Interculturalism In Canada

Multiculturalism" is the existence of a culturally diversified society where people from different backgrounds and races come and live together. However an insight of this integrated society reveals that everyone seems to have a different opinion on the issue of how this diverse community should operate. One of the countries of North America called "the mosaic" is Canada. It has earned this distinct name because of the mix of races, cultures and ethnicities residing in it. Canada's geographical features and its harsh climate became a disadvantage to its population growth many years ago. Compared to its size, the population of Canada was not sufficient a few decades ago. However, when immigrants wandered about searching for a better

Now that you are up to date with currents events I will briefly touch on some strong point of the Canadian democratic system. Citizens in Canada indirectly hold power in a free electoral system and are given better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than other systems of government. The freedom of speech, freedom of political expression, and the freedom of the media allow citizens to vote in favour of their own interest. Democracy in Canada is rooted on the grounds of equal rights; this gives people equality before the law, human rights, free and fair elections and so on. In comparison to the Third World, power is in the hands of the “Big Men”, the police and army are the ones who hold control not the people and where corruption is a norm, Canada may look like a utopia. Another strong point in the Canadian political system is everyone no matter race or sex has the right to vote as long as you are a Canadian citizen over the age of eighteen. Until the 60s/70s parties would make up electoral boundaries this was done to increase the number of votes in that location this is called gerrymander, this was unfair because certain parties had an advantage over others. However, now under the Electoral Boundaries Commissions this problem does not occur and no party has the upper hand over another. Interestingly the

Collective rights are what makes Canada uniquely different from the other countries. These rights have grown more equal over time to shape Canada to become a fair and equitable governed society. Collective rights are rights given to specific groups for historical and constitutional reasons for groups such as the First Nations, Inuit, Francophones and Anglophones. As great as it sounds, back in Canadian history back when collective rights were just starting off as treaties and laws, First Nations and the Metis were faced with assimilation. Francophones and Anglophones were given collective educational rights when put in a minority setting. Without collective rights shifting to become better, historical groups who found Canada would have either

Canada is a huge country located between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean and consists of 10 provinces. This country is the host for immigrants from all over the world with different religions and cultures. It embraces all of these diverse groups of people. It was essential that some arrangements be made to accommodate for these divers groups’ needs and ultimately in the year 1960 legislation of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a huge step toward these affairs. The Charter was enacted by the parliament in order to respect each person’s rights and eligibilities in different areas and it is divided into subsections.

Along with Canada’s lack of contribution, Canada’s political figures do not consider Canada a peacekeeper. The previous Prime Minister Stephen Harper had his own opinion of Canada and peacekeeping. Stephen Harper says “(Canada) out of the peacekeeping business”. The fact that the Prime Minister explicitly stated that Canada has no relevance to peacekeeping is mind boggling considering how relevant Canada used to be. When Canada’s own prime minister makes a statement about their prominence it proves how much Canada has changed. Although through Justin Trudeau,

Canada as a just society has changed a lot throughout the years, Canada has and still is a discriminative place but I believe it has definitely improved but there are still changes that need to be made. However,As said Canada has changed for the better andit has improved a lot since her older days, and not everything will always be perfect, a conflict will always arise and maybe we cannot always solve the problem. Canadian identity has been working towards a just society but it has been negatively affected by how they have treated minorities in World War One, with aboriginals in residential schools, the enactment of the War Measures Act in a time of peace and the continued LGBTQ discrimination.

Pierre Trudeau was a leader who not only brought change by bringing new laws to Canada, but he changed the way people viewed other laws. Trudeau listened to the majority, but also protected the rights of the minority which demonstrates he is a strong leader. He once said “Canada will be a strong country when Canadians of all provinces feel at home in all parts of the country, and when they feel that all Canada belongs to them.” (CBC Archives) Trudeau has always strived for greatness and has been successful in many cases. As in the FLQ crisis, Trudeau declared a brief period of Martial Law using the War Measures Act (WMA). By doing this, he completely changed the view of the WMA. It had been assumed that the WMA would be used in times of crisis, such as famines, depressions, pandemics and other serious situations that are serious to Canada’s well-being. However, Trudeau demonstrated how it can be used

been one of peace-keeping. In the 1960s the United States started to become more violent, and Canada

Canada is not a perfect country that makes no mistakes. Its road to democracy, multiculturalism and equality is long and still continues. Canada once faced serious racism problems, for example, German and Ukrainian Canadians were not treated well during World War I. It was the first time Canadian government and citizens took prejudiced and unfair actions to its own citizens. In 1914, more than a million people from Germany and Ukraine lived in Canada. Many Canadians feared that some of these immigrants from enemy countries might be spies; therefore, Germans and Ukrainians were labelled enemy aliens. They were required to carry their identifications and report their movements to the police, and many lost the right to vote. More than 8000 Germans

Canada is considered to be a cultural mosaic, where all cultures are embraced opposed to a melting pot where it is expected to adopt one culture. Government regulated media is more favourable than policies based off of self-regulated solutions when addressing Canada’s media industries and cultural needs. Canadians place importance on national identity and without government regulated policies, the content in the media would have minimal Canadian information. According to the Aird Commission, when Canada’s media was operating through private enterprise, many stations expressed conflicting content, however, with state regulated media, broadcasting allows the nation to have a unified vocation. One unified message being sent to the nations citizens is more beneficial than multiple broadcasts on differentiated and insignificant information.

