| Summary: | This thesis explores contemporary Canadian cinema by investigating the convergence of
films, policy and criticism as they are implicated in the idea of canon. Both fluid and multiple in
its frame(s) of reference, the term canon extends beyond a list or core of privileged texts to
include the processes of evaluation. Posited as a performative construct, the national cinema
canon can be seen as offering a strategically deployed expression of national cultural identity,
with appraisals of each film's value arising from the intersection of critical and governmental
discourses; however, narrow admission criteria along with the displaced goal of developing a
distinctive national art cinema reinforce perceptions of absence-of Canadian culture and/or
identity-by delimiting canonical boundaries to exclude more than they include. Focussing on
feature film production since 1984, and adopting a predominantly English Canadian perspective,
this thesis aims to examine the underlying assumptions that direct canon formation; rather than
attempting to reject or replace the existing canon, this process of rereading entails working
within the prevailing discourses in order to generate an awareness of the politics of selection.
Emerging from a tradition of liberal humanist nationalism, canon formation in the
Canadian context invokes conflicting conceptions of high cultural enlightenment and mass
commodity success which have become entrenched as a continuing tension between cultural and
industrial goals. These tensions are further complicated by a "double conscious" perspective
that simultaneously values and rejects American cinema culture. Chapter One explores the
factors shaping the admission criteria of origin and value, while Chapter Two addresses the
relationship between national culture and canon formation. Chapter Three considers the ways in
which Canadian cinema is defined through policy, including a case study of the 1999 Feature
Film Advisory Committee Report, which encapsulates the directional challenges facing cultural
policy development. Approaches to devising a descriptive canon are addressed in Chapter Four,
in which hybrid categories are suggested that could be used to supplant the nationalist
perspective with an acknowledgement of the fluidity of the metaphysical frontier of culture, and
hence the transnational, or perhaps post-nationalist, aspects of Canadian cultural experience.
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