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Is Canada a Nation?

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Submitted By coleatron
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The concept of nationhood is a complex one. What makes a country a nation? What is a nation? In this essay, we will attempt to gain an understanding of what a nation is, and why Canada is in fact a nation, not merely because we meet certain criteria, but because we, as Canadians, believe it is so. To define the term “nation” is quite a challenging task. The Student’s Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines a nation as, “a community of people forming a state or inhabiting a territory” (Barber, et al., 2007). In contrast to many other resources, this definition is an extremely simple one. The same dictionary defines a state as “an organized political community under one government” (Barber, et al., 2007). By these definitions, Canada clearly classifies as a nation. By forming the federal government, Canada satisfies the government requirement, and by inhabiting the political boundaries of the country, we clearly satisfy the second requirement. According to this resource, Canada is without a doubt, a nation because the country has satisfied the dictionary’s requirement. Still, not all definitions are so clear. One of the most commonly accepted definitions of a nation is one that is ripe with complex and challenging requirements. These definitions often involve a group of people who share a common culture, ethnic origin and language, and they must either possess or be actively seeking an independent government (McKean, 2005). Even at a quick glance, we can see that Canada does not meet all of these requirements. To begin, this definition requires the group of individuals to share a common ethnic origin. As multicultural as Canada is, Canadians come from all sorts of ethnicities with very few actually coming from “first nations.” By this standard, Canada is not a nation. Likewise, the definition requires the group to share a common language. Seeing as Canada has two

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