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Misrecognized Materialists
This page intentionally left blank
Matt James

Misrecognized Materialists:
Social Movements in Canadian
Constitutional Politics
© UBC Press 2006

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior
written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying
or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian
Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca.

15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 54321

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled,

processed chlorine-free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

James, Matt, 1965-

Misrecognized materialists : social movements in Canadian constitutional
politics / Matt James.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7748-1168-2
ISBN-10: 0-7748-1168-4

1. Minorities – Legal status, laws, etc. – Canada – History – 20th century.

2. Constitutional history – Canada. 3. Social movements – Political aspects –
Canada – History – 20th century. I. Title.

KE4395.J34 2006 342.7108’7 C2006-903286-6

UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program
of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program (BPIDP), and of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia
Arts Council.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications
Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, and with the help of the K.D. Srivastava Fund.

Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens

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For Lisa
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Acknowledgments / ix

Acronyms / xi

1 Constitutional Politics and the Politics of Respect: An Introduction / 1

2 Searching for a Forum: Social Movements at the Royal Commission

on Dominion-Provincial Relations / 13

3 Wartime: Social Esteem and Social Citizenship in the Reconstruction

Debates / 27

4 The Postwar Identity Emphasis: Rights, Universalism, and Virtue / 41

5 Charter Politics as Materialist Politics / 67

6 From Meech Lake to Charlottetown: Symbolic Power and Visions of

Political Community / 91

7 Conclusion: Misrecognized Materialists in Canadian Constitutional

Politics / 113

Notes / 119

Bibliography / 146

Index / 159
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments

First thanks go to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,

Killam Trusts, and the University of British Columbia for invaluable
research support. Thanks also to Don Blake, Ken Carty, and Sam LaSelva
of the University of British Columbia Political Science Department
and to Joel Bakan of the UBC Law Faculty for their helpful comments
on earlier drafts of this book. Brian Elliott of UBC Sociology and Janet
Hiebert of Queen’s University Political Studies also provided extremely
valuable feedback. Further thanks go to Barbara Arneil and Philip Resnick
of UBC Political Science and to John Torpey, formerly of UBC Sociology
and now of the City University of New York, for their great support.
Thanks as well to Josephine Calazan, the late Nancy Mina, Petula Muller,
and Dory Urbano of UBC. Joan Anderson, Avigail Eisenberg, Sherrill
Grace, and Nikki Strong-Boag on the SSHRC-supported Race, Gender,
and Construction of Canada project also provided wonderful help and
guidance.
I want to thank two people in particular. Avigail Eisenberg was the
scholar who first inspired me to want to do academic work. She has
been helpful beyond words, as a stellar teacher, as a patient and astute
critic of my written work, and as a treasured friend. Alan Cairns, whose
writings have awakened me to so many of the things I find most fasci-
nating and important about politics, is the other person to whom I am
especially grateful. I would like to acknowledge his friendship, his gen-
erosity as an interlocutor, his unparalleled example of how to combine
humanity with scholarly excellence, and, not least, his gentle impa-
tience with dogma and cant.
I would also like to thank the friends who over countless chats and
conversations helped make writing this book so enjoyable: Martin
Courchaine, Rita Dhamoon, Francis Dupuis-Déri, Julie Fieldhouse, Olena
x Acknowledgments

Hankivsky, the late and dearly missed Gabi Helms, Gerald Kernerman,
Scott Pegg, Paddy Rodney, Tim Paterson, and Bryce Weber.
Several more people merit thanks for their help in the latter stages of
the project: Emily Andrew of UBC Press for her incisiveness and toler-
ance; Ann Macklem of UBC Press for her easygoing professionalism; the
anonymous reviewers for their perceptive criticisms and suggestions;
Paul Dyck for his excellent research assistance; and Colin Bennett and
Warren Magnusson of the University of Victoria Political Science de-
partment for their mentorship and assistance. I also thank the Univer-
sity of Victoria and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
of Canada for their support of my ongoing research.
Finally, two personal notes of thanks: to my parents, Bill James and
Ann Maclellan, for their incredibly patient love, wonderful support, and
for teaching me to love the world of ideas and books; and to my part-
ner, Lisa Chalykoff, about whom even the most eloquent words of love
would fall short. With all my heart, I dedicate this book to her.
Acronyms

