Multicultural Canada

by: Simone Feier

5. Semester

“Canada became officially multicultural in 1971, although it can be argued that the country has never been monocultural, or even bicultural" (Crawford 1). The multicultural policy ensures that all immigrants can keep their identities, while ensuring at the same time "that common Canadian val-ues are upheld" (“Multiculturalism In Canada” 1). It therefore can and should be seen as the exact opposite of the melting pot model, which has been adopted by the United States. Canada and its people are proud of being more tolerant than its big neighbor to the south; and that is why you sometimes can hear them say poetic sentences like the following by John Diefenbaker. He said that Canada is not "a melting pot in which the individuality of each element is destroyed in order to pro-duce a new and totally different element. It is rather a garden into which have been transplanted the hardiest and brightest flowers from many lands, each retaining in its new environment the best of the qualities for which it was loved and prized in its native land"(“Molding a nation of nations” 4). All of this sounds as if Canada does not have any problems at all to integrate its immigrants. This is certainly not true, there are a number of problems which remain to be solved, but they are far less than in other countries. Nevertheless, Canada’s multicultrual policy helps to integrate its immigrants and to create a
peaceful environment.

Since the introduction of the policy there have been voices which argue that the policy does not help to integrate foreigners but that it is rather doing the opposite. Namely creating a form of ethnic separatism amongst immigrants ( Kymlicka 2). Neil Bissondath is one of the opponents. His argument is that sticking to your for-eign identity and to feel a sense of belonging in Canada does not work at the same time (Kymlicka 2) is for sure interesting. But he misses to prove it empirically, which makes it unproductive. Especially since the Angus Reid Group did a survey on that topic and the result was the exact oppo-site. They asked 3,325 people a number of questions. One of them was the following. " ‘You can be proud of being Canadian an proud of your ancestry at the same time’ received a vir-tually unanimous believability rating . . . .Approximately 95% of Canadians agreed with this state-ment" ( Canadian Heritage a 1). This seems to suggest that the policy works. If it does, there should be more empirical evidence such naturalization rates, political participation, language adoption, and intermarriage rates. The decision of immigrants to become Canadian has continued to increase since 1971. This can be seen as proof that Bissondath is wrong, because if his argument would have been right the number would have decreased. But the opposite is the case (Kymlicka 3).

In 1995, the naturalization rates was a record high of 227,000 ( Canadian Heritage b 1). It is impor-tant to mention that the benefits of being Canadian are not very high. In fact, the only difference which it makes is that you are allowed to vote and to run for an office ( Canadian Heritage a 1). This seems to suggest that immigrants identify with Canada and want to be an official part of it. Apart from that it is important to note that immigrants from non-traditional sources such as Asia or Africa are more likely to naturalize that immigrants of American or English origin (Canadian Heri-tage b 1). Thus, the policy works because it means to address those groups which were having prob-lems to fit into the Canadian society. In short, "multiculturalism has led to higher rates of naturalization than ever before. With no pres-sure to assimilate and give up their culture, immigrants freely choose their new citizenship because they want to be Canadians. . . . . Their individual rights are fully protected and they need not fear group pressure" ( Canadian Heritage c 1).

"If Bissondath thesis were true, one would expect" (Kymlicka 6) that the number of foreigners who learn one of the two official languages to diminish. But the exact opposite is the case. The demand for French and English classes has never been higher ( Canadian Heritage c 1). Thus, recent statis-tics show that 97 up to 98.6% of all Canadians are able to understand and speak one of the official languages (Kymlicka 6/ Canadian Heritage b 1 ). This number is surprisingly high, if we take into consideration that there is quite a huge number of elder immigrants who are alliterated in their mother-tongue, and it is much harder for them to learn a foreign language than for people who knew how to write. But this further shows and emphasizes that immigrants have a great desire to be able to communicate with other people than those of their own ethnic background.So, the argument of Bissondath that the policy led to a form of ghettoization seems to be wrong in that part as well. The fact that Canada is so diverse is a national asset. " Recent advances in technology have made international communications more important than ever" ( Canadian Heritage b 2). And since the vast majority of Canadians are able to speak "many" languages and understand many cultures and rituals, it is easier for Canada to be a global player than for any other country in the world (Cana-dian Heritage c 2).

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