Please answer 2 questions; each answer should be approximately 1000 words.
All answers are of equal value.
1) The construction and dismantling of the welfare state in Canada has more to do with changing ideologies about the role of government than concerns about the condition of the disadvantaged. Do you agree?
2) Canadian foreign policy between 1945 and the present has primarily been shaped by domestic economic and political goals rather than humanitarian or internationalist concerns. Discuss.
3) Since World War II, Canada has embarked on a policy of continental economic integration culminating in North American free trade agreements. Bothwell, Drummond and English argue that this direction was inevitable, unavoidable and wrong. Do you agree?
4) How has the nature of Quebec nationalism changed from the Second World War to the present? Why have the struggles for a distinct society and to preserve the French language become the central issues for the nationalists? Is independence the logical consequence of these developments?
5) Account for the importance of the suburbs in the process of Canadian social development since 1945. What was the impact on women and the family, especially in the 1950s and 1960s?
6) Alberta’s responses to federal-provincial relations have been shaped by the perception that Alberta is being exploited in Confederation. Yet the slogan “Alberta wants in” rather than “Alberta wants out” more accurately captures those responses. Do you agree?
7) The obsession with national unity has been a pillar of federal government policy since 1963. Ironically the result has been stronger rather than weaker regional identities. Do you agree? Examine the continuities and changes from the Pearson years through to the end of the Mulroney era.
8) One of Canada’s perennial problems has been that of identifying, developing and protecting its own distinctive culture. High culture has been associated with refinement, with education, with taste, and thus deserving of government support. Moreover, our cultural elites demand that American popular culture be blocked. How has Canada sought to protect our cultural sovereignty? Have these attempts been successful, or correct?
9) “The cult of the teenager” is a construction of the conservative Fifties rather than the so-
called rebellious Sixties. Do you agree?
10) Was the closing of aboriginal residential schools the result of the agency and resistance of the First Nations or the result of continued governmental control over aboriginal peoples? Has learning about residential schools changed the way you think about aboriginal history?