AAFC Afro-Asian Foundation of Canada

ACCL All-Canadian Congress of Labour
B&B Bilingualism and Biculturalism
BNA British North America
CAVM Canadian Association of Visible Minorities
CCF Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
CCL Canadian Congress of Labour
CCNC Chinese Canadian National Council
CEC Canadian Ethnocultural Council
CIO Congress of Industrial Organizations
CJC Canadian Jewish Congress
CLC Canadian Labour Congress
CP Communist Party of Canada
CPC Canadian Polish Congress
FFQ Fédération des femmes du Québec
FTQ Fédération des travailleurs du Québec
JCPC Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
LDR League for Democratic Rights
LWR League for Women’s Rights
MP Member of Parliament
NAC National Action Committee on the Status of Women
NACOI National Association of Canadians of Origins in India
NAJC National Association of Japanese Canadians
NBCC National Black Coalition of Canada
NCIC National Congress of Italian Canadians
NCW National Council of Women of Canada
NJCCA National Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association
NUPGE National Union of Provincial Government Employees
PSAC Public Service Alliance of Canada
xii Acronyms

QFL Quebec Federation of Labour

TLC Trades and Labour Congress of Canada
UCC Ukrainian Canadian Committee
UN United Nations
Misrecognized Materialists
This page intentionally left blank
1
Constitutional Politics
and the Politics of Respect:
An Introduction

Constitutional politics is a Canadian synonym for futility. Memories of

our decades-long search for a comprehensive unity settlement spark
chagrin: a “mad excursion”; a tale of “wonderful naivety” at best.1 There
can be no doubt that the constitutional turn has failed to ease the Canada–
Quebec divisions it was meant to resolve and should on that key meas-
ure count as a failure. But there is also a different story to be told. This
book tells that story. Bringing into focus the historic role of Canadian
constitutional politics as a forum for questions that business as usual
tended to exclude, it shows how the constitutional debate became an
important arena for marginalized groups seeking inclusion and respect.
Significant attention has been paid to the participation of feminist
and ethnocultural minority groups in Canada’s high-profile and rela-
tively recent battles over the ill-fated 1987-90 Meech Lake Accord and
rejected Charlottetown amendment package of 1991-92, but more still
needs to be said.2 At the same time, what Peter Russell calls Canada’s
“constitutional odyssey” also includes such landmark struggles as the
entrenchment of the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada’s
mid-century transformation into a welfare state, and the 1960s con-
frontations over multiculturalism and dualism.3 Social movements were
key participants in these events, and this involvement merits closer
analysis as well. Thus, focusing on national organizations representing
women, working-class people, and ethnocultural minorities, this book
studies the history of Canadian constitutional politics from a social
movement standpoint, starting with the Rowell-Sirois hearings of the
Great Depression and concluding with the parliamentary hearings prior
to the Charlottetown Accord’s convulsive referendum defeat.
The constitutional malaise of the post-Charlottetown era makes a
strange window on the broader record of social movement involve-
ment.4 For much of the twentieth century, a combination of right-wing
2 Constitutional Politics and the Politics of Respect

