Search

What is known about homelessness in Canada? In this article, we present the results of a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed research produced on homelessness in Canada, in English and French, since 2000. We seek to map this literature in an effort at understanding how homelessness has been studied by researchers and to identify potential gaps in this impressive body of literature. The literature review included a two-stage process. First, we analyzed almost 1000 articles specifically regarding homelessness according to title, journal, and case. Then, we conducted a qualitative abstract analysis of 251 papers written by the ten most prolific scholars of homelessness research, analyzing the research question, methods, and recommendations. We find that the majority of research on homelessness in Canada has been in large cities (Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal). Research is often conducted in comparative perspective, though there have been fewer international comparisons, and often from a public health or medical science perspective. We argue that social scientists have a lot to contribute to this field of study by analyzing the structural and political causes of homelessness, and that researchers should study small, mid-sized, northern, and rural communities in their studies as well as big cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a review of historical and social science literature on the subject of homelessness among LGBTQ+ youth. I ultimately seek to situate my future doctoral work, an oral history of queer youth homelessness in Ontario, within the scholarship surveyed here. Stories help us to understand what statistics look and feel like. This analysis takes a thematic and interdisciplinary approach that does not follow a linear, temporal understanding of events or accounts. The approach of this paper is meant to reflect the nonlinear and thematic modes of remembering that many experience when recounting their times on the street. The stories of queer youth on the street are complex and their ways of remembering these moments in time are ever-more so. But, as Sassafras Lowrey so accurately put it, "sometimes it is in the complexity that the truth is most evident". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the irregular migration flow from the United States to Canada from 2017 to 2020. This irregular migration, defined as unauthorized border crossings, challenges a central tenet of the perceived exceptionalism of Canadian immigration policy by illustrating that while legal migration remains publicly popular and receives political support, the public rejects unwanted, irregular, or illegal migration, demanding strong response from the Canadian government. The 2017–2020 irregular migration of refugee claimants from the United States generated discord in a number of public and political settings. Debates existed over the terminology for unauthorized border crossings, public opinion was divided, and prior to the 2019 Canadian federal election, political parties developed different and opposing positions. Disagreement over costs and funding for the settlement of irregular migrants emerged at city, provincial, and federal levels. The federal government subsequently amended immigration legislation and increased budgets for border control activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common in discourse surrounding Québécois and Puerto Rican nationalism to discuss both regions in terms of their linguistic marginality to Anglo-majorities found in Canada and the USA, respectively. As two areas faced with the common American task of inventing a national identity in displaced settings in the New World, English becomes an easy "other" against which the French Quebecker and Spanish Puerto Rican may define themselves. However, language becomes a problematic means of definition when considered in relation to its intrinsically Old World origins. This paper reexamines Quebec and Puerto Rican nationalism from a larger New World perspective that focuses on the role of American landscapes and settings in conjunction with the traditional linguistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages selected moments in Austin Clarke's literary journey to argue that in spite of his involvement in the development of Canadian literature (CanLit) during the 1960s and 1970s, the Canadian literary establishment continues to pay little critical attention to his contributions. This lack of recognition is specifically evident in recent writings about Canadian literature and the literary figures who spearheaded its development after Canada's Multiculturalism policy of 1971. Canada's becoming officially multicultural required a new narrative of Canada and new literary depictions of Canadians in their national literature, as ethnically diversified but of a single citizenship. I argue that Clarke's legacy as a Black writer should be given more prominence in Canadian institutions because today this legacy is under threat of erasure as the number of Canadian Black voices telling mainstream stories about Black people's experiences is evidently in decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pierre Trudeau's vision of Canada's cultural policy was situated within a bilingual framework. Canada, so conceived, has "no official culture" and two official languages. Nearly 50 years later, debates regarding the effects and broader significance of this policy combination persist as illustrated by the recent debate about Supreme Court judges. Yet, Canadians' attitudes about bilingualism have received relatively little scholarly attention. This paper probes the structure and recent evolution of public attitudes toward the general idea of official bilingualism using the Survey on Official Languages (2003) and the Canadian Election Studies (1997-2011). It goes on to investigate regional differences in public support for bilingual Supreme Court judges using a large-scale survey conducted by Vox Pop Labs in 2015 (n = 291, 577). The combination of these data sources offers new insights into the contextual and individual-level determinants of regional differences in public attitudes toward bilingualism policy in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Canadian political science portrays Atlantic Canada, along with some of the consequences of persistent misrepresentations. I first explore traditional portrayals of Atlantic Canada as well as arguments challenging those conceptions, demonstrating that it is no longer appropriate to treat Atlantic Canada as primarily defined by either economic processes or common political culture. I then survey the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Canadian Public Administration and Canadian Public Policy to determine the extent to which discussions of Atlantic Canada still, (a) emphasize economic phenomena, and (b) assume a common Atlantic political culture. I find that, while political scientists are now less likely to study the region in terms of economic phenomena, they still perpetuate outdated depictions of Atlantic political culture. This tendency results in a certain degree of methodological imprecision and reinforces problematic assumptions about Atlantic political life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, upon assuming office, most often seek to refocus foreign policy according to the preferences of the new prime minister and the primary means of accomplishing this has been to release a white paper outlining the priorities of the new government. This article will demonstrate that discussions of trade issues reinforce existing studies questioning the innovation and impact of white papers. The purpose of this analysis, however, is not to dwell on the utility of white papers and foreign policy reviews but instead search for a deeper understanding of why trade policy is discussed in an unoriginal and superficial manner. The focus of the article is on the period from 1968 to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than 50 years, the Inuit of Nunavik have been subjected to development plans devised in the south by the Government of Canada and Quebec that has a profound impact on Inuit people and their culture. The latest plan, known as Plan Nord, proposes sustainable development for the North based on the protection of 50 percent of the territory. However, the Inuit of Nunavik face many social challenges and this is reflected in the socioeconomic indicators of the region. In order to alleviate these social circumstances, numerous regional and local initiatives are attempting to establish programs better suited to the culture and needs of Nunavimmiut. Examples at the regional level include childcare and midwifery services supported by Quebec. At the local level, initiatives such as the Unaaq Men’s Association and the Innavik Project are making an effort to address local needs. In this paper, following a presentation of the Nunavik governance architecture, we will analyze how local (Unaaq, Innavik) and regional initiatives (Midwifery Program, Childcare, Preparation for Post-Secondary Education, Nunavik Parks) contribute to the sustainable development of Nunavik. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the electronic, peer-reviewed Occasional Papers on Public Policy series published by the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS). These papers are intended to highlight ongoing research in Canadian domestic and foreign policy at the federal, provincial and city levels. One of the research presented in this article concerns the marijuana issue in terms of the growing volume of the drug being smuggled into the U.S. from Canada, the increased potency of the strains of marijuana grown in Canada, and the differences in judicial deterrents adopted to penalize possession and cultivation.

