Multiculturalism in Canada

Constructing a Model Multiculture with Multicultural Values

Hugh Donald Forbes

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030198343
• eBook ISBN: 9783030198350
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

Multiculturalism is often thought to be defined by its commitment to diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance, but these established values sometimes require contrary practices of homogenization, exclusion, insensitivity, and intolerance. Multiculturalism in Canada clarifies what multiculturalism is by relating it to more basic principles of equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness. Forbes places both official Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec's semi-official interculturalism in their historical and constitutional setting, examines their relations to liberal democratic core values, and outlines a variety of practical measures that would make Canada a more open country and a better illustration of what a commitment to egalitarian cultural pluralism now means. Consisting of a series of connected essays-including careful considerations of the works of Will Kymlicka and Charles Taylor-this book provides the first comprehensive account of multiculturalism in Canada.

© The Author(s) 2019

H. D. ForbesMulticulturalism in CanadaRecovering Political Philosophyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19835-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Celebrating Diversity

Hugh Donald Forbes¹

(1)

Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Hugh Donald Forbes

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

During a recent gift-giving season, while visiting a small store in downtown Toronto that specializes in green products, I spotted a little one-piece outfit for newborns (100% organic fair-traded cotton) delicately embellished, in pastel shades of pink, beige, and blue, with the word “Diversity.”—What is it about this word that makes it the right word, indeed the inevitable word, to lift something cheap and prosaic (an infant must need quite a few of these little “onesies”) into the realm of something special, expensive, and presentable? “Diversity” is clearly the best word (better than “Change,” or “Democracy,” or “Equality,” or even “Fairness”) to show that the baby wearing it and his or her committed caregiver(s) are on the right side of a deep rift in contemporary culture and politics. Certainly, no sane retailer in Toronto would stock baby clothes proclaiming “Guns,” or “Hatred,” or “Intolerance,” let alone anything decorated with cheerful little multicoloured swastikas.

Outside Toronto, in the wilder and woollier parts of Canada—or the rest of the world—one can imagine a greater variety of gift options, reflecting a greater variety of political outlooks. One can even imagine grumpy gun owners sporting swastikas on their “camo” gear and claiming “Diversity” as their own slogan, for could they not claim that they contribute just as much or more to diversity, strictly speaking (setting aside purely subjective or merely quantitative considerations), as do exotic foreigners or ecstatic gays and lesbians? Anything that deviates from “normality” and its implied uniformity helps to increase diversity in its most basic sense. But obviously there are bad deviations from normality that have to be distinguished from the good ones and stamped out, despite the fading of the norms they violate, as these norms recede further into the background, behind the distracting celebrations of diversity. And diversity has become something to celebrate only by virtue of a tacit agreement that the word is to be used to refer only to desirable deviations—and an unspoken determination to do away with some undesirable ones, that is, to decrease diversity (strictly speaking) and to increase uniformity. (If no differences were problematic, no one would have any reason to proclaim the value of diversity.) In short, “Diversity,” even on babies, has a meaning that you are unlikely to find in a dictionary, where it will be equated simply with variety or heterogeneity. The problem is to say what the relevant meaning is.

Tolerance poses similar problems. The intolerable, perhaps everyone will agree, cannot be tolerated. The only question may be whether there really is anything that is truly intolerable. But surely rape and murder are in that class, as are, perhaps, prejudice and discrimination. So tolerance as a value has to have boundaries or theoretical limits, just as diversity does, if it is to be a true value and not just a deplorable, irresponsible indifference to moral and social obligations.¹ Too much tolerance could mean too much diversity.

The following study aims to show what multiculturalism is in Canada by clarifying its language of values.² What it is, in light of its values, not what it ought to be. Multiculturalism will be taken at first simply as it presents itself, that is, as a policy or strategy for creating a diverse and tolerant liberal democratic society that has overcome its fear of “otherness” and learned to “celebrate diversity” enthusiastically. First impressions can be misleading, of course, and no book should be judged by its cover. Celebrations of diversity intended to promote toleration are obviously part of what multiculturalism is, but only a part, for it is not just about overcoming fears and welcoming new musical, culinary, and romantic experiences. Its broader meaning will be seen more clearly only after seeing through or around its simplest self-presentations. What exactly is the diversity that the partisans of multiculturalism welcome as something valuable, and why do most Canadians now celebrate this diversity rather than fearing it and rejecting it? How far does multicultural tolerance (or celebration) extend, and how is it being cultivated and protected? How are the celebrations being conducted? What values are invoked to limit unwelcome diversity and irresponsible toleration? What new powers do the governments of multicultural societies claim, and what new legal and political institutions must they develop? What really is the meaning of multiculturalism in Canada and elsewhere?

