2 Multiculturalism in Canada

Dr. Swagata Bhattacharya

Content

• Introduction
• Immigration: The early years
• Attitude towards immigrants
• Immigration in the modern times
• Ethnic and racial diversity
• The Multiculturalism Policy
• Prospects for the future

Introduction:

Canada is often described as a multicultural nation. Simply stated, it means that Canadians do not belong to any one cultural background, race or heritage. Instead, Canadians reflect a vast diversity of cultural heritages and racial groups. This diversity is a result of centuries of immigration.

All Canadians, with the exception of the Native people, trace their origins to an immigrant past. However, this does not imply that the majority of Canadians today are immigrants. According to Statistics Canada, only about 16% of today’s Canadian citizens were born outside Canada. It also states that anyone who wants to immigrate to Canada may not do so since immigration to Canada is a privilege and not a birth right. As per the government policies since the 1900s, Canada has remained selective as to who may enter the country, and, equally important, who may not.

Over the years, Canada’s attitude towards immigrants and the development of immigration policies has evolved. Post 2001, the Federal Government has announced changes that have decreased the number of immigrants allowed into Canada and has made it more difficult for those living in Canada to bring their families into the land.

Immigration: The Early Years

Immigration has played and continues to play a key role in shaping the character of the Canadian society. Although only a minority of Canadians have firsthand experience of immigration, the majority of Canadian citizens at present are born to parents or grandparents who had arrived in Canada from another place. Since such a vast majority of Canadians share an immigrant past, Canada cannot be imagined without immigration.

According to one theory, Canada’s Native people had migrated across a frozen ice pack linking Asia to North America tens of thousands of years ago. The Native people though, denounced this theory. Approximately around the 1500s , the Europeans first arrived in Canada from England and France and carved out homes along the St. Lawrence river and its tributaries. Gradually, they established their colonial outposts in the Maritime Provinces. The 18th century victory of British arms at Quebec followed by the British defeat in the American Revolution sent Loyalists to British North America, i.e. Canada in search of new homes.

During most of the 17th and 18th centuries, immigration continued. Settlers came mainly from Britain, including English, Scots and Irish. Many were drawn to the opportunities of the new world while others, including many Scots and Irish, escaped the famine and starvation which forced them to vacate their homelands. Many Americans too moved north to acquire more land.

The 19th century, particularly the second half of it, saw migration to Canada from other nationalities, including the non whites. In the years before the American Civil War, Europeans were joined by thousands of black slaves who had escaped by following the Underground Railway northward into Canada. After the Canadian confederation in 1867, thousands of Chinese labourers were imported as workers to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. On the Pacific coast, other Chinese joined the rush of fortune hunters from all over the world who trekked into British Columbia and later the Yukon interior after the discovery of gold.

At the turn of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of farmers moved northward from the mainland of America to the Canadian prairies in search of firm lands. At about the same time, people from Central and Eastern Europe were recruited by Canadian immigration agents to look after these farms and thus, increase the population of the nation. The demands of the labour market also made it inevitable that South Asian and Southeast Asian immigrants find employment in the Canadian job market. Hence, by the 20th century, Canada was bustling with immigrants coming from various parts of the world and belonging to various ethnicities. Many of them were not desired by the government. Also, there were some who wished to stay only for a short period of time to earn fast money and go back to where they came from. There is no denying the fact that Canada’s expanding lumber, mining, railway, manufacturing and construction industries owed everything to these immigrants. Whatever their motives for coming to Canada and irrespective of the fact whether they stayed permanently or not, each immigrant played a role in the building of Canada as a nation.

Attitude Towards Immigrants:

Well before the Second World War, Canada was already home to people from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. But not everyone was equally welcome in Canada. It was a commonly accepted notion that Canada was a land of the whites and hence, non whites were mostly considered “foreigners” or “others”. It was considered that since their race, colour, religion or customs were different from ‘Canadians’, they would find it difficult to mix in the society and be suitable citizens.

