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Éléna Choquette, "Land and the Liberal Project: Canada’s Violent Expansion" (UBC Press, 2024) - New Books Network | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Éléna Choquette, "Land and the Liberal Project: Canada’s Violent Expansion" (UBC Press, 2024)

New Books Network

Sat Dec 06 2025

Summary

New Books Network: Éléna Choquette on "Land and the Liberal Project: Canada’s Violent Expansion" (UBC Press, 2024) Podcast Date: December 6, 2025 Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher | Guest: Dr. Éléna Choquette

Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Éléna Choquette discussing her new book, Land and the Liberal Project: Canada’s Violent Expansion, with host Dr. Miranda Melcher. The conversation explores the profound and rapid expansion of Canada’s territory in the late nineteenth century, focusing on how political, legal, and rhetorical strategies supported settler colonialism at the expense of Indigenous peoples. Dr. Choquette examines the myths of peaceful Canadian expansion and investigates the ideological foundations—particularly "colonial liberalism"—that justified this land appropriation and enduring violence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Author's Background and Motivations

[02:46] Dr. Choquette introduces herself as an Associate Professor at Université du Québec en Outaouais. Her interest stems from her experiences in Quebec and British Columbia, focusing on land, settler-Indigenous relations, and constitutional questions.
Quote:

"I got interested in the case study of the Canadian prairies, which appeared historically as the largest piece of land that was settled right after Confederation."
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [03:48]

2. Challenging the 'Peaceable Canada' Myth

[07:45 — 10:05] The book interrogates the notion that Canada’s expansion was peaceful, contrasting this with the subtle and overt violence of nation-building.
Dr. Choquette seeks to uncover the "coded war" beneath the "peace" by drawing on Foucault and historical discourses.
Quote:

"I wanted to look more closely at that history and see beneath kind of the peace that we think we're seeing...look at the war that was raged underneath."
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [08:34]

3. Distinctiveness of Canadian Expansion (Timeline and Comparison)

[11:26 — 17:01] The Canadian case is compared to the United States and Australia:
- US expansion occurred over a longer, more protracted period; Australia’s expansion was more straightforward.
- Canada expanded dramatically in about 30 years: from 1857 (when Canadian politicians claimed the Northwest) to 1885 (military defeat of the Metis and First Nations).
Quote:

“The specificity of the Canadian case is that enlargement happened over a very short period of time right after confederation...that really is the time period that I'm looking at.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [14:52; 17:01]

4. Ideology of Colonial Liberalism

[19:54 — 26:29] Dr. Choquette argues that "colonial liberalism"—the use of supposedly liberal ideals for colonial purposes—was central to justifying land appropriation and violence:
- Principles like liberty, private property, self-government, and peace were invoked as justification.
- “Improvement” was a recurring rationale, applied to both land and Indigenous peoples, echoing Lockean ideas.
Quote:

“I do qualify that liberalism as being of a colonial kind...it’s the main ideological engine of settler appropriation and violence.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [22:25]

5. How Expansion Became a Political Priority

[27:20 — 32:07] The shift in the 1850s marked a critical juncture:
- Canada moved from not prioritizing western expansion to framing it as necessary for survival against US rivalry.
- Science (expeditions assessing agricultural potential) and law (restructuring legal mechanisms for annexation) enabled and justified expansion.
Quote:

“At that, the very first, that very first step was resisted by Louis Riel and eventually the provisional government...They contested and challenged it.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [37:32]

6. Law, Confederation, and Exclusion of Indigenous Peoples

[33:04 — 35:07] Confounding the myth of peaceful legal transition:
- Confederation functioned as a legal device for expansion, yet Indigenous peoples were excluded from these foundational debates.
- The creation of Manitoba was fraught with Indigenous resistance, leading to adjustments in settler tactics and further repression.

7. Indigenous Resistance: Red River and Northwest Resistance

[36:15 — 42:42]
- Red River (1869-70): The Metis and First Nations resisted Canadian-sanctioned land surveys and political declarations. Louis Riel led forceful pushback, prompting Canada to negotiate, but ultimately responded with military force and constitutional designs privileging white settlers.
- Northwest Resistance (1885): More violent, driven by broken promises, dire living conditions engineered by the Canadian state, and further attempts to consolidate settler control.
Quote:

"We see that kind of cycle of Canada claiming indigenous peoples resisting and Canada using that resistance to justify violent repression."
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [41:46]

8. Residential Schools as Colonial Strategy

[44:49 — 50:38]
- The logic of “improving” Indigenous peoples led to the residential school system, modeled after the US, aiming to assimilate through forced separation, language loss, and church-state partnership.
- Not inevitable, but deeply linked to the prevailing ideology of colonial liberalism.
Quote:

“The project was to kill the Indian in the child. So really targeting the children to make assimilation quicker and...cheaper also.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [49:35]

