The Pre-History of Multiculturalism in Canada

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Daniel Meister, the author of The Racial Mosaic: A Pre-History of Canadian Multiculturalism published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2021. This book recounts the history of the concept of multiculturalism in the decades before the establishment of multiculturalism as an official policy of the Government of Canada in 1971. Meister examines this intellectual history through the thinking of three influential individuals: Watson Kirkconnell, Robert England, and John Murray Gibbon. In the process, they explore concepts such as scientific racism, citizenship and folk culture. A recent PhD graduate of the history department at Queen’s University, Daniel Meister is currently an independent historian based in Halifax. If you like our work, please consider supporting it: https://bit.ly/support_WTY. Your support contributes to the Champlain Society’s mission of opening new windows to directly explore and experience Canada’s past.