AHC/WI: Canada an intercultural country

As some of you may know, Canada is official a "multicultural country", but, with a POD of 2000 (after the initial MC policy has been initiated), have it become a intercultural country, like Quebec.
 
Well, accroding to what I've just been reading, in Quebec interculuralism emphasizes the importance of the French language. But Canada as a whole doesn't really worry about the survival of its major languages(though maybe they should in the case of French), so it's hard to see how that would translate to the federal levell.

I did some informal research into these issues a while back, and one thing I found that was that, in the last few years, government statements on multiculturalism have become more assimilationist in their rhetoric, in contrast to the earlier "mosaic"-style ideas, even though multiculturalism has never been abandoned as an official concept.

So, to some degree, I think the terms are elastic enough to mean anything the government wants them to mean at a given time. I suspect that, if in order to appease the pro-assimilationists in anglo Canada, the government switched to interculturalism, it might not make that huge a difference in actual practice.

Harper's career largely rode the "Reform" wave to power, coasting on the anger of innumerable pissed-off-old-men who had been writing angry letters to the editor about turbans since the days of Trudeau. Didn't stop him from appointinting a Minister Of Multiculturalism(if that's the title, Kenney's old job) to hand out cheques at ethnic barbecues, same as the Liberals.

And the fact that Harper didn't even make any nominal changes(eg. from multiculturalism to interculturalism) leads me to conclude that there simply isn't the electoral market for that in Canada, angry phone-in shows aside. It's important to remember that among community leaders of white ethinc groups sympathetic to the Conservatives, eg. Ukrainians, multiculturalism has been a fairly popular policy, since they like getting the cheques for their kobassa dinners as well.

Maclean's on Quebec intercultrualism
 
Okay, to address the challenge more fully...

Like I say, I don't think the electoral reality in Canada would support a full-scale reversal on multiculturalism. You'd really need some sort of major sociopolitical earthquake to occur, one which pushes all the major buttons of latent assimilationist sentiment in Canada. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor)

So, have it be revealed, during a Liberal government, that the leaders of some particular cultural group have been diverting money intended for language-programs and dance clubs to something like, oh, let's say, clitoridectomy clinics(like I said, this has to be pretty extreme), and that these leaders had close ties with people in the government. This gives you something like the Sponsorship Scandal, only with about 100 times the degree of awfulness and public outrage. Maybe a secret e-mail emerges in which one of the community-leaders brags about how clitoridectomies are okay, because Canada is a multicultural country.

The Liberals get voted out by an angry public, the Conservatives ride the wave of outrage into Sussex Drive, and promptly announce that they are abandoning the horrible policy of multiculturalism, in favour of the more assimilationist "interculturalism"(this may or may not help them electorally in Quebec). But, as I wrote earlier, this doesn't entail much of a change in practice, as the government still views it as worthwhile to pander to cultrual groups. But it does become considerably less fashionable for Canadians to brag about how "multicultural" they are.
 
As some of you may know, Canada is official a "multicultural country", but, with a POD of 2000 (after the initial MC policy has been initiated), have it become a intercultural country, like Quebec.

I have no clue what 'intercultural' is supposed to mean.

If 'like Quebec', do you mean oppressing everyone who isn't the majority language?
 
I'm noticing that the quality of kielbasa in Canada has plummetted to a new low. You have to put on your glasses and read the ingredients list, where you find turkey. Turkey is not an ingredient in kielbasa, kovbasa, or any basa I know of, although it is a multi-cultural food, to be sure. Anyway, any Canadian senator can spend more on a single dinner than a hall full of Ukrainians, no slight intended, to Ukrainians.

When politicians establish a policy which nobody understands, it shows that they are, indeed, real politicians, doing what politicians do. That's Chinatown.

Why is it that the English call halls holes? Don't they have nice halls?
 
Okay, to address the challenge more fully...

Like I say, I don't think the electoral reality in Canada would support a full-scale reversal on multiculturalism. You'd really need some sort of major sociopolitical earthquake to occur, one which pushes all the major buttons of latent assimilationist sentiment in Canada. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor)

So, have it be revealed, during a Liberal government, that the leaders of some particular cultural group have been diverting money intended for language-programs and dance clubs to something like, oh, let's say, clitoridectomy clinics(like I said, this has to be pretty extreme), and that these leaders had close ties with people in the government. This gives you something like the Sponsorship Scandal, only with about 100 times the degree of awfulness and public outrage. Maybe a secret e-mail emerges in which one of the community-leaders brags about how clitoridectomies are okay, because Canada is a multicultural country.

