Emerging or re-emerging tick-borne pathogens are expected to increase in prevalence and become more geographically widespread in Canada. Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium causing Lyme disease, is the most common vector-borne pathogen in North America, but additional tick-borne pathogens have started to be detected more frequently through surveillance efforts in Canada. The spread and transmission of these tick-borne pathogens are modulated by changes in the abundance and distribution of tick and host populations. Abiotic factors, such as temperature, precipitation, and snow, may affect tick and host abundances as well as host dispersal. Furthermore, biotic factors, such as the abundance and diversity of hosts, may alter tick abundance and consequent tick-borne disease risk. In this dissertation, I assess the historical associations and spatiotemporal changes of the tick vectors, hosts, and pathogens in Canada as well as the impact of abiotic and biotic factors on these key players. In Chapter 1, I present the first systematic assessment of the literature that identifies historical associations and spatiotemporal changes in the tick-host-pathogen disease systems in Canada over broad spatial and temporal scales. Borrelia burgdorferi was the most detected tick-borne pathogen and Ixodes scapularis harboured the greatest number of tick-borne pathogens. Several spatial outliers of high pathogen presence in ticks in addition to five spatiotemporal clusters were identified, which were located in areas of southern Canada with long-established tick populations. In addition, six spatiotemporal clusters of high pathogen presence were also identified, with four clusters associated with passive surveillance and two clusters related to active surveillance. In chapter 2, I concurrently evaluated high-resolution environmental and host-related factors to determine the relative impacts of abiotic and biotic factors on questing I. scapularis abundance in Ontario and Quebec. High-resolution abiotic factors were derived from remote sensing satellite imagery and meteorological towers, while biotic factors related to mammal hosts were derived from active surveillance data that I collected in the field. Important abiotic and biotic drivers of questing I. scapularis abundance were identified, which included monthly mean precipitation, accumulated snow, and mammal species richness. These results demonstrate the need to incorporate host active surveillance data with high-resolution environmental factors when trying to determine the key drivers impacting the abundance and distribution of tick populations and tick-borne pathogens. In Chapter 3, I analyzed the presence and prevalence of multiple tick-borne pathogens extracted from tick and small mammal specimens collected during field surveys in Ontario and Quebec. Three pathogen species were detected in ticks, which included Babesia odocoilei and B. burgdorferi in I. scapularis as well as Rickettsia rickettsii in Haemaphysalis leporispalustris. In small mammal hosts, three pathogen species were detected including B. odocoilei in one shrew, B. microti in one deer mouse, and Hepatozoon in one deer mouse and one white-footed mouse. My findings provide evidence that emerging or re-emerging tick-borne pathogens may be present outside currently defined risk areas identified by surveillance efforts in Canada. Finally, in chapter 4, I examined the effect of biotic factors related to I. scapularis and mammal hosts on the presence, prevalence, and diversity of pathogens in Ontario and Quebec using data from field surveys. Local infection prevalence ranged from 0% to 25.4% in questing ticks and from 0% to 16.7% in small mammal hosts. Local pathogen presence and prevalence were not impacted by I. scapularis abundance nor the abundance and diversity of mammal hosts. However, mammal species richness was a key predictor of the number of pathogen species. Collectively, my dissertation provides insight into the historical and contemporary relationships between ticks, hosts, and pathogens in Canada. My results demonstrate that additional tick species such as H. leporispalustris may be of public health importance due to their ability to maintain pathogens within the environment without needing a host. In addition, certain emerging or re-emerging tick-borne pathogens, such as B. odocoilei and R. rickettsii, were detected outside of currently defined risk areas in southeastern Quebec, which may impact future surveillance efforts in these regions. Furthermore, this work highlights the need for proactive and comprehensive surveillance efforts that test questing and feeding ticks of all life stages and species, as well as their hosts in areas outside currently defined risk areas or those targeted by sentinel surveillance to better determine the spread, transmission, and co-occurrence of tick-borne pathogens in Canada.

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Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2019

This thesis examines the current system of education in Quebec. Quebec spends as much money on education as Ontario but is not seeing the same results. In this analysis the reasons for Ontario's success and the challenges that Quebec is facing are outlined along with suggestions for reform in order to improve outcomes in Quebec.

