aux Meadows)
1497: John Cabot in Newfoundland (Italy)
1498: Ja~o Fernandez Lavrador in Labrador (Portugal)

1 From Viking Sagas
2 The Iroquois are developed In a political sence
3 Land of Wine, New Founland

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1534: Jacques Cartier in the Gulf opf St. Lawrence (French)
1605: Samuel de Champlain establishes colony in Port Royal
1608: Champlaim establishes colony in Quebec

New France (1608-1763) – gigantic project
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Quebec capital of the colony
Economy based on fur trade and fishing industry: seigneurial system
1633: Champlain governor of New France
Problems: low population, wars with the Iroquois
People go, get rich and return to Europe – they don’t want to develop
colony

Colonial wars:
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War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) -> Treaty of Utrecht: Frence
gives up Hudson Bay, Acadia and Newfoundland
War of Austrian Succession (1744-1748) -> fall of Louisbourg
Expulsion of Acadians: 1755
Battle at the Plains Abraham: 1759
Treaty of Paris: British sovergenity confirmed: 17634

Death of General Wolf – Canadian painting
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Europeans think; primitives think -> reverse

Champlain map
The First British rules: 1763 – 1812
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1763: Royal Proclamation – Anglicization of Quebec
1744: Quebec Act – seigneurial system, French civil law and rights of
Catholics guaranteed
American Revolution – influx of Loyalists to Nova Scotia and Quebec
Northwest expansion ( Mckenzie, Vancouver, Thompson, Fraser ...)

War 18125
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Persistent resentment btw. the British and the Americans: land claims,
Indian allies, British interference with shipping
Americans under William Hull invade Upper Canada, are driven back by
Canadians under Isaac Brock (and Tecumseh)
Invasion of York and Great Lakes area
1814: Treat of Ghent – Canada – US border

4 Also end of 7 years war
5 In US history there was the secondo war of independence

Rebellions and reforms
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Growth of British North America
Frictions btw. ruling elites and colonies
Rebellions of 1837
o Lower Canada: Patriotes Rebellion (Louis Joseph Pappineau)
o Upper Canada (William Lyon Mackenzie)
1839: The Durham Report – union of Lower and Upper Canada, responsible
government
1840: Treaty of Union6

Quebec as colonized people by America
The road to Confederation:
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Growth of immigration, local industries, economy and transportation
Loss of preferential trade, concern about the US, weak government
1864 Charlottetown Accord - plan
1867 British North America Act: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario,
Quebec form the Dominion of Canada
John a Macdonald – first prime minister

The National Expands 1867 – 1855
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1869 – purchase of Rupert’s Land (the Métis opposition, provisional
government in Red River settlement, Louis Riel)
1870: Manitoba joins Confederation
1871: British Columbia joins confederation
1873: Prince Edward Island joins Conf
1885: Canadian Pacific Railway completed
1855: Northwest Rebellion (Riel hanged)

Unit 3 – Canadian History 2
Canadian change: Conservative party -> Liberal Party
Justin Trudeau: ,,We’re back” YouTube
1 century to complete creating, uniting Canada.
MacDonald -> replaced by liberals
Into the 20th century
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Manitoba after Riel: dual education system replaced by a single
(Protestant) one – animosity btw. English and French - > defeat of the
Conservatives by the Liberals
The Laurier years (1896-1911) ,,The twentieth century belongs to Canada”
Growth of industry and agriculture

6 Foundation of Canadian government

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Immigration
1905: Alberta and Saskatchewan join confederation
1911: Liberal lost to conservatives

