In Search of Canadian Political Culture - UBC Press

From the 1870s until the Great Depression, immigration
was often the question of the hour in Canada.
Politicians, the media, and an array of interest groups
viewed it as essential to nation building, developing
the economy, and shaping Canada’s social and cultural
character. One of the groups most determined to
influence public debate and government policy on the
issue was organized labour, and unionists were often
relentless critics of immigrant recruitment. Guarding
the Gates is the first detailed study of Canadian labour
leaders’ approach to immigration, a key battleground in
struggles between different political factions within the
labour movement.
Guarding the Gates provides new insights into
labour, immigration, social, and political history. It
will be valuable not only to readers interested in the
internal politics of social movements, but to everyone
concerned with long-standing debates about Canadian
national identity, and gender, ethnic, and race relations.
UBC Press
Guarding the Gates
The Canadian Labour Movement and
Immigration, 1872-1934
David Goutor
Contents
Illustrations; Acknowledgments
Part 1: Issues and Arguments
1 Guarding the Gates
2 Setting the Stage: Labour, Industry, and Immigration in
Canada, 1872-1934
Part 2: Labour’s Anti-Asian Agitation
3 The Bounds of Unity: Opposition to Chinese Immigration,
1880-87
4 The “Old Time Question”: The Campaign for Exclusion,
1888-1934
Part 3: Labour and Atlantic Immigration
5 Superfluous People: Labour’s Construction of Immigrants
from Europe and the British Isles
6 Importing Victims: The Assault on the Commerce of
Immigration
Part 4: Immigration, Ideology, and Politics
7 Immigration, Joseph Arch, and the Producer Ideology,
1872-79
8 Imported Labour, the Tariff, and Land Reform, 1880-1902
9 Retreat, Corporatism, and Responsible Management,
1903-34
Conclusion
Notes; Bibliography; Index
David Goutor is a Canadian historian and
an assistant professor in the Labour Studies
Programme at McMaster University.
2007, 288 Pages, 6 x 9”
0-7748-1364-4 / 978-0-7748-1364-8
cloth $85.00
0-7748-1365-2 / 978-0-7748-1365-5
paper $32.95 (publishing January 2008)
Guarding the Gates provides intriguing historical
insight into one of Canada’s most pressing
contemporary social issues. Anyone interested
in immigration, the labour market, multiculturalism,
or racism will benefit from reading this
thought-provoking book.
– Gregory S. Kealey, Founding Editor of
Labour/Le Travail and author of Workers and
Canadian History
www.ubcpress.ca / 1 877 864 8477 21