Immigration, Immigrants, and the Rights of Canadian Citizens in Historical Perspective Bangarth, Stephanie D. Voices Raised in Protest: Defending Citizens of Japanese Ancestry in North America, 1942–49. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008 Caccia, Ivana. Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime: Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939–1945. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010 Champion, C.P. The Strange Demise of British Canada: The Liberals and Canadian Nationalism, 1964–68. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010 Iacovetta, Franca. Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006 Kaprielian-Churchill, Isabel. Like Our Mountains: A History of Armenians in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005 Lambertson, Ross. Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Activists, 1930–1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005 MacLennan, Christopher. Toward the Charter: Canadians and the Demand for a National Bill of Rights, 1929–1960. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004 Roy, Patricia E. The Triumph of Citizenship: The Japanese and Chinese in Canada, 1941–67. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008

For some time now, concerns have been raised that Canadians—and more particularly, new Canadians—are losing or have lost sight of the values that give meaning to being Canadian. For example, Andrew Cohen warns that with our commitment to diversity “we risk losing our centre of gravity and our fragile sense of place as Canadians” (163). Jack Granatstein claims that because they do not have a proper understanding of the past, Canadians are unaware of “the common fund of knowledge, traditions, values, and ideas that help to explain our existence” (165). His call to focus on the responsibilities that bind us together more than the rights said to keep us apart is shared by Rudyard Griffiths: “The powerful emotion of loyalty—not abstract ideas about individual freedom or the rights of man—is the terra firma of our political history” (4). From another perspective, uncertainty over what it means to be Canadian is understood to stem from the retreat of a collective commitment to the national community channelled through government policies and laws. With the rise of neoliberalism, Janine Brodie concludes, “citizens are [increasingly] expected to shape themselves into self-sufficient market actors who provide for their needs and those of their families” (41). Moreover, Sandra Rollings-Magnusson, Alexandra Dobrowolsky, and Marc Doucet contend that in a post-September 11 context, core characteristics of Canadian national identity have been brought into question through “a disturbing number of illustrations of national security preoccupations severely impinging on freedom and liberty, not only undermining civil liberties but also undercutting broader citizenship, equality, and human rights” (23). This has affected some, Sharryn Aiken maintains, more than others: “While the government’s anti-terrorism agenda has had a corrosive effect on the rights of everyone living in Canada, the primary victims have been immigrants, refugees, and citizens of Arab and Muslim descent” (180). Although these two perspectives anchor contemporary concerns to different sources, each underscores the need to situate the intersection of rights and Canadian citizenship in historical perspective. But this is easier said than done, as Canada possesses a surprisingly thin historiography with respect to rights and citizenship, especially in the context of Canada as a country of immigration. This is changing, however, as a number of works have appeared that address these themes—either directly or indirectly—and thereby allow the outlines of a fuller account to be drawn. Indeed, the eight texts examined in this review provide evidence of underappreciated depths and dimensions to debates over what it means to be Canadian, and what it means to pursue liberal-democratic citizenship amid ethnic diversity. Although this review seeks to indicate the full scope of each work, its main objective is to situate them within this broader narrative, which necessitates first broaching the subject of Canada’s British liberal heritage. The importance of appreciating the enduring Britishness of Canada is the focus of C. P. Champion’s The Strange Demise of British Canada. “[T]he British tradition is not something foreign,” he insists, “it is a constitutive part of Canadian identity” (226). In analyzing the efforts of the governments of Lester B. Pearson to recast the country’s self-understanding by sidelining traditional “British” symbols and promoting new “Canadian” ones in the 1960s (as seen, for example, in the displacement of the Red Ensign for the Maple Leaf flag), Champion joins authors such as Phillip Buckner, who challenge the well-worn interpretation that this was all part of a transformation from “colony to nation.” Champion shows how the institutionalization of these new forms of Canadian nationalism are better viewed as complex continuations from, rather than simple rejections of, British traditions: “decision-makers did not seek to betray or abandon their …