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This dissertation examines the process by which a singular Ukrainian Canadian identity was constructed and entrenched throughout the twentieth century. It details how one of Canada’s largest and best organized diasporic communities, utilizing changing notions of cultural pluralism and the politics of the Cold War, crafted an increasingly nationalist, anti-communist version of identity that eradicated previously popular articulations of what it meant to be a Ukrainian in Canada. The traditional historiography posits that the community defined itself on its own terms, relying on individualized acts of agency and migrant resilience to entrench a version of Ukrainian-ness that was a democratic, bottom-up reflection of the collective. This project offers an alternative perspective by focusing on the battle over community narratives between communists, represented by the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) and then the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (AUUC), and the nationalists, organized under the umbrella of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC). I show how, with the help of state officials, the nationalists overpowered their ideological enemies on the left, concreting their identity as hegemonic. Through this process of coherence, they further bound specific aspects of their own ideology, perceived as innocuous, apolitical, and simply common sense, into mainstream political consciousness. Beyond a simple community study, this dissertation is also a case study about the building of anti-communist hegemony in Canada. Chapter One examines the role of state surveillance and political policing to show how state officials collaborated with the UCC to weaken the domestic left. Chapter Two analyzes the rise and fall of a government bureaucracy that acculturated the nationalists so as to embed them in Canada’s structures of power and bolster their anti-communism. Chapter Three looks more closely at acts of anti-communist violence, which seriously deterred participation in the AUUC. The state’s refusal to condemn the violence also telegraphed its preferences and helped define Canada’s social, political, and judicial boundaries. Chapter Four focuses on the nationalists’ appropriation of cultural pluralism to further entrench their version of Ukrainian identity. Lastly, Chapter Five explores commemoration, where competing visions for certain cultural figures were articulated and, eventually, nationalist narratives were set.

« L’heure des pétitions est passée, il faut des actes » présente une histoire vue d’en bas des sans-travail québécois au cours de l’entre-deux-guerres (1919-1939). L’objectif de cette thèse est de démontrer la contribution de l’action collective des sans-emploi à la politisation du problème du chômage au Québec durant les années 1920 et 1930. Cette période est un événement matrice pour l’histoire du chômage au Québec et au Canada. Le chômage, qui est déjà un phénomène important au cours du processus d’industrialisation au XIXe siècle, atteint au cours de la Grande Dépression des proportions jusqu’alors inégalées. Ce problème, qui jusqu’à la Première Guerre mondiale est encore largement considéré comme relevant d’une éthique du travail déficiente, de l’imprévoyance des individus, ou encore la conséquence des cycles saisonniers de l’économie, se présente de plus en plus comme un phénomène politique et systémique remettant en cause l’organisation de la société québécoise et canadienne. Dans ce changement de paradigme, l’action collective des sans-travail joue un rôle déterminant. Grâce à celle-ci, le chômage prend la forme d’un problème à la fois collectif, social et politique, qui ultimement remet en question la relation entre la démocratie et le capitalisme. L’étude du répertoire d’action collective des sans-travail québécois permet de mieux comprendre leur rôle dans l’histoire du chômage. Leurs protestations prennent racine dans une économie morale qui annonce une redéfinition de la citoyenneté fondée sur la formulation de nouvelles attentes envers l’État. Considérant que le chômage est indépendant de leur volonté, les sans-emploi estiment alors avoir le droit à une assistance contre le chômage. Bien que les manifestations de sans-travail ne soient pas un phénomène nouveau dans l’histoire québécoise, au cours des années 1920 et 1930, celles-ci apparaissent de moins en moins marginales. Prenant racine à Montréal dans le contexte de la Révolte ouvrière, elles s’étendent à plusieurs autres villes de la province au cours de la Grande Dépression. Perçus comme une menace à la paix sociale, dans un moment fortement marqué par l’anticommunisme, ces mouvements forcent les pouvoirs publics à intervenir. Encore peu étudiées à ce jour, ces manifestations, jumelées à celles qui se déroulent ailleurs au Canada, expliquent pourquoi le chômage devient, pour la première fois, un problème politique d’importance et débattu au sein de la sphère publique.

