High Time to Get the Federal Government Out of the Multiculturalism Business

Wednesday, 22  March 2017

PART I   

                          Point of Departure: Definitions    

Definition of “multiculturalism”and related terminology

The definition that appears to be widely referred to is provided by the 90 years old institution named International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) at www.ifla.org/publications/defining--multiculturalism- last updated on December 23, 2016. It reads:

Multiculturalism [a.k.a. “pluralism”]
“[Multiculturalism] is the co-existence of diverse cultures, where culture includes racial, religious, or cultural groups and is manifested in customary behaviours, cultural assumptions and values, patterns of thinking, and communicative styles.”

 
Immigrant minorities  
In this category are included permanent settlers who possess their own language(s) and culture(s) which are distinct from those of the host society. The category also includes the descendants of immigrants who continue to identify with their ancestral culture.

National minorities                                                                                                               
These are indigenous or long-established groups with a long-standing and distinct ethnic, linguistic or cultural identity, distinct from that of the majority. They may use the main language of the country (such as the Swedes of Finland), or have substantially adopted the main language of the country (such as the Welsh or the Native Americans). National minorities may share their language or culture with majorities in adjoining countries, or may be confined to the country in which they are a minority.

In his  1995 book Multicultural Citizenship professor Kymlicka  of Queen’s University, a  strong proponent of multiculturalism  argues that  “it is important for  policy makers to draw clear distinctions between “ national minorities” and “immigrant groups: Immigrant groups are not “nations”, do not occupy homelands . Their distinctiveness is manifested primarily in their family lives and in voluntary associations and is not inconsistent with their institutional integration.” (Italics mine)

                                                     PART II

Canada: A Country of historical “cultural plurality” and Natural Pluralism [a.k.a. multiculturalism]

I originate from a country, Turkey, which since its foundation in 1923 has almost obsessively sought to achieve the linguistic ethnic, (and even for a time) racial, religious, cultural social and homogeneity of its population. So much so that for example, when I lived there -and probably still now, the Muslim minorities of the country such as the Kurds and the Laz were officially classified as Turks.

Hence, with the exception of the members of the other non-Muslim minorities i.e. the Greeks and the Armenians, and odd encounters with foreign tourists, until my arrival in Canada, I had no experience living in a properly speaking, heterogeneous society. 

Upon our arrival in Montreal and as we started to settle in, much to our delight, we found, as did other groups of immigrants, Canadians  to be pleasantly curious about  our  respective native lands, warm and welcoming . If called upon, they were ready to help and teach us, and did so with a pleasant smile, the mundane matters we had to learn; often enough offering to volunteer to do this and that to help we find our bearings. We still do.

For my part, the first thing I noticed about   both my fellow immigrants  and our future compatriots, save for those French Canadians who did not inter-marry and some segments of the Afro-Canadian community, almost  none of them had a single identity. Their identities were composite and comprised various combinations and permutations of national origin, ethnicity, culture, religion, a variety of languages and dialects. The second thing was that none of them made a fuss over their own or the others’ composite or plural identities. It was taken for granted that in a country of immigrants, this would be so.

Along with that, I also discovered the wonders and the pleasures of encountering fellow immigrants, dealing, chatting, swapping anecdotes, personal stories and joking (usually about Canadians)  in various languages and later; studying, working and socialising  with Canadians and other newcomers.

Subsequently, living in, Newfoundland and in Labrador, Ontario, Saskatchewan and spending a fair amount of time in Alberta and British Columbia and a little time in the Great White North, I encountered other peoples with a variety identities and backgrounds including the members of different aboriginal nations, the Inuit, Innu, Iroquois, Cree, Ojibway, Naskapi, just to mention of few of them, as well as the Métis who under the pre-1951 Indian Act were rudely referred to as “half-breeds”.

And as I started familiarising myself further with Canadian history, I realised that   the plurality of cultures on the Canadian territory pre-dates the arrival of Cartier and Champlain. 

And with the arrival of European settlers and immigrants, Canada was destined to be a land the plurality of cultures and pluralism.

