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Race, the Canadian Census, and Interactive Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

Debra Thompson Open the ORCID record for Debra Thompson [Opens in a new window]
Debra Thompson*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, McGill University
*
Email: debra.thompson@mcgill.ca
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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
Information
Studies in American Political Development , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , April 2020 , pp. 44 - 70
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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99. Ibid., 107.

100. Triadafilopoulos, “Building Walls, Bounding Nations,” 396. The bias against Central and Eastern Europeans is illustrated in the words of Frank Oliver, Sifton's successor as minister of the Interior: “There is nothing we more earnestly resent than the idea of settling up the country with people who will be a drag on our civilization and progress. We did not go out to that country simply to produce wheat. We went to build up a nation, a civilization a social system that we could enjoy, be proud of and transmit to our children; and we resent the idea of having the millstone of this Slav population hung around our necks in our efforts to build up, beautify and improve this country, and so improve the whole of Canada.” Cited in Hawkins, Critical Years in Immigration, 8.

101. House of Commons, Debates, May 12, 1882, 1477 (Can.).

102. Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic, 94–98.

103. Ward, Peter W., White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia, 2nd ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Backhouse, Constance, “The White Women's Labor Laws: Anti-Chinese Racism in Early Twentieth-Century Canada,” Law and History Review 14, no. 2 (1996): 315–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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105. Indian Registration and Band Lists Directorate, The Indian Act, Past and Present, 7–19.

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108. Scott, Corrie, “How French Canadians Became White Folks, or Doing Things with Race in Quebec,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 39, no. 7 (2016): 1283–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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

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

112. Ibid., 285.

113. Prévost, Jean-Guy and Beaud, Jean-Pierre, Statistics, Public Debate and the State, 1800–1945 (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 63–90Google Scholar.

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115. Eugenics was truly a global movement both in terms of the proliferation of the discourse and its political consequences. Though the most violent and coercive implementation of eugenicist policies occurred in Nazi Germany preceding and during the Second World War, at the turn of the century eugenics received wide and popular support. Varying eugenic policies were proposed or implemented in Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Sweden, the Soviet Union, Germany, Australia, Norway, France, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Iceland, and Switzerland. The transnationalism of eugenicist ideas is also evidenced by the three international eugenics conferences organized by the British Eugenics Education Society and the U.S. Department of State, held in London in 1912, New York in 1921, and New York in 1932 with participants from around the world. See, for example, Adams, Mark B., ed., The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil and Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Stepan, Nancy, The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Dikötter, Frank, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (London: Hurst, 1992)Google Scholar; Kevles, Daniel J., In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Larson, Edward John, Sex, Race, and Science: Eugenics in the Deep South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Spektorowski, Alberto, “The Eugenic Temptation in Socialism: Sweden, Germany, and the Soviet Union,” Comparative Studies in History and Society 46, no. 1 (2004): 84–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bashford, Alison and Levine, Phillippa, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Hansen, Randall and King, Desmond, Sterilized by the State: Eugenics, Race, and the Population Scare in Twentieth-Century North America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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118. Kelley and Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic, 134–35.

119. McLaren, Our Own Master Race, 48; Valverde, Mariana, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 107–108Google Scholar.

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.

131. Andersen, Chris, “From Nation to Population: The Racialisation of the ‘Métis’ in the Canadian Census,” Nations and Nationalisms 14, no. 2 (2008): 347–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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133. Titley, E. Brian, A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

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.

137. McLaren, Our Own Master Race.

138. Tanser, H. A., “Intelligence of Negroes of Mixed Blood in Canada,” The Journal of Negro Education 10, no. 4 (1941): 650–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

139. House of Commons, Debates, May 8, 1922, 1555 (Can.).

140. Barkan, Elazar, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

141. Klinkner, Philip and Smith, Rogers, The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

142. Boas, Franz, The Mind of Primitive Man (New York: Macmillan, 1911)Google Scholar. Note that the challenge to biological racialism in the academy, including the extensive body of work produced by W. E. B. Du Bois, predated the Second World War, but was only taken up in the postwar era.

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

144. Lauren, Paul Gordon, Power and Prejudice: The Politics and Diplomacy of Racial Discrimination, 2nd ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Füredi, Frank, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

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146. Memorandum Re: Population Card, Cabinet Document No. 139-50, 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.

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.

149. Clément, Dominique, Canada's Rights Revolution: Social Movements and Social Change, 1937–1982 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Triadafilopoulos, Becoming Multicultural.

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

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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167. Prévost and Beaud, Statistics, Public Debate and the State.

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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.