While the government needed labourers to work in the prairies, forests, factories and mines, the Canadian public in general detested the idea of hiring in the process allowing entry of coloured immigrants into the country. The growing fear was that these non whites can never assimilate and fit into the Canadian society at large. Thus, the general public resented their entry into the land. The French-Canadians also feared that the growing number of coloured immigrants might tip Quebec’s delicate French-English political and social balance in favour of the non-French.

As anti-immigrant sentiments started to spread, the public demanded that the government restrict immigration. To this the government responded with a set of new regulations. Since the 1900s, the admission of Eastern Europeans was made difficult, Asian immigration was further prohibited and Canada’s door was almost closed to the Jews. With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, immigrants seeking jobs were understandably not welcome. Like many other countries, Canada locked her doors to jobless immigrants, a policy which she continued throughout the Second World War.

Following the war, those who believed that immigrants and their children posed a cultural problem, sought the answer in assimilation. Public policy pressurized immigrants and more particularly their children to put aside their ethnic traditions and integrate themselves into the ways of English Canada. In this, schools, churches, the media, and social service agencies sided with the government in its effort of ’Canadianization’. In some ways this effort was successful. The vast majority of immigrants and their children had to learn English or French. Government reports showed that most of them had been able to carve out a place for themselves in the Canadian society as a result of education in Canadian public schools and knowledge of either of the Canadian official languages. However, the need for introducing multiculturalism as a state policy soon started doing rounds in the government spheres.

Immigration in the Modern Times:

After the Second World War, the Canadian economy began to expand. In keeping pace with the economic boom, the Canadian labour market needed more supply of fresh labour. Fearing that the economy might stall, Canada lifted its restrictions on immigration and welcomed workers along with their families from European countries. The preference was still given to people from Great Britain and Western Europe. However, the need for workers was so great that Canada had to gradually open her doors for other Europeans as well. Immigrants from Southern European countries and refugees from the then Soviet Union began to arrive in Canada. Unlike the earlier immigrants, those who arrived after the Second World War did not settle in farms or in remote mining and lumbering towns. Instead the majority now settled in cities. Another important change was that the new immigrants were not labourers, many of them were well educated and trained professionals.

In the years that followed, Canada became home to waves of refugees fleeing from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The government’s attitude towards these immigrants softened more and more with every passing year. It was in 1967 that the Canada government brought a radical change in its immigration policy and hoped that this change would turn out to be a major success in their idea of procuring suitable immigrants for the labour market.

In the first phase of formulating immigration policies, i.e. the first hundred years since Canada’s confederation in 1867. The nation has consistently favoured British, West European and North American immigrants. However, from 1967 onwards (1967-1993) Canada brought certain changes in her state immigration policy. The previous system was replaced with a new evaluation system – the merit point system- which assessed all immigrants on the same skills and the training related criteria. The point system provides that the independent and sponsored applicants be assessed according to their possession of a set of characteristics, and each characteristic is assigned a range of merit points. Nine characteristics have been singled out – education and training ( 0 – 20 merit points, one point for each year of education or training ); personal qualities such as adaptability, motivation, initiative, and so on (0-15 points); occupational demand for the occupation the applicant would follow ( 0 – 15 points ); occupational skill, from unskilled to professional ( 1 – 10 points); age ( 0 – 10 points) ; arranged employment ( 0 or 10 points); knowledge of English and / or French ( 0 – 10 points) ; relatives in Canada (0 or 3 or 5 points) and employment opportunities in the area of destination ( 0 – 5 points). Initially, the cut off mark was 50 out of 100. It was to meet the labour market needs of  the country that specific occupations were placed on a list and immigrants were selected on the basis of their application for those specific jobs. Thus, the needs of the employers played a great role in the process of immigrant selection.