The theoretical framework of this thesis bases itself essentially upon the respective works of Arendt Lijphart and Karl Deutsch, who have studied how societal cleavages and social communication interact with each other. The present thesis's main focus is the Quebec/English Canadian duality. It uses quantitative analysis to study and compare pan-Canadian reactions to the Allaire Report that was issued by the Quebec Liberal Party in early 1991. The purpose is to try and find out whether the Allaire Report and the proposals it contains have had a divisive effect on Canadian society, and if so, to what extent. The data consists of all issues of the following newspapers over a period of time of exactly one month, from the 22nd of January and the 22nd of February, 1991 : the Calgary Herald, the Chronicle Herald, the Globe and Mail, Le Devoir, the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun and the Winnipeg Free Press. The analysis bases itself upon (1) the space that each newspaper devotes to the issue (2) the tone and content of the headlines and (3) the frequencies of appearance of certain selected words. Quantitative analysis shows that the gap between Quebec and English Canada is becoming wider. Quebec clearly overestimates English Canada's fragile degree of homogeneity, while English Canada, by increasingly identifying itself to the so-called "rest of Canada", paradoxically acts as if Quebec were the glue that holds the whole country together.

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Opting for an applied theory approach, this thesis addresses various means of "compenetration" between religious normative orders and normative orders of the Quebec and French States. / Based on a constructivist vision of law and on the impact of post-modernism, the thesis draws out a typology of pluralisms used in legislation with the aim to understand religious normativity (institutionalized pluralism and integrated pluralism), and distinguishes between four types of religious normativity invoked before the civil law judge, that is: the religious normativity of the State; the formal non-State religious normativity; the informal, community-based non-State religious normativity; and the personal and ethical non-State religious normativity. / After having noted the refusal of the principle of institutionalized pluralism in France and in Quebec, namely, the rejection of direct application, as such, of the religious normativity by the judge, and highlighting its exceptions resulting in particular from the mechanisms of private international law, this thesis studies the tools available to the civil law judge to take into consideration religious normativity. Here it concerns the facets of integrated pluralism which finds expression, in particular, through standards contained in the rules of civil law and in the fundamental right (civil liberty in France and subjective right in Quebec) of freedom of religion. / The thesis points to the persuasive role of the civil law judge in the functioning of integrated pluralism and the elaboration of a common normativity by consensus. The thesis insists on the procedural techniques that can be implemented to accept or refuse the integration of "foreigness" of norms and the "otherness" of values in its legal order and notes that the articulation of religious and State normativity can give rise to schemes of eviction and balance. The thesis concludes by the response to the question as to whether it is the religious norm in isolation or that which is linked to the normative order which is thus received in France and Quebec. In this respect, the question is whether integrated pluralism is a subjective pluralism, which seeks to take into consideration only ethical religious normativity, or an objective one, which recognizes the normative impact of religious normative orders on their members.

This thesis analyses the making of the landscape and community of Westmount, Quebec from 1871 to 1929, when it grew from a quiet rural area into Montreal's foremost anglophone elite inner-city residential suburb. A cultural materialist approach to landscapes is adopted, viewing them analytically as a means to organize and assign existential meaning to human action towards the environment at a given time and place. The making of Westmount is placed within the context of Montreal's society in the 19th century, when rapid industrialization created massive wealth for the city's English-speaking business elite, but threatened its political domination. Westmount became the 'suburban solution' to this problem, providing a sanctuary where, by careful and pioneering use of municipal bylaws governing both land use and social conduct, a 'model' elite community and landscape was created and maintained. The degree of control obtained through the maintenance of Westmount's suburban autonomy allowed a strong expression in the landscape of a shared ideology of difference and privilege.

The theoretical framework of this thesis bases itself essentially upon the respective works of Arendt Lijphart and Karl Deutsch, who have studied how societal cleavages and social communication interact with each other. The present thesis's main focus is the Quebec/English Canadian duality. It uses quantitative analysis to study and compare pan-Canadian reactions to the Allaire Report that was issued by the Quebec Liberal Party in early 1991. The purpose is to try and find out whether the Allaire Report and the proposals it contains have had a divisive effect on Canadian society, and if so, to what extent. The data consists of all issues of the following newspapers over a period of time of exactly one month, from the 22nd of January and the 22nd of February, 1991 : the Calgary Herald, the Chronicle Herald, the Globe and Mail, Le Devoir, the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun and the Winnipeg Free Press. The analysis bases itself upon (1) the space that each newspaper devotes to the issue (2) the tone and content of the headlines and (3) the frequencies of appearance of certain selected words. Quantitative analysis shows that the gap between Quebec and English Canada is becoming wider. Quebec clearly overestimates English Canada's fragile degree of homogeneity, while English Canada, by increasingly identifying itself to the so-called "rest of Canada", paradoxically acts as if Quebec were the glue that holds the whole country together. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate