SSED 317 Topics in Social Studies: Democracy & Democratic Citizenship

Group Members: Brent Mattson, Eve Wu, Kamal Parbhakar, Susanna Yee, Tobey Steeves

General Information

Etymology:

Democracy: From Middle French democratie (French démocratie) < Mediaeval Latin democratia < Ancient Greek δημοκράτια (dēmokratia) < δῆμος + κράτος (kratos), “‘rule, strength’”). (Etymonline.com)

Citizenship: c.1314, from Anglo-Fr. citezein (spelling alt. by infl. of denizen), from O.Fr. citeain, from cite (see city), replacing O.E. burhsittend and ceasterware. Sense of "inhabitant of a country" is 1380s. (Etymonline.com)

Democracy is...

Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. (Dictionary.com)

A process of decision making that involves all members of the community; it is expressed in culturally varied ways; in the West democracy is often associated with the assumption that decisions reflect the self-interest of the individual and that collectively the pursuit of self-interest contributes to the well-being of the larger society; in other cultures, democratic decision-making may be limited to decisions what helps to conserve the commons or about who has demonstrated the wisdom and degree of selflessness to make decisions for the entire community; democratic decision-making about which practices sustain the commons may be undermined by authoritarian powers—including universal prescriptions that are too often couched in the language of progress and emancipation from traditions. (EcoJustice Education)

When the government of a country is chosen or elected by all of the adults living in the country. (Direct Government for Kids)

The presence of institutions and procedures through which citizens can express preferences about policies and leaders; existence of institutionalized constraints on the power of the executive; and the guarantee of civil liberties to all citizens. Autocracy is the absence of democracy. (Population Action International)

The practice of the principle of equality of rights, opportunity and treatment. (Tucson Unified School District)

Greek, ‘rule by the people’. Since the people are rarely unanimous, democracy as a descriptive term is synonymous with majority rule. In ancient Greece, and when the word was revived in the eighteenth century, most writers were opposed to what they called democracy. In modern times, the connotations of the word are so overwhelmingly favourable that regimes with no claim to it at all appropriated it (the German Democratic Republic, Democratic Kampuchea). (Answers.com)

Citizenship is...

Citizenship is membership in a political community (originally a city or town but now usually a country) and carries with it rights to political participation; a person having such membership is a citizen. It is largely coterminous with nationality,[citation needed] although it is possible to have a nationality without being a citizen (i.e., be legally subject to a state and entitled to its protection without having rights of political participation in it); it is also possible to have political rights without being a national of a state. (Wikipedia)

In its simplest meaning, 'citizenship' is used to refer to the status of being a citizen – that is, to being a member of a particular political community or state. Citizenship in this sense brings with it certain rights and responsibilities that are defined in law, such as the right to vote, the responsibility to pay tax and so on. (The Citizenship Foundation)

Relationship between an individual and a state in which the individual owes allegiance to the state and in turn is entitled to its protection. In general, full political rights, including the right to vote and to hold public office, are predicated on citizenship. Citizenship entails obligations, usually including allegiance, payment of taxes, and military service. The concept arose in ancient Greece, where citizenship was granted only to property owners. The Romans initially used it as a privilege to be conferred upon or withheld from conquered peoples, but it was granted to all the empire's free inhabitants in AD 212. The concept disappeared in Europe during the feudal era but was revived in the Renaissance. Citizenship may normally be gained by birth within a certain territory, descent from a parent who is a citizen, marriage to a citizen, or naturalization. (Britannica.com)

In the modern world, citizenship is a legal status that bestows uniform rights and duties upon all members of a state. Modern citizenship is associated with equality before the law, freedom from arbitrary rule, and a basic sense of human dignity bound up with the idea of human rights. It is a powerful term that evokes not only the rights that citizens may claim, but also the duties to which they are called, including dying for one's country. In early modern Europe, the status of citizen was far feebler and more varied in nature. At the dawn of this period, there were no centralized national states, and the vast majority of the population were servile peasants who lived under the rule of a local lord. The idea of citizenship, that is, a body of free people bound by a common law, was restricted to those who enjoyed full rights of membership in privileged towns, the burghers or bourgeois. There was no concept of universal rights of citizens. Rights took the form of privileges that were legitimated by tradition and distributed inequitably according to place, rank, and membership in other corporate bodies—guilds, parliaments, universities, and the like. Urban citizenship was thus just one form of juridical status that coexisted alongside a wide array of corporate groups entitling members to rights and privileges. (Answers.com)

Forms of Democracy & Citizenship

Direct Democracy: citizens directly participate in the decision making process of government without intermediaries.