In 1974, a further requirement was added to the merit point system. In addition to the 50 points, the applicant had to receive at least 1 point for occupational demand or have arranged or designated employment. If either of the two were missing, the applicant must have at least 60 points to enter the country. The most significant change in this period was change in the  structure of the ethnic composition of immigrants. In 1968, the British and the Americans were the largest groups of immigrants arriving in Canada. In 1978, their numbers substantially decreased and they were followed overwhelmingly by the Asians. In the periods of immigration that followed, this structure became even more defined with the non-White immigrants, particularly the Asians constituting the largest groups of immigrants arriving annually in Canada since the 1990s.

The Green Paper on Immigration was tabled in the House of Commons on February 3, 1975. It resulted in the introduction of a new immigration act in 1976 by the federal government which formally recognized the points system. The same categories were retained but were given different point values. Furthermore, a location factor was introduced. Thus, applicants could obtain up to 5 points if they were willing to locate in areas that needed workers, but would lose up to five points if they intended to go to areas without such need. This act also clearly distinguished among three categories of immigrants – independent immigrants, family class, refugee.

• Independent immigrants: Independent immigrants, again, were of two types – either entrepreneurs or self-selected workers, and assisted relatives. Only the independent immigrants were exclusively assessed on the basis of the points system. The self-employed group was granted landed immigrant status on the basis of points accumulated for education, occupation, work experience and economic resources. The assisted relatives were granted landed immigrant status through the nomination of a relative other than an immediate family member.
• Family Class: A family class immigrant was granted status strictly through the sponsorship of an immediate family member who was either an independent landed immigrant or a Canadian citizen. The family class category usually included the spouse, children under 21, or parents over 65 of the independent immigrant.
• Refugees: The refugees were defined as people who suffered from the fear of persecution in their original homelands and sought admission to the country on the basis of a refugee status.

Most South Asian immigration to Canada is through ‘family class’. A member of the family class signifies a person “whose application for landing maybe sponsored by a Canadian citizen or by a permanent resident” as defined in S.2 (1) of the Immigration Act 1978.  According to S.4

(1) of the Immigration Regulations, every Canadian citizen residing in Canada and over 18 years of age, is eligible to sponsor a spouse or unmarried son or daughter or parents or grandparents. In case of marriage, the Immigration Appeal Board needed to be satisfied that a valid marriage has been solemnized between the applicant and the appellant. But there are instances where the Canadian authorities have annulled marriages by citing them invalid. in 1993, a new Immigration Act was formulated that brought significant changes in the S.2(1) of the Regulation. Earlier an unmarried  son  or  daughter  of  any  age  was  included  in  the  family class  but  after  the 1993 Regulation, the son or daughter must be dependent, i.e. i. must be less than 19 years of age and unmarried or ii. if a student , must have been continuously enrolled in the program of study since attaining the age of 19 years or iii. must be wholly and substantially supported by parents and be suffering from a physical or mental disability making him/her incapable of self support. Interestingly, such a person automatically falls into the inadmissibly category under S.19 (1a) which says no person shall be granted admission “whose admission would cause or might reasonably be expected to cause excessive demands, within the meaning assigned to that expression by the regulations on health, or prescribed social services”. Moreover, the 1993 regulations deducted 2 points for exceeding 44 years of age in case of independent professional immigrants. On top of that, two points were subtracted from the maximum of 10 points for each year if the person was less than 21 years of age. The changes clearly pointed out that Canada  was trying to attract professionals who could be immediately put to work.

Ethnic and Racial Diversity

These immigration policies resulted in a diverse population in Canada. In the 1991 censors, more than thirty percent of Canadians reported an origin other than British or French. But that percentage mostly concentrated in Ontario and Western Canada. Rural areas, small towns, Quebec and Atlantic Canada were home to fewer foreign born people than the rest of Canada. The number of South Asians in Canada more than tripled from 223, 000 in 1981 to 917, 000 in 2001. The 2001 census showed that twenty nine percent of South Asians living in Canada had been born there. Sixty nine percent were immigrants and two percent were non-permanent residents. Again, in 2006, census showed 443, 690 Indian immigrants living in Canada. They were concentrated mostly in Toronto and Vancouver. Thus, compared to the other cities, Toronto and Vancouver stand out as the most culturally and racially diverse cities in Canada.

