Defining "Canadian": Anti-Americanism and Identity in Sir John A. Macdonald's Nationalism

Abstract

The patriotic rhetoric of the general election of 1891, won by Sir John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party, was well-received at the time and echoed far into the twentieth century. While the campaign revolved around anti-Americanism, its language, images and symbols were referential to specific discourses of ethnicity, gender and class. These discourses privileged British-Canadian, middle-class males, who used this election to further entrench their positions of social, cultural and political power. In the newly formed Dominion of Canada, Macdonald and his supporters appropriated national and nationalist language that suggested inclusion and excluded or devalued others, in patterns that are still visible today.