Discussion Questions
March 17, 2014
- What was the Wartime Elections Act? What was its role
in the conscription crisis?
- What does the Wartime Elections Act and the election of
1917 tell us about Canadian nativism during WWI?
- What were the divisions in Canadian society created (or
highlighted) by the conscription crisis of 1917?
- Why is Gavel's contribution to the study of the crisis
important?
- Why hasn't the internment story of WWI become more visible
in Canada? Was this aspect of the homefront experience in Canada
surprising? If so, why? If not, why not?
- Is a national wartime memory invariably selective? If
so, why? What are examples of that selectiveness?
- What is Avery's major argument in his article? From
Avery what was the most significant thing that you learned?
- According to James Walker, " Canada shared the Western
ideology of 'race' and...even when called upon, members of Canada's 'visible'
minorities were accompanied overseas by a set of presumptions about their
abilities which dictated the role they were to play and which limited the
rewards they were to derive." Based on specific examples, what were
those presumptions and how did those presumptions shape the nature of the war
experience for each of the minorities.