The Multiculturalism Policy

The diversity in population led to the inevitable introduction of the policy of Multiculturalism as the state policy of Canada. The policy emerged in the 1970s as a uniquely Canadian policy, a new approach to nation building generated by the liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The Multiculturalism Policy gave explicit recognition at the federal level to Canadians whose origin was non-French, non-British and non-Aboriginal. Thus the policy served to reconfigure expressions of “Canadian identity” in a way that was inclusive of ethno-cultural and racial minorities. In an effort to unite Canadians for the Second World War, the Department of National War Services had established as early as 1942, an Advisory Committee on Cooperation in Citizenship. The committee was charged with five tasks:

• To maintain contact with Canadian citizens of non-British and non-French origin and to seek to interpret their views to the government and to the Canadian public generally.
• To cooperate with the director of the Bureau of Public Information in distributing news to the foreign language press in Canada and in explaining public policy as it develops.
• To maintain close relationships with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national film board and other similar services and the Canadian Council for Education in Citizenship.
• To encourage cultural activities which may promote mutual understanding and esteem between Canadian citizens of different origin and
• To interest itself in situations that appear to be producing misunderstanding, dissatisfaction or discord among groups of Canadians of European origins, non-French and non-British or between these groups and other Canadian citizens and, if it is thought advisable, to make representations with respect to such situations to the appropriate bodies or authorities.(Administrative Orders 40-46, 1942, passed under the War Measures Act, R.S.C. 1927, as cited in Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage Strategic Evaluation of Multiculturalism, p 15.)This committee, in a way, had paved the way for the multiculturalism program which was to emerge much later in 1971.

Several factors influenced the introduction of the Multiculturalism Policy. Like all political policies, it was a product of its time and a result of political necessity. The 1960s were marked by increasingly troubled English-French relations in Canada. In 1963, in response to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec which led to a reinvigorated French-Canadian nationalism, Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson established the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the B and B Commission). The Commission, with its emphasis on two languages and two cultures, provoked a counter response from Canadians of non-British, non-French and non- Aboriginal origin (especially second generation Ukrainians). This “third force” feared that the state would not value their contributions and defined them as “second class citizens”. They argued that they had endured the Great Depression along with other Canadians, had sacrificed their children to the national war front and declared themselves to be not one bit less Canadian. According to their argument, there should be a new model of citizen participation in the larger society, a model that would address pluralism of ethnic groups. Unlike the melting pot model of the United States of America, the idea of a cultural mosaic was preferred.

The B and B Commission released a report in response to this reaction, called The Cultural Contribution of the Ethnic Groups. In volume IV of the report, the Commission presented the government with sweeping recommendations which would acknowledge the value of cultural pluralism to Canadian identity and encourage Canadian institutions to reflect this pluralism in their policies and programs. But surprisingly, instead of acknowledging the presence of the other ethnic groups, in 1971 Prime Minister Trudeau argued for a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework. The placement of multiculturalism within English and French bilingualism reiterated the 1969 Official Languages Act, which formalized linguistic duality as  a characteristic of Canada. This couching of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework seemed to be an indication of the continued domination of British and, to a lesser extent, of French origin groups in Canada.

As articulated by Trudeau, the policy of multiculturalism was to involve four main aspects. First, State funding was to be given to ethno-cultural groups for cultural maintenance. Second, cultural barriers to full participation in Canadian society were to be removed. Third, cultural interchange has to be promoted. Fourth, official language training for immigrants in Canada must be mandatory. The main feature of the new multiculturalism policy was the funding given to support ethnic minority associations. Thus multiculturalism was an addition to other groups which received funding from the Canadian state as part of the post war era. The funding was given to the Multiculturalism Directorate within the Department of the Secretary of State.