The Liberals get voted out by an angry public, the Conservatives ride the wave of outrage into Sussex Drive, and promptly announce that they are abandoning the horrible policy of multiculturalism, in favour of the more assimilationist "interculturalism"(this may or may not help them electorally in Quebec). But, as I wrote earlier, this doesn't entail much of a change in practice, as the government still views it as worthwhile to pander to cultrual groups. But it does become considerably less fashionable for Canadians to brag about how "multicultural" they are.

Not enough and Cons rode ethnic support in Toronto to victory. Jason Kenny would not damage this with such a declaration. It would have to be worse. Not to mention sponsorship only got bad because Paul Martin admitted it... if he had played deny deny deny it would have blown over like so many things, but by trying to "clean house" he kept it in the news and people were just sick of it. Clitoris-gate wouldn't work the same way. Sponsorship worked because it pissed off French and Quebec with the "corrupt Quebecois" theme so they lost support in Quebec, in the case of Clitoris-gate French would rally around the liberals to protect their cultural grants. Basically it's too disgusting to believed, while politicians paying people on the side to make Canadian flags is just believable enough. It is also a one-off, and not enough.

So here is worse: Major terrorist attack on Canadian soil... or three (Toronto 18, the train plot, the Bibeau attack kills Harper, etc.). Multiple attacks, again and again. Then, the problem is identified as not enough assimilation and too much multiculturalism by many talking heads and even academics. This becomes a major election issue (instead of a rage issue or protest vote) and all parties scramble to change their platforms to the new reality that multiculturalism "doesn't work". Dippers, libs and cons all have the same platform which is not too far apart given McGuinty banned religious courts.

P.S. Multiculturalism is not just some tacky add because of pandering and politics but part of the Canadian identity since Trudeau if not earlier. Cons greatest support and future is actually the ethnic vote because they are mostly anti-tax, anti-government and entrepreneurs or small business owners. It is not like Mexicans sneaking across the border or refugees in Europe but a totally different situation. For example Ford nation etc, all ethnic vote. New immigrants largely do not understand the "need" or want a social safety net. If Kenny showing up at political events wearing a turban or whatever and promising low taxes is pandering, well then the rest of the Canadian electorate should decide where their priorities are.
 
So here is worse: Major terrorist attack on Canadian soil... or three (Toronto 18, the train plot, the Bibeau attack kills Harper, etc.). Multiple attacks, again and again. Then, the problem is identified as not enough assimilation and too much multiculturalism by many talking heads and even academics. This becomes a major election issue (instead of a rage issue or protest vote) and all parties scramble to change their platforms to the new reality that multiculturalism "doesn't work". Dippers, libs and cons all have the same platform which is not too far apart given McGuinty banned religious courts.

Yeah, that could work, especially if it were revealed that the terrorists had been radicalized at some sort of cultural facility that had received multiculturalism grants. Even if the connection between the grants and the radicalization was tenuous, sections of the media would still play it up for all it's worth.

That said, in reality, I don't think multiculturalism has much to do with terrorism. You don't need state funding to run a terrorist recruitment outfit, and a guy so enraged at the broader society that he's willing to plant bombs in subways is hardly going to be mollified by seeing Jason Kenney eating his homeland's national dish.

For example Ford nation etc, all ethnic vote.

God, it was funny listening to Toronto progressives trying to explain away Ford's ethnic support.

PROGRESSIVE: Rob Ford is a white-supremacist racist nazi!!

SOMEONE ELSE: But the polls show he's getting huge support from immigrant groups.

PROG: "Immigrants" includes white Europeans and Americans. That's probably who's supporting him. [I actually saw this argument made by a PAID political commentator]

By the end of his tenure, when it had become next to impossible to deny that Ford was getting support from visible minorities, I saw a progressive columnist write(the general gist of it)...

"Well, it's not that Ford is so great on racial issues, just that he treats people in those groups better than all the other politicans do. Most politicians just ignore them."

It wasn't clear if the writer realized what a sad comment that was on the Toronto left.
 
Yeah. Pretty much.

That's still quite vague. Qubecers are united by a language but also an ethnicity and history as "Qubecois". To my knowledge they don't share too much kinship with the french from New Brunswick or Ontario and it's definitely vice-versa on that.

"English Canadians" are of any numerous ethnicity. If we're talking pre-modern multiculturalism, you still have those who are English, Scottish, Irish, various eastern European groups who played big roles in settling the west.

I don't see an analogy to quebec unless canada somehow limits its migration to perhaps English or British at most.
 
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