Canadian Multiculturalism: A Comparison With Europe

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Banting and Kymlicka diagnose the problem with multiculturalism in Canada by looking at it from a European perspective. Trevor Phillips critiqued that Canada may be “sleepwalking towards segregation”, much like what happened in the United Kingdom, and should heed the warning. Yet, the problem with Canadian multiculturalism is that there is no current problem. The only issue is that it is being compared to Europe, and therefore people are not looking at Canada as an independent country with a completely different culture. Commentators look at the failure in Europe and then look for evidence of the same in Canada. There is then the question of why Canada is better at integrating multiculturalism than Europe. Banting responds to this question …show more content…

They discussed the already prevalent diversity in Canada; and although their focus was on ethnic groups via immigration, it is still important to note that Canada has different cultures even without immigrants. Statistics show that around half of Canadians are of a descent that is neither British, French or Indigenous. Through a variety of surveys, it was also shown that the longer immigrants reside in Canada, the stronger their pride in the country becomes, and that native-born Canadians find pride in being a multicultural country. Often, immigrants are equally, if not prouder to be Canadian than native-born Canadians. This is supported further by the fact that in 2005, 84% of eligible immigrants had obtained their Canadian citizenship, whereas in the United Kingdom that dropped to 56%, and down again to 40% in the United States. From a political perspective, Canada’s government certainly strives to have an effective multicultural system and society. This was seen in 1988 when the Canadian Multiculturalism Act was adopted by parliament, making Canada the first country to pass a multiculturalism law. This law indicated that Canada was very serious about having an effective multicultural system in place. With European countries not having laws which strive to reduce discrimination the preserve language and culture, it is not hard to …show more content…

Originally, Canada was going to follow in the footsteps of America and would also adopt a laissez-faire approach to integrating cultural diversity. This changed course when laws were put in place to protect cultures and the expression of cultures. This is different from what we see in other countries when immigrants are pressured to conform to the culture of the country they have moved to. Dasko also supports this, putting emphasis on the baby boomer generation and how their change in values, wanting egalitarianism, respect, and inclusion, is what lead to legislation creating the Official Languages policy in 1969 and the policy of multiculturalism in 1971. And although Canada went through a rough patch in the early 1990’s during the recession, where Canadians were found to be less accepting and tolerant, after the mid-1990’s to 2002 awareness and acceptance of the multiculturalism policy rose again. Acceptance sat at 74% in 2002, which was after 9/11 when tensions on the topic were globally at a high. This showed that Canadians “maintain a strong allegiance” to the policy of multiculturalism. There is also an article published by Elisa Sance where she reviews Jatinder Mann’s comparison of Australia and Canada’s approach to multiculturalism. Mann had pointed out that “the transition from British

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