Cette thèse a pour objet les politiques culturelles du Canada à l'ère de la globalisation. La nouvelle tendance, dans cette ère, est le retrait de l'État de la sphère culturelle. La globalisation génère deux mouvements apparemment contradictoires: l'aspiration à l'universel et la tendance vers le localisme. Ceci est également apparent au sein des politiques culturelles du Canada. L'hypothèse avancée dans cette thèse est la suivante: les politiques culturelles du Canada concilient, tant bien que mal, deux conceptions contradictoires de la culture: la première est la vision "anthropo-politique" de la culture comme porteuse de l'identité nationale, la seconde est la vision économiste de la culture. La culture étant perçue comme un produit comme les autres. Avec les bouleversements technologiques et économiques accompagnant la globalisation, la seconde conception s'impose. Cette thèse consistera principalement à examiner les discours reflétant la position du Canada vis-à-vis l'orientation des politiques culturelles. Les discours analysés sont de sources diverses et variées: rapport de Commissions Royales, rapport de Groupes de travail mandatés par le gouvernement, rapport de Comités parlementaires, sorties publiques d'officiels impliqués dans le domaine. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Deux phénomènes de la Révolution tranquille, le développement du néo-nationalisme et la construction d'un État provincial interventionniste, détruisent les anciennes bases de solidarité entre le Québec et les francophones minoritaires du Canada (FMC), sans les remplacer par de nouveaux terrains d'entente. Avant 1960, les Canadiens français partageaient une définition commune de leur nation, promue par un réseau associatif assez actif. Avec la Révolution tranquille, ce réseau s'écroule, déchiré par un conflit de nationalismes. L'État du Québec s'engage à venir en aide aux FMC, mais ses efforts, loin de renforcer la solidarité canadienne-friançaise, ne font qu'accentuer les tensions. Les discussions constitutionnelles des années 1960 permettent de constater les priorités discordantes du Québec et des FMC, qui se tourneront vers le gouvernement fédéral pour la défense de leurs droits.

Through an examination of the discourse involved in the gun control debate surrounding Bill C-68, this thesis examines the importance of rhetoric in the claims-making process. In particular, it examines the manner in which women's groups used the rhetoric of violence against women to lobby for further restrictions to Canada's gun control laws. The rhetoric used by women's groups is examined through a social constructionist perspective, utilizing Joel Best's model of claims-making. Major sources of data included House of Commons and Senate Committee submissions and transcripts. Through a descriptive analysis, the rhetoric of women's groups is presented; in addition, a content analysis aids in summarizing the broader findings. The principal finding is that a number of specific claims were commonly used by women's groups. These include: the impossibility of separating criminals from law-abiding citizens; the notion of women as defenceless victims; the concept of power; the notion of guns as inherently dangerous; the long-term implications of gun control; and, the assertion that gun control is only one part of a larger solution. While the Ecole Polytechnique killings served as a catalyst to push for increasing controls on firearms, during the debate over Bill C-68, women's groups unanimously choose to highlight the more common plight of the abused woman. The issue of violence against women saved as the common "ground" for woman's groups, who offered different approaches to the issue, but nonetheless presented a common theme in terms of their definition of the problem. During the debate over Canada's most recent gun control legislation, the gendered discourse of violence against women played a key role in the rhetoric of women's groups.

La pensée du philosophe canadien Charles Taylor constitue une contribution majeure et originale à la réflexion sur l'identité et sa reconnaissance. Depuis bientôt quarante ans, son oeuvre traite des questions identitaires et nationales, notamment du débat Canada-Québec. Mon étude présente tout d'abord les éléments clés de la philosophie de Taylor: les éléments constitutifs de l'identité individuelle et collective, et sa méthode herméneutique. C'est à partir de ces éléments que Taylor propose sa lecture du débat identitaire Canada-Québec. On note une évolution de sa pensée depuis les années soixante jusqu'à l'échec de l'accord du lac Meech (1990). Taylor exige alors la reconnaissance de la nation québécoise par le reste du Canada, dans un pays entièrement redessiné. Par contre, depuis le second référendum sur la souveraineté du Québec (1995), Charles Taylor tient des propos qui exigent moins du Canada. Bref, il nous semble aujourd'hui que Taylor le politologue s'est éloigné de Taylor le philosophe.

