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Race, the Canadian Census, and Interactive Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

Debra Thompson*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McGill University

Abstract

This article explores the erratic history of counting by race on the Canadian census. It argues that the political development of racial classifications on Canadian censuses has been shaped by the interactions among evolving global ideas about race, the programmatic beliefs of international epistemic communities of statisticians and census designers, and domestic institutions involved in the administration of the census. First, Canadian census designers drew from shifting global conceptions about the nature of race and racial difference, which normatively defined the legitimate ends of race policies. Second, Canadian census designers often paid heed to the programmatic beliefs of the international statistical community about the appropriateness of collecting racial data. Finally, evolving political institutions involved in the administration of the census mediated these transnational ideas, molding them to fit the Canadian national context through institutional and cultural translative processes. Theoretically, this research makes the case that focusing on interactive political development can augment the theoretical toolbox of American political development, enabling a more comprehensive picture of the emergence, dynamism, and persistence of the Canadian racial order.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank the participants of the American, British and Canadian Political Development workshop, held at Oxford University in May 2016, for helpful comments on the original draft of this article, and the editors of Studies in American Political Development and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful critiques of the many subsequent iterations.

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110. Census of Canada 1870–71 (Ottawa: I. B. Taylor, 1871).

111. Curtis, Politics of Population, 285–86.

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120. Siegfried, André, The Race Question in Canada (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1907)Google Scholar. See also Henri Bourassa (1913) “Le langue française et l'avenir de notre race” (the French language and the future of our race) and even the much later 1968 autobiography of Vallières, Nègres blanc d'amérique/White Niggers of America.

121. Baum, Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race.

122. Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Sixth Census of Canada, 1921: Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1921).

123. “Nationality, Orientals and Others,” letter from R. H. Coats, Dominion Statistician, to Dr. Helen R. Y. Reid, Chairman, Division on Immigration, National Committee for Mental Hygiene, December 10, 1930, National Archives of Canada (NAC), RG31 Accession 1989–90/133, box 29, file 7267.

124. Census and Statistics Office, Fifth Census of Canada, 1911: Instructions to Officers, Commissioners, and Enumerators (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1911), 27.

125. Memorandum for Dr. Coats, The Necessity of Taking the Eighth Decennial Census of Canada in 1941, November 27, 1939, NAC RG31, vol. 1417, Records of the Assistant Dominion Statistician, Census Material, 1891–1940.

126. “Nationality, Orientals and Others,” Letter to R. B. Bennett, from H. Langley, Secretary, Maple Leaf Association, January 7, 1931, NAC RG31 Accession 1989–90/133, box 29, file 7267.

127. “Nationality, Orientals and Others,” Memorandum for Mr. Macphail, Chief, Division of Census and Vital Statistics, from R. H. Coats, Dominion Statistician, May 26, 1932, Re: Letter to the Canadian National Committee for Mental Hygiene, NAC RG31 Accession 1989–90/133, box 29, file 7267.

128. Memorandum for Mr. Coats, from Chief, General Statistics Branch, May 12, 1926, NAC RG31, vol. 1417, Records of the Assistant Dominion Statistician, Racial Origin.

129. Fourth Census of Canada, 1901: Instructions to Chief Officers, Commissioners and Enumerators (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1901), 14.

130. Memorandum for the Honourable Minister of Trade and Commerce—the Northwest Census of Population and Agriculture, 1916, and Cognate Subjects, September 16, 1915, NAC RG31, vol. 1417, Records of the Assistant Dominion Statistician, Census Material 1891–1940.

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134. Thompson, “Racial Ideas and Gendered Intimacies.”

135. Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Sixth Census of Canada, 1921.

136. Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Seventh Census of Canada, 1931: Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1931); Eighth Census of Canada, 1941.

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143. UNESCO, The Race Question (Paris: UNESCO, 1950).

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147. Letter from Herbert Marshall, Dominion Statistician to M. W. Mackenzie, Deputy Minister, Department of Trade and Commerce, March 10, 1950, NAC RG31 vol. 1517, file 123, Records of the Assistant Dominion Statistician (Walter Duffet) 1961 Census—Origin or Ethnic Question.

148. Ibid.

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150. Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Census of Canada, 1951: Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators (Ottawa: King's Printer, 1951).

151. Ninth Census of Canada, 1951: Volume X, General Review and Summary Tables (Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1956), 138.

152. Ibid., 128.

153. Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Census of Canada, 1951, 44.

154. Ninth Census of Canada, 1951, 131.

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157. Ibid.

158. House of Commons, Debates, May 25, 1959, 3975–76 (Can.). See also January 20, 1961, 1280–89; January 23, 1961, 1301–302; January 24, 1961, 1356–57; May 4, 1961, 4352–54.

159. January 6, 1959, NAC RG2 vol. 2744, Cabinet Conclusions, 1959. January 6, 1959, no. 2-59.

160. Though “Canadian” was an acceptable answer to the origin question on the 1951 census, only those respondents who insisted on the designation to enumerators were counted in this way. Prior to 1951 neither “Canadian” nor “American” were considered acceptable racial origins.

161. House of Commons, Debates, April 30, 1946, 1043–46 (Can.).

162. François-Albert Angers, “Entre Nous” [Between Ourselves], L'Action Nationale, 47, no. 9-10 (May-June 1959) [trans.].

163. Queries about the Census Origin Question, April 28, 1961, NAC RG31 vol. 1517, file 123, Records of the Assistant Dominion Statistician (Walter Duffett) 1961 Census—Origin or Ethnic Question.

164. Letter from C. D. Howe, Minister of Trade and Commerce, to Louis St-Laurent, Prime Minister, May 6, 1950, NAC RG2 vol. 148, file D-25-3-C, Privy Council Office of Canada, Department of Trade and Commerce, Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Census, 1951.

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170. Ibid.

171. King and Smith, Still a House Divided.

172. Francis, Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State.

173. Smith, “Diversity and Canadian Political Development,” 849.