1 I am grateful to my colleagues, Rhadda Jhappan, Sharon Sutherland, John Meisel, O. P. Dwivedi, Alan Cairns, Ted Hodgetts and Yasmeen Abu-Laban for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and I absolve them of responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation.

2 I have always found Samuel P. Huntington's conception of our approach to the study of political phenomena acceptable, with a few qualifications and caveats added to that understanding: “Political scientists attempt to explain political phenomena. They view politics as a dependent variable, and they naturally look for the explanations of politics in other social processes and institutions. This tendency was reinforced by the Marxian and Freudian intellectual atmosphere of the 1930s and 1940s. Political scientists were themselves concerned with the social, psychological, and economic roots of political behavior. Consequently social change, personality change, and economic change were, in their view, more fundamental than political change. If one could understand and explain the former, one could easily account for the latter” (Huntington, Samuel P., “The Change to Change,” in Macridis, Roy C. and Brown, Bernard E., eds., Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings [4th ed.; Georgetown: Dorsey, 1972], 408Google Scholar, emphasis added). For a partial critique of this pervasive conception of political phenomena, see Cairns, Alan C., “The Governments and Societies of Canadian Federalism,” this Journal 10 (1977), 695–725.Google Scholar

3 Howard Palmer rightfully complained in 1982 that “Political historians and political scientists in Canada have shown very little interest in ethnic relations, other than their concern with the all-pervasive question of conflict and accommodation between English and French” (see Palmer, H., “Canadian Immigration and Ethnic History in the 1970s and 1980s,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17 [1982], 45)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recently, Abu-Laban and Stasiulis expressed almost the exact sentiment: “While immigration and ethnic diversity have been mainstays of Canadian life, these features have not always found widespread legitimacy among either ruling or popular groups” (Abu-Laban, Yasmeen and Stasiulis, Daiva, “Ethnic Pluralism under Siege: Popular and Partisan Opposition to Multiculturalism,” Canadian Public Policy 18 [1992], 365).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 McRae, Kenneth D., “The Plural Society and the Western Political Tradition,” this Journal 12 (1974), 685Google Scholar. This criticism is tempered by the fact that since the mid-1970s several leading Canadian political scientists, including McRae, have attempted to redress this imbalance through their addresses and writings. The footnotes which follow throughout this piece give testimony to these attempts. See also Elkins, David J., “Facing Our Destiny: Rights and Canadian Distinctiveness,” this Journal 22 (1989), 699–716Google Scholar; “The Sense of Place,” in Elkins, David J. and Simeon, Richard, eds., Small Worlds (Toronto: Methuen, 1980), 1–30Google Scholar; “The Horizontal Mosaic: Immigrants and Migrants in the Provincial Political Cultures,” in ibid., 106–30; and Taylor, Charles, Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

5 Cater, John and Jones, Trevor, “Asian Ethnicity, Home-Ownership and Social Reproduction,” in Jackson, Peter, ed., Race and Racism (London: Unwin, 1987), 190–211Google Scholar; and Cairns, Alan C., “Political Science, Ethnicity, and the Canadian Constitution,” in Williams, Douglas E., ed., Disruptions: Constitutional Struggles, from the Charter to Meech Lake (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991), 169Google Scholar. See also Horowitz, Donald L., Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).Google Scholar

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8 Cameron, David R., “Lord Durham Then and Now,” 1989 Morton Lecture, Trent University, Journal of Canadian Studies 25 (1990), 5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Disuniting of America (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992)Google Scholar, esp. chap. 2, “History the Weapon,” 45–72Google Scholar; and Glazer, N. and Moynihan, D. P., Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1963).Google Scholar

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16 “I am fond of Ernest Kenan's definition of a nation—‘une plébiscite de tous les jours’, a daily plebiscite. For me, it calls to mind the importance of time, and the importance of the affirmation and re-affirmation of a will to perpetuate a common existence. The act of living together one day after another, solving problems, making things work, is after all how most free societies hang together” (Cameron, , “Lord Durham Then and Now,” 22).Google Scholar

17 Kallen, Evelyn, “Multiculturalism: Ideology, Policy and Reality,” Journal of Canadian Studies 17 (1982), 51–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Burnet, J., “Multiculturalism,” in March, J. H., ed., The Canadian Encyclopedia, Vol. 3 (2nd ed.; Edmonton: Hurtig Publications, 1988), 1401.Google Scholar

18 Tepper, Elliot L., “Demographic Change and Pluralism,” in Dwivedi, O. P. et al. , eds., Canada 2000: Race Relations and Public Policy (Guelph: Department of Political Studies, 1979), 20–52Google Scholar; and Magee, Joan, Loyalist Mosaic: A Multi-Ethnic Heritage (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1984), 25Google Scholar. The foreword to this book by the National President of the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada made this revealing admission: “… the myth that these political and war refugees were English ‘blue blood’ still persists after 200 years. Almost the exact opposite is true, of course…. these exiled Americans were as diverse ethnoculturally as they were in their faith, their livelihood and their economic status. To understand and accept these facts is a basic first step towards grasping the elusive Canadian identity … of the 7000 or so that made up the ‘critical mass’ that came to the future Ontario there is no question that the English or British element was a minority” (emphasis added).

19 Lupul, Manoly R., “Multiculturalism and Canada's White Ethnics,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 15 (1983), 103.Google Scholar

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22 Statistics Canada, The Daily (editions of December 8, 1992 and February 22, 1993 on the highlights of the 1991 Census of Canada).

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