Representative Democracy: citizens participate in the decision making process of government through intermediaries.

Formal Citizenship:

Immigration Context
Constitutional Context
Political Context: "Participation in the governing of people within a territory. This privilege has historically been exclusionary by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and class. With time, such barriers were torn down, at least formally. In pratice, old exclusions continue to affect political participation. In struggle against such exclusions, participatory and liberal orientations to citizenship converge as political participation is increasingly seen as an individual right and, in some cases, a human right that should be detached from legal status. Some expand the participatory dimension of citizenship further, underlining that the capacity to participate politically depends in part on social and economic inclusion." ^[1]

Informal Citizenship:

Personal Identity

Clarifying Democracy & Citizenship through Quotations

(Democracy)

Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means: "A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy."

Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America": A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government: "[We] shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular."

Eugene V. Debs: "When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right."^[2]

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman: "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

George Orwell: "That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."^[3]

Gore Vidal: "Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates."^[4]

Helen Keller: "Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee."^[5]

H.L. Mencken: "The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty--and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies."^[6]

John Adams: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."^[7]

Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky on Anarchism, Marxism and Hope for the Future: "Criticism of 'democracy' among anarchists has often been criticism of parliamentary democracy, as it has arisen within societies with deeply repressive features. Take the US, which has been as free as any, since its origins. American democracy was founded on the principle, stressed by James Madison in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, that the primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority. Thus he warned that in England, the only quasi-democratic model of the day, if the general population were allowed a say in public affairs, they would implement agrarian reform or other atrocities, and that the American system must be carefully crafted to avoid such crimes against the rights of property, which must be defended (in fact, must prevail). Parliamentary democracy within this framework does merit sharp criticism by genuine libertarians, and I've left out many other features that are hardly subtle - slavery, to mention just one, or the wage slavery that was bitterly condemned by working people who had never heard of anarchism or communism right through the 19th century, and beyond."

Robert Heinlein: "The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone's opinion is worth the same."

Thomas Jefferson: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Winston Churchill: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

(Citizenship)

Theodore Roosevelt: "The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight."^[8]

Andrew Gaines: "A passive and ignorant citizenry will never create a sustainable world."

Aristotle: "It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.” ^[9]

Kofi Annan: "No one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be included from birth. A society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.” ^[10]

Jawaharlal Nehru: "Citizenship consists in the service of the country.” ^[11]

Pico Iyer: "For citizens who think themselves puppets in the hands of their rulers, nothing is more satisfying than having rulers as puppets in their hands.” ^[12]

Ralph Nader: "There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.” ^[13]

Plutarch: "Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” ^[14]

Isaiah Bowman: "Citizenship comes first today in our crowded world...No man can enjoy the privileges of education and thereafter with a clear conscience break his contract with society. To respect that contract is to be mature, to strengthen it is to be a good citizen, to do more than your share under it is noble.” ^[15]

Gunter Grass: "The job of a citizen is to keep his mouth open.” ^[16]

Elizabeth L. Hollander: "A generation that acquires knowledge without ever understanding how that knowledge can benefit the community is a generation that is not learning what it means to be citizens in a democracy.” ^[17]

John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you…Ask what you can do for your country.” ^[18]

Archibald MacLeish: "Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing.” ^[19]

Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Tim Holden: "The [Jewish] Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.”

Democracy & Citizenship in Canada

(History of Democracy)

"Canada's coming of age as an independent nation was marked by constitutional laws that increasingly moved the power of decision-making to the people. At the time of New France (1608-1759), political power was firmly in the hands of the kings of France, who made the ultimate decisions, and of each king’s representatives in the colony.

The first inklings of democracy only appeared after the British conquest of New France in 1759. In 1791 the British introduced the Constitutional Act, which outlined a system of government that introduced an elected Assembly. In reality the Assembly had very little power. Almost all actual power remained with the colonial governor and his chosen Council.