9. Enduring Legacies

[55:14 — 58:15] Canadian assertions of sovereignty and jurisdiction are not just historical but persistently impact Indigenous autonomy, jurisdiction, and stewardship of land today.
Quote:

“What is Canada if not a particularly large and well armed claims club?” (Robert Nichols, cited)
Dr. Choquette argues for recognizing the violent origins and ongoing contestation of these claims, advocating for shared jurisdiction and meaningful engagement with Indigenous leadership.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Peace and Violence:

“Beneath the peace that we think we're seeing, look at the war that was raged underneath, kind of what we're understanding Canada today.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [08:34]
On Liberal Ideals:

“I connect these values to what we understand today as being liberal discourse...but it’s a particular kind of liberalism. It's designed and figured for colonial purposes.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [22:25]
On Red River and Sovereignty:

“When [William McDougall] happened inside, he was marginalized and pushed out of the colony...he had no one else listening. But we can see how that second tactic was resisted and just ignored entirely.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [38:32–39:00]
On Residential Schools:

“So the project was to kill the Indian in the child...targeting the children to make assimilation quicker and...cheaper also.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [49:35]
On Power and Today's Canada:

“Canada still claims to be second largest country in the world and to exercise sovereignty...What I want to show is that historically...Indigenous peoples were living beyond and outside Canadian official sovereignty.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [55:14–56:29]
Summing Up Purpose:

“It's a story of power, of jurisdiction, of sharing, of living with better. I think that's kind of what I wanted my book to be.”
— Dr. Éléna Choquette [58:15]

Key Timestamps

[02:46] Dr. Choquette on her background and academic journey
[07:45] Tackling the myth of "peaceful" Canada and the reality of colonial violence
[11:26] Comparing Canada’s expansion to US and Australia; focus on 1857–1885
[19:54] Colonial liberalism: ideology underpinning land appropriation
[27:20] Scientific expeditions and political debate in the 1850s
[33:04] The role of confederation in facilitating territorial acquisition
[36:15] Metis and Indigenous resistance at Red River—details and implications
[44:49] The origin, logic, and structure of the residential school system
[51:16] The 1885 Northwest Resistance and its deadly consequences
[55:14] Contemporary implications: sovereignty, land claims, and decolonization

Tone & Style

The discussion is rich, thoughtful, and nuanced, with a scholarly yet accessible tone. Dr. Choquette speaks with care and precision, referencing both archival research and current debates, while Dr. Melcher facilitates with curiosity and clarity.

Conclusion

Choquette’s analysis urges a re-examination of Canada’s self-image, foregrounding the violent roots and ongoing effects of settler colonial expansion. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of listening to Indigenous voices, enabling true stewardship, and reimagining jurisdiction—laying out both the historical reality and a call to action for a more equitable Canada.

For those interested in the complex and contested story of Canadian nationhood and its ongoing legacies, Land and the Liberal Project provides both a meticulous historical account and vital contemporary insight.

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Transcript

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New Books Network Intro Host (1:31)

Welcome to the New Books Network.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (1:36)

Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Elena Choquette about her book titled Land and the Liberal Canada's Violent expansion published by UBC Press in 2024. Looking at a whole range of things that used by officials in Canada to make the their ideas of a Canadian nation actually a reality. So that's obviously political policies, but that's also laws. That's also political discourses and rhetorical tactics used to get to a point in honestly not that much time from Canada being kind of small compared to what it is now to being really quite the large landmass that we recognize today. So this book is going to take us back in time, though maybe not as far back as you might suspect to help kind of make sense of this transformation. Elena, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Dr. Elena Choquette (2:36)

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Miranda Melcher (2:38)

Could you please start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book? I mean, what sorts of myths are you tackling with it?

Dr. Elena Choquette (2:46)

