En 1903, 1907, 1909 et 1910, des projets de loi antisyndicaux sont déposés coup sur coup au Sénat. Ces bills auraient bien pu freiner l'évolution du syndicalisme canadien, qui est à cette époque à un tournant de son histoire. Menés par Lougheed, McMullen et Belcourt, certains sénateurs s'inquiètent de «l'influence étrangère» sur les sections locales canadiennes des syndicats internationaux. Aucun des projets de loi n'est adopté par le Parlement; mais le fait que la plus haute institution canadienne se penche sur la question mérite une attention particulière. Par contre, l'historiographie ne s'attarde guère sur ce débat, l'effleurant seulement à quelques reprises. Ce débat mérite pourtant une analyse en profondeur, puisque les constatations que l'on y fait sont révélatrices et démontrent son importance. Avec la reprise économique au tournant du siècle, le nombre d'organisations ouvrières augmente à un rythme effarant. La croissance du nombre des syndicats (particulièrement celui des organisations internationales) est phénoménale, ce qui entraîne le nombre de grèves à un sommet jusqu'alors inégalé. Certaines grèves particulièrement violentes, s'attirent alors les foudres de l'élite politique qui accusent des «agitateurs» américains de venir créer le trouble entre les travailleurs canadiens et leurs employeurs. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis examines the changing representations of children and clothing by drawing upon textual, visual and material sources. Clothing is an important part of our identities and it may be argued that clothing helps to define who we are. Clothing is our second skin. On a social, economic and material level, it shields us from the natural environment. On a cultural level, it mediates relationships between the individual and the larger society by delving into constructions of gender, ritual and dress. This study explores the ways in which clothing illustrates social change in late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Canada. This thesis provides an opportunity to examine changing representations of children and clothing by drawing upon a wide variety of sources and building upon previous studies. In examining constructions of gender and childhood, it focuses on the emergence of the 'new boy', using clothing as a point of entry into the history of masculinity and femininity. What also emerges is the importance of the mother/son relationship, as portrayed by the process of dressing children. Overtime, rituals associated with clothing children altered. This daily process required more clothing that clearly differentiated between boys' and girls' garments. An adapted material history study of clothing allows the unique opportunity to peel back the layers of meanings of clothing, photographs, images and representations, advertisements, advice columns, and mail-order catalogue descriptions. This research strategy also permits a re-appraisal of nineteenth and early twentieth-century images that have dominated our perception of children and gender. This study, exploring a diversity of textual and pictorial sources, such as newspapers and advertisements, trade literature, and department store catalogues, informed by material history questions and viewed from a Canadian perspective, helps to unravel the mysterious connections between 'new women' and 'new boys'.

The 1950s was the decade of the largest volume of immigration to Canada. Germans figured prominently in this great wave contributing 200,000 migrants in the peak years of 1951--57, a number only surpassed by British newcomers. In fact, more Germans came to Canada in this seven year span than during any comparable period in Canadian history. This influx was made possible by the great interest in emigration in Germany and the generous immigration policy of the Canadian government. Indeed, government immigration policies and programs were decisive and determining factors, shaping the size and character of the German influx. Policy makers in Ottawa could and, in fact, did exercise considerably more control over the intake of Germans than was possible for the movement of other immigrant groups. They saw in German migrants a means of meeting Canadian economic and manpower needs, a policy they carried out with mixed success, missing golden opportunities in the first half of the 1950s. This thesis is an analysis of the German immigration boom to Canada from the perspective of Ottawa's policies and programming. This thesis is the first comprehensive study which addresses the influence of government policy on German immigration to Canada in the 1950s. It assesses Ottawa's policy within the complex context of key domestic and external forces. This study also explores new fields including the developments leading to the government's decision to admit German nationals, the history of the Canadian Christian Council for the Resettlement of Refugees in the 1950s and Canada's role in the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. It is based primarily on records of the government of Canada but also draws on personal interviews, manuscript collections, newspapers and secondary sources, including recent German scholarship in the field. This study argues that Ottawa's German immigration policy was profoundly governed by Canada's economic and political self interest.

The intent of this endeavor is to consider the Second World War from the perspective of one group of men who served with a machine gun regiment based out of Ottawa. The objective is to rediscover what the early war experience was like for these Canadian soldiers. All the questions considered in this undertaking may be subsumed into three basic queries: Who were these men who came forward to serve? Why had they 'volunteered' to go to war? And, what were the early war years like for these predominantly young Canadians? The third query comprises the bulk of the attention in this thesis. The time period under review is from September 1939 until May of 1941. This covers the mobilization period in Ottawa and the unit's first overseas posting in Iceland. This time frame concerns an overlooked aspect of war service---the induction and foundation period for Canadian Armed Forces. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

An analysis of literature from an historical perspective brings to light the cultural change experienced by French-Canadian society during the first two decades of the Union period. French-Canadian poetry from 1838 to 1859 reflected the onset of conservative nationalism that would shape Quebec society until the Quiet Revolution. The French-Canadian intellectual elite made increasing use of poetry published in a growing number of newspapers to influence public opinion. By identifying the themes and techniques evident in the poetry compiled in four volumes of Les Textes Poetiques du Canada Francais, it is possible to recognize why this elite attempted to control the values and behaviour of the rural population. The significant migration of young farmers from Canada East to the United States was the dominant motivation for the intellectual elite to employ social control through literature by the 1850s. The fight against social change provided common ground for the convergence of the interests of the intellectual and clerical elites in their effort to guarantee national survival through the preservation of the traditional rural lifestyle of the habitant. French-Canadian poetry in this period both reflected the mindset of the community and contributed to popular social control by discouraging emigration and promoting colonization. Ultimately, this analysis of the fundamental conceptual change in how the writers viewed the aim of poetry in this period, will permit a better understanding of how the elite manipulated popular culture to reinforce traditional values and to ensure the survivance of the French-Canadian nation.

