An examination of the speeches of modern Canadas founding fathers reveals that they were openly antidemocratic. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on similar studies of the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term democracy in Canada shows that the countrys association with democracy was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the countrys political regime. Rather, it was the result of discursive strategies employed by the political elite to strengthen its ability to mobilize the masses during the World Wars.
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