Beginning just a long decade after New France became part of the British Empire in 1763, a half-century of major crises engulfed British North America; the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), the postwar forced migration and resettlement of thousands of destitute and hungry British-American Loyalist refugees (1784-86), and the War of 1812 (1812-1814). In order to surmount, indeed, just to survive these crises, the British colonial regime in Quebec found it necessary to seek and retain the services of thousands of skilled, native-born, French-Canadian (Canadien) inland mariners in the newly acquired colony. For more than half a century, the Canadiens were needed to fulfill a variety of essential roles. Small boat (batteau) crews hauled virtually all the necessary supplies, including food, to sustain war and resettlement efforts west of Montreal for British soldiers and sailors, Loyalist settlers, militiamen, Indigenous allies and refugees. Canadien mariners also constructed, commanded, and crewed British warships on the Great Lakes. Some men were disabled in combat or became prisoners-of-war. Others died in shipwrecks or drowned on the river. The mariners left few personal records, but their actions were critically important for the successful defense and retention in the British Empire of the colonies that would eventually form central Canada. The contributions of Canadien inland mariners deserve serious consideration when examining the relationships between the people of the former New France and their new British rulers during the challenging, early transitional years of the British colonial regime.

This thesis examines the role of Chinese in Canadian history by looking beyond the popular railway narrative that reinforces a stereotype of docile cheap labour and a reductive lens of racism. The research will look at what brought Chinese sojourners to Canada and the economic and legislation restraints and discriminatory labour practices by the government and employers. It will look at how Chinese people began to resist the prohibitive social, economic, and political policies through protests, Chinese unions, and collaborative efforts of Chinese and white Canadians. The railway narrative rendered Chinese women invisible within Canadian history as it focuses on the racial discrimination of Chinese men. The research will show Chinese women were impacted economically and socially by their lack of visibility within society due to gender and cultural discrimination by both white and Chinese communities. Finally, without acknowledgement and education the perpetuation of racial stereotypes will continue.

Using Community-Engaged research and an intersectional approach, this dissertation examines and interprets the ways two different Indigenous communities – The Tla’amin of British Columbia and the Mi’kmaq of Pictou, Nova Scotia –responded to the challenges and opportunities associated with settler colonialism, the creation of Indian Reserves, and the establishment of a capitalist wage labour economy in Indigenous territories. It primarily situates this discussion within the context of colonial efforts to geographically anchor Indigenous families in specific places while they struggled to retain meaningful connections with their broader territories. This dissertation provides critical analysis of the utility of using ‘settler colonialism’ as a catch-all to explain the various types of colonialism that impacted Indigenous people in Canada. Various types of colonialism contributed to a process where Atlantic Mi’kmaw and Pacific Coast Salish people with complex understandings of their territories and resources based on seasonal procurement and kinship systems, became geographically anchored on reserves as part of Indian Bands in the late nineteenth century. Within this confusing and often contradictory colonial world, the Tla’amin and the Mi’kmaq built adaptive and flexible economies that emphasized multiple occupations and relied on labour inputs from women and men to function. I argue that these new markets for Indigenous labour and commodities played an as of yet underappreciated role in the historical understanding of Indigenous motivations for securing specific reserve lands during the colonial survey of Indigenous lands in Canada. This dissertation adds to a growing body of literature that celebrates and historicizes Indigenous contributions to the labour history of Canada, and does so in ways that express how Indigenous people developed dynamic and responsive economies within emerging settler colonial economies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Writers’ Union of Canada was founded in November of 1973 “to unite Canadian writers for the advancement of their common interests.” Drawing on extensive archival collections – from both the Writers’ Union and its member authors – this dissertation offers the first critical history of the organization and its work, from pre-founding to the early 1990s, arguing that the Writers’ Union has fundamentally influenced Canadian literature, as an industry, as a community, and as a field of study. I begin by tracing the contextual history of the organization’s founding, interrogating how union organizing, celebrity, and friendship underpin the organization’s work. Chapter One discusses the Writers’ Union’s programs, reforms, and interventions aimed at ‘fostering’ writing in Canada as I argue that the Union was instrumental in building a fiscal-cultural futurity for CanLit. In Chapter Two, I consider the role that women played in this important work, as I highlight the labour of female Union members and the all-female administrative staff, who maintained and supported the organization’s work through its first twenty years. In Chapter Three I draw attention to the stories of, perspectives of, and experiences of BIPOC authors in relation to the Writers’ Union. While the Writers’ Union’s involvement in race relations is often positioned as having ‘begun’ with the Writing Thru Race conference in 1994, this chapter uses the archives to reveal a much longer trajectory of racialized conflict within and around the organization, providing important context for the very controversial and public battles about appropriation and race that would explode in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout this work, I look to see how institutional narratives are deployed and upheld, and to what ends; how successful advocacy work is often effaced and forgotten; how institutional structures function; and how their boundaries and intentions are challenged and developed over time.

