Examining Canada and Britain from 1990 to 2004, the thesis explores how the surge in minority nationalist agitation that occurred in Quebec and Scotland changed the political environment in Canada (outside Quebec) and England allowing regional elites to advance political agendas which mobilized regional and national identities. The thesis considers the role of democratic institutions at the regional level in shaping political demands through a comparative study of regional and national identity mobilization in Nova Scotia and the North East of England. The analysis contends that the relationship between minority and majority nations is dialectical; nationalism stems from fundamentally different interpretations of the state and is not the ‘fault’ of either nation. Using this claim as the basis for analyzing elite debate at the centre and in the regions, the dissertation systematically examines regionalism within the majority nation by investigating debates at the national and regional level. The work looks at parliamentary debates, campaign material, newspaper accounts and elite interviews; and as identity mobilization and political debates are targeted at the electorate, survey analysis is undertaken to see whether elite debate resonated with the masses. The thesis demonstrates that regionalism is a component of the ongoing (re)conception of nation within the majority nation, and that during periods of strong minority nationalist agitation, a political environment is created which allows elites in the majority nation to mobilize national and regional identities. Regional identity mobilization is shown to be part of the nationalism of the majority nation; as the dominant conception of the state within the majority encompasses the minority nations as co-nationals and equal citizens, regional elites are able to use the minority nations as examples of successful agitation without subscribing to their interpretations of the state. Regional levels of democracy did not alter the nature of regionalism in either state and though the demands issued may have been different, the underlying concerns were the same: a lack of voice and efficacy.

This thesis examines the role of broadcasting in Canada with regard to developing and maintaining a national identity in the face of United States influence via the media. The subject is examined within the theoretical framework provided by the science of cybernetics and the Laws of Thermodynamics. A historical overview of Canadian broadcasting policy and institutions is provided. The work of the various royal commissions and other investigatory bodies is analyzed. The most important contemporary institutions, the CRTC, the CBC and the federal Department of Communications, are situated within the context. The effects of the most recent technologies, cable television, satellites, Pay-TV and VCRs are examined. Canadian broadcasting is also viewed in the context of the 1989 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and the New World Information and Communication Order. Our conclusion suggests that the future of Canada's identity depends primarily on the quality of domestic broadcasting. Finally, we suggest that Canadians and Europeans, who are facing some comparable problems in a united Europe, can learn from each others's experiences.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 370-388). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 1993. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

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Canada is more accurately described as an independent imperialist country than a relatively dependent or foreign-dominated country. This conclusion is reached by examining recent empirical evidence on the extent of inward and outward foreign investment, ownership links between large financial corporations and large industrial corporations, and the size and composition of manufacturing production and trade. In each of these areas, the differences between Canada and other members of the G7 group of countries are not large enough to justify placing Canada in a different political-economic status than these core imperialist countries. An historical context for the debate over Canada's current status is provided by archival research on how socialists in the 1920s addressed similar issues. Imperialist status means that social and economic problems in Canada are more rooted in Canadian capitalism and less in foreign capitalism than is generally assumed by left-nationalist Canadian political economy. Given Canada's imperialist status, labour and social movements in Canada should not support Canadian nationalism, e.g., oppose 'free' trade and globalization on this basis.

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This thesis examines the nexus of politics, ideology, and identity among Anglo-Canadian liberal intellectuals during Wilfrid Laurier's leadership of the Canadian Liberal party from 1887 to 1919. This 'Laurier era' was characterised by explosive demographic and economic expansion, the consolidation of Canada's political and constitutional order, and its rising international stature within British Empire. But it also witnessed divisive disputes over the nature and development of the new Confederation. These debates over 'Dominion nation-building' were central to Canadian political and intellectual life, shaping the evolution of liberal ideology and the growth of national and imperial sentiment. In particular, the thesis focuses on a group of liberal intellectuals and politicians who resided in or originated from the province of Ontario and associated with Laurier during his reign as Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition. It reinterprets their debates in global and local contexts, specifically through the lens of a 'Greater Ontario' - a virtual province of Canada and the British world comprised of 'Old' Ontario, with its metropolis at Toronto, and the 'neo-Ontarian' settler empire of the Prairie West. Its argument is threefold. First, it argues these liberals envisaged Canada, with 'Greater Ontario' at its heart, as a 'British nation' rooted in North America. Their growing sense of Canadian nationalism was distinctly 'Britannic' - indeed, 'British-American' - and drew upon civic as well as racial ideas of 'Britishness.' Second, it maintains that the political, ideological, and regional fault lines within Ontario's liberal tradition consequently shaped their competing visions of the Dominion, the British Empire, and the wider Anglo-world. And third, it contends that these debates illuminate the rise and subsequent disintegration of Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal party in 'Greater Ontario.' The thesis thus contributes a new perspective to the political and intellectual history of Canada and the British world.