By no means all the questions raised by multiculturalism can be answered in one short study of the values associated with it in one country, even a country as committed to it as Canada is. Comparisons with other countries would no doubt reveal much of interest, as would the different perspectives offered by a variety of academic disciplines.³ Nonetheless, I shall confine my attention to Canada and pursue only one main line of thought, that a detached examination of the values associated with multiculturalism in Canada can shed a clear light on its nature as a political programme or project. Human beings may or may not have free will (the concept is difficult to explain), but they are undeniably creatures that act purposively, as cats and dogs do, and one way of explaining their behaviour is by understanding their goals, which can, of course, be multiple, confused, conflicting, and hard to classify and compare. Certainly, they span a wide spectrum from the most personal and material to the most social and spiritual. Some are quite simple and familiar; others are remote and obscure; some are quickly and easily reached; others depend for their realization upon the creation of “happier circumstances” in a distant future. The choices of goals and of ways of reaching them are normally discussed today using the language of values—authentic values, business values, conformist values, democratic values, and so on—that has become the common coin of moral and political evaluation, despite its shortcomings. Values may be said, and in fact are often said, to govern the choices that individuals make, and thus they have explanatory import, despite very often being at least as hard to understand as the choices they are said to explain. The values associated with multiculturalism, such as diversity and tolerance, may be no more obscure or muddled than most values, but that is not to say that they have simple, transparent meanings or that the actions they govern are easy to understand. In short, this study of multiculturalism will be “idealistic” and “interpretive,” aiming to clarify what multiculturalism is by scrutinizing its values.

Social scientists and other sophisticated observers, long familiar with the difference between the literal and the metaphorical uses of language in politics, clear up some of the confusion surrounding multiculturalism and its values by distinguishing three different contexts in which the word “multicultural” is frequently used—first, when describing a population of diverse backgrounds, habits, loyalties, and sensitivities, as shown in census data about national origins, religious affiliations, linguistic abilities, and cultural identities; second, when discussing the various formal “multicultural” laws and policies that governments have adopted for the effective management of such a diverse population; and, finally, third, when distinguishing these multicultural “facts” and “acts” from the multicultural “ideals” that are embraced by tolerant, open-minded citizens, such as the Canadians who celebrate diversity, proclaim their own tolerance, and support generous policies of cultural accommodation, on the unstated assumption that they represent a new and generally acceptable form of common cultural cultivation.⁴ The same word can have these three clearly different uses and others as well. For example, it can be used to designate some kinds of ethnic music, food, restaurants, dance festivals, professional training programmes, driving schools (with multilingual instructors), and so on, without raising any difficult questions about its precise, literal meaning.

For the social scientists, the practical problem in the background is how to maintain “social cohesion” using a modern, universally acceptable “social glue” to unify a progressive, diverse, and rapidly globalizing society. Cultural groups or “cultures” defined by their common origins and their participation in innumerable common practices, some of which may be widely shared but harmless (e.g., songs and dances), while others (e.g., honour killing) may be as rare as they are problematic, need to be “integrated” with other such groups without any of them worrying that they are being forced to “assimilate” to any pre-existing cultural patterns incompatible with respect for their distinctive “identities.” To encourage such integration, they need to be shielded from offensive expressions of disrespect because of their cultural (or visible racial or religious) characteristics. Diversity, inclusivity, sensitivity, and tolerance must become the front-line values of a multicultural society, the watchwords of all its public policy-making. In fact, these DIST values figure so prominently in popular discussions of multiculturalism because they seem to define the new kind of society that the proponents of multiculturalism are trying to create, namely, a respectful “multiculture” that will recognize and celebrate every legitimate culture and identity, skilfully restraining their fissiparous tendencies while happily reaping the practical rewards of doing so.⁵ The political problem, the social scientists patiently explain, is how to strike a reasonable balance between the disruptive demands of some disaffected cultural groups for greater recognition and accommodation, on the one hand, and the stubborn resistance of other groups, on the other hand, who balk at having to adopt new, more accommodating conventions at the behest of their disaffected neighbours. Extremists on both sides are the immediate problem. The long-term solution lies in developing a new ideal of unity in diversity—a gluey amalgam of values that all will be happy to adhere to—and this task, the social scientists say, is the responsibility of normative political theorists and philosophers.