This thesis examines the history of the Provincial Workmen's Association of Nova Scotia, from iits formation in 1879, until the resignation of the union's first Grand Secretary in 1898. The study begins with a description of the economic background of the province's coal trade during the 19th century. The end of the "golden age" of wood, wind and sail, and the region's attempts to industrialize in response to the National Policy are discussed in relation to the coal industry. The difficulties experienced by tlthe miners as a result of these changing economic conditions are considered in the second chapter, and the formation of the P.W.A. is described. The early organizational activitities, constitution, ritual and structure of the society are also detailed. The following chapter investigates the three tactics employed by the P.W.A. to protect the rights and improve the condition of the Nova Scotia miners. The utility and ideological underpinnings of each method - strikes, governmennt lobbying and electoral politics - is considered in order to clarify the degree of success achieved by the union in its stated goals. Chapter Four focuses more directly on the idtdeology of the P.W.A. "Loyalist" and "rebel" attitudes toward the coal masters, the increasing alientation of the mine1ers from their work resulting from the development of industrial capitalism, and the growth of trade union consciousness and working class awareness are described. The influence of Robert Drummond on the Nova Scotia miners is also discussed. The fifth and final chapter describes the rank and file disconterent with leadership that emerged in the late 1880s and culminated with the company store dispute in 1896. The "invasion of thee Knights of Labor" and the resignation of Robert Drummond are examined. Final conclusions are then presented, followed by an epilogue, which describes briefly the path taken by the P.W.A. from 1898 until the dissolution of the union in 1917.

There is now a vast scholarship that explores union decline and renewal in various economic sectors and workplaces. To date, however, there is little understanding of how union decline has impacted unionized retail environments in Canada. Using a feminist political economy framework, this dissertation explores dynamics of union decline and renewal through a case study of labour standards in Ontarios unionized supermarket sector. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 28 union representatives and an analysis of collective agreements, this study examines the decline and trajectory of labour standards in unionized supermarkets, explores the unions perspectives and responses to changing standards, assesses how changing labour standards reflects the problem of union decline, and assesses how the case of Ontarios unionized supermarkets informs union renewal research and strategy. Findings suggest that the decline and trajectory of labour standards in Ontarios unionized supermarkets reflects a shift towards increasing precariousness in this sector. While there have been some wins for supermarket workers, unions have been largely unable to secure substantial improvements through collective bargaining. The precariousness associated with supermarket work is both contractually negotiated, as evidenced by provisions in collective agreements that ensure low wages and minimal and infrequent wage increases, demanding availability requirements, and limitations to the number of hours of work, as well as experiential, as indicated in workplace dynamics such as competition between workers, high turnover, and reduced health and safety measures. During the period under study, several factors have contributed to the increase in precariousness in this sector. While unions have implemented a variety of strategies in an effort to mitigate precariousness in unionized supermarkets, the persistence of deeply ingrained business union cultures and practices make improving labour standards through collective bargaining difficult. Continued precariousness in unionized supermarkets and the persistence of business unionism point to the need for an interrogation of the cultures and practices within unions that may contribute to the ongoing precariousness in unionized supermarkets and the challenges facing unions in this sector. The complex nature of union decline in this sector also suggests that multiple forms of union action are required to improve labour standards in unionized supermarkets and the strength of unions more broadly.