Canada in WW17
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Puts Canada as a important player in international politics
Not enough volunteers -> conscription
o Referendum -> supporters of conscription won
Canadians on the European battlefields
o 1915 Ypres
o 1916 St Eloi, Mont Sorrel, Somme
o 1917 Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele
o 1918 Amiens, Mons
o Almost 70 000 Canadian casualties ( John McRae: ,,In Flanders
Fields”)8
Canadians at home:
o Crisis over conscription: Quebec (Henri Bourassa) x English Canada
(Robert Borden)
Postwar readjustment, recession9
o 1919 Winnipeg general strike
o 1926 Imperial Conference: Canadian gains autonomy from the
British Empire
The Great Depression 1929-1939
o Effect of the Depression in Canada: export economy, fall of wheat
prices (Saskatchewan: fall of provincial income by 90%)
o 1935: On to Ottawa Trek
o Fake work camps
Canada in WW2
o Another referendum on conscription
o Canadians on the world battlefields:
 1941 : Hong Kong
 1942: Dieppe
 1944: landing in Normady
o 42 000 Canadian casualties
o Canadians at home:
 Plebiscite over conscription
 Japanese internment camps
Canada adter WW2
o Economic boom (St. Lawrence Seaway)
o 1949: Newfoundland joins Confederation
o 1958: Prime minister John Diefenbaker: ,,Northern vision”
o 1960: Bill of Rights -> right to vote to Native Canadians

7 In English Great War
8 Also Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
9 „The Roaring Twenties” – growth of immigration, industry, consumer economy

New cabinet -> number of aboriginal people, number of woman
Lester B. Pearson
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1945: founding conference of the UN
1949: Canada in NATO
1957: Noble Peace Prize for involvement in the Suez crisis
Medicare, Canada Pension Plan
1963: Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism
1965: Maple Leaf flag

Pierre Elliot Trudeau
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The Quiet Revolution in Quebec
1969: Official Languages Act10
1976: Parti Quebecois wins provincial elections in Quebec
1982: patriation of Canadian constitution (Constitution Act) – Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms
North-South dialogue
Nuclear disarmament

Towards the end of the 20th Century
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Brian Mulroney:
o Stronger ties with the US
 1987: Meech Lale Accord
 1989 NAFTA agreement
 1990: the Oka crisis

Into the present
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1993: Kim Campbell – 1st Canadian female Prime Minister
1995: referendum on Quebec secession
1995: standoff at Ipperwash
1999: creation of Nunavut
2006: Quebecois recognized as a distinct nation within Canada
2008: Prime minister Stephan Harper apologizes to the Native people for
forced cultural assimilation

Unit 4 – Aboriginal People of Canada
Not need monuments for themselves
Focus on community
Vinetu, Karl May
Geronimo

10 Both languages are equal on national level

What do we call them?
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Indians
Native Canadians
First Nations
Aboriginal people
Indigenous people

Pre-contact Canada
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500 000 – 2 000 000 people
More than 50 languages divided into 12 language groups
Diversity of lifestyles:
o Northwest coast – hierarchical chiefdoms, complex patterns of trade
and social contact (potolach)
o Great Lakes and St. Lawrence valley – farming societies (corn,
beans, squash, tobacco), early confederacies, early contact with
Europeans
o East of Great Lakes – trading patterns of the Hurons
o Western plains – hunting societies (bison)
o Coastal regions – whaling and fishing societies
Simple material conditions , but complex system of spiritual belief

Fishing societies, whaling societies (hunting whales)
Post-contact Developments
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first contact with Europe: 1000 AD – the Norse in the Arctic
Complete disappearances: Dorset, Beothuk, St Lawrence Iroquoians
Until 16th century: sporadic contact demanded by needs of the fishing
(whaling) and fur trades – development of patterns of kinship
Indian allies in colonial wars
19th century – decline of mutual friendship -> “Vanishing Race”

The Last of the Mohicans
19th Century:
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Growing immigration, western expansion -> decline of bison herds and
whales
-> decline of native cultures, creation of the reservation system: “the time
of the treaties”
1876: Indian Act – defines Indian status administration of reservations

The Metis: Canada’s New Nation:
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The Red River settlement
Metis not recognized as Aboriginal by law
Northwest rebellion 1885 – disputes over land claims, ethnic identity
1982: Metis recognized as Aboriginal by Constitution