Police-community consultative committees illustrate the enhanced community responsibility and participation in policing efforts. The primary objectives of these groups are to increase communication between the police and the community, to improve police/community relations, and serve as a forum where the community and police can share information and mutually identify concerns. In this study, the emergence of police-community consultative committees in Ottawa-Carleton is examined within the context of police partnerships. This thesis focuses on five police community consultative committees in the Ottawa-Carleton region. The findings suggest that police representatives on the committees have made commendable efforts to establish partnerships between the police and the community, but obstacles appear to hinder the process. These obstacles include a perception among many of the police representatives that there is a lack of organizational support for community policing, that committee members may not be clear as to their roles and responsibilities on consultative committees, and that committees may not be representative of the community they represent. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis is interested in how intersections of gender, race, and class inform the social and self constructions of identity in the lives of second generation ethnic Canadian women. It is based on the assumption that the social incompatibility of ethnicity and Canadian identity impacts on their political behaviour, and their sense of themselves as Canadian citizens. The thesis is composed of a theoretical discussion of the relevant literature, and the empirical results of fifteen interviews with the subjects in question. It attempts to demonstrate that the specificity of the subjects' identities is not being acknowledged by mainstream discourses on ethnicity, citizenship, and feminism, which are either gender blind, or define all ethnic women as immigrant women. While recognizing the importance of research on immigrant women, I would argue that such a label is not all encompassing, and in fact, casts the debate in a particular fashion: by suggesting that the immigrant experience is the central focus in the intersection of race and ethnicity, it obscures the significance underlying the consistent linking of ethnicity with immigration. In my discussion of the shortcomings inherent in such approaches, I conclude that there is a need for better understanding of the multiplicity of ethnic women's experiences, through the development of broader and more inclusive theoretical frameworks that seek to understand and theorize these complexities, rather than essentializing them.

L'objet de cette these est le livre Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada, de Neil Bissoondath. L'hypothese avancee est que ce livre contient un discours reposant sur une mystification en faveur de l'ango-conformisme. Pour corroborer l'hypothese, l'analyse semiologique, telle que definie par Roland Barthes, est employee. Plus precisement, l'analyse porte sur trois themes: la signification de la politique du multiculturalisme, celle d'etre canadien et celle d'etre quebecois. Il en ressort que la signification de la politique du multiculturalisme suppose le mythe de la "ghettoisation ethnique". Elle suppose en outre qu'etre canadien repose sur un conformisme une culture unique et "ouverte", et s'il est normal que l'identite quebecoise implique avant tout le francais, il serait normal que cela soit aussi le cas de l'identite canadienne avec une seule et unique langue: l'anglais.

Conventional theories of Canadian federalism revolve around the notion of dualism--the federal system is comprised of two levels of government; the national and provincial governments. This thesis argues that due to the changing nature of the Canadian political landscape, a more realistic interpretation of the federal model is that of multidimensional federalism, a model which allows for other orders of government to be included within the federal system. Currently, these other orders of government include municipalities, regional governments, school boards, and aboriginal governments. This paper examines from a theoretical standpoint why the conventional model of federalism no longer provides an accurate representative model, and why the multidimensional model is a more realistic interpretation. It then examines the legitimacy behind the inclusion of the four additional factors within the federal system. Finally, the Canada Works Infrastructure Program is used as a case study of multidimensional federalism in operation.

Abstract Not Available.

This paper argues that non-white applicants for immigration to Canada are a historically disadvantaged group entitled to protection under Section 15 of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is argued that this group has been discriminated against on the basis of colour, race, ethnic and national origin, in that they were historically denied the advantages of admission to Canada. The current immigrant profile reveals that these historically disadvantaged groups now make up the majority of new immigrants to Canada. This paper argues, however, that when these new immigrants have sought to use equality legislation to challenge immigration selection decisions, that the legislation and the Courts have perpetuated the historic discrimination against them by declining jurisdiction, thereby denying new immigrants the protections of equality legislation. It is proposed that a proper application of basic human rights and Charter principles should provide equality rights and Section 15 protection to applicants for immigration. In order to support this argument the paper takes a historic look at Canadian immigration policy and practice, to illustrate that non-white immigrants to Canada are a historically disadvantaged and powerless group. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)