What Multiculturalism Should Mean to Canadians

"Some Will Take a Route that Others Will Avoid, Alhough All Propose to Arrive at the Same End" - Sir Wilfid Laurier

This paper will evaluate the liberal democratic principles that form the bedrock of Canada’s political institutions and uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Drawing on the principles of Canadian liberalist Sir Wilfred Laurier to illuminate the significations of liberalism and conservatism, this paper will illustrate that there is a trajectory that Canadian politics has set for itself, and the growth of minority accommodation ought to occur within the civil society that is the result of years of progress.
Drawing on an international comparison with multicultural policies of the Netherlands, this paper will draw interesting questions with regards to the manner in which minority cultures ought adjust to ‘Canadian life’, but also how modifications in the current system must be accepted in order to remain in line with the core value of Laurier’s liberalism. This paper will advocate that in a true multicultural system each culture is allowed to operate independent of state interference. But also, that if the tenets of a culture run contrary to the historically shared Charter, that each culture should be allowed to influence the legislation of the majority, and thus allow for the liberal development of Canadian society and citizens.

In 1890, Sir Wilfred Laurier spoke before Catholic Canadians of French descent in Québec City to clarify the tenets of Liberalism in Canada, and also those of Liberalism across the world. Canadian liberalism underwent many transformations of thought and propositions (Laurier 72) prior to the formation of the Liberal party. With the emergence of the Liberal Party in national politics, and such complex concepts as “Catholic liberalism”, Laurier was faced with describing liberalism to the Canadian public. At the time, the Conservative party had a firm ideological base. The Conservative party had tenaciously allied itself with the mores of the existing social structures, such as the Catholic Church and the Bishops who represented the institution. Many of the utmost important members of the Catholic Church staunchly and directly condemned the new liberal ideological stances as irreligious and heretical. For example, the Bishop of Plessis affirmed that “Catholic liberalism is the most ruthless and dangerous enemy to the divine constitution of the Church” (61) as it encourages Catholics to “applaud civil authority every time invades the sanctuary of the Church with iniquitous laws” (62).
Laurier asserts that Conservatism and Liberalism are universally contemporaneous and timeless concepts. For Laurier, liberalism originates from the acceptance that “everywhere in human affairs, there are abuses to be reformed, new horizons to be opened up, and new forces to be developed” (69). As follows, conservatism is “charm of habit... [as] everywhere there is a class of men who cling with fondness to whatever is ancient” (69). Liberalism is thus the acceptance that progresses and evolutions are necessary in order to allow for the enhancements that are necessary within society. Do these descriptions by Laurier encompass the modern usages of the terms? Basic descriptions of the term have also come to encompass that individual rights are basic tenets of liberalism. Yet here, to me it seems as though this is one means of allowing for the enrichment of society that Laurier claims is at the core of liberal thought. Thus, I believe that Laurier’s simple definitions provide apt descriptions of the two modes of thought that govern human action: conservatism and liberalism.

The mobility of human beings across the globe is physical evidence of progress against geographical constraints. Accordingly, the concepts of immigration and multiculturalism must be separated. Immigration is merely the influx of new migrants to the Canadian State. In contrast, Canadian multiculturalism signifies “a non-racist immigration policy; official encouragement, through generous subsidies, for cultural activities that express diversity; and official disapproval, increasingly forceful and effective, of any public expression of private tensions that naturally flourish” in locales with varied cultural manifestations (Trudeau 349). In societies with emerging ethnic and cultural diversity, immigrant minorities are becoming more visible, and thus requesting greater power and participation within the larger society. One means of allowing for culture to influence society is the model of cultural accommodation described in On Citizenship and Multicultural Vulnerability. Shacher describes the manner in which state methodology becomes flexible “to facilitate identity group’s practices and norms” (65). The most common examples are that certain groups are exempted from existing state laws, or that groups obtain autonomous legal jurisdiction over certain facets and actions of their member’s lives (Shacher 65).
Elected officials of the majority thus allow for the cultural nomos of distinct communities to directly impact judicial decisions by means of culturally sensitive laws. Shacher points out that this model would require members of the subcultures to define their historical nomos and tradition, and therefore may be flawed as it would reinforce existing hierarchies within the communities. Furthermore, the scrutiny of cultural edicts would be difficult to oversee in order to maintain that individual rights according to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are respected. This paper would also indicate two more weaknesses of this model for cultural accommodation. First, this model would fragment the justice system and erode the integrity of the institution as culturally administered jurisprudence would offer greater discrepancies in verdicts with sanctioned recourse in cultural relativitism. Second, if the aim is to allow minorities to flourish and gain a more extensive grasp of the entire spectrum of the Societal Scale, would old world cultural elite be able to capture what it means to be a young person of a minority background in Canada?
From a sociological point of view, the family and the community act to socialize youth. The communities provide reflections of the values that are prized in the society and alternately develop modes of discipline to deal with deviance from these culturally requisite values (Brym 275). As the consultation document for the Bouchard-Taylor Commission indicates, Societal Scale refers to the entire array of components or structures of a society, as opposed to the microsocial or community scale (Commission de Consultation 44). Thus, the formation of culturally distinct bodies of governance would decrease the effectiveness of minorities across the Societal Scale. The exclusion of immigrants from impacting the majority society would also present a failure of the liberal state, as it would weaken the possibility of this subculture from effectively demanding and extracting progress from the larger government institutions.