Despite this cultural plurality, Canada grew and prospered in its own pluralism for the following reasons:

First, Both the British,( a bundle of three peoples and cultures itself) and the French and the immigrants that ultimately  assimilated into  one of these two entities , save for the Chinese and the Japanese immigrants, all originated from countries of the Western civilization or from countries substantially exposed to one of those civilizations;

Second, they all chose to come to Canada because, save for a few skirmishes, it was and remains a country where  peace, order and good government  prevailed and prevails to this day, and so did and does liberty and  the promise and the pursuit of happiness.

The Chinese and Japanese immigrants, for their part, managed to establish themselves despite the periodic racist outbursts and their nasty treatment at the hands of   the federal and provincial governments prior to the early 1950s and at those of the people who took their cues from the governments, ultimately integrated into English speaking Canada.

Third, by and large, all the immigrants wanted was to get on with their lives, earn a good living and educate their children to enable them to move further ahead than they managed; and to become “Canadians” like the previous generations of immigrants did.

Fourth, it did not take much, for the immigrants to instinctively realise that if they did not do whatever was necessary to get along amongst themselves despite their diversity, differences ,and in some cases their conflicting values and mutual antipathies, surely the country would end up in a civil war, may self-destruct in the process and all would be lost.

Consequently, peaceful co-existence or pluralism became their collective survival strategy and inter-personal accommodation its principal tool.

Accordingly, no one single group of immigrants sought special rights and privileges above and beyond the rights and privileges  of the other groups,  or for that matter tried to dominate other immigrant communities, let alone the community at large, by seeking to impose progressively  their  own culture, value system and views of the world on  the “others”.

The immigrant groups that originated from different countries or from the same country and did not much care for one another learned to leave their hostility at the door  of the country or  to placed it under  their mattresses after their arrival, in order to get along, if nothing else, by necessity; and                                             

This strategy worked miracles and in due course immigrant groups of disparate backgrounds managed to create and build a nation with its own common values, collective ideals and aspirations and the pursuit of these, and a healthy sense of ethnic humour in all the components of culture.

It was and remains spontaneous organic pluralism at its best.

Historically speaking it is fair to say that the only segment of the Canadian society that had no use for the diversity and differences implied by the notion of plurality of cultures and would not hear of even minimal accommodation until the end of the Second World War- the early 1950s, were the political establishments that ran the federal and provincial governments and their respective emanations. Hence the oppressive treatment of the aboriginal peoples;  the insensitive handling of  immigrant children who were forbidden to speak their native language on the school’s playground , or to organise ethnic shows on school  property;  the dastardly treatment of the  first waves of Chinese immigrants, and, par for the course, anti-Semitism and discriminatory treatment of Jews.

This was the way things had been progressing when my family and I arrived to Canada and by and large remained that way until the government of Mr.  Pierre Elliott Trudeau  got into the multiculturalism business in 1971.                                               

                                                 PART III

                      A Personal Digression about Mr. Trudeau

Back in the early 1960s, the province of Quebec did not grant university loans or bursaries to students who were residents of the province and waiting for the expiry of the prescribed waiting period, which at the time it was 5 years, to acquire their Canadian citizenship.

I felt strongly that this policy was discriminatory because while waiting for the expiry of the five year period, these students and their families enriched the provincial public treasury by paying sales and income tax, among others, and thus subsidised the Canadian university students who were citizens.

So I wrote an article titled “Une Injustice” and wanted to publish it in the influential progressive periodical Cité Libre published by the guiding lights of Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution” of which, Mr. Trudeau Sr. was one of them. At that time, he was a professor in the faculty of law of the University of Montreal where I was studying for my first degree. So I went to discuss the matter with him. He received me cordially; put me at ease; listened to my story; read my short article and said “c’ est bon” (it’s good) and promised me that he would see to it that it was published. And true to his word, it was published in the March 1963 issue of the periodical. Alas, the government was not moved by my plea by the time I graduated.

