ABSTRACT

Nation-building is a dual process, entailing the management of populations and the creation of national identity. The mythology of how Canada managed its different cultural groups (the belief in and representation of itself as tolerant) was one key feature of an emerging national identity believed to differentiate Canada from the USA. This chapter examines this dual process of managing populations and representing difference. It focuses on how, from early colonial times up to the Second World War, white Anglophone settlers in Canada mobilised representations of others and managed non-British cultural groups as part of the project to create a nation and a national identity.