From the beginning and up to 1981, funds were given mainly for folklore activities – dance troupes and theatre – and to a lesser extent, for instructions in languages other than English or French. This generated severe criticisms from left-leaning academics in the 1970s who viewed the policy as merely symbolic and largely ineffectual in transforming power relations. The policy gave minimal financial support to minorities to combat racism, at most spending $27 million a year, and obscured both class and gender inequalities within minority communities. While stressing on ethnicity, the Multiculturalism Policy had tended to work on and foster the assumption that the ethnic groups were internally homogenous and, therefore, gender, class, and other differences were not relevant.

As issues of racism continued to be brought alongside long standing concerns related to cultural maintenance, the Multiculturalism Policy gained some depth in 1982. The Trudeau Liberals patriated the constitution from Britain and created a Charter of Rights and Freedom that recognized multiculturalism. Section 27 of that Charter said that “the Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians”. (Canadian Multiculturalism Act July 21, 1988)

In 1988, Bill C-93 was passed as the Multiculturalism Act by Brian Mulroney of the Progressive Conservative Government. The Act declared that it was the policy of the Canadian government to “recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage.” In 1989, multiculturalism was further strengthened by the Mulroney Conservatives with the introduction of legislations that created a separate Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship within the federal bureaucracy. When this legislation came into effect in 1991, Multiculturalism gained additional symbolic stature within the federal government. It even became an attracted bait to lure business activities and entrepreneurial segments of ethno-cultural minorities.

Not all Canadians supported multiculturalism as a state policy. For example, in English speaking Canada people fear that multiculturalism would divide Canadians rather than unite them. Others feared that the policy would erode the rich British heritage of English-speaking Canada. In Quebec, the French Canadians protested that multiculturalism was designed to undermine Quebec nationalism. They charged that Ottawa would use the policy to thwart Quebec’s aspirations by equating it with “other ethnic groups in Canada”. However, most Canadians saw it as a timely recognition of a pluralism that was a fact of Canadian life. When the policy was announced in 1971, the Canadian population was very much dominated by people of European origin. After the introduction of the official policy, immigration from the developing countries increased to a considerable extent. In 1981, the federal government had established a unit devoted to race relations in Canada. This was later expanded to make race relations a primary focus of the Multicultural Policy. Today, most federal multicultural programs focus on institutional change, race relations, and citizen integration and participation. The policy costs Canadians about $1 each per year.

Prospects for the Future

How far multiculturalism as a state policy has succeeded till date remains a debatable proposition. The policy has been criticized too often by ‘people of colour’ who feel that it is nothing more than a policy of ghettoization of the minority communities. Canadians of white origin, on the other hand, have felt that the policy has been used to propagate and extend undue favours to the ‘other cultures’. The initial fear that a multicultural nation would encourage the influx of ‘unsuitable’ immigrants has come true to a certain extent. The nation has failed to admit only those who would be able to assimilate quickly into the mainstream Canadian society, and thus today’s Canada is a mixture of various cultures and traditions. The greater the diversity of the racial and cultural mix, the greater is the need for tolerance and openness in accepting one another as fellow Canadians. With globalization and the ever increasing movement of people from one country to another, the challenge of appreciating and accommodating cultural differences has become a universal experience. In that sense, a multiculturalism policy is the only solution for a state with such diverse population. It only needs to be seen that the policy is implemented in a proper manner so that every citizen should enjoy in actuality the benefits that are put on paper.

References

• Abu’Laban, Yasmeen and Christina Gabrielle. Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity and Globalization. Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002.
• Bissoondath, Neil. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. Ontario: Penguin, 1994.
• Buchignani, Norman, Doreen Indra and Ram Srivastava. Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland&Stewart, 1985.
• Isajiw, W.W. Understanding Diversity: Ethnicity and Race in the Canadian Context. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, 1999.
• Stasiulius, Daiva and Nira Yuval-Davis eds. Unsettling Settler Colonies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class. London: Sage, 1995.
• Trebilcock, Michael and Ninette Kelley. The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.