By J.L. Granatstein
In 2009, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney announced the end of the nation’s heritage languages programme. He told a journalist that “I think it’s neat that a fifth-generation Ukrainian Canadian can speak Ukrainian — but pay for it yourself.”

By J.L. Granatstein
“When I would speak at the United Nations on anything that had to do with human rights or human security,” recalled one experienced Canadian diplomat, “I (always) got a very respectful hearing.” Why? The ambassador explained: “In terms of welcoming others and integrating them into society, nobody does it better than we do [...more]

By Robert Bothwell
The uneasy compromises that governed relations between English and French Canadians began to break down in the 1950s. French-Canadians had usually, if sometimes grudgingly, accepted that they were part of a Canadian nation, even if it meant that they had to cohabit with an English-speaking majority. A better-educated and more prosperous population in [...more]

Just last Thursday, we posted an item about a recent conversation happening on the website of our affiliated project, Bring Back the Act.  (You can read that post by clicking here.)  Today brings another exchange on the uniqueness of Canada’s Constitution that we hope is of interest to our Canadian Experience readers; it was sparked [...more]

By Robert Bothwell
One of the problems of a bilingual country is, inevitably, national unity. In Canada, national unity usually — though not always — refers to relations between English and French Canadians. Put another way, if the English-language majority leads, will the French minority follow?

An interesting online discussion came up on the website of our affiliated project, Bring Back the Act.  If you’re not familiar with this initiative, we are enlisting the help and support of all Canadians to bring back Canada’s original Constitution, The British North America Act of 1867 (The BNA Act), currently in London, England. As [...more]

By Robert Bothwell
The Conquest of 1760 was the culmination of 70 years of sporadic warfare between Great Britain and France. France’s main North American colony, New France, stretched from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Mississippi valley and prevented the British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard from expanding into the interior. The British colonies [...more]