Canada’s continuous reliance on temporary foreign workers to address its labour shortage and maintain its competitive advantage has resulted in a seasonal transnational workforce characterized by its precarious living and working conditions, cumulative legal disenfranchisement based on the lack of permanent status, and vulnerability to the ongoing pandemic. Despite the common portrayal of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘model for migration management’ by governments and growers, a large body of academic publications has studied their precarious conditions in an attempt to explain the seeming contradiction between a highly-exploited workforce and the steady growth of willing participants. This project examines the exploitative practices embedded in the cycles of transmigration through a series of individual interviews with SAWP participants, scholars, and government officials. The central argument is that the differential treatment of migrant and citizen workers lies at the heart of the former’s precarity. It stems from the paradoxical promotion of human rights at the macro-level, while relying on an exploited workforce at the micro-level. The program creates mechanisms that keep workers in a state of continuous marginalization despite decades of participation in the program. The legal, subtle, and overt mechanisms that maintain workers in a continuous state of control and competition are among the key findings of this project. This project challenges the idealization of the SAWP by analyzing the main beneficiaries, its shortcomings, and its projected future. It presents a unique opportunity to reimagine temporary foreign worker programs and methodological nationalism in a globalized context.

This dissertation explores the points of tension between dominant histories of neighbourhood activism in Toronto and Montreal between 1963-1989 and the lived experiences of locally embedded activists who organized for access to safe jobs, homes, and the right to exist in their neighbourhoods. It demonstrates how material conditions, determined by the overlapping processes of deindustrialization, post-industrial development, and the movement of capital from Montreal to Toronto, shaped how neighbourhood activists organized, who they organized with, what they organized for, and how they recorded what they were doing. Dominant narratives of neighbourhood activism during this period over-emphasize the perspectives white, middle-class, and cis-gendered male activists who benefitted from the world the sixties made. Their upward mobility, made possible through the expansion of public spending and their involvement in gentrification, gave them the time and resources to document what they were doing, elevating their perspectives in the historical record. At the same time, embedded poor and working-class, racialized, disabled, and trans activists who continued to experience the ongoing structural violence of the capitalist city also continued to collectively resist that violence. Unfortunately, their ongoing precarity denied them of the resources necessary to produce historical records to the same degree as their upwardly mobile contemporaries. By historicizing how uneven material conditions shaped what activists were doing and how they recorded what they were doing, this thesis demonstrates how power shaped the production of neighbourhood activism history. It also presents opportunities to contest this power in the historical record.

Sewing has long been a core part of Inuit women's land-based labour in Arviat, Nunavut. The objects that Inuit women produce by sewing, such as parkas, embody their responses to and perspectives of colonialism and the entrenchment of the capitalist economy in their communities. This dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach using archival records and photographs, museums objects, interviews with seamstresses and experiential learning. In this project, gendered work is inherently connected to gendered knowledge. The amauti, a women's parka with a pouch to carry small children is useful for understanding both work and knowledge because it is a tool for women's work, while also serving as a conceptual lens through which to discuss Inuit women's knowledge transmission. I use methodologies developed in material culture studies to carefully develop three case studies to trace Inuit women's labour through three sewing mediums. The first case study uses caribou skin parka designs to examine women's responses to shifting patterns of subsistence and contact with First Nations and Qallunaat. This chapter argues that changes in caribou skin parka designs embody Inuit women's work as they render changes in their designs to respond to changes in their worlds, thereby enabling the continued work of all family members. Ann Meekitijuk Hanson's concept of Inuktization underpins the next two chapters. One examines the use of trade commodity beads, to centre the decisions of Inuit seamstresses as they undertake the physical and intellectual labour that resulted in beadwork that reflects Inuit aesthetics and worldviews. In the final case study, I argue that the shift to fabric parka sewing in the twentieth century demonstrates that sewing remains a significant part of women's work in the mixed economy of Arviat. Inuit women Inuktized fabric into something that suited their needs despite the deprivations caused by colonial policies. The findings of this project foreground Inuit women's work in historical records by centring the sewn objects that women make; they use their knowledge and skills to create a distinctly Inuit modernity.

