Yet Here We Are

Interesting feature article by Jakeet Singh on Rabble recently. He's responding to a series of articles in the Globe and Mail, specifically pieces written by Maria Jimenez about "ethnic enclaves" in Canada that exist by and large because of multiculturalism. Unfortunately, my attempts to actually read the articles were, as ever, stymied by the Globe's insistence on making people pay to read archived material. I don't have ready access to the print Globe the way I used to, so the context I'd like isn't entirely complete, but Singh's comments make sense without necessarily having to read the other articles.

I'd like to echo John Ralston Saul's argument in his book Reflections of a Siamese Twin. The main thrust of his argument is that as Canadians, it is our acknowledgement and embrace of the differences between us that make us special - that those differences, and the means we have used to push past them to create a thriving society, are in fact part of what defines us as a country. We are a people separated by language, geography, cultural norms, religion... all of these things were once great excuses to start killing and/or subjugating lots of people. The very fact that Canada came into being was unlikely, and the forces that were at work in the beginning to try and stop the efforts of men like Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine are still at work today, in the form of pernicious ideologies. Yet here we are.

I think that if we're going to have a discussion about the merits of multiculturalism, we have to understand that from the start, Canada has been multicultural. It had to be for any kind of French/English political partnership to work. It's almost ridiculous to speak of multiculturalism as "policy" when the very existance of the state is predicated on it. It's clear that some people have forgotten (or they were never taught) why Canada exists they way it does. The councillors in the Quebec municipality of Herouxville certainly seem to have (click on "Avis Publique" and scroll down to read the "Standards" document).

Constant talk of possible terrorist attacks on Canadian soil, constant fear of the unknown, has caused at least some people to actively condemn the cultural norms of other citizens. According the Globe and Mail, this leads to the point where they are willing to advocate splitting communities up to better make their members "fit in" with ice hockey and maple syrup! Imagine what would happen if anglophones demanded that the francophones be scattered across the entire country in order to assimilate into "Canadian culture". Most people would laugh out loud at the very notion. We seem to be more than willing to say as much about ethnic minority groups more recently arrived.

I will say this: in the absence of any monolithic Canadian culture, we have by and large adopted the one that's closest at hand, American culture. But that's a story for another time.