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Post by dyrland on Nov 24, 2010 12:20:02 GMT -5
Clifford Sifton wanted to have an "agressive" open door immigration policy, yet the door was not completely open. Apparently some immigrants were better than others, but how does this make much sense? People have been putting worth on others for a long time i guess. I feel like Sifton was being a racist, if you didn't fit into the whole white english speaking farmer thing then you were kind of screwed if you wanted to have a fresh start in Canada. I thought that Canadians were all accepting, but the text book says they were not all very happy about non english speaking immigrants so when did that whole accepting image happen for us?
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Post by Mr. Delainey on Nov 25, 2010 10:44:31 GMT -5
You need to appreciate the fact that Canada in the 1890s was not the Canada of 2010. For instance, women had no vote, native peoples were completely marginalized, minorities persecuted, unions not allowed to bargain collectively, no health-care, etc. etc.
So take the following lesson from this: avoid attributing the reality of today to the reality of the past. They are never the same. The feelings, psychology, motivations, beliefs, etc. of those that came before are will be related but different from our own. And this is why having both imagination and knowledge is important to being historically literate. Knowledge provides you with the information necessary to distinguish between fiction and fact while imagination enables you to empathize and entertain questions like "what must it have been like" back in the day so to speak.
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