In a 2013 exhibition publication titled It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!, John Roberts made the observation that “Over the last ten years we have become witness to an extraordinary assimilation of art theory and practice into the categories of labor and production.” Whereas once art claimed for itself a critical capacity in relation to the larger system of capitalist domination by its status as a putatively ‘autonomous’ sphere of production from which it leveraged its difference and critique, today it is largely acknowledged that there is no longer any such ‘outside’ to be aspired to. If, in the recent past, the immaterial, informational, creative, experiential, and affective elements of conceptual art were seen as potential resistant forces, in our current climate, where these forms of labor have become the dominant mode of production for the capitalist economy, these potentialities are now being widely questioned. With these developments in mind, this dissertation consists of a series of integrated articles that focus on the increasingly diffuse and interconnected circuits of global exchange and labor as they interact with specific sites and interventions of contemporary artistic production. In this, they coalesce around a general binding inquiry: does artistic labor today have the capacity to function as a critique of the (transforming) mechanisms of control and exploitation characteristic of capitalism in the twenty-first century? And if not, what does that entail about the continued political viability, and persisting social functions of contemporary artworks? Drawing on autonomist Marxist thought, the sociology of work and labor, performance studies, and critical readings on the relationship between artistic labor and recent forms of capitalist production, the chapters are organized around exhibitions and artworks which represent, critique, or (re)produce the conditions of production in late capitalism, while situating these within a global economy characterized by an uneven network of productive relations. In so doing, they trace the trajectory of labor relations and production practices as they have transformed over the last half decade through artworks and exhibitions that engage specific emblematic sites of production—the factory, the prison, and the museum (or amalgams of these spaces), and attempts to tease out places where reflection on the relationship between ‘artistic’ and ‘non-artistic’ labor in each may lead to clarity regarding the socio-political efficacy of contemporary art in an increasingly saturated and complex economic infrastructure.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise traite du rapport qu’entretiennent les grandes entreprises minières avec les collectivités locales, dans un contexte nordique. À partir du cas québécois de l’exploitation du minerai de fer, nous tentons d’apporter un éclairage nouveau à l’idée communément admise selon laquelle l’implantation, sur des territoires enclavés, de grands projets extractifs, constitue un vecteur de développement régional important. La démarche d’économie politique proposée prend pour objet les modes de gestion des ressources humaines et financières privilégiés dans le secteur minier de la Côte-Nord. Les données recueillies dans le cadre d’une analyse documentaire et d’une série d’entretiens semi-dirigés, menés à l’hiver 2019, convergent vers la thèse suivante : la diminution des retombées économiques constatée dans cette région est attribuable à la déterritorialisation de l’organisation contemporaine du travail dans les mines ainsi qu’à l’émergence de stratégies de restructuration épousant la dynamique du cycle de commodités.

Over the past forty-seven years, thousands of temporary foreign migrant workers have been arriving in Canada annually, to labor in sectors of precarious work including farming, caregiving and the service sector given the demand from employers seeking cheaper sources of labor or for work that Canadians are not available to do or are unwilling to do. Given the context of 21st century neoliberal capitalist globalization which has transformed the international division of labor, there has been an increase in the demand for migrants as a flexible source of cheap labor. Canada’s dependence on migrant workers has been facilitated through bilateral and unilateral programs with countries of the Global South to provide a steady stream of workers for its workforce. The purpose of this research was to critically explore and develop an understanding of precarious migrant worker exploitation and concerns pertaining to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) in Canada to inform advocacy undertaken by migrant organizations. Utilizing a race-gendered neo-Marxist perspective on capital and migrant labor a case study strategy was adopted and developed pertaining to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and the Caregivers Program. Data collection included in-depth and focus group interviews with 17 farm and caregiver migrant workers and advocates, document reviews and analysis of web materials. Thematic analysis suggests temporary migrant work is marked by coercion, misrepresentation of contracts and bonded contractual arrangements. Migrant work and living in Canada are characterized by increasing levels of labor unfreedom experienced as domination, subordination, and race-gendered exploitation. Temporary foreign migrant workers are being driven further into debt, endure substandard working conditions and a social experience in Canada marred by prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. These preliminary critical exploratory findings inform advocacy work for migrant workers by contributing to new ways of "knowing and doing” and to challenge existing predatory precarious migrant work policies, processes, and experiences in Canada and internationally.