Democracy started to emerge in the early 1800s. This occurred for a number of reasons. In Lower Canada (the French-speaking colony) the colonists saw increasing the power of the Assembly as a means of combating the power of the English over their lives. In Upper Canada, a number of Reformers sought to limit the power of a small elite. In addition, some of the British immigrants from the American colonies to Canada demanded a more American-style government.

The Constitution Act, 1867, under which the independent nation of Canada was formed, dealt more with how powers would be distributed among the provinces and the federal government than it did with the powers or rights of the citizens. In fact the citizens of the new nation had nothing to say about Confederation.

As Canada grew in both economic power and independence, its leaders demanded autonomy from Britain. In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, Canada ceased to be a British colony. Over the next 50 years the balance of power between provinces and federal governments changed very little and by the 1970s, a strong movement was insisting that it was time that the Canadian constitution be brought home from Britain to Canada. The Constitution Act of 1982 patriated the Constitution and made the Charter of Rights and Freedoms an integral part of the Canadian political identity." ^[20]

(History of Citzenship)

"The Citizenship Act, which is the current nationality legislation in force in Canada, came into effect on 15 February 1977. It defines "citizen" as "a Canadian citizen" and provides that both native-born and naturalized citizens are equally entitled to all the rights, powers and privileges and subject to all the obligations, duties and liabilities of a citizen, which are governed by numerous provincial and federal laws and the Constitution Act. In all provinces and in the federal jurisdiction, citizens of the age of majority are guaranteed political rights including the right to vote and run for office.

Before 1947 Canada's Naturalization Acts conferred British subject status on immigrants being naturalized in Canada and on native-born alike. The Canadian Citizenship Act, the first nationality statute in Canada to define its people as Canadians, came into force on 1 January 1947. Among other things, the Act gave married women full authority over their nationality status. From 1947 onwards women have neither gained nor lost Canadian nationality status through marriage. Under nationality legislation in effect prior to 1947, a married woman's nationality status in Canada had, for the most part, been linked to that of her husband.

The Citizenship Act of 1976 recognized the equality of women in citizenship matters and as well removed the remaining differences between groups of people seeking to become citizens. All persons born in Canada are, with minor exceptions (eg, children of diplomats), Canadian citizens at birth." ^[21]

(Canadian Immigration History)

I. The failure of Canadian immigration before 1896.

Relatively few immigrants came to Canada before 1896. In fact, Canada was far more a land of emigration than immigration, as thousands of Canadians left the country for the United States where industry was in need of cheap labour.

Constitutional provisions regarding immigration: mixed federal-provincial jurisdiction
Acquisition of the North West territories (necessary step)
Building the transportation infrastructure: the CPR (1885)
USA moves progressively into restrictive immigration (early 1900’s and in the 1920’s)
Canada is the “The Last Best West"

II. Three models of Integration of Immigrants:

Anglo (French) conformity.
The Melting pot
Pluralism/multiculturalism
The models pursued by Canada: before 1945 (Anglo conformity) and after 1945 (increasingly multiculturalism).

III. Canadian immigration policy before 1945.

Open doors (only as to overall number of immigrants); the more immigrants would come to Canada, the better it would be. We do not seek to restrict numbers and will only significantly do so during the Great Depression (1929-1939). See the following pages for number of immigrants by country of origin (1900-1920) (1921-1945) or by region (1900-1970). (More data with different periods defined)
Economically "self-serving" : “Only farmers need apply" (farmers, servants, labourers, miners). Ideally, immigrants should go West to farm the Prairies. Prairie farm settlement was part of the design to make the National Policy function appropriately. A "bad immigrant" was one that moved to the cities of the East to compete with Canadians for scarce industrial jobs. Ex. Memorandum from Clifford Sifton to Wilfrid Laurier (April 15, 1901): "Our desire is to promote the immigration of farmers and farm labourers. We have not been disposed to exclude foreigners of any nationality who seemed likely to become successful agriculturalists". However, the needs of business were of paramount importance. It required low paid workers for jobs that Canadians simply would not do. Consequently, the federal Government was prepared to accommodate business so that the Canadian economy would prosper. Ex. it was not difficult for the Canadian Pacific Railway to "import" Chinese labour to finish its transcontinental railway. Such was also the case in the mines and lumber camps of Canada.
"Assimilation". The model: white, anglo-saxons, protestant (WASP). The closer you are to the model, the more likely you are to be accepted by the government and the people of Canada. The more you divert from the model, the more "foreign" you are, the more difficult for you to enter Canada and the more likely you will face discrimination by ordinary Canadians once here. Section 38 of the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 gave the Canadian Government the power to prohibit the entry "of immigrants belonging to any race deemed unsuited to the climate or requirements of Canada". People from "warm countries" were deemed unsuited for immigration to Canada.

