Dual Citizenship Tempest

The teapot tempest over Dion's dual citizenship continues. A positive side-effect of this controversy may be that Canadians learn something about their citizenship law and that this may prove to be a "teachable moment". I recently read a letter to the editor on the issue of Dion's nationality that claimed that Sir John A. Macdonald was a dual citizen, a comment that reveals a gross ignorance of the history of Canadian citizenship law (and of Canadian history more generally). I know not all Grade 9 history classes are created equal, but you would think that a reasonable intelligent person would remember that until after the Second World War, Canadians were legally British subjects (Macdonald was a British subject, but so was Cartier. In fact, if you don't understand this basic fact, so many things about Canadian history and heritage don't make sense-- e.g., why is there a Crown on Ontario licence plates).

The Toronto Star has an excellent article today that mentions the creation of Canadian citizenship in the 1940s (it also discusses John Turner's British birth).


There is a great deal of popular mythology surrounding Mackenzie King's decision to create a separate Canadian citizenship that distinguished Canadians from other subjects of the Empire/Commonwealth. One widespread idea is that the decision was somehow linked to the move to racial and ethnic equality within Canada. The reality is quite different: historically, the Tories, the imperialist party in Canada, were somewhat more tolerant of non-white immigration than the Liberals, the party that tried to detach Canada from the Empire/Commonwealth as much as a possible.

Canadian citizenship was created at precisely the moment non-whites were starting to use their status as British subjects to settle in the UK (until 1961, pretty much any healthy person from the Commonwealth could move to Britain without restriction). Although Canada eventually opened its doors to non-white immigration from the Commonwealth, it did so because of pressure from Britain (especially Harold Macmillan), the need to curry favour within the Commonwealth, and because Diefenbaker's Conservatives saw no conflict between anglophilia and a strong committment to racial equality. In the 1950s, black organizations such as Montreal's Negro Citizenship Association's attempted to have Canada's definition of British subject broadened to include black West Indians--- Ottawa was indifferent to their claims and was focused on recruiting whites immigrants in continental Europe.

Dion Citizenship Controversy

I'm posting a link to a friend's blog: Red and White Shirt has some interesting things to say about the Dion citizenship controversy. There is a reference to John Turner's birth in England (that's the tangential link to the British World theme of this blog).

http://redwhiteshirt.blogspot.com/2006/12/citizen-dion.html

Stephane Dion

Nowadays, it is rare for a British paper to notice political events in Canada, but the left-leaning Guardian carried a story on the Liberal leadership convention in Montreal.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1963317,00.html

Unfortunately, they mistakenly said that Stephane Dion was a former Canadian PM! To their credit, the Guardian printed a retraction once the error was pointed out.

John Reid Scare Tactics

John Reid, Blair's Home Secretary, is a politician known for his tough law and order stance. Today, he declared that independence would make Scotland vulnerable to terrorists and illegal immigration. In fact, it would be a "gift" to the filthy buggers.

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1754072006

Sometimes I wonder if Reid is actually a member of the British Labour Party or simply a right-wing US Republican who acquired a Scottish accent for the purposes of infiltrating British politics and spreading paranoia about "homeland security."

Anyway, I wonder if in future Canadian politicians will combat separatism through similar scaremongering.

British Reaction to Quebec Nation Vote

British reactions to the Quebec-a-nation vote are interesting for several reasons. First, references to the "four nations" of the United Kingdom are not controversial here and most British people would argue that a strong identification with one of these nations does necessarily imply a desire for political independence.

The movement for outright political independence (as opposed to a desire for more powers for Scotland's Parliament) is a marginal force in Scotland (notwithstanding Blair's recent scare-mongering about the threat from the SNP. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/iain_macwhirter/2006/11/labours_scare_mongering_on_sco.htmland

In Wales, the movement for independence is even weaker. Even in England, the most unionist part of the UK, the majority of the people will tend to describe themselves as English rather than British.

All of nations of the British Isles have teams that compete in international sporting events. The UK sends a single team to the Olympics, but the constituent nations of the UK send teams to most other international events, most notably the World Cup (England's performance at the recent World Cup were probably watched by more people than any Olympic event ever is). The British experience helps to put Guy Betrand's advocacy of a Quebec national hockey team into perspective. See http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/story/2006/11/02/teamquebec-hockey.html and http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/article.jsp?content=20061102_140139_5576 and
http://www.hockeyforum.com/world-cup-hockey/3341-push-team-quebec-hockey-worlds.html

The BBC news stories on the Quebec nation vote 22 Nov http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6190162.stm
and 28 Nov http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6174986.stmon
are their first items on a Canadian-related topic since a September story on Canadian public opinion and the Afghan mission http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5319310.stm

All of the BBC stories are narrowly descriptive and don't contain much in the way of interpretation and analysis. However, a Welsh website, icWales, has taken an interest in the "Quebec nation row".