Nevertheless, states have two possible avenues for addressing cultural accommodation within their own institutions. First, they can support semi-autonomous but culturally distinct institutions. The second avenue available for states to address cultural accommodation within their own institutions is to allow direct state action. In the Netherlands, both of these avenues were attempted. There were cultural accommodation policies aimed at aiding the integration of immigrants into socio-economic domains, such as the education system and the labour market. It’s not certain if social cohesion was also an intended outcome. Rather, the haste with which the policies were formulated and championed suggests that inter-ethnic solidarity was already assumed by legislators and the members of the institutions who developed these policies.
But judging the real effectiveness of the policies, social solidarity among native and immigrant citizens was quite low. Schools denied admission to applicants based on the religion or ethnicity of their parents (Vasta 722). Native Dutch parents were afraid to leave their children in schools with high percentages of immigrant children (Vasta 720); concurrently, men of industry were equally apprehensive to hire highly qualified immigrants into their workforce (Vasta 722). These real-time distinctions base themselves on the visible characteristics and qualities of the immigrant population. In the situation of the Netherlands, where immigration influx has been present for over 60 years (Vasta 715), and the populace champions liberal values and tolerance, it is difficult to imagine prevalent racism. That the government openly accepted immigrants and did effort to establish the means for immigrants to attain social and labour market success (Vasta 717) calls to question what sentiments were present within the population to bring about such negative attitudes, on personal levels, but at a systemic rate, that account for the systemic racism that was present in the practices of the educational system and labour market as described in From Ethnic Minorities to Ethnic Majority Policy.
Keep in mind that the policies not only demanded solidarity among natives and non-natives, but also presupposed it. Individuals were understood to be willing to share their public spaces, work locales, and the intimate spaces that constitute the functioning of their daily lives – with the immigrant “other”.
What did immigrants actively share with their native neighbours? The exchange seemed to be completely unidirectional. Immigrants were not seen as possessing any traits or practices which would aid the development of the Dutch state. Or do the Dutch have nothing to gain from the experiences of immigrants? Pillarization allowed minorities to establish state-sponsored and semi-autonomous institutions for social welfare, health care, and education(Vasta 716). What the article fails to address is what members of minority groups were able to accomplish within the government and within society, or if any change was possible during their half-century in the Netherlands? Vasta does discuss native the inability of Dutch to distinguish between the many diverse origins and cultures of the immigrant populations (Vasta 722). Is this not indicative of the lack of knowledge that amassed among the different cultures?
In the opinion of this essayist, it is for this reason that when violence erupted in neighbouring Denmark, or when Theo Van Gogh was murdered, the Dutch felt quite personally that their hospitality had been betrayed. Their kindness extended to honour the rights bestowed by liberalism, until they felt that these rights challenged their safety, and the stability of their established society. This shows the weakness in the bedrock of their application of liberal values. The policies of the state were not seen as insufficient in accomplishing their goals for a major part of the population, but rather the immigrants who had been granted a fair shot within a controlled environment were attacked. The society itself is unwilling to accept that compartmentalization of minorities within the larger society had not only harmed the immigrant opportunities, but had created a two-tiered system within the institutions and practices of their nation.

