Open AccessWho Counts Now? Re-making the Canadian Citizen
Author(s) -
Patricia Cormack,
James F. Cosgrave,
Lynda Harling Stalker
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
canadian journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1710-1123
pISSN - 0318-6431
DOI - 10.29173/cjs18255
Subject(s) - census , citizenship , monopolization , rhetoric , metaphor , state (computer science) , sociology , government (linguistics) , public administration , political science , law , politics , economics , demography , linguistics , population , philosophy , algorithm , computer science , market economy , monopoly
This paper considers the implications of the 2010 cancellation of the Canada mandatory long-form census in terms of citizenship and the citizen-state relation. Inspecting census questions, Statistics Canada publications, and the arguments of ethnocultural groups pushing for reinstatement of the census, we find a version of citizenship rooted in ethnocultural group membership and the mosaic metaphor. The second part of this paper seeks an historical explanation for the cultural shift away from this version of citizenship that allowed for the cancellation of the census. Here we discuss the state monopolization of gambling. Inspecting advertising and government policy we find a rhetoric of counting that encourages a risk-assessing, individualized, neoliberal, and utilitarian citizen.