327
Claverdon, England — Canadians have successfully proselytized for multiculturalism overseas for years. Scholars trooped to European capitals to give PowerPoint presentations. Canada was the multi-culti go-to nation.
But at a major conference on social cohesion last month at a hotel in the British Midlands, the Canadians suddenly found themselves on the defensive. Canada, it seems, no longer has any lessons for Europe. Multiculturalism looks like yesterday's "ism."
Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission, called it self-limiting. "Why should people be limited or trapped by their ethnicity?" he told the U.K.-Canada Colloquium. "In a liberal democracy, people should be free to be liberated from the accident of their birth, be it gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation." The multicultural model, he added, doesn't help with the inequities that visible-minority newcomers suffer, or promote interaction among different groups.
As Britain, France, the Netherlands and other European countries change course, Canada too has begun to re-examine the way we manage diversity.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Lucienne Robillard helps new Canadian citizen Kelly Ku, 9, cut a cake decorated with the Canadian flag while House of Commons Speaker Gilbert Parent helps First and Second World War veterans Roy Henley, 95, of Sidney, B.C., and Tom Spear, 99, of Calgary. (CP/Fred Chartrand)
Related Articles
Internet Links
- Interactive: The New Canadians - 13 stories from across the country
- In Pictures: One hundred years of immigration
- Census 2006: Globe stories, photos, interactives, discussions and more
This week, Statistics Canada, in its 2006 census snapshot, reported one in every five Canadians was born outside the country. That is the highest level since 1931 — a time when an overtly racist immigration policy excluded non-whites.
Today, 58.3 per cent of newcomers come from Asia and the Middle East, and two-thirds of the 250,000 who arrive each year settle in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. The census revealed more than 200 mother tongues. Policy-makers have to make sure the new arrivals have access to jobs, adequate language training and a chance to interact with mainstream society.
Jason Kenney, the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity (the "identity" part of the title was added early this year), was a keynote speaker at the conference.
"There is a lot of evidence to suggest that newcomers aren't integrating as quickly or as easily as previous generations," he commented in an interview. "This may have something to do with urban concentration." Most immigrants want to "join the Canadian circle of prosperity," though, he said, social cohesion cannot just be taken for granted.
The U.K., after suffering major terrorist attacks and thwarting plots by homegrown jihadists, is now working on an integration model designed to promote Britishness. The government has introduced a test that requires all new citizens to embrace the country's "essential values." A public search for a national motto was recently launched — prompting joking suggestions such as "Land of yobs and morons," "Once mighty empire, slightly used" and "At least we're not French."
As for Canadians, we continue to support high immigration levels. Toronto may be one of the world's first really "plural" cities, in that nearly half of the residents were born somewhere else, and no one ethnic group dominates.
We also continue to support multiculturalism, which Pierre Trudeau introduced in 1971 as a way to encourage newcomers to keep their cultures while adapting to the country's norms. Still, according to an Environics poll in 2006, 65 per cent of us also feel anxiety about their cultural integration — hence the national debate about just how much accommodation is fair and pragmatic, and about how well recent newcomers are actually doing.
Mr. Kenney said that his government wants to accommodate cultural diversity, while emphasizing a strong national identity. "I do think that there is a growing concern to ensure that talk about diversity isn't cover for opting out of the basic contract of liberal-democratic values," he said. "Pluralism is a deeper concept than multiculturalism, which in many people's minds is stuck in 1970s food and folklore. Pluralism is a deeper respect for differences of belief."
Us and them
Quebec's commission on reasonable accommodation has opened the floodgates for a lot of anger — and xenophobia. Quebeckers have voiced concern over everything from kosher labels on food, to Muslims washing their feet in the sinks of public washrooms.
Quebec, of course, differs from the rest of Canada in that francophones are a linguistic minority worried about their long-term survival, and also a cultural majority within Quebec. In contrast, the Us-Them model — you must adapt to our way of life — will never work in English Canada. Who would the "Us" be, anyway?
But debate about accommodation has also gone on in British Columbia and Ontario. In 2004, some Ontario Muslims wanted to use Islamic sharia law to arbitrate family disputes; the upshot was an end to all religion-based arbitration. And John Tory, the Conservative leader who lost in Ontario's recent election, had to backtrack on his promise to extend funding to Jewish, Sikh, Muslim and other religious schools, not just Catholic ones.
