Perceptions of the Relative Economic and Political Advantages of Ethnic Groups in Canada

The authors point out that the distribution of political and economic power between the French and the English is an issue that pervades Canadian life. Who dominates a given institution? Which ethnic group benefits more from a certain political decision? Which group has more access to the good jobs? And, conversely, which group is at a disadvantage? Which group has the smaller share of the resources of the country? Using data from a sample of 4,071 Canadians carried out by the Social Research Group, Montreal, in 1968, the authors were concerned with the points of view of the various ethnic groups on this issue. In order to have in the sample a sufficient number of Francophones living outside Quebec and of Anglophones living inside Quebec to make analysis of the data feasible, these two categories of people were oversampled. The authors describe the ways in which Canadians perceived the distribution of access to occupational opportunities and the distribution of benefits from government decisions. The authors point out that they were concerned not with the actual positions of the ethnic groups relative to one another but with perceptions of those positions.

Canadian Society

3rd

London, England

Palgrave Macmillan

1968

604-629

en

978-1-349-81603-3