Multiculturalism is a disservice to all Canadians

I am someone who is strongly against having an official policy of multiculturalism in Canada. I also strongly value the fundamental human rights of immigrants and minorities of all types. I also value and encourage open immigration policies which allow talented individuals from all nations to come to Canada to live and work in peace. I believe the philosophy behind multiculturalism as a policy is detrimental to the well being of both minority groups in Canada and members of its majority groups as well. It seems strange to most people that I could be so against a policy that seems to do nothing but affirm the rights of minority groups within Canada, but this discrepancy comes from a misunderstanding of what exactly multicultural policy is.

Multiculturalism is commonly thought to be a rather innocuous but beneficial aspect of Canadian life, and for many years, I would have agreed with this notion. At first glance, it seems that multiculturalism is just the government’s nice way of putting into official policy its commitment to ‘not being racist’, and its commitment to encourage Canadians to all not be racist either. This is a laudable goal, and if this were the case, putting such a goal into official writing would be beneficial to our national character. Unfortunately, multicultural policy in Canada is much more complicated than a simple statement affirming our love of all races and colours; it’s an official policy which critically defines Canada’s attitudes towards the development of our national culture in many powerful ways.

A strict definition of what exactly entails “multiculturalism” is difficult to come by. One way to define the term is to understand it as a philosophy which embraces the cultural distinctness of varying groups within a society in an effort to promote social cohesion through mutual understanding. In Canada’s understanding of multiculturalism, all cultures are considered equal under the law, and all cultures are equally protected under the law from outside interference as well. This may well seem to be interchangeable with the idea that all people and races are considered equal under the law, and that all people and races are equally protected under the law, but this is not the case at all. Multiculturalism, as a policy, holds that all cultures are equal in the eyes of Canadian society, and by extension, denies the possibility of Canada ever developing an over-arching culture of its own. To understand how this is so, we must understand how multiculturalism came to exist in Canada.

As many Canadians know, for the longest bulk of our history, our nation has been dominated by two distinct cultures: French culture and English culture. Tensions often run very high between these groups, particularly in political settings, with much animosity and distrust being exchanged among individuals and organizations across these cultures for generations. In an effort to promote a sense of Canadian unity, many politicians attempted to solve this problem of cultural bitterness. One idea proposed to appease both the French and English cultures was biculturalism: the official recognition of Canada as a nation defined by two distinct, yet equally valued and protected cultures. As biculturalism was deemed to be too non-inclusive of the large and ever-growing minority groups in our nation, the proposed idea quickly evolved into the concept of multiculturalism as it’s currently understood.

When one really thinks critically about the exact definition of multiculturalism and the historical context from which it arose, it becomes readily apparent that there is something quite unsettling about the policy. It arose as a means of ending political animosity between French and English Canadians fighting for cultural supremacy. The only way the government could see to end the fight over cultural supremacy was to fundamentally deny that Canada possessed a culture of its own, by instead redefining English and French cultures as equally important sub-cultures co-existing within Canada. As it stands right now, as of 1988, Canada officially has no culture. Surely there must be a better way for Canadians to stop fighting over culture than to entirely remove the concept of a national culture altogether! As it stands right now, there are no Canadians. There are French-Canadians, English-Canadians, Native-Canadians, Dutch-Canadians and many other types of Canadians which are culturally identified as a sub-culture living within Canada. Why the government would choose to claim that it can actually promote societal unity by defining culture in a separate-but-equal fashion completely eludes me. The United States tried to institute laws which defined cultures as being separate-but-equal under the law. The civil rights movement was quick to recognize the problems caused by such laws, and moved to destroy them.

There is no incentive for us to work together as a nation and to define our own national culture based off our unique demographics. Instead, we retreat to our respective subcultures and branch out only when necessary, and in a manner that shows we are too timid to do anything but tolerate each other. Multiculturalism is a policy of tolerance, and that’s not good enough. Our nation deserves a policy of genuine inclusion. Our goal as a nation should not be to merely co-exist, but to develop - over a period of generations- a culture that is uniquely representative of us as a nation. We have given up on that dream. Not only does multiculturalism preclude the possibility of Canada ever developing a culture of its own, it does a disservice to existing minority groups as well.

As a member of a majority group (English and white) growing up in a Canada defined as multicultural, I can say with some confidence that many of us feel timid and guilty when approaching members of other cultures for fear that we may come off as insensitive to their practices. The problem is that I don’t define myself as white or English, I merely define myself as Canadian. I would love for my culture to be made up of a mix of practices that my ancestors shared, and the practices of the ancestors of all those groups around me! In an unhyphenated Canada, we would understand the practices of everyone in our country and we would be working towards a goal that was in all of our best interests. In a society that promotes true cohesion, we would all be Canadians regardless of our skin colour or our native language, but instead we exist as hyphenated Canadians, defining ourselves as members of specific subcultures. I resent being thought of as white, and English, but with no existing over-arching Canadian culture, and a governmental policy stating that such a goal is not within the needs of Canada as a nation, the only culture by which I can define myself is as English and white. I am perceived as being English and white. I perceive others as being members of their minority culture as well, because assuming otherwise may thought to be offensive. Multiculturalism promotes xenophobia, misunderstanding and fear from members of majority cultures which serve to isolate minority groups in very real ways. As someone who values all races, I find that this is unacceptable.

Developing a culture as defined by unhyphenated, monoculturalistic Canadianism is not something that can occur overnight. Major, recognizable European cultures took hundreds or thousands of years to develop as distinct and valuable cultural identities. Canada tried to develop a culture for a long time, and when we decided it was too hard, we gave up and took the easy route, we chose multiculturalism and thus chose not to cultivate our own identity as a nation. When we finally realize that we, as a nation, are doing very real harm to all of our subcultures by encouraging isolationism and misunderstanding, we may try again to exist as a nation, and I hope that this day comes sooner than later. I dream of a Canada where we are all proud to be Canadian. I have no idea what it means to be a Canadian right now, as there is no Canadian culture to speak of, and I have no preconceived notions of what that culture may become in the future, but I feel that we are doing ourselves a great disservice for not even trying to find out what it could be.