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0700world/tm_headline=quebec--nation--row-hits-canada&method=full&objectid=18170736&siteid=50082-name_page.html

The really interesting discussion of this issue, however, is to be found in the discussion forum hosted by the Scotsman newspaper:

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1733202006

The irony is that many people in Scotland are much more sympathetic to Quebec nationalism than the average Scottish immigrant to Canada is (trust me on this one).

NOTE:

The BBC hasn't got a full-time reporter in Canada, and instead relies on the CBC and Lee Carter, a British-born Toronto DJ, in covering Canadian events. The reports he files for the BBC are totally neutral and factual, but I wonder if he has expressed opinions about this issue on air.

http://www.spiritofradio.ca/Personalities.asp?Show=Carter%2C+Lee

Canadian War Museum

Here is a story with a (tangential) link to the British World theme of this blog:

A veterans groups have announced they are unhappy with a panel within an exhibit at the Canadian War Museum. The panel is question states that both the morality and the military effectiveness of the Allied bombing raids against Germany remain contested. The Museum does not take sides in either the dispute about morality or the empirical question regarding effectiveness, it merely notes that these issues remain controversial.


http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=05bb0c8c-827d-4d79-8ee3-dda6ad6b6707&k=42408

There is no way that the CWM should back down in this issue. As quoted in this news story, the panel in question seems eminently fair in its phrasing. Moreover, as part of their duty to educate the public, museums have an obligation to indicate that the past is interpreted in different ways. Most casual visitors just want the basic facts of the case (actually, many visitors are probably school kids with little interest in the topic), but a good museum will lightly refer to the historiographic debates. The Holocaust gallery of the IWM in London has a good system: the main panels give the basic facts about the Holocausts, but visitors wanting more detail can sit at special computer terminals with PowerPoint displays dealing with historiographic controversies (e.g., the failure of Western nations to bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz). There are even suggestions for further reading for the tiny minority of really keen visitors.

The veterans involved are old men and one hesitates to suggest fighting them by citing fancy degrees and "books". However, the CWM should perhaps mention in its next press release the academic credentials of the people who put the exhibit together. This should silence much of the criticism.

Macdonald Letter to be Auctioned

CBC news reports that a letter John A. Macdonald wrote to the famous English legal theorist Sir Henry Maine shortly after the passage of the British North America Act will be auctioned. In the letter, Macdonald expresses his delight at the passage of BNA Act and some ideas on the possibility of war with the United States.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2006/11/24/macdonald-letter.html

The provenance of this letter has not be made public, but we are told that it is currently in private hands (perhaps those of a distant relative of Maine). It is unclear from the CBC story if any other correspondence between Maine and Macdonald will be put up for auction. It is also unknown whether there is an extant reply from Maine to Macdonald.

I take a particular interest in this story. My PhD thesis was on the role of British businessmen in Canadian Confederation, so any document relating to the Anglo-Canadian relationship in this period is naturally interesting to me. In fact, I'm fascinated by pretty much anything related to Macdonald. Moreover, Maine was an important social theorist in his own right who doubtless had an interesting perspective on Canadian Confederation and the imperial constitution.

Indeed, the role of legal ideas about the imperial constitution in the politics of Confederation would itself be an interesting topic for a book or dissertation (for someone else to write). Although 19th century British colonists generally subscribed to a Dicey-style notion of Parliamentary omnicompetence, many Anti-Confederates in Nova Scotia believed that the sovereignty of the imperial parliament was limited and that Westminster had exceeded these limits when it forced Nova Scotia into Confederation. (Ken Pryke quotes Nova Scotians who thought this way). Joseph Howe disliked this doctrine (not surprising, given that he was the son of the United Empire Loyalist), but he nevertheless raised when he discussed fighting Confederation in court with two London barristers. The barristers, however, told Howe that it was unlikely that a British court would declare the BNA Act to be ultra vires!


Let us hope that the Library and Archives of Canada will be able to purchase this important document. I suspect, however, that this letter will be snapped up by a Bay Street law firm. If so, let's hope they do the right thing and place it on permanent loan with a Canadian archive. It would be nice if this letter were placed in the Macdonald Fonds in Ottawa.