Dans notre thèse, nous étudions la période de « flottement » et de réorganisation du mouvement ouvrier entre le déclin de l’organisation des Chevaliers du Travail et l’ascension du syndicalisme catholique. Notre étude révèle que cette expérience de transition, entre les années 1896 et 1914, est formatrice pour le mouvement ouvrier de Québec et Lévis. L’analyse de ces années s’avère essentielle mieux saisir et caractériser la suite des évènements dans le monde syndical de cette région. Notre regard nouveau sur le mouvement ouvrier de Québec et Lévis permet d’éclairer le rôle actif des travailleurs et de nuancer le misérabilisme contenu dans une partie de l’historiographie ouvrière. En effet, nous montrons que les travailleurs de Québec et Lévis s’activent dans le monde du travail, mais aussi sur la scène politique, entre 1896 et 1914 afin d’améliorer leurs conditions de vie et de travail. Notre thèse indique aussi que, contrairement au contexte montréalais, Québec devient le bastion du syndicalisme national durant cette période. Cette conjecture peut trouver racine dans la relation particulière qui se développe à Québec et Lévis entre les patrons, la classe ouvrière et l’Église. En effet, l’Église de Québec et Lévis se montre un acteur important entre 1896 et 1914 ; la classe ouvrière doit ainsi négocier avec cette dernière pour se développer. Notre analyse permet ainsi d’expliquer le cheminement particulier des ouvriers de Québec et Lévis entre 1896 et 1914 et de mieux saisir leurs idéologies et leur conduite.

This dissertation critically examines the history of the government of Ontarios policies towards the mining industry to analyze the impact of concentrated economic power on political processes in liberal democracies. It is the first comprehensive study of the political power of one of the provinces largest and most influential industries. Drawing on critical theories of business power, this dissertation examines policy developments across four contentious issue areas, namely fiscal policy, air pollution control, occupational health and safety, and access to mineral lands. Employing a qualitative historical narrative, the study draws on data collected from the Public Archives of Ontario, newspapers, published reports and secondary academic literature. Challenging those theoretical perspectives that downplay the direct influence of large business enterprises over public policy, this dissertation argues that the mining industry has exercised a predominant influence over the government of Ontarios public policies. While the industry disposes of several political resources that privilege it in relation to its opponents, two in particular deserve special attention: First, minings commanding economic presence in the provincial North where alternative investment opportunities are generally absent, and second, the industrys deep-seated linkages with the provincial mining ministry in terms of personnel and ideology. In sum, the mining industrys structural power over the Northern economy together with its close working relations with the provincial ministry of mines have rendered provincial policymakers particularly vulnerable to the industrys lobbying, allowing the industry to play a predominant, though not monolithic, role in shaping provincial public policy.

Increasing processing times for immigration applications and increasing numbers of people admitted on temporary visas mean that more newcomers spend longer periods of time living in Canada with restricted rights and uncertain if they will be able to remain. This has contributed to an increase in precarious immigration status, which refers to a sense of insecurity caused by ones formal immigration status. The purpose of the dissertation is to examine how people are affected by living for prolonged periods of time with uncertainty about future residence and how these effects vary across space and time. The study, based on qualitative research with migrants in Toronto and people who work on migration issues, investigates how immigration status is performed in everyday life and how immigration status intersects with other social relations to produce distinctive affective textures of life in Toronto. The research shows that formal immigration status affects people differently depending on their migration motivations, capacities, and community support networks. Lack of reliable information about the time required to become eligible for permanent residence and application processing times make it more difficult for people to make decisions about how to orient themselves towards the future, the present, and the passage of time in ways that meet their needs. It identifies two salient temporal orientationssuspending or embracing engagement with everyday lifeeach of which comes with benefits and risks. Finally, the research suggests that contemporary practices of immigration control can lead to an internalization of discourses that construct people with precarious immigration status as unworthy of membership in Canadian society. Participants sought to undermine these discourses through narrative redefinition of themselves as people who have something to contribute but are stopped from doing so. I find that this resistance is necessary to peoples ability to persist, yet it has a limited effect on the harm done. The research findings contribute to scholarly understandings of formal immigration status and the slow violence of living with precarious immigration status.