L'interet premier de cette etude est l'analyse de l'evolution de la legislation sur le controle des armes a feu (art. 105); en mettant l'accent sur le role des "acteurs sociaux". Dans cette optique, il a ete juge pertinent d'etudier les modifications apportees a cette loi sur une periode d'un siecle, soit de 1892 a 1992. Afin d'explorer l'influence des acteurs sociaux par rapport a la creation de la loi, l'analyse portera sur l'evaluation des comptes rendus des debats parlementaires, des demandes de modification et du contexte. Notre objet consistait des lors a verifier l'existence d'un lien entre l'evolution de la legislation sur le controle des armes a feu (art. 105) et le contexte socio-politico-economique. La technique de collecte de donnes qui a ete privilegiee consista en une analyse documentaire des debats en Chambre et des demandes de modification. Le projet se devait d'opter pour une analyse qualitative du phenomene. Les resultats de l'analyse ont permis d'illustrer qu' a chacun des amendements amene a la loi au cours du siecle, etait rattache une situation contextuelle a laquelle certains acteurs reagissaient. Le processur legislatif, pour sa part, a temoigne plus clairement qu'espere qu'il etait fortement conduit par ces influences exterieures. Les changements dans la legislation semblent, en effet, suivre etroitement les mouvements dans les formations sociales.

This dissertation illustrates the role of Louisbourg in the enunciation and implementation of French imperial policies in the colonies of Isle Royale (Cape Breton), Isle St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) and the British colony of Nova Scotia between 1713 and 1758. It explains imperialism in the framework of the relations between the colonising nation and the colony and from the perspective of colonial or local initiatives. Based on an examination of the functioning of the government of Louisbourg under the control of the governor and commissaire ordonnateur and the pattern of the evolution of policies and decisions with regard to colonial administration this study demonstrates that French imperialism in the North Atlantic littoral was more a product of local political initiatives than that of metropolitan policies and programmes. The management of the fishery, commerce, and military affairs, as well as French relationships with the Mi'kmaq, the Maliseet and the Abenakis, the influence of the missionaries and Catholicism in Amerindian societies, the Native peoples' part in resisting Anglo-American colonial expansion, the distinct political and cultural position of the Acadians of Nova Scotia in favour of French imperial interests, and the nature of Anglo-French contest for empire substantiate this thesis. In brief, French imperialism in the context of Louisbourg and its seaboard empire was characterised by four principal aspects: first, the absence of large-scale successful combined land and naval operations designed to "conquer" the Amerindians and expel the British from Nova Scotia; second, the absence of the imposition of a centralised metropolitan policy of imperialism; third, the formation of an imperial power structure in the colony based on a linkage of colonial forces and facilities, and fourth, the formulation and implementation of imperial policy with, or without, the collaboration of the mother country. In general policies, strategies, tactics, and military operations of France's imperial system in Isle Royale and the "informal empire" (a zone of political influence without a recognised territorial base) in Nova Scotia were directed from within the colony. This process of empire building is defined as "imperialism from below" in this study.

The purpose of this research is to analyze statutory law that existed pre-1892 and consequently to present the backdrop of what existed before the actual Criminal Code. The research will concentrate specifically on the provinces of Lower Canada and of Nova Scotia for the time period of approximately 1850-1860 and will focus on the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia of 1851 and the Consolidated Statutes of Lower Canada of 1860. The actual objective is twofold and will allow, firstly, for the presentation of the historical context and the development of penal law for these two provinces in order to demonstrate the emergence of the particular Statutes and, secondly, for the analysis of the actual sentencing provisions that are present in the two statutory documents. The present work is shedding light on a rather untouched domain of history of law and of sentencing provisions. The study reveals very interesting trends and patterns that have led to the development of these two statutory documents for each of the provinces concerned. One is able to see the importance of certain groups of elite in view of the existence of certain sanctioned behaviours as well as the whole process of legislative manoeuvres. As well, the contents of the Revised Statutes of Nova Scotia of 1851 and the Consolidated Statutes of Lower Canada of 1860 in terms of sentencing provisions, more specifically in reference to the offences against the person, demonstrate riveting sanctions and fascinating comparisons. In all, this research represents an important and relatively new view into the whole background of pre-1892 Criminal Code era in relation to statutory laws and sentencing provisions. The study provides for a window into the past that will serve to shed light on the laws of the present. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

"The Canadian Automation Controversy 1955-1969", examines the era in which Canadians confronted the prospect of "thinking machines" replacing human labour. The automation controversy arose because workers, threatened by the thought of computer-controlled machines replacing people, and business owners, excited by the prospects of lower production costs and increased productivity, sought in each their own way to control the pace and impact of technological change. The issues generating the controversy--how to and who should direct society's adjustment to technological change--are as old at least as the first industrial revolution and as current as nightly newscasts that describe Canada's attempts to cope with "economic restructuring." "Mechanization", "automation", "globalization"--are only different words to describe the same phenomenon of capital's drive to enhance productivity and increase returns to investment through technological innovation and workers' consequent fears of unemployment. Ultimately, the automation controversy was but one stage of the on-going ideological discourse concerning full employment in Canada and the respective roles and relative power of the State, labour and capital in promoting economic growth. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Abstract Not Available.