The Sexual Politics of Moral Citizenship and Containing "Dangerous" Foreign Men in Cold War Canada, 1950s-1960s

Canadian historians have not fully explored how post-1945 mass immigration heightened contemporary panics about crippled personalities, failing families, and declining moral standards and how these panics also served to bolser state surveillance of those considered a source of contamination. Among the groups considered potentially dangerous, in the discourse of the time, were European refugee and immigrant men. Popular writers, journalists covering ethnic murders, professional researchers, government officials, ethnic Canadians, and caseworkers dealt with the sexual, moral, and mental health of New Canadian men in ways that were often contradictory. An examination of some of these sources sheds light on an under-studied dimension to the exaggerations and alarmist predictions that fuelled the moral panic of the early Cold War years.Les historiens canadiens n’ont pas étudié pleinement la façon dont l’immigration massive post-1945 a accentué la panique contemporaine à l’égard des personnes atteintes de maladies mentales, des familles perturbées et du déclin de la moralité et comment cette panique a servi à resserrer la surveillance par l’État de ceux considérés comme une source de contamination. Parmi les groupes jugés potentiellement dangereux, dans le discours de l’époque, se trouvaient les réfugiés et les immigrants européens de sexe masculin. Des écrivains populaires, des journalistes couvrant les meurtres ethniques, des chercheurs professionnels, des fonctionnaires, des Canadiens d’origine ethnique et des travailleurs en service social individualisé s’occupaient de façon parfois contradictoire de la santé sexuelle, morale et mentale des néo-Canadiens de sexe masculin. L’examen de ces sources et d’autres documents nous aide à mieux comprendre une dimension sous-étudiée des exagérations et des prédictions alarmistes qui alimentaient l’émoi moral des premières années de la guerre froide

The Political Career of Senator Cairine Wilson, 1921-62

This paper examines the career of Cairine Wilson - Canada's first senator, a liberal feminist, peace activist and humanitarian. Wilson's outlook was shaped by her commitment to an evangelical Christian liberal tradition and to maternal feminism. Her feminism is explored with respect to her involvement in reform institutions such as the League of Nations Society and the National Committee on Refugees, and her support for women's issues in the Senate. While there were serious class and gender limitations to Wilson's reformist maternal feminism, her long-standing presence among liberal and humanitarian elements in Canadian politics from 1920 to f962 presented an ongoing challenge to conservative administrators and thus illustrates the contribution bourgeois feminists can make to Canadian politics and society