The Canadian Dream In Michael Ondaatje's In The Skin Of A Lion

Margaret Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. McLelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1972. “Canadian Nationalism in Arts and Science.” The Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa: 1975.

Canada like Laurence, was forced to face the hardships involved with growing up. However, the black marks in history does not define Canada , it is how Canada learns from their mistakes and moves forward. Laurence explains through her microcosm of a prairie town that along with growth comes the formation of perspective that will forever affect one's future decisions .

The impact of colonization on First Nations peoples in Canada is unsurpassable, regarding every aspect of Aboriginal life and well-being. Throughout Canadian history, the government has been aiming to assimilate and annihilate Aboriginal people by way of racist policies, ethnocentric institutions, discriminatory laws and destructive capitalist behaviours. Because of this, Aboriginal people have suffered many losses, both physically and culturally. One of the main perpetrators of enacting this loss is the education system. The education system in Canada has and continues to threaten the relationship First Nations peoples have with the land. The connection First Nations peoples have with the land is crucial to their cultures, traditions, ceremonies and beliefs. Colonization and colonialism jeopardize this relationship and that is what this essay will address.

Throughout this course, we learn that women’s studies originated as a concerned at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). It has always been known that in the past, men have had more privilege than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs have divergent female identities, however this does not hinder the fact that many of these cultures are based on patriarchal past where men hold more rights than women. Canadian women have sought to overcome these stereotypes and have managed to gain a position of near equality. This was

The On-to-Ottawa trek occurred the desperate economic time of the 1930s in Canada when people were unhappy about the conditions of their lives and proceeded to act upon it. The federal government at the time, run by R.B. Bennett, imposed relief camps in an attempt to help these people, but little did the government know that this decision would result in men forming a group meant to revolt against the poor conditions of their lives in these camps. With organization from passionate leaders this group planned oppose Bennett and expose his faults, all the while he continued to refuse to acknowledge his wrong doings and repeatedly justified his plan that was doing more harm than good. The group’s frustration would eventually reach a tipping point when the decided to travel to Ottawa to meet Bennett face to face and finally settle their problems. The events surrounding the On-to-Ottawa trek allowed the men of western Canada to face Prime Minister R.B. Bennett and the federal government so that they were aware and had to act on the harsh conditions that they had to deal with during “The Great Depression”.

In the end, the changing role of Canada’s women during the War was the beginning of a chain reaction of events that have forever changed the Canadian workplace and also that of men’s archaic views on the capabilities of women in general. Many look back to the period during the war in which women were encouraged to get out of the kitchen and go to work, and wonder how a five year period could be so instrumental in forever changing the norms of society? Two authors, who

Canada might have been one of the best places in the world but for me and Tim, Canada is a lot more than that. For Tim O’ Brien’s “On the Rainy River”, Canada is freedom: freedom from the draft letter that pressures him to go to war, freedom from the war that he never understood and always hated, freedom from the dirt, tent, and mosquitoes, freedom from that dense greasy pig-stink and blood clots in the slaughterhouse, freedom from his country, and freedom from his conscience… or is it? On the other hand, for me, Canada is separation: separation from the friends and family who I most

In the article Colonialism and First Nations Women in Canada by Winona Stevenson, the author explains the struggle First Nations women had keeping their culture alive. Upon arriving in America the Europeans suffocated the natives with their rationalisation of female subjugation. Reluctant to give up their traditions and honour the native-American women put up a fight, but their efforts would not be strong enough to triumph over the European missionaries. Stevenson chronologically explains their contact with the ‘colonial agencies'.

Over the past 200 years, there is an emergence and existence of the working class in Canada which has initiated the capitalist infrastructure (comprising the wage earners and the entrepreneurs) in Canada and also involving the struggles of the Canadian workers to claim their necessities and distress. Being the most difficult parts of the twentieth century, there had been very few people who had not been affected by the Great Depression. The working class in Canadian Society had been adversely affected during the time of Second World War and had even faced the repercussions of the War. With

The Gold Rush in British Columbia (B.C) marked the beginning of Canada’s multicultural society. It saw the mass immigration of foreign workers (particularly those from China and other Asian nations), dispersion of Native Americans, and intrusion of poor and middle class europeans seeking riches in the rumoured “El Dorado”. The exhibit attempted to argue these points through its much anticipated “Scholarly Insight” panel, titled Why study a gold rush? The panel identifies three key themes regarding the outcome of the B.C. Gold Rush: that it connected Canada to the rest of the world through the Pacific-Rim, it sparked mass immigration which caused conflicts amongst different ethnic groups, and the Gold Rush was the event that truly united Canada coast to coast. These points were also explored in Christopher Douglas Herbert’s article, A New Take on An Old Town. Exploring the impact through the Cariboo Gold Rush, many parallels can be drawn between the two events, particularly among the economic importance of the the territory to the nation of Canada.

