It was easier when we were all subjects. Citizenship is a more difficult concept. Many different things could be subjects of the sovereign, but citizenship implies commonality and, since the French Revolution, equality. It also implies adherence. One could be a subject by force or conquest, but not a citizen. Citizenship requires voluntary adhesion. The state must at some fundamental level earn the loyalty of its citizens or, alternatively, citizens must be made to fit the requirements of the state. Citizenship can be a congenial reflection of self, a Procrustean bed of regimentation and conformism, and many things in-between.
In different ways these two timely books probe the meaning of Canadian citizenship during the 1950s and ’60s. Neither author is much interested in the legal or administrative dimensions of the problem—the laws, regulations, consular processes, appeal procedures, statistics and government department associated with citizenship. Rather, both...
H.V. Nelles, the L.R. Wilson Professor of Canadian History at McMaster University, recently published with his co-author, Christopher Armstrong, The Painted Valley: Artists Along Alberta’s Bow River, 1845–2000 (University of Calgary Press, 2007).
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