From our conversation that day, which touched mostly upon immigration and immigrants, he did not leave me with the impression that he had strong feelings or views about the subject one way or the other, save for cases where the immigrants suffered discrimination.

My second encounter with Mr. Trudeau occurred during the same academic year when I was asked by an executive member of the university`s student association, to organise a debate between the Federalists and those who were beginning to advocate the sovereignty of Quebec and who, at the time, were called “separatists”.

I managed to coax Messrs. Trudeau and Gerard Pelletier (then editor of the largest French daily in Montreal and if I am not mistaken, in the province; and future member of Trudeau Sr.’s federal cabinet) to enter the debate on behalf of the Federalists. I did not have to coax Messrs. Pierre Bourgault and Mr. X (whose name I can no longer recall) to argue the separatist side, two young firebrands who at that time were busy raising their profiles and the credibility of their cause.

I do not recall hearing during the debate, a single reference to the subject of immigration to Quebec or the role and place of immigrants in the Quebec society and Canada, even in the context of the issues of identity and allegiance.  

From my conversations with the future Prime Minister of Canada, I did not think, he cared one way of another about the cultural minorities, multiculturalism.

                                              PART IV

                 Trudeau’s Strategy against Quebec Secessionists

As the issue of the separation of Quebec progressively became a hot and pressing one with the election of a provincial government committed to secure the secession of Quebec. Towards this end, the government decided to hold a referendum in order to secure a popular mandate to initiate the negotiations

Between 1963, when he first entered the House of Commons  as a member of the Liberal party, then appointed Minister of Justice, and 1968, when he was elected first the Leader of the Liberal party and  became Prime Minister, called a general election in which the Liberals were re-elected, Mr. Trudeau, ultimately developed a  two- pronged strategy to fight separatism.

The first prong was to fight the Quebec government’ on its own turf in the first referendum .He did it passionately and brilliantly. .Among other things, he attacked his opponents and their nationalism as a parochial one and proclaimed with pride that his middle name was Elliott, the name chosen by his Anglophone mother. defeated  the “Yes” side. 

The second throng was to pacify Quebecers by a variety of initiatives of which the emotionally and symbolically the strongest one was to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, established by the previous Liberal government and among other things, by making the French language one of the two official languages, increasing the visibility of the French fact, in Parliament, in the civil service and in the elaboration of linguistic and cultural policies rights and culture. And so, the business of the nation became a bilingual and bicultural enterprise.

The third throng crystallised, in response to the public reaction  to  the second one and provided Trudeau with the  opportunity to  contextualise Quebec nationalism in the broader context of Canada and bring down the nationalists a few pegs . As it turned out, it did nothing of the sort and the secessionist movement carried on past Trudeau’s tenure and led to a second referendum.

In the early 1960s,Canadians espoused the notion of Canada as a nation with” a cultural pluralism”, and later that decade, the phrase was replaced by “multiculturalism” in response to  the English- French  biculturalism.

 This partly came about when various ethnic groups concerned with this new emphasis on bilingualism and biculturalism reminded the government that as a matter of historical fact, Canada has always been, is and will continue to be, a country of cultural diversity and differences and that, in effect the notion of biculturalism failed to capture and reflect the reality on the ground.

With the serious electoral implications of a failure to respond satisfactorily to these arguments in mind, the Trudeau government directed the Royal Commission to investigate the views and concerns of the ethnic groups and report back with specific recommendations.                                                

                                                Part V

From Natural Plurality of Cultures and Organic Pluralism to Official Doctrinal Multiculturalism

The Commission did, and the government accepted its key recommendation to give “minority [mostly cultural and ethnic] groups” greater recognition of and support in preserving their culture.

And so it was that in 1971, the Prime Minister announced to the House of Commons, that multiculturalism was now official government policy. He stated that since no singular culture could define Canada, the government accepted the contention of the other cultural communities that they too, are essential elements in Canada, lauding the contributions of immigrants of various cultures made to Canada, and concluded by asserting the government’s commitment to the principle of multiculturalism.