Finally in 1867, the United Canadas joined two other British Colonies, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to form the Dominion of Canada (McRoberts 1991, 413). French-Canadians continued to fight against assimilation and received autonomous privileges with exclusive jurisdiction over matters regarding its cultural distinctiveness***. Thus, the Francophone language and culture has always been at the forefront of Quebec priorities. Since Confederation, Quebec nationalist have felt that the Francophone language and culture has been at risk of assimilation by the rest of Canada. As a result, Quebec nationalism is fundamentally rooted in the preservation of the Francophone language and culture (Guiberneau 2006, 52). Political leaders in Quebec continuously urge for the recognition that Canada is composed of two nations or cultures (McRoberts 1991, 413). Prior to confederation Quebec enjoyed numerous autonomous privileges. Unfortunately, post-confederation Quebec did not enjoy as many autonomous privileges because Canada was created as a relatively centralized federation (Beland and Lecours 2007, 406). A centralized federation not only took several of these autonomous powers away from Quebec, but it also threatened the Francophone language and culture (Beland and Lecours 2007, 406). With this said, Quebec nationalism has placed a great deal of pressure on the federal government to decentralize, giving more powers to provincial governments.

Canada is routinely defined as the exemplar multicultural society with the most diverse cities in the world such as Vancouver, Toronto and Quebec. The concepts of integrity and complexity are being shaped in Canadian society because of its co-existence of different cultures. Indeed, multiculturalism has been a keystone of Canadian policy for over 40 years with the aim of pursuing Canadian unity (Flegel 2002). Accordingly, Canada is generally estimated a country where people are all equal and where they can share fundamental values based upon freedom. Diversity is sustained and promoted by governmental policy, however, there are still racist interactions, which are destructive to minorities integration, especially recent ethnic groups’ arrival (Banting & Kymlicka 2010). This paper will examine challenges that multiculturalism has brought society and residents of Canada.

While the rest of Canada employs the concept of multiculturalism, Quebec emphasizes on another theory: interculturalism, or the notion of support in cross-cultural dialogue and challenging self-segregation tendencies within cultures. In the province, the word multiculturalism announces pejorative meanings. This was due, in part, to the fact that “a federal commission which was charged several years ago with the task of developing policies for Canada, based on its bicultural and bilingual character emerged with a recommendation that Canada think of itself as a multicultural and bilingual country.3”. Francophones, on the other hand, felt that this concept placed them at the same level as minority ethnic groups, thus erasing their thoughts of being seen as one of the country's founding nations.

Multiculturalism is the act of giving equivalent consideration regarding various foundations in a specific setting, and it can happen when a purview is made or extended by amalgamating zones with two or more diverse societies or through migration from various locales around the globe. Multiculturalism that seeks in keeping up the peculiarity of numerous societies is regularly differentiated to other settlement arrangements, for example, social mix, social osmosis, and racial isolation. Multiculturalism has been depicted as a "salad bowl" and "cultural mosaic" (Burgess, et al. 2005). In spite of the way that multiculturalism has predominantly been utilized as a term to characterize distraught gatherings, numerous scholars tend to center their contentions on outsiders who are ethnic and religious minorities, minority countries, and indigenous people groups. The term multiculturalism is frequently utilized as a part of a reference to Western country states, which

Multi-culturalism pervades Canada as a nation, a predominately immigrant driven and sustained country that seems at times to indicate overtly and in part covert inferences from those who slip through the cycle of immigration without the opportunity of engaging and by extension impacting the conversation on intercultural dialogue in Canada. One can cite that majority of Canada’s population is comprised of diverse ethnic and cultural background of immigrants yet the term “visible minority” has been harnessed to dichotomize its immigrant community, bit of oxymoron possibly. Luzviminda, an extremely creative expression of dialogue between Canada and the various ethnicities that seek to improve or enrich there lives and those of there love ones. Its epitomizes another avenue of communicative osmosis of cultures that’s enhances and penetrates the social, political and cultural platform from which they initiate and exchange dialogue. I cannot negate the that fact, while Canada frames the space for such migration to be possible for immigrant population, it goes without say that the benefit is dual in nature. Canada’s socio- economic paradigm is by virtue very much at a perpetual advantage as a result of its expeditious growth from the immigrant community. Luzvinminda, stands as a representation of this intercultural dialogue. Dr. Patrick Alcedo, Associate Professor of the Department of Dance at York University states that, “ A portmanteau , ‘Luzvinminda “ represents the three