"Preferred Category": British and Americans, West Europeans. Example: the Empire Settlement Scheme, 1923.
"Acceptable Category" (although not "preferred"). These are Sifton's immigrants in "sheep-skin coats". East Europeans (Russians, Ukrainians, Poles); South Europeans (Italians, Greeks, Spaniards). If they go West and farm, they will be accepted although considered "foreign", as long as they know "their place". A regulation of 1923 classified the following countries as "non-preferred": Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. By this regulation, immigration from these countries was limited to agricultural and domestic workers and sponsored immigrants. However, as few British and American immigrants sought to enter Canada in the 1920's, the Railway Agreements of 1925 was made to favour the coming of East Europeans to Canada. The lowest in the category of "not preferred" were the Jews (they divert from the model by virtue of their language, culture, religion... as well as tend to go to the cities of Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg; in 1921, only 4% of Canadian Jews lived in rural Canada); they were the most subjected to discrimination of all the white settlers to Canada in the pre-1945 period.
The "Non Preferred" and "Not Acceptable" category: Members of visible minorities. Each of these groups faced prejudice and discrimination by Canadians and their government. Laws and/or regulations were issued to prevent their coming to Canada. Yet, businesses (such as railways) frequently wanted them admitted to Canada so that a pool of "cheap labour" be available for them. These immigrants did jobs that nobody else in Canada wanted to do.

The following were the means used to keep members of visible minorities out of Canada:

The Chinese: Head Taxes are imposed (1885, 1900, 1903) by 1903, the head-tax was set at $500; minimum financial requirement (1908); the financial requirement was a response to the 1907 anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. Chinese Exclusion law (1923);
"Indians": "Continuous Journey" regulation was implemented (1908); see the Komagata Maru Incident (1914);
Blacks: Health Regulations were used to keep them away - they were deemed "unsuited to Canada" by virtue of the climate of Canada; further, the Canadian Government hired a preacher in the period of 1908-1910 to visit the Creek-Negroes of Oklahoma and to discourage them from emigrating to the Canadian West; the Winnipeg immigration office went as far as paying a bonus to any immigration officer who rejected a black applicant. In 1911, a regulation to prohibit the entrance of Blacks into Canada was prepared by the Laurier Government. It was not issued because Laurier's government was defeated in the general elections of the same year.
Japanese: "Gentlemen's Agreement" (1907 and 1928); the Gentlemen's Agreement was a response to the 1907 anti-Asian riots in Vancouver. Internment and relocation in World War II; deportation of many at the end of the War. In its policies regarding Japanese in Canada, the government followed the lead of the United States.

IV. Why Canada Refused Jewish Refugees in the 1930's

The rise to power of Hitler in early 1933, and the establishment of Nazism in Germany, led in the remaining years of the 1930's to a set of increasingly severe measures against Jews that were to end, in the course of the Second World War, with the Holocaust, an attempt to annihilate an entire people and in which an estimated 6 million European Jews were to die. In the 1930's, the boycotts initiated in 1933 and 1934, the Nuremberg laws (1935) and Kristallnacht (1938) gave clear signals to the Jews of Germany that they should leave the country and seek asylum elsewhere. The main problem they faced was that few countries were prepared to accept large numbers of refugees. For its part, Canada only admitted around 5,000 Jewish refugees in the 1930's.

A web of complex factors brought about Canada's poor response to the desperate appeal of the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. In responding so negatively, the government of Mackenzie King followed the lead of his predecessors who had never developed a refugee policy. He was not about to create one for a group that faced so much prejudice and discrimination in Canada. He faced little pressure from the international community, or from ordinary Canadians, to adopt a different policy. Unfortunately, during the Great Depression, too many people were hurting and were not in the mood to pay much attention to the problems of others...