In so doing then, Trudeau took the plurality of cultures and  pluralism or multiculturalism (as defined above)  which until then existed as uncontroversial  facts on the ground  and, to borrow Professor Kymlica’s  phrase, he converted  the distinctiveness of immigrants  manifested primarily in their family lives and in voluntary associations, into  the official doctrine of multiculturalism.

The government  went on to implement  its doctrine  to promote respect for cultural diversity and  differences and grant ethnic  and cultural groups the right to preserve and develop their own cultures within the Canadian society.

And as is the wont of the successive liberal and progressive conservative governments, they poured out millions upon millions of dollars, year in, year out, and continue to do so to this day in the form of subsidies or grants to cultural and ethnic organisations of all sorts and for other related projects that include academic research.

Ultimately, politics being what it is, the subsidies or grants also started flowing into the coffers of organisations of all kinds whose goals do not seem to be quite in accord with the original intention and scheme of things.

 So what began as cost-free emotional bribes to assuage the feelings of some ethnic groups, soon enough became bribes for their votes.

The more I think about these developments, the more I am reminded of D.H. Laurence’s comment about building a Taj Mahal around a “f.ck”.

And the more I think about the electorally clever statements of the late Prime Minister and his successors on the subject of multiculturalism, the more I think them to be codswallop.

First, the assertion that no singular culture could define Canada is sophistry. Three cultures do. As a matter of fact and law, historically, Canada has been a tri-cultural country comprising the aboriginal peoples, the French and the British from as far back as 1763 .And since 1982; this historical reality is reflected in the Constitution of Canada.

Second, the argument that other cultural communities are essential elements in Canada is meaningless. (Italics mine). They are neither essential nor superfluous. They have come to exist as a result of immigration. And the cultures of these communities do not perform one or more functions essential to the existence or continued existence or working of the country.

Third, immigrants and refugees do not arrive in Canada as distinct cultural groups specifically intent on making contributions to Canada. Their contributions are not collective but individual nor are these individuals motivated to contribute to the country by reason of or as the result of their belonging to their respective cultures.

As I pointed above, immigrants come as individuals simply to seek a better life for themselves, their children and descendants; while the refugees come as come they can to seek the safety of Canada as a peaceful realm governed by laws applied by independent judiciary.

Fourth, respect, along with some disrespect, for cultural diversity and differences existed well before 1971, notwithstanding the absence of the doctrine, just as disrespect continues to exist along with respect, notwithstanding the existence of the doctrine for nearly half a century.

Fifth,  the diverse cultural communities, are simply inevitable so long as Canada actively promotes and pursues a substantial immigration and refugee policy; keeping in mind  that according  to the official  pronouncements,  the admissibility of these immigrants and refugees to Canada is not determined on the basis of the suitability of  their respective cultures to become “essential” elements in Canada.

Sixth, by adopting the objectives of protecting, preserving and promoting vulnerable foreign cultures, granting the Canadian ethnic and cultural groups the right to preserve and develop their own cultures and financing it in part, the government became a patron of foreign cultures at its own expense.

Surely,

1. The right in issue  existed at all times;
2. Nothing prevented  these  communities  to exercise this right;
3. If these communities were keen to protect, preserve and develop their own culture,  there is was no reason  why they could not have  put their  hands in their collective pocket to pursue  this goal, instead of using the  taxes paid by others who could not give a hoot  whether  one or more of these minority cultures perish or survive, and
4. As I pointed out in one of another papers, history has been said to be “the cemetery of civilizations” and a fortiori of cultures and languages.

Then again, bribing taxpayers with their own monies is one of the time honoured traditions in Canada, as it is in countries where power is attained through the electoral process.

Finally,   since we depend on immigration for economic purposes, then, surely under normal circumstances in the context of western Judeo-Christian civilisation the formation and peaceful co-existence of many cultures is an existential given.

Therefore, the government hardly needs to promote diversity and difference and respect for it nor does it have to pretend to be protecting the long existing rights in issue.

Hence, the government’s formulation of the doctrine of multiculturalism reminds me of people who insist on barging through an already open door.