Residential schools legacy
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School of native people

Article Canada’s ‘Sad Chapter’
Canada Days – Wednesday 7 PM o’clock-> Friday (Municipal library)

Unit 5- Canadian North
Etymology : nord = ,,under” or “left”
Cultural references: ,,north of X”
Louis Edmond Hamelin
Latitude – summer heat – annual cold- types of ice –precipitation – vegetation
cover – accessibility by means other than air – air service – population – degree of
economic activity
Topography of the north
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Permanent ice and tundra north
Canadian shield

Demography of the North
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Cca 100 00 people for area larger than Western Europe
Largest percentage of Aboriginal population
North - ,,the largest uncivilized area in the world)

Canadians’ attitude to the North
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,,The North is more than an idea, it is a passion” (Louis Edmond Hamelin)
North as social construction
North a discursive landscape
North as a projection
North as a defining feature (Canadian identity as masculinist, resilient,
pure, sincere)
North as myth: ,,All energy of the world radiates from the Magnetic North
Pole” (Murray Schafer)

North test your strength, test your real value
Song: Northwest passage
,,North ... becomes a fact that is produced by northern specialists who operate
under the general title of Northern and Native studies”
Historiography of the north
Robert Grant Haliburton, The Men of the North and Their Place in History (1869)
-> ,,Can the generous flame of national spirit be kindled and blaze ...”

John Diefenbaker -> I see a new Canada a Canada of the North
Sir John Franklin mystery (expedition)
Rasmussen was a half-Inuit
Museum of the Inuit Art -> Toronto
Airport art
Naoouk of the North -> film
Atanajurat, Aboriginal (The fast runner) -> film
Canadian North -> film

French and English Canada
History of Quebec
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Ethymology: ke’bec = “where the river narrows”
Province of Quebec : founfef 1763 by
o Proclamation Act – compromised area around St. Lawrence River
1774: The Quebec Act – restored areas of the Great Lakes and the Ohio
valley
1783: Treaty of Versailles – ceded area south of the Great Lakes to the US
1791: Constitutional Act – area divided into Upper Canada (Ontario) and
Lower Canada (Quebec)
1840: Province of Canada - Canada West (Ontario) and Canada East
(Quebec)
1867: British North America act – Povinces of Quebec and Ontario
1870: Purchase of Rupert’s Land
1898, 1912: Quebec Boundary Extensions Acts – northern part of Rupert’s
Land transferred to Quebec
1927: border with Labrad or and Newfoundland established

Founding of modern Quebec
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1948: Les Automatistes: “Le Refuse Global”
Paul-Emile Borduas – manifesto
Rejection of social, artistic, religious, and ethical values of Quebec society,
call for modern, liberated society
Canada Broadcasting Corporation
Quiet Revolution – Revolution tranquille
o Movement of radical social change in Quebec social processes:
 Secularization
 Creation of welfare state
 Re-allignment of politics into federalist and separatist factions
o Achievements:
 Minister of Health and Education
 Expansion of public service

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Investments in public education

Quebec nationalism
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Expo 1967, General de Gaulle: ,,Vive le Quebec libre! Vive le Canada
francais!”
1968: Parti Quebecois (Rene Levesque)
1870: October crisis – Front Liberation de Quebec
1977: Charter of the French Language (Bill 101)
1980: 1st referendum of sovereignty
o The result
 40,44% Yes
 No: 59,56%
o Levesque ,,If I’ve understood you well, you’re telling me ‘until next
time’”
1981: PQ wins provincional elections
1982: Canadian constitution partied (without Quebec’d endorsement)
1990: Bloc Quebecois
1994: Jacques Parizeau leader of PQ
1995 2nd referendum of sovereignty (No: 50,58% Yes 49,42%)
o Parizeau ,,Quebec independence defeated by ‘money and ethnic
vote’”
2000 Clarity Act: any future referendum to be on a clear question, and
represent a majority
2006 quebec recognized as a distinct nation within Canada