Forming Canada's Ethnoracial Identity: Psychiatry and the History of Immigration Practices

• Published in: Identity (Mahwah, N.J.) N.J.), 2001-01, Vol.1 (2), p.143-160
• Main Authors: Comeau, Tammy Duerden, Allahar, Anton L
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Immigration Policy; Psychiatry; Racism; Social History
• ISSN: 1528-3488

Although most Canadians agree that theirs is not a perfect society, they see it as capable of perfection & take comfort in knowing that it is certainly better than most. The conservative implications of such a position are quite clear, & this is the basis on which we describe Canada as a nation in denial. It is a denial based on the myth of classlessness & general refusal to acknowledge the existence of systemic or structured inequalities along gender, racial, & many other lines. Our principal focus is the issue of racial inequality in the history of Canada's immigration policies & practices, & we contend that denial is an intrinsic aspect of the national mythology of Canada as a benign, innocent country comprising the Great White North. We take a critical look at immigration entry restrictions that were aimed at ensuring a certain racial & ethnic purity in the new nation, what we call sanitization. To this end, both the profession of psychiatry & psychiatric practitioners were enlisted. Thus, it was common to find that "lunacy & idiocy" were invoked as justifications for eliminating certain categories of potential immigrants. To this end, psychiatry, eugenics, & "sanitary science" were closely connected, & their collective effect was to intensify boundaries of nation, citizen, & health. Social issues were transformed into personal defects associated with entire races through the use of terms like feeble-mindedness & degeneration. The seemingly unconscious infiltration of religious, color, or moral polarities in the theories of the "new sciences" likewise became embedded in racist government policies, which served to inform the emerging national identity. 40 References. Adapted from the source document.