                                               PART VI

                             Integration versus Assimilation

I am always amused to hear politicians and politically correct thinkers and chattering classes self-congratulating themselves that unlike the United States, Canada does not force newcomers to assimilate through the melting pot process but allow them to integrate themselves into the Canadian society.

This empirically unsustainable artificial distinction between integration and assimilation has always struck me as a fantasy of sorts. Mercifully, we have not reached the stage where wishful pretences can re-engineer reality.

This can be easily demonstrated as follows: Suppose

1. A Hungarian   immigrant family has two daughters. One marries an English Canadian of Scottish origin whose grand-parents emigrated from Scotland. The other marries a boy  whose family immigrated from Sicily;
2. In turn, each of these two families has two sons. One marries a Canadian Jewish girl whose parents emigrated from Poland; the second marries a Vietnamese girl; the third marries a girl with a French Canadian mother and Irish father while the fourth marries a Sri Lankan foreign student.

All these children attend the public school system where they absorb the Canadian culture and, imitate and learn the Canadian way of thinking and doing things, some of them synthesising these with the way of thinking and doing things he learned before going to school and while watching each of his parents did.

What then is the national origin, ethnic or cultural identity, nay, and national origin, ethnic and cultural identity of each of the grand-children? One thing for sure it is not Hungarian, Scottish, Italian, Rumanian, Vietnamese, French-Canadian, Irish or Sri Lankan. By then, it is just Canadian.

My children do not identify themselves as Sephardic Jews, Turks, French Canadian or Irish or Newfoundlanders, where they were born, nor do they speak Turkish and Ladino.  and they learned their French in school. If you were to ask them what are you? They will answer: What do you mean? I am Canadian.

And as we all know, this scenario is by no means a-typical of the prevalent marriage patterns in Canada, particularly in metropolitan areas, large cities and towns and among those who attend university at home or abroad.

The fact of the matter is that no one has a single identity because identities always come in plural. Hence every individual is a microcosm of plurality of cultures.

And ironically enough cultural plurality  acts as the engine  of assimilation that renders the notions of  national origin, ethnic and cultural  identity,  pieces and bits  of romantic nostalgia of sorts, artificially preserved by government grants by the time the second generation reaches adulthood, and at the latest by  third generation children are being raised.

And the best part in all of this is that, unless indoctrinated in a certain way and in the absence of family trauma caused by members of immigrants of a particular nationality, these kids grow up to welcome all the new generations of immigrants and treat them with respect and consideration just as my family and most probably their families were.

                                                    Part VI

 From doctrine of official multilingualism to doctrine of constitutional multiculturalism

.At all events in 1982, the Trudeau government, with the concurrence the other provincial governments, committed a major blunder by writing section 27 into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 27 of the Charter reads:

“Multicultural heritage

27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canada.”

To begin with, the provision does not provide (a) precise definitions of the term “multicultural” and of the phrase “multicultural heritage” and therefore on its face we are unable to tell readily the precise contents and contours of the provision.

Further, the provision appears to have been was inserted without  

1. A thorough analysis of  the full  implications  of  converting the multicultural reality of Canada  from a mere fact to a constitutionally protected right having regard to possible change of scenarios  of change  in the context of future immigration policies and patterns; and
2. Without full consideration being given as to whether this provision was desirable or useful.

At all events, in the Charter fever experienced in those days, no one seems to have raised the question as to whether it was in the country’s best interest, to put multiculturalism in a constitutional straightjacket, knowing full well that unlike the case of ordinary legislation, given the painful long history of repeated failures to repatriate and amend the Constitution of 1867, it might be practically almost impossible to amend the Constitution to get rid of section 27.

I think, ignoring the lessons of history, Mr. Trudeau and those who advised him suffered from the delusion that  

Firstly, government can socially engineer or re-engineer the fabric of a country’s society with a doctrine embedded in the Constitution, on the then fashionable thinking, possibly his own, but certainly that of some of those who served him, that if it looks good on paper it must be good for sure, and secondly, all ancestral heritages are the same and therefore ought to be considered and respected on the same footing.