Words and Things

The “facts” and “acts” of multiculturalism in Canada are relatively easy to describe within the constraints of scientific social science; the theoretical “ideals” are more controversial and present a much greater and more interesting challenge. Which words will best show what these ideals are and where they are pointing? How is one to make sense of them, neither exaggerating their immediate practical importance nor minimizing their overall long-term progressive tendency? What is involved in giving them a reasonable interpretation? Some may be tempted at this point to jump immediately into the “normative” debates among philosophers and political theorists struggling to define (and to win the prizes for having been the first to prescribe) the ideally right boundaries of political community and the ideal balance between cultural diversity and common customs and values. Others, I trust, will be willing to restrain their normative impulses long enough to approach the problem more indirectly (along a more roundabout, “capital-intensive” route, as an economist might say), aiming at this stage to do no more than to get a better understanding of how an existing (arguably unbalanced) balance has been established and is being maintained in some particular circumstances.⁶

My aim, as already indicated, is to present a full and “positive” understanding of multiculturalism in Canada, not just as a medley of bare, value-free “facts” about the ethnocultural diversity of Canada’s population (see the Appendix for a detailed analysis of some basic statistical patterns) or as a variety of formal “acts” of recognition and accommodation at particular points in space and time (such as the House of Commons, Ottawa, 11:13 a.m. EDT, October 8, 1971), but more deeply as an ongoing project and an imagined destination.⁷ This will require, I shall try to show, a relatively dispassionate, disengaged clarification of the distinctive multicultural values that define the ultimate goals of Canada’s multicultural policies and institutions, that justify support for them, and that put limits on their acceptance of diversity and tolerance. Multiculturalism is best understood, not by correlating the undisputed facts about its institutional development with other facts about prior events and social conditions, as if there were a mechanical linkage of some kind between the earlier “facts” and the later “acts,” but rather by interpreting the thinking and especially the valuing of those responsible for the social (and political) construction of Canada’s multicultural institutions and circumstances.⁸

The multicultural values that need clarification come to light as an intricate network of interlocking terms that are not easily sorted out, for they do not name simple, familiar, self-standing values like cleanliness and honesty, but rather more obscure, more controversial, more fungible ones like diversity and tolerance, which depend for their value on their relations to other values, such as inclusiveness and sensitivity, all of which are important parts of a modern value system (or “ideology”) that includes such fundamental values and practices as freedom and equality, none of which have simple, transparent meanings.

Words are the immediate problem. Words, and perhaps especially value words, are tricky things. They guide our thinking, but can easily lead it astray. The key words I shall highlight here are diversity, tolerance, equality, freedom, recognition, authenticity, and openness. They have root meanings that may be far from their most important meanings in political contexts, where, as the names of important values, they serve as the watchwords of political parties and movements, with derivative metaphorical meanings that are continually being stretched to cover new situations. The values they name are often very puzzling, being neither hard rules nor definite principles that can be spelled out clearly, but also being much more than just personal tastes or arbitrary preferences. They function like direction signs, providing basic guidance in the open space between principles and preferences. They point to important, more or less obligatory considerations that everyone is supposed to take into account when choosing between better and worse courses of action. The language of values casts ordinary desiring and valuing individuals in the role of discriminating judges of merit—as citizens, consumers, and critics. The obligations are softened a bit, and some of their sharp edges are rounded off by relating them to personal preferences, while the related preferences gain some dignity from their association with sturdy principles and lofty aspirations. Thus any reference to “values” suggests deliberation, a cultivated taste, and sensitivity to the needs of others. Hard rules with unwelcome implications can be overcome by strong values, but a person can also be said to have “no values” despite having many strong preferences, if their preferences are just the ordinary ones that everyone inevitably has.⁹

“Diversity,” since it is a familiar word with no long-established political meani...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Celebrating Diversity
• 2. Official Multiculturalism
• 3. Visionary Policies
• 4. Culture and Equality
• 5. Cultural Freedom
• 6. Cultural Recognition
• 7. Ethical Authenticity
• 8. Forms of Openness
• 9. Culturally Open Governance
• 10. Going Forward: Future Imaginaries
• 11. Conclusion: Just Words
• Back Matter