provincial opposition and Ottawa’s reluctance to fight jurisdictional

battles on behalf of outsider groups prevented equality seekers from
establishing even their most elementary policy goals as significant top-
ics of legislative discussion. Thus, when the attention of elites turned at
key points to the constitutional arena, social movements responded
not with cynicism or resignation but by welcoming the emergence of a
venue for projects that normal politics seemed to preclude. The devel-
opment of two pillars of Canadian citizenship in particular exemplified
this dynamic: social programs for poor and working people, and equal-
ity rights and civil liberties for the marginalized and oppressed.
A unique feature of constitutional politics helped amplify tradition-
ally silenced voices more generally. As Alan Cairns points out, the ulti-
mate constitutional question – which follows from the constitution’s
role as an authoritative centre of nation-shaping rules and cues – is this:
“Who are we as a people?”5 When constitutional politics asked this ques-
tion, the ordinarily excluded asked back: “What about our role in the
country? What about our histories, contributions, and claims?” This dy-
namic created political space for social movement aspirations and ulti-
mately made the polity more receptive to previously neglected identities
and complaints.
Thus, Canada’s constitutional debate can help us to more closely ex-
amine key aspects of social movement struggle. The constitutional record
reveals movements wrestling with a fundamental aspect of democratic
politics: the use of civic dialogue to shape the perceptions of non-
supporters. For resolute Marxists, unlettered trade unionists, dedicated
feminists, and uneasy ethnocultural minorities, constitutional partici-
pation meant engaging interlocutors whose identities and affiliations
could scarcely have been more different. At the same time, the constitu-
tion’s role as an authoritative transmitter of civic messages and cues
provided a platform from which groups seeking inclusion and respect
could reach the political community as a whole. How equality seekers
grappled with these opportunities and exigencies is the focus of this
book.
To some, constitutional politics was the indulgent diversion of mis-
guided elites, a world of “pretentious high-mindedness” and “words for
the pleasure of words.”6 But from the vantage point of social move-
ments, it was something else: it offered citizens the chance to force onto
the national agenda some of the most serious problems of their day –
unemployment and poverty; state repression and harassment; disfran-
chisement and internment; and the myriad forms of discrimination vis-
ited on women and racialized minorities.
 Constitutional Politics and the Politics of Respect 3

These were not usually the issues on which dominant groups wanted
to focus. Indeed, when citizens tried to make these complaints the focal
points of civic discussion, authorities often replied with disrespectful
diversions that aimed to foreclose even the possibility of consideration
or debate – evasive and trivializing digressions, intimidating attacks, and
other assorted signals to “mind one’s place.” These tactics, which re-
mained common into the 1970s and were occasionally seen during the
1980s’ Meech Lake debates, made it difficult for marginalized groups to
articulate their political concerns. Equality seekers responded by becom-
ing more attuned to issues of voice, status, and prestige – to the question
of honourable inclusion in dominant representations and understandings
of the Canadian political community. This book explores the origins
and development of this response in the Canadian constitutional arena.
The book also describes the impact of this response on Canadian con-
stitutionalism. The entrenchment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
the development and constitutional enshrinement of official multicul-
turalism, and, more diffusely, the creation of a more meaningful na-
tional citizenship through the construction of a welfare state – these
innovations had an importance beyond the immediately practical or
merely legal. They infused Canadian constitutionalism with new cur-
rents of meaning and purpose and in this way helped movements to
pursue their often ignored aspirations and concerns.
The significant venues featured in this book are parliamentary com-
mittees and Royal Commissions on key issues of constitutional change
between 1938 and 1992. The movements discussed are rooted in both
the traditional left and the new social movements; they include organi-
zations based in trade unionism, socialism, feminism, antiracism, and
multiculturalism.
Canadian women’s movements are represented by two main groups:
the National Council of Women of Canada (NCW), and its more recent
counterpart, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women
(NAC). This study also includes the leading national organizations rep-
resenting Canadians of African, Chinese, East Indian, Italian, Japanese,
Jewish, Polish, and Ukrainian ancestry. The traditional-left groups ex-
amined are the main national trade-union umbrella organizations and
the Communist Party of Canada (CP). Although the Party is now irrel-
evant, its significance in the past and its dogged focus on questions of
class warrant its inclusion in a study of organizations representing
marginalized constituencies.
By contrast, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the New
Democratic Party are omitted because their basic concern – to draw
4 Constitutional Politics and the Politics of Respect