To put it plainly, Trudeau, his close advisors and fellow premiers did not have the wisdom to respect the organic process in the way a society evolves  and along the way, deals effectively with the challenges it faces  from time to time.

At the end of the day, Trudeau and the Premiers, took a properly functioning socio-cultural process out of its natural habitat and subjected the country to a policy of social engineering for political and electoral reasons that had nothing to do with the fundamental interests of the country. He did that, the one hand, to give vent to his visceral contempt for the separatists and his desire to put them down, by in effect reducing French Canada into just one of many ethnic cultural groups, and on the other hand, to appease the demands of a certain sector of the ethnic electorate on which he depended in fair measure to secure his party’s re-election.

He did that instead of responding with a “Principled No!  to the demands of the electorate on the grounds that the Canadian society on its own had already espoused the idea of multiculturalism, since the late sixties; was handling it  well and its collective wisdom  would take it as far as far as it thought  fit and proper.

And, ironically enough,  it is this chronic inability to say “a principled no”, characteristic of the Canadian political  and socio-cultural “right thinking”  establishments   in addressing causes  they consider to be “liberal”, of the “noblesse oblige” , “feel good”  and self-flattering kind,  through the three levels of government and beyond,  that is progressively endangering the continued viability  of  our society  putting  our  respect for  differences and variety, and thriving popular  multiculturalism  at risk, one that has  already partially materialised.

In the meantime

We keep building our Taj Mahal around the simple fact that the country hails from and comprises a plurality of cultures mediated by our natural sense of multiculturalism.

Whatever the anticipated potential benefits of official, doctrinal multiculturalism may have been, I have yet to see any that would not have otherwise materialised in the ordinary evolution of the Canadian society as demonstrated by the multiculturalist developments in the 1960s and since then.

For reasons set out in this papers, I submit, that it is high time not only to stop building it but to start to dismantle it and restore the management of the issues of cultural diversity and difference and co-existence to the Canadian society until it decides to call for one or more specific types of interventions, when and where it considers these to be warranted.

Because, if the success of the government managed doctrinal cum constitutional multiculturalism is to be measured  by the current levels and types of inter-ethnic, cultural,  racial and religious prejudice, hostility, verbal and physical aggression  compared to the levels  of those that existed prior to 1971, clearly it has not been much of a success.

As matter of fact, this brand of mindless multiculturalism is creating and causing the progressive deterioration of the national social fabric with no end in sight.

The hostility, ridicule, threats and occasional physical aggression, at one time, directed towards Pakistani and East Indian immigrants prior to 1971 are now  being directed against Muslims who visibly show no apparent inclination to integrate, while  Muslims of certain persuasions engage in verbally aggressive behaviour patterns that cross a number of red lines across Canadian values and laws.

 Anti-Semitism is alive, well and flourishing, more aggressive and violent than prior to 1971.

The colour of the skin remains a palpable source of one way or mutual hostility.

The anger and hostility of a rainbow coalition of secular Canadians towards the insertion of religion into the public schools, and the school boards’ spineless approach to accommodation is new and growing in intensity.

                                                           PART VII

               Getting the Government Out of the Multiculturalism business

By getting out of the multiculturalism business and restoring it back to the Canadian society, the government stands to save millions of dollars which it has been doling out every year since it confiscated the business from the populace to suit its own ends.

Can this money be put to better use? I say yes, definitely so.

We can invest it most usefully to set up a permanent and effective campaign to recruit immigrants from those countries which for centuries and until not that long ago provided us with our plurality of cultures, multiculturalism and, with our very own popular multiculturalist heritage.

I am quite sure that the way things have been going in Europe for the last two decades, if not before, Europeans can sure use a country whose motto has been and in reality continues to be, “peace, order and good government”.

The question is whether the current government has what it takes to see the wisdom of getting out of the multiculturalism business both at home and abroad looking for new immigrants.  

Well, the Prime Minister’s behaviour pattern and utterances since he became Leader of the Liberal Party do not exactly inspire much confidence that he has the wherewithal to do that. Simply put, he is not the right man for the job.