I think Canada is the great experiment,” says Johanne Mednick Myles. “You can see it in how we welcome immigrants and in our multicultural policies.” Mednick Myles, co-author with Tuula Lindholm of the book Navigating the Intercultural Classroom, designs English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for immigrants. Like many Canadians, she sees diversity as a key strength, saying that “people here have the right to live in a culturally appropriate way, according to their culture”.
Canada’s policy of multiculturalism is closely connected to the country’s history. It is a history of an indigenous (sometimes called Aboriginal) population, colonial rule, exploitation and the attempt in the 1960s and 1970s to create a structure to help a culturally and ethnically diverse country function better.
Back in 1867, British dominance over the country had been formally recognized, when French-speaking Quebec became part of the new country of Canada via the British North America Act. This united New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and “Canada” (the provinces of Ontario and Quebec) to form a self-governing Canada within the British Empire.
A century later, the contradictions and injustices resulting from colonialism had failed to provide a functioning society that adequately took into account the country’s cultural diversity. The dominance of the English-speaking population was a major problem. So was the related issue of francophone nationalism, most obviously in French-speaking Quebec. At the same time, increasing levels of immigration added to the sense that the reality of cultural diversity was not matched by official policy.
The government of Pierre Trudeau, father of today’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, implemented policies that have shaped the country ever since. In 1969, Trudeau created a federal ministry of multiculturalism, and the Official Languages Act gave the French language equal status with English. The result was not only greater protection of French culture, but citizens would also have better job prospects — in the civil service, for example — if they could speak both English and French. This, however, was not enough for the country as a whole.
No official culture
John Murray Gibbon’s 1938 book Canadian Mosaic: The Making of a Northern Nation had provided an early critique of the US concept of assimilation, the so-called melting pot. An alternative was officially adopted in 1971 and the 1988 Canadian Multiculturism Act publicly acknowledged that Canada was a richly diverse tapestry, home to people of various cultures and backgrounds. Or, as Trudeau said: “Although there are two official languages, there is no official culture.”
Five decades later, Canada is a changed country. “Two of my kids went to French immersion schools, so all their schooling was in French,” says Mednick Myles, a native speaker of English. And although it is far from perfect, the status of the indigenous population has become much more secure. The 2016 census counted 1.67 million “Aboriginal” people in Canada, 4.9 per cent of the total population. This group is made up mainly of First Nations, Métis and Inuit, and more than 70 Aboriginal languages are spoken. There are many self-governing agreements with different indigenous groups. And, nowadays, says Mednick Myles, everyone expects that “before a conference presentation or theatre performance, for example, there is always an introduction saying: ‘We are situated on indigenous land’”
Opinion surveys regularly show that the public supports Canada’s policy of multiculturalism. “In our early research in the 1970s, we found that about two-thirds of people approved of the various acts of legislation to create and maintain diversity,” explains John Berry, emeritus professor of psychology at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. “That percentage support is now up at around 80 per cent and there has been no backlash.”
Although its multiculturalism policy appears to be successful, Canada is not free from racism, neither towards immigrants nor towards its Aboriginal population. As the 2019 “Indigenous Economic Progress Report” notes, there is an Aboriginal “overrepresentation in low-paying jobs, higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment than their non-indigenous counterparts”.
The country as a whole has been spared populists such as Donald Trump in the US, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Andrzej Duda in Poland — or even Boris Johnson in the UK. Says Berry: “When I’m in Europe, I tell people that in our Canadian federal elections, there is virtually no voice questioning the importance and success of immigration, or the success or importance of multiculturalism. It’s just not an issue.”
Trudeau’s contradictions
Although multiculturalism is widely accepted, Canada faces challenges in other areas, including how to diversify from an economy still too focused on extraction industries. The country has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and oil and gas account for more than ten per cent of its GDP, directly employing more 282,000 people in 2018, and creating, indirectly, 550,500 jobs. In an almost comical display of cognitive dissonance in June 2019, the day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a climate emergency, he announced a major new oil pipeline.
Like many other countries, Canada’s economy initially suffered badly following the world financial crisis of 2007–8, although its more regulated financial system was not as badly hit as that of the US. A decade after the financial crash, the country’s economic progress has been steady rather than spectacular. Canada’s economy was also hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, shrinking by around 2.1 per cent in the first three months of 2020.
In 2018, Canada joined the US and Mexico in signing a new agreement, a successor to the original NAFTA deal of 1994 (scrapped by US President Trump). Canada also signed a trade deal (CETA) with the EU in 2016, which immediately removed 98 per cent of EU tariffs on Canadian goods. The EU is Canada’s second-largest trading partner, and the aim of the trade deal is easier market access for goods and services, greater transparency and investment protection.
The EU represents just ten per cent of Canada’s trade in goods, however. Almost 75 per cent of Canada’s exports went to the US in 2019 and 63.9 per cent of its imports came from the US. Yvonne Denz, vice president of the Canadian- German Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Toronto, recognizes the limits of CETA, but is optimistic about its potential.
“The EU deal was a great signal,” she says. She points to Canada’s strengths, its production of “pulses, wheat, durum and its mineral resources”, and highlights areas such as artificial intelligence, in which “Canada is punching above its weight, with two significant hubs, Montreal and Toronto”.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, despite his popularity in Europe, has not been immune from criticism at home. He was only narrowly re-elected as prime minister in October 2019, and was criticized in May 2020 for announcing a reported Can$ 14 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. A year earlier, Trudeau had strongly criticized the Gulf state’s human rights record.
Despite such contortions, Canada appears to be in a much more advantageous position than many other developed nations. Challenges remain, not least relating to environmental issues, the need to increase equality and improve life chances for minority groups. But to date, arguably helped by its official policy of multiculturalism, the “great experiment” that is Canada has been spared the social, cultural and ethnic tensions seen in many other countries — most clearly at present in the US.