V. Why the Canadian Immigration Policy Started to Change after 1945.

Changes in the immigration policy were done progressively. There was no sudden change immediately after 1945. Yet, unmistakably, the policy shifted. Progressively, the discriminatory clauses in the Canadian Immigration Bill were altered, then removed. Important dates to chart these changes are 1947, 1952, 1962, 1967 and 1976.

Reasons given for this change are primarily the following:

The economic needs of Canada changed. The country now needed highly skilled, educated, immigrants who would make an important contribution to the technological revolution taking place. Immigrants came to the cities and were seen contributing to the well-being of the country in important ways. Post-war prosperity was linked to the coming of this skilled workforce. Many of these immigrants were investing immigrants.
The Post-War period is one of unprecedented economic growth and increases in the standard of living. Jobs were plentiful and immigrants were not percieved as competing for scarce jobs.
Greater education among Canadians. Prejudice often feeds on ignorance. New technology (radio, television, cinema) and foreign travel brought Canadians into contact with people from the rest of the world and made them curious, and more open, about other cultures.
The effect of World War II, the horror of the death camps, etc. made Canadians see what intolerance leads to. The Post-War period, especially the 1960's, was a period of growth in the recognition of Human Rights (Canada adopts its first Bill of Rights in 1960).
Increasing organization of minority groups to defend their rights. Individual immigrants are not fighting prejudice alone anymore.
An important element of the Canadian post-war immigration policy, extending to the early 1960's, was a strong anti-communist component. This sentiment was widespread at the height of the Cold War period. Anti-communists, and people fleeing the communist dictatorships, were given asylum in Canada. Such immigrants were popular as they justified the belief of Canadians as to the dangers and evils of Communism. In the immediate postwar period, it was sometimes easier for former fascists to enter Canada than for their victims to do so. What these fascists had in common was their strong anti-communist views. (See the review by Devin O. Pendas, "Unauthorized Entry: The Truth about Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956" in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 17, Number 3 (Winter 2003): 505-508; the book reviewed by Pendas was Unauthorized Entry: The Truth about Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956, by Howard Margolian, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2000, 327p.; another important study to consult is Reginald Whitaker, Double Standard: the Secret History of Canadian Immigration, Toronto, Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1987)
In the Post-War period, the increasing rise in the standard of living in Europe, especially in Western Europe, meant that European immigrants were less interested in immigrating to Canada. If one considers that the birth rate was rapidly declining in Canada, and that there were shortages of labour in several fields, then the country was forced to look for immigration in other parts of the world and, for that purpose, change its policies.

VI. The post 1945 immigration policy:

In 1947, Mackenzie King consigned in his diary that he had trouble gaining acceptance of a post-war immigration policy restricting entry of Asians into Canada because some of his cabinet colleagues thought that the policy should be harsher while others opposed it as discriminatory. This opposition was a clear sign that things were changing in Canada.

Another sign of change was a case raised in 1946 by the NSAACP (Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People). The Association raised money to help Viola Desmond fight segregation in Nova Scotia movie theatres. Desmond, a beautician from Halifax, had been arrested in New Glasgow when it was found she had sat downstairs in a movie theatre instead of the balcony were blacks were to sit. She was thrown in jail and fined for attempting to defraud the government of Nova Scotia of one cent of amusement tax (seats in the balcony were less expensive). For this offence, she was sentenced to 30 days in jail or a $20.00 fine. She paid the fine but appealed the decision. Eventually, the case was thrown out of Court on technicalities. However, there was such bad publicity across Canada around this case of discrimination that such laws were soon abandoned.