Notre doctorat est une recherche sur l’histoire du syndicalisme enseignant au Québec durant la première moitié des années 1990. Plus précisément, du Congrès de la Centrale des enseignants du Québec (CEQ) de juin 1990 à la convocation par le ministre de l’Éducation du gouvernement Parizeau des États généraux sur l’éducation en mars 1995. Notre recherche s’efforce de poser des jalons pour une première histoire critique du syndicalisme des enseignants à construire dans son rapport à l’histoire de l’éducation selon un constat initial que la première est sous-évaluée, voire largement invisible dans divers champs des sciences humaines et sociales (Relations industrielles, sociologie et histoire). La CEQ est la centrale syndicale des fédérations et des syndicats locaux représentant des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (des secteurs primaire, secondaire, collégial et même universitaire) et des professionnels de l’enseignement (animateurs de pastorale à l’époque). L’organe décisionnel de la CEQ est le Congrès national qui se réunit tous les deux ans ; l’application des décisions du Congrès se fait à la fois par le Bureau national (Conseil exécutif à partir de juin 1992) et le Conseil général des délégués de toutes les fédérations et de tous les syndicats locaux affiliés à la Centrale. Cette agora syndicale, qui se réunit six fois par année, est le cœur de la vie démocratique, tumultueuse, de la Centrale syndicale et étudie tous les rapports, les documents, les analyses, etc., qui lui sont soumis par le Bureau national / Conseil exécutif, l’unité de recherche de la CEQ ou divers comités. Dans un premier temps, notre thèse aborde le fait que le syndicalisme enseignant québécois est un objet historique inachevé et inabouti. Notre démarche tente de répondre à ce lien problématique entre historiographie et histoire. Puis, elle propose de nouveaux jalons pour une étude critique de cette histoire, notamment sur l’échec de la première tentative d’arrimage syndical de l’éducation à la souveraineté du Québec de 1977 à 1984. Mais alors, comment une centrale syndicale a-t-elle pu évoluer d’une opposition d’inspiration marxiste à toute tentative de réforme imposée de l’éducation et à un projet de souveraineté considéré comme conservateur et « capitaliste » portée par le PQ en 1977-1985 à iii une proposition d’une réforme globale, néolibérale, de l’éducation et un soutien à une souveraineté « sociale-démocrate » portée par le même parti politique en 1994-1995 ? Pour expliquer et comprendre ce paradoxe historique, nous allons étudier les nouvelles orientations stratégiques de la CEQ à partir du Congrès de juin 1990. Puis, dans un second temps, à partir d’archives syndicales – les procès-verbaux des réunions des délégués syndicaux au Conseil général de la CEQ –, notre étude historique porte sur le second arrimage de l’éducation fait par la Centrale à la conquête de la souveraineté du Québec, et particulièrement le rôle que joua le Conseil général des délégués syndicaux quant à la définition de quatre positions : 1) la question de la déconfessionnalisation, puis de la laïcité du système éducatif québécois ; 2) l’élaboration de la politique d’éducation interculturelle ; 3) les enjeux politiques et stratégiques autour de la définition de la souveraineté du Québec ; 4) le tournant participatif et la proposition d’une réforme globale de l’éducation au Québec. Enfin, notre recherche historique nous amène à décrire les mémoires syndicales enseignantes qui font de la CEQ une centrale syndicale si particulière dans l’histoire du mouvement ouvrier québécois.

This study analyzes the new sophistication of the organized labour movement and labour’s relationship to politics in a period of rapid change for the Lakehead. ““The CCF is not a Class Party”” argues that, between 1944 and 1963, the organized labour movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) at the Lakehead underwent parallel structural developments against the backdrop of conservative social forces in the postwar period that, by the end of the 1950s, necessitated a merger of the two formally distinct entities. The amalgamation of labour and politics, resulting in the formation of the New Democratic Party (NDP), is best examined through the political career of Douglas Fisher, who first represented the CCF and, later, the NDP in Port Arthur. The debate surrounding the ‘New Party’ idea in the late 1950s at the Lakehead is reflective of the uneasy relationship between labour and politics that had formed throughout the postwar period.

Public libraries are often thought of as inherently democratic institutions where the provision of informational resources supports social inclusion and civic participation. Inspired by a recent citywide conflict over potential library closures in Toronto, Canada, this dissertation investigates a more contested history than conventional interpretations have often permitted by revealing a series of conflicts over public library buildings, budgets, and governance across more than a century. The main argument is that understanding this history requires an account of the overall work done to make and remake these spaces into what they are today, as a way of understanding of what these spaces may soon become. This argument illustrates how the perceived worth of providing public library service, whether or not it is accounted for in monetary terms, can be seen as socially constructed and politically contested. To make this argument, I draw mainly from feminist theorizations of work, which broaden this category to encompass productive waged labour along with paid and unpaid reproductive labour coded as ‘nonwork’ or ‘unproductive’, and geographers’ insights on the contested social production of space. In so doing, this dissertation aims for a critical re-thinking of what these spaces mean for daily urban life.