Considering that the United States and Canada are neighboring North American countries with fairly similar liberal democratic political cultures, their immigration policies are noticeably different. While US policies prioritize family reunification, Canadian policies favor labor demands and employability. This difference reflects the varying degrees to which the public influences their respective immigration policies. Examining contemporary immigration policies of the United States and Canada, this paper compares the role of public opinion in each, and argues that public opinion plays a more prominent role in immigration policies in the United States than it does in Canada. This observation is due in part to the partisan nature of the US political structure and to the cohesiveness among immigrants, particularly Latinos. Canada, in contrast, favors a policy of multiculturalism that empowers immigrant groups and limits individual groups' capacity and inclination to dominate policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses migration, war resistance, and counterculture activity in the West Kootenays region of British Columbia during the 1960s and 1970s. Through a combination of perspectives including S.N. Eisenstadt’s discussion of “multiple modernities,” it reveals an ongoing pattern of alternative, values-based migration we refer to as “ideological migration.” Most immediately associated with the influx of thousands of young Americans who came to the West Kootenays during the Vietnam War, this pattern, in fact, began much earlier, first with the arrival of the Doukhobors beginning in 1908, and subsequently in the 1950s with the development of a community of American Quakers at the north end of Kootenay Lake. From there, we show how common experiences of marginalization along with with shared values of pacifism, war resistance, community-building, and self-sufficiency facilitated the arrival of this new group, and with them the entrenchment in the region of a vibrant counterculture identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the Canada-U.S. borderlands relationship along the two geographic corridors as bounded by Lake Superior: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario–Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Thunder Bay, Ontario–Duluth, Minnesota. Borderland communities—driven by their shared cultural characteristics (ethnicity, language, religion)—are said to challenge the border as a dividing device and undermine the very essence of international borders. Moreover, borderlands regions are dynamic and overlapping, providing the first point of contact and interaction between nations. We use interviews of over 200 people living in these borderlands regions to investigate the cross-border relationships of Canada-U.S. border communities. We find that despite the challenges of crossing the border, these communities retain a strong sense of shared values. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that since the completion of the NAFTA in the early 1990s, there has been too much focus on what governments in Ottawa, Washington, and Mexico City have or have not been doing to deepen North American integration. The NAFTA was an anomaly that obscures the larger history of incrementalism that has shaped North America's political economy. A focus on large, government-led integration projects like the NAFTA as a model for North American integration distracts from an examination of the many connections and processes taking place across borders every day. Security has become fully entrenched as a driving paradigm of North American relations. However, much of the activity in this domain and others is taking place at the bureaucratic, sub-state, and non-state levels rather than via active direction from national leadership. As scholars and analysts of North America, we would do well to move away from the NAFTA as a model for negotiating North America's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the use of public policy to construct a Canadian identity has been established in the literature, what is less well understood is whether national identity, once established, might shape Canadians' feelings about these same public policies. This article examines the extent to which citizens' national identities influence their pride in Canada's social security system, and how this relationship may be changing over time. Using data from the International Social Science Programme's 1995 and 2003 National Identity Modules, the article argues that citizens' national identities help explain the contours of social security attitudes in Canada, and that this relationship persists despite significant policy change in the field. Additionally, the paper suggests that political actors may successfully increase public support for their social security policies by “framing” them in ways that appeal to citizens' definitions of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Citizenship and Immigration Canada's new citizenship guide, Discover Canada, received significant coverage in the national media and among popular bloggers when it was released in late 2009. Among the more controversial responses were allegations that the guide served a partisan political purpose. It was 'an incremental step in the rebranding of Canada into a conservative country, full of people more inclined to vote Conservative.' This paper investigates the veracity of this claim by documenting the historical evolution of Canada's citizenship guides. It finds that while Discover Canada departs notably from its immediate, Liberal-sponsored, predecessors, it is not so different from the initial documentation produced under the Liberal governments of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. To suggest that the new guide has fundamentally altered the national image is therefore a profound exaggeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) organizes the biennial ACSUS Enders Symposium as a way of promoting understanding of the evolution of Canada-US relations. The symposium also honors the work of Thomas O. Enders, who served as US ambassador to Canada from 1976 to 1979, and his work in promoting the relationship between the two countries. In other years, the symposium was held in Washington DC at the Woodrow Wilson Center, but the ACSUS board decided to move the event to Canada in 2008 in order to expand its audience and bring in new actors. Carleton University (with its Centre on North American Politics and Society and its School of Canadian Studies) and the Canada-Fulbright Foundation were brought in as partners, and the sixth biennial symposium was held 24 October 2008 at Carleton University in Ottawa. Several papers of the symposium appear here in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Canadian daily newspaper editors' views regarding the status of international news reporting in Canada. It is based on a series of surveys administered in 1988, 1995, 2000, and 2006 that measured editors' assessments of issues such as the quantity and quality of international news in their papers, the importance they attach to international news coverage, the areas of the world they consider important to cover, and the sources they use for international news. The article uses the data from the surveys to determine whether 11 September 2001 affected editors' perceptions of international news reporting. This question has been widely studied in the United States, but less so in Canada. The central conclusion here is that 9/11 has had only a limited impact on editors' perceptions. The data across all four surveys demonstrate a remarkable degree of consistency in editors' assessments of international news reporting in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the structure of inequality in the perceptions of Canadians and relates this to some general themes in institutional policy discourse on inequality. Inequality is a common topic in institutional policy discourse, and it Alias been defined in a variety of ways. However, there has only been limited consideration of its various operating meanings among the public itself. It is also worth noting that although the primary goal of the paper is an exploration and preliminary testing of the structure of Canadian opinion on inequality, our results may have broader implications. Even the relatively recent emergence of rights discourse connected with the Charter of Rights, when examined closely, has tended to further the consideration of people as members of groups, not as bearers of rights who may have some linkage to groups. Section 27 of the Charter of Rights gives special attention to ethnic minorities related to multicultural policy, and Section 28 gives special attention to women's rights in the context of equal rights for males and females.