Yes, thank you. So I am an associate professor at the Francophone Universite du Quebec in Utawe. So that's a small university right by Ottawa, which we're going to discuss, which I discuss in my book and we're going to discuss today. And this book stems from the work that I did in my PhD thesis at the University of British Columbia. And it really is about the puzzle that you set up right at the beginning, which is about territorial expansion, which happened over a small period of time. And it intrigued me. And maybe I can say a bit more about how I came to this puzzle. Having grown up in Quebec, I speak French. And most of my political courses I did my undergraduate studies and my master's in Quebec universities in Montreal, and most of my political courses and political theory courses would lead me to think about the special place, the distinctive place of Quebec within the larger Canadian Federation. But at that point, I didn't feel like I had much to contribute to that very interesting and powerful discussion. But when I moved into my PhD studies in British Columbia, so much elsewhere in Canada, I was introduced with my very powerful mentors and professors in that institute institution to the questions of land and of sharing power, but not between Quebec and Canada, but between Indigenous peoples and non Indigenous peoples on this vast territory and land. And this question was to me a very powerful it really engaged my curiosity and work. And I got interested in the case study of the Canadian prairies, which appeared historically as the largest piece of land that was settled right after Confederation. But that really was the site, if I'm to borrow the words of Duncan Bell, which I've worked with when I did my postdoc in Cambridge University, the site of the expansionist dreams of Canadians. So at Confederation, Canada was a relative, as you said, relatively small country. It was centered around the St. Lawrence river and on the northern banks of the Great Lakes, with the addition, of course, of the Atlantic Provinces at Confederation, but still relatively small area that was centered on the areas that were settled by New France, but also the British in America. But when they came together, so the the province of Canada in the Maritime Provinces during Confederation, even though they discussed other subjects, really their vision or mandate for the for the young Dominion, that's what they would be called within the British Empire, the young Dominion of Canada, the young country. It was to so confederation was a project to unite for the purpose of expanding. And expansion happened really quickly after the confederation of 1867. It happened. So annexation of what was called the Northwestern Territories, and they were called that because they laid to the west and to the north of the new capital of Ottawa. So these territories really all of the land that lay beyond The British North American colonies had to be appropriated, that had to be annexed to the young country. And that would go through what we know today as the prairie is provinces, or the province of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. And that became my case study because it was really the site. There would be other lands in other contexts, but just after confederation, that really would be the site of the expansionist dream. That was sort of, that's what I argue in the book Constitutionalized at Confederation. And that annexation and expansionism kind of came with myth. And that's part of your question.

Dr. Elena Choquette (37:32)

Such that Canada kind of had to reorient and adjust its appropriation to go secondly into a second tactic, which was sheer political declaration. So it sent, maybe I'm going to use the word diplomat. So William McDougall was sent from Canadian dominion to operate this appropriation. And seeing the resistance that there was on the site of Red river, the Red River Colony, what would become, as you said, as you correctly said, is Winnipeg today. When he happened inside, he was marginalized and pushed out of the colony. He had to exile to the United States for safety, for his safety and the safety of his family that traveled with him. And from the United States, from his position of exile and distance, he declared he just made a sheer political declaration that Red River Colony was to become a Canadian province. It would constitutionalize it as properly Canadian. But of course, that declaration, which was made not in front of the Red river people. It was made really, as was written by one historian. It was made to the stars because he had no one else listening. But we can see how that that second tactic was resisted and just ignored entirely by the local inhabitants of the colony that was concerned by the appropriation. So again, Canada had to adjust and change tactics. It would be forced to negotiate with the Metis and the First Nations. So we organized and they sent delegates to Ottawa to negotiate the terms of Manitoba's founding and entry into Canadian confederation. So we can see how Indigenous resistance to resistance to Canadian appropriation kind of forced the hand of Canada to negotiate and really take them seriously as constitutional partners into this conversation. But then, even though that was done, Canada still decided to send in military expedition that was to be headed by Colonel Wley as just a display of Canadian force into these territories to seal, to consolidate this, the sovereignty claims over le lands by Canada at the expense of the Metis and First nations that live there. And I can say a few words about how.

Dr. Elena Choquette (44:54)

The first step was establishing sovereignty over these lands and treating with some of the first nations to clear the way for development and settlement. And then the second imperative of colonial liberalism, as I said, first imperative is improving lands. So that is appropriating them, clearing them of the trees, cultivating them, installing settlers on these lands. But this second component of colonial liberalism was improving the peoples on those lands. So the Metis and First nations and residential schools as part of that second process, was it inevitable? Certainly not. But we know that it happened in other contexts. We know of the US Context, certainly. And it's the US model that inspired the Canadian, Canadian system of residential schools. As I make clear in the book. Canada commissioned a report, the Daven Report of 1879, which was. So the commissioner was sent to an industrial school in the US and came back with conclusion as to what system that Canada should organize and for its. That would be well suited to its circumstances. And the circumstances were relatively similar. That is, we should be. Now that we've quote, unquote, secured sovereignty over these lands, we need to deal with the peoples that are displaced on these lands because we wanted to clear Indigenous peoples of these, of their ancestral lands to allow for the settlement of the white settlers that would come from Western Europe. And so these Indigenous would be. Indigenous peoples would be displaced in reserves. And so that we can, to use the words of Duncan Campbell Scott, which was Indigenous Indian affairs commissioner for a very long period of time, what he, the words that he used that are famous in Canadian history now and maybe beyond is that Canada needs to kill the Indian in the child. And this was the way that assimilation would. And the so called improvement of Indigenous peoples would happen, is targeting children, Indigenous children. And so doing it would have various characteristics to enable the project of assimilating them. It would need to be run, it would need to be founded by the state. So its principal, its main function in the residential, residential school system would be to fund, to provide funding for these schools. But the schools would be run by the churches, as had been done historically in Canada. In the US Very early on in the process of colonization, various kinds of school would be run by various churches.