In the Netherlands, when the state opted to accommodate cultures directly within its own institutions, the government initiated grand policies with little attention to their implementation or real outcomes. Some policies promised to instruct students in their mother tongue; these courses poorly managed and removed attention from core classes (Vasta 717). This demonstrates that direct state action upon a subculture may be inefficient thereby sacrificing an entire segment of the student population due to educational experimentation.
Can we not draw ties to the conception that Africentric schools in urban Toronto. The impression of those in the Toronto District School Board in favour of such a school is that it will stimulate African-Canadian students to value the educational system, thereby decreasing the number of drop-outs (CBC News). The members of the Board are not elected by the greater community, yet hold the power to formulate and administer policies that shape the maturing of this segment of the society’s youth. This exercise is championed in the wake of violence and tumultuous circumstances, namely the murder of a youth of African descent (CBC News).
In institutionalizing Africentric centers of education the School Board is attempting to better address the specific needs of that subculture. Thus, the primary objectives of this new educational policy is to support the African community’s development within the greater society. Very important dilemmas emerge from this policy. Does it somehow debase other ethnic minorities in Canada who do not have this form of institution available? Or does it institutionalize the perception that African-Canadian students are unable to succeed within the current system due to some characteristic of their culture? Second, does it negate the basic rights for equality of each student in that school, who will receive a radically different syllabus for the entirety of elementary and secondary education? Most importantly, does this present piliarization of the education system due to Canada’s struggle to deal with higher drop-out rates and crime rates among members of this subculture? Equally, the state is unwilling to accept that perhaps the entire curriculum ought to be modernized in order to suit the needs of the entire society and decrease the drop out rate across ethnicity.

To conclude, within liberal thought itself there are contradictions. Does liberalism entail liberal diversity or liberal autonomy. Multi-ethnic nations worldwide try to distinguish between Freedom of Speech and permissible suppression of Hate Speech. That the Dutch so easily compartmentalize all of their minority groups, and starkly proclaim that immigrants display disappointing integration perhaps speaks to the defeat of policies that start from the bottom-up, with little regard for the actual zeitgeist of the people – both immigrant and native.
Canada of the 1800s did represent a small group of communities with similar values and traditions, and strong ethnic religious affiliations. Canadian society adamantly fought so that the powers of religious identifications, and of the Church, were made subordinate to the power and authority of elected political institutions (Plessis 61). According to Trudeau’s description of multiculturalism, cultures are encouraged to “contribute to the cultural enrichment of Canada” (139). The existence of a cultural subcommunity does not merely occur due to one’s origin or descent, but more importantly due to “one’s sense of belonging to the group”. Each member’s individual choice to actively participate within the culture is what defines the strength of that culture. Canada’s encouragement of multiculturalism in 1962 was “basically the conscious support of individual freedom of choice”. Furthermore, as there is “no official culture” (139) in Canada, each citizen has the choice to engage in the activities of the diverse cultures that conduct themselves within the nation. Confidence in an identity must be nurtured within the subculture but also through the sharing of these cultural expressions with other Canadians. Ethnocentrism is human tendency and will thus be found in discussions of art, heritage, and language, but if allowed to be institutionalized in state policy or jurisprudence this would be detrimental.
If Laurier was right to assert that liberalism is progress and change, can established majoritarian societies be allowed to conceal themselves behind tradition? Must not host nations open themselves up to this concept as well when immigrants assert that change is imminent? Yet, I believe that this change must occur at a national level. The rationale and logic behind government and legal procedures must be transparent and blatantly expressed to each and every citizen, for each and every citizen. It is in this manner that Canadians will be able to strengthen the civic bonds that unite members of each ethnic group, racial minority, gender, and social echelon. Laurier, a member of the French-Canadian minority asserter “we have no more rights, no more privileges, but we have as many rights and as many privileges, as the other elements that go to make up the Canadian family” (Laurier 68). Equality before the nation is the fundamental element in determining the possibilities and liberties that exist, and Canadians should divide themselves politically in order to justly determine the progression of legislation, and of their nation.


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Bibliography

Archbishop Plessis, “Pastoral Letter of the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Quebec” in Canadian Political Thought, edited by H.D. Forbes, 96-106. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1985.

CBC News. “Toronto trustees vote in favour of black-focused schools”, January 2008 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/01/29/tto-schools.html
Shacher, Ayelet. “On Citizenship and Multicultural Vulnerability” Political Theory, Vol. 28, No 1. Feb 2000, p 64-89.

Laurier, Wilfrid. “Political Liberalism” in Canadian Political Thought, ed. H.D. Forbes, p 134-151. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Québec, Commission de Consultation sur les Pratiques D’Accommodement Reliées aux Différences Culturelles, 2007

Radtke, Frank-Olaf. “Multiculturalism in Germany: Local Management of Immigrant’s Social Inclusion” in the International Journal on Multicultural Societies (IJMS), Vol 5, No. 1, 2003: 55-76.

Trudeau, Pierre Elliot. “Statement on Multiculturalism” in Canadian Political Thought, edited by H.D. Forbes, 349-351. Toronto: oxford University Press, 1985.

Vasta, Ellie. “From Ethnic Minorities to Ethnic Majority Policy : Multiculturalism and the shift to assimilationism in the Netherlands” in Ethnic and Racial Studies. 2007.