Has Multi-Culturalism Had Its Day?

Re: “Has Multiculturalism Had Its Day?” David Goodhart’s review of Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Odysseys (April 2008): isn’t it typically Canadian of the LRC to ask the editor of a British magazine to examine Canada’s approach to multiculturalism? After all, mother knows best.

Goodhart is undoubtedly entitled to his opinions, but his knowledge of this country appears to be scanty at best. In fact, I see very little of substance at all about Canada, much less regarding Kymlicka’s analysis of multiculturalism in the Canadian context. There is a good deal about multiculturalism in Britain and on the international scene, most of it gloomy, but nowhere do I see a substantive case against the Canadian multicultural experience.

Although he concedes that Canada is “an impressive social model,” Goodhart apparently sees no connection between that fact and our multiculturalism policy. I think a more objective observer would accept that the policy is a success, whatever it may be in Europe, and that that success has something to do with the peaceful integration of immigrants that we have known in this country. The argument he advances to the effect that it may be more closely related to Canada being “discriminating about who it lets in” is hard to sustain when one considers the large numbers of “family class” immigrants, refugees and others that Canada has admitted over the years.

Goodhart also suggests that “it is not even clear … that Canada is more multicultural than Britain.” He bases this conclusion inter alia on what he deems to be a more “relaxed” attitude to faith-based schools and declarations such as the archbishop of Canterbury’s “qualified welcome” of sharia courts. Has he heard nothing of the considerable number of minority religious schools of all sorts, from Christian and other denominations, that have existed in this country for many years? Granted there was recently a fuss in Ontario about sharia law, but I would suggest that the reaction in Britain to the good archbishop’s suggestion was markedly more ferocious.

More important, has he any knowledge of our latest census data that reveal a remarkable degree of untroubled integration of immigrants, even in recent years when the racial makeup of the immigrant population has changed substantially? “Canada,” the well-known pollster and commentator Michael Adams writes, “has the highest immigration rate in the world, but … Canadians are by far the most likely of any G8 country to say immigrants are good for the country.” As to the reaction of the newcomers themselves, he continues, “after four years in Canada, 84 per cent of immigrants say they would make the same decision again and come to Canada.” Indeed, many of them report the most serious misfortune they have to deal with is the weather.

Multiculturalism is alive and well in Canada and likely to stay that way. If I have a choice between Goodhart’s musings, and Chief Justice McLachlin’s observation that “Canada is historically pluralistic … and for Canada it has thus far worked,” I’ll take her version any day.

Maxwell Yalden
Ottawa, Ontario

David Goodhart fails to understand Canadian multiculturalism because he is like many other European observers who view it mainly through the lens of their own national experience. Our pluralism’s roots lie in the seemingly counterintuitive accommodation of the French fact in the aftermath of the Conquest. Two centuries later, biculturalism was extended into multiculturalism in response to the demands of other long-settled European-origin minorities. Canadian approaches to diversity therefore relate not only to contemporary newcomers but also to the historically pluralist character of the population. This differs significantly from Europe, where it is singularly linked with immigration.

Canadian multiculturalism’s fundamental contribution to politics is the presentation of a framework of national belonging for a diverse population. All could participate in the public sphere regardless of culture. However, this failed to satisfy the Québécois and aboriginal senses of distinctness, prompting separate federal policies for these “national minorities” (Will Kymlicka’s term). All these approaches are designed to foster participation in the nation through what Charles Taylor calls “the politics of recognition.” Goodhart’s proposal for “a post-ethnic ethos of national citizenship” disregards the resilience of ethnicity—as witnessed in the former Yugoslavia, to say nothing of Wales or Scotland. It is this very tension between solidarity and diversity that Trudeau sought to address in 1971 with multiculturalism.

Contrary to Goodhart’s implications, the policy is not the preserve of small- or large-L liberalism. National surveys have shown consistently widespread support for it. The Multiculturalism Act in 1988 was passed under Brian Mulroney, and former Reform politicians in the current Tory government have put away their opposition to the policy to back the establishment of a new Global Centre for Pluralism.

All this is not to say that multiculturalism has been a resounding success in Canada. It has not been able to eradicate residual inter-ethnic rivalries or to produce an undivided loyalty to the nation (but then this has also not been achieved in similar societies, including the United States). Unemployment among visible minorities tends to be inordinately high (although not when compared to aboriginal people), pointing to an underlying racism in Canadian economic structures. Nevertheless, even marginalized minorities express higher levels of satisfaction with their lives in Canada compared to those in other countries, notes pollster Michael Adams. This is also true of Muslims, whom Goodhart monolithically presents as seeking to opt out of post-Enlightenment society’s social contract.

Karim H. Karim
Ottawa, Ontario