electoral support from across class lines – led to a much more varied
focus. Social welfare organizations are excluded because, except for the
relatively recent case of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, which
participated only sporadically in the constitutional arena, they tend to
represent social welfare as a cause rather than poor people as a constitu-
ency. In addition, they have generally been led by social work advo-
cates rather than by poor people themselves. For their part, lesbian and
gay organizations do not appear because they made only one formal
presentation to a parliamentary committee on constitutional change
between 1938 and 1992; thus, there is not enough lesbian and gay par-
ticipation as such for me to make meaningful generalizations.7
Also excluded from coverage are organizations representing indigenous
peoples and francophone Quebecers, whose struggles cannot adequately
be treated in a study that focuses on groups seeking inclusion in an
overarching Canadian citizenship. These actors have instead tended to
search for group-differentiated arrangements to honour their histori-
cally anchored national claims. However, the Quebec-based League for
Women’s Rights (LWR), which appeared before the Rowell-Sirois Com-
mission to advocate the enfranchisement of Quebec women (who could
not vote provincially until 1940), does make a brief appearance. Its suf-
fragist focus provides insights into the broader history of women’s con-
stitutional engagement that the temporal parameters of this book would
otherwise preclude.

Symbolic Capital, the Citizens’ Constitution, and New

Politics Theory
Although recognition struggles are often seen as campaigns for self-
esteem and cultural authenticity, this book takes a more materialist ap-
proach.8 It treats recognition as a problem of symbolic capital, which is
sociologist and cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s term for a potent so-
cial product produced in fields of unequal power.9
Unlike the notion of social capital popularized by the political sci-
entist Robert Putnam, Bourdieu’s term shares some of the critical bite
of Marx’s conception.10 Evoking Marx’s view of capital as a technology
of exploitation, Bourdieu stresses that advantages and attributes such
as network membership and “good taste” operate as bases of socio-
political power, silencing some agents while privileging others. These
two examples are instances of what Bourdieu calls social and cultural
capital, respectively; along with Marx’s economic capital, they qualify
as species of symbolic capital whenever their tendency to function as
power goes unrecognized.11
 Constitutional Politics and the Politics of Respect 5

This emphasis on the “symbolic” in symbolic capital highlights the

role of processes of symbolization and representation in securing rela-
tions of deference, naturalizing privilege, and masking the pursuit of self-
interest. These processes are politically significant because they help
actors exercise powers that might otherwise be blocked or contested.
Perhaps most notably, therefore, Bourdieu emphasizes the concept of
symbolic capital as a theoretical corrective for one-sidedly economistic
approaches to inequality and power – approaches that sometimes con-
stitute the symbolic as “noneconomic, and therefore disinterested,” “as
lacking concrete or material effect, in short, disinterested but also use-
less.”12 Accordingly, Bourdieu’s concept emphasizes that all but the most
directly and immediately coercive instances of power depend on sym-
bolically mediated processes of social interaction and exchange – proc-
esses that are also a key focus of this book.
Symbolic capital is often conferred by institutions. Framed as matters
of established rules and procedures, institutionally sanctioned acts and
discourses assume an aura of propriety that tends to mitigate potential
appearances of arbitrariness or self-interest. Thus, as social theorist John
Thompson states in his commentary on Bourdieu’s work: “Individuals
[can] possess more or less ... [symbolic] capital in so far as they are in a
position to mobilize more or less of the authority delegated by an insti-
tution.”13 This brief account suggests a useful schematic perspective on
the constitutional participation of Canadian social movements.
In Canada as in many other countries, women, working-class people,
and ethnocultural minorities have often experienced profound disrespect.
Stigmatized as categorically inferior, they have been systematically de-
nied economic, educational, and social opportunities and occasionally
even singled out for legally sanctioned demonization and abuse. At the
same time, they have faced profound barriers to raising these problems
in the political arena; their claims and indeed their very voices have been
dismissed routinely as out of place, irrelevant, or unacceptably idiosyn-
cratic. Over the course of the twentieth century, equality-seeking move-
ments sought to confront these elementary problems of voice by struggling
to change traditional distributions of respect – that is, by striving to make
symbolic capital work for rather than against them. In the Canadian con-
text, constitutional recognition became an especially valued source of
symbolic capital – of sanctioned, “in place” discourses for bringing long
silenced concerns to the attention of an indifferent and sometimes hos-
tile polity.
This book’s focus on constitutional symbolism also draws on the work
of Alan Cairns, whose pioneering writings on post-Charter constitutional
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