Characteristics of the Canadian immigration policy after 1945:

The progressive nature of the changes.
Immigration was increasingly regulated around economic cycles; immigration was increased in times of prosperity and decreased in poorer economic conditions. The economic incentive around immigration remained very strong. Mostly skilled and professional workers were sought. Here, again, changes were slow and progressive. Still in 1949, A. R. M. Lower, a prominent Canadian historian, could write in MacLean's Magazine (May 15, 1949, p. 70): "Immigrant labour must be cheap or we would not seek it. The word 'cheap' includes a lot more than the money-rate -- it touches such qualities as docility, timidity, ignorance. These add up to reliability. [...] The primary incentive of those who want immigration is the [...] realization that immigration is profitable".
The progressive removal of discriminatory clauses (1947, 1952, 1962, 1967). By the late 1960's, admission into Canada was done on a point system. These points are attributed on a non-discriminatory basis.
The strong anti-communist components of the policy. In the period of 1945 to 1963, anti-communism was a fundamental factor in Canadian immigration policy. At the height of the Cold War, security elements were an important feature of the policy. Anti-communist immigrants were advantaged in applying to come to Canada. Left-wing immigrants were deemed suspicious and were likely to be rejected by Canadian Immigration. It has been argued that it was easier for former fascists than their victims to enter Canada in this period. This explains why some Nazi War Criminals gained entry into Canada. We were more preoccupied with communism than Fascism.
The humanitarian components become important in Canadian immigration:

Family reunification; once in Canada, an immigrant can sponsor members of his/her family. Conditions may apply in the sponsoring program. Usually, the sponsor takes financial responsibility for an extended period of time for the immigrant.
Refugee policy; a policy was progressively developed. Among the blocks of admitted refugees were the following:

Jews (1945-48)
Hungarians (1956-1957) (38,000 refugees to Canada)
Czechoslovakia (1968)
Uganda (1973-1975)
South-East Asia (1973 +)
South Americans (1980's, Chileans, Salvadorians)
Various groups since the 1980's.^[22]

Teaching Resources

Parliament of Canada website provides lesson plans, resources, and ideas for teaching democracy and citizenship. Lesson plans and resources would probably be adapted to fit your lessons.

The Legislative Assembly of BC website has a lesson plan entitled: "Democracy: The Right to Disagree and the Responsibility to Cooperate." This lesson can be used in a unit on government, especially when studying government in BC.

Also, check out this page for more lesson plans, activities, and resources: Legislative Assembly of BC - Publications, Educational Resources and Gifts

Debbie Peskett, a British teacher of history, has posted 25 lessons concerning democracy and citizenship. Some of the lesson topics include: Fair Trade, Immigration, The Media, Democracy, Law. Some of these lessons are British focused but can easily be adapted.

The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform has some resources, lessons, and links on evaluating electoral systems.

The National Film Board site Across Cultures provides downloadable lesson plans relating to immigration and citizenship in Canada. Some of the lessons require other resources, such as computers, poster paper etc, so some preparation is required.

If we want young Canadians to grow up into active citizens, then shouldn't we give them a way to practice first? That is what the Student Vote program is all about: understanding the process, discovering issues and learning first hand how to vote - and why it matters. Also, check out the 12 lesson pdf file. Lessons encourage students to explore different points of view and further develop habits of informed citizenship. Take home assignments allow students to discuss ideas with their family that may encourage "democracy" at the dinner table.

The BC Civil Liberties Association has a citizenship teaching module called Citizenship Teaching and Workshop Guide for ESL Teachers and Settlement Counselors. A series of five lesson plans were created to assist BC teachers in educating students on the importance of citizenship. The purpose is to promote in students a desire to become educated, active, and involved citizens through the introduction of citizenship concepts. Worksheet handouts and information related to how students may participate in issues that affect their daily lives also included.

Multimedia Resources

Questions to ask while watching all videos:

What is the agenda of those who made the video? What are they saying about democracy and what is being left out? What values does this reveal?

(Democracy)

"Democracy" - (Encyclopædia Britannica Films)

Questions to ask when watching the video:

Are shared respect and power the pillars of democracy?

Is everyone given a fair chance in democratic societies or are some people “more equal” than others?

Shared Power – Does everyone have a share in making decisions? Are popular elections an example of sharing power? What about people who voted for the loser?

Do the representatives in a political assembly necessarily represent our society as a whole? Think about the number of women and minorities in the House of Commons.

Is Economic Balance (i.e. a large middle-income group) essential for democracy? Does this fit with your historical understanding of the development of Democracy?

Encyclopædia Britannica's "Despotism & Democracy" (1946)
(UK) Channel 5's Big Ideas That Changed the World - season 1, episode 4: Democracy
(US) John Pilger's The War on Democracy
The Coming of Democracy to Ancient Athens
Athens: The Truth About Democracy
Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator" (IMDb)