This paper grows out of the author's ongoing interest in the Calgary Stampede, the world's most extravagant celebration of cowboy culture in Alberta. The article focuses on how Calgarians exploit the symbolic resources at their disposal, including the image of the cowboy, to construct their regional and municipal identities. The author highlights the important role of Marcus Belmont Marcell, a U.S.-born adventurer who photographed Calgary Stampede, in documenting the event and suggesting that, working in the tradition epitomized by pictures of such western artists as Frederic Remington, Charlie Russell, and Edward Borein. Marcell played a significant role in popularizing an image of the wild West in general and of the Canadian West in particular.

The article focuses on cultural relations between the United States and Canada as of March 2003. The bilateral cultural issues of the 1980s and 1990s between Canada and the U.S. centered on trade involving sports, country music, film distribution, book distribution and satellite television. This paper summarizes the growing importance of foreign markets for the Canadian cultural industries and presents a proposal for an international agreement on cultural diversity to address concerns that arise at the interface between domestic cultural policies and international trade and investment obligations. Historically, Canadian cultural policy has been inward looking, espousing ways to protect Canadians from inflows from the U.S. while at the same time being supportive of Canadian cultural producers.

This article is a historical narrative that utilizes Canadian historian John Bartlet Brebner's private papers and letters. Since 1970, Brebner has remained a Canadian historian noted in works on Canada and Canadian-American relations by both those who knew him well and those who referenced his works. But he has been overlooked in historiographic works in these fields. Works on Brebner have focused on the professional historian. Additionally, as the twenty-first century dawns and concerns over Canadian sovereignty continue unabated, Brebner's belief that Canada and the United States are inseparable within the North American triangle still resonates. Brebner was British by heritage, Canadian by birth, and educated in Canada, Great Britain and the U.S. He was an educator stationed in the United States who also taught in Britain and Canada at various times in his life and who had a lifetime association with individuals and professional associations in all three nations. Brebner's works included monographs on solely British and Canadian topics, as well as books and articles on the bilateral continental relationship and the triangular relationship.