In this person’s article, he/she discusses some of the hardships which many immigrants, may face in Canada. This person talks about how they at first had utopic dreams about Canada: that Canada did not have any “human weaknesses” and that they would find a job and be happy, free from racial discrimination. However, in the viewpoint of the author, this is far from the reality. The author warns about the difficulties of finding a job in Canada: difficulty in communication between the immigrant and the job supplier, lack of trust with the immigrants history in their home country, the fact that many of the jobs are not advertised in places where people can access them, and racism in choosing which person should get the job. Because of this sources personal experience, he/she warns others not to come to Canada. This is the reason that this source was created is to warn other people from facing the same dangers the author did in Canada. This author ends his/her article by saying that “work” is not something you can depend on to find in Canada. The main economic issue regarding immigration that this source addresses is that it is often very hard for newly landed immigrants to get jobs for many reasons. This is a very important problem as the main reason that the immigrants are let into Canada in the first place is to find a job and help Canada's economy.

Politicians weren’t the only factors that created Canada today. Could you believe that a large hunk of metal and wood, spanning around Canada, was one of the most important factors that led to our Canada? This large hunk of metal and wood is the Canadian Pacific Railway, commonly referred to as the CPR. Many different people had different views on the CPR, and these views were crucial to the CPR’s development. Today, I’m going to talk about the views of important Federal Politicians, businessmen, Chinese labourers and even First Nations people on the building and development of the CPR. These views were detrimental in developing the CPR and thus, developing the face of Canada today.

Using the concepts of “industrial” and “postindustrial” societies: How has work changed in Canada over time? (pg20,24)

With scholars such as Kerry L. Preibisch (The Other Side of el Otro Lado: Mexican Migrant Women and Labor Flexibility in Canadian Agriculture), Ronaldo Munck (Globalization, Migration and Work: Issues and Perspectives), and Parrenas R. S. (Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work) all argue that the power the employer has in selecting which migrant workers they want based on nationality or sex. In turn, has created a competition among the labor-supply of countries. And between the workers themselves based on social hierarchy, which both race and gender are prominent. However, these articles perspectives have not adequately addressed the issue of the relationship between how labour migration and the current economic policy in effect by the Canadian government the CSAWP has on migrant workers. My paper addresses the issue of migrant’s workers face in the agricultural sector in Ontario but with particular attention with regards to the recent changes in economic policies set by the Canadian government. Specifically, in my paper, I will be looking at the challenges of migrating to Canada, and the lack of fundamental rights of becoming a Canadian citizen, to show the difficulties that migrants face of being less mobile today than in the past. I will discuss the power that employers have the choice of picking the migrant worker that they want in Canada. The type of labour mobility they have within the workforce in Canada and juxtapose them against the current economic policies enforced by the Canadian Government to reveal the previously misunderstood connections between migrant workers and the challenges they face on a daily

Canada’s economy was once solely reliant on the exportation of raw materials, such as furs and timber, to Great Britain and Western Europe. Aside from this exportation of raw materials, Canada was largely agricultural in nature. By the time of Confederation, fifty-percent of labour remained agriculturally based (Krahn, Lowe, Hughes, 2008). Changes occurred around 1900; the industrial era replaced the once mainly agricultural and small-scale local production of times past by way of new technologies in the form of electricity, steam powered engines, railways, water wheels, etc. These tools allowed for the re-organization of work from piecework and compensation, based on individual output, to one of large manufacturing plants, high-production, specialized workers, and hourly pay. This industrial era has now morphed into one of new technologies and new careers; careers based in services. The dominance of a service-based economy is prevalent as around 75% of all employment in Canada was in services circa 2005(HRSDC,