Multiculturalism: Retrospect and Prospect

0 JOURNAL OF CANADIAN STUDIES ~ Editor Associate Editor Editorial Committee Managing Editor Business Manager French Language Advisor Editorial Board JOHN WADLAND MICHAEL PETERMAN HARVEY McCUE JAMES PAGE JAMES STRUTHERS ARLENE DAVIS MARGARET PEARCE TERENCE MELLORS DAYID CAMERON WALLACE CLEMENT RALPH HEINTZMAN MARGARET LAURENCE JACQUES MONET, S.J. W.F.W. NEVILLE DONALD Y. SMILEY DENIS SMITH T.H.B. SYMONS W.E. TAYLOR DONALD F. THEALL CLARA THOMAS MELVILLE H . WATKINS ALAN WILSON REVUE D'ETUDES CANADIENNES Directeur Directeur adjoin! Comite executif Gerante de la redaction Administration Conseiller de languefranraise Comite de redaction Multiculturalism: Retrospect and Prospect series on CBC television. Ten years have passed since the federal government officially committed itself to a policy of promoting multiculturalism within a bilingual framework. Much has been accomplished within that decade. Ethnic heritage festivals are now a familiar feature in many Canadian cities; multicultural broadcasting and ethnic archives exist on a limited scale; histories of six major Canadian ethnic groups have appeared in the federallyfunded "Generations" series and more are on the way; tentative steps have been taken to increase awareness of multiculturalism within the school system and, to a lesser extent, within the media, as evidenced by the recent "Newcomers" Most impressive has been the explosion of academic research into ethnicity. As Norman Buchignani points out in this issue, the number of research papers produced for the meetings of the Canadian Ethnic Studies and Canadian Asian Studies associations alone during the last decade "exceeds the total Canadian output on ethnicity prior to 1970.'' Buchignani and Howard Palmer, in their surveys of social science and historical writing on ethnicity, list eighty-eight scholarly books published on cultural minorities in Canada since 1971. A country with only a "very meagre" quantity of research in this field at the end of the Journal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 17, No. 1(Printemps1982 Spring) 3 1960s is, according tb Buchignani, well on its way to developing a ''national literature... [that] will be large by world standards" in a decade's time. These are impressive accomplishments . While the reasons behind this increase are complex, there can be no doubt that official support for multiculturalism has played an important role. Despite these positive developments, the articles in this issue reveal that much controversy and confusion still surround the objectives of multiculturalism as a policy, while wide gaps exist in our understanding of the significance of ethnicity in Canadian life. With respect to the policy, all the contributors agree that multiculturalism's most important achievement has been at the symbolic level. By providing official sanction and support to the celebration of ethnic diversity, Ottawa has encouraged members of Canada's non-British and non-French minorities, if they so choose, to retain rather than abandon their cultural heritage in private life. At the same time, the very existence of a multiculturalism policy has itself legitimized the claims of these minorities to public funds and public consideration, as Evelyn Kallen points out. After this, consensus breaks down. How valid are these claims? How much funding should minority groups receive and for what types of programmes? Who are the legitimate representatives of Canada's ethnic communities? And most importantly, what should be the boundaries of minority group rights within Canadian liberal democracy? Attempts to answer these questions raise a host of contradictions. At the philosophical level, the answers in part depend upon the importance one attaches to diversity itself. Does too much stress upon ethnic particularism, Freda Hawkins asks, threaten the principles of universality and individual rights which bind together liberal democracies; or do the ''irreducible'' differences which separate ethnic identities, as Lionel Rubinoff asserts, form the essence of any "authentic nationalism"? Is there a trade-off between ethnic and national· identification or can individuals, as John Berry and Rudolf Kalin argue, "nest" their identities 4 within concentric rings so that loyalty to one's ethnic community reinforces loyalty to Canada as a whole? If the goal of multiculturalism is the celebration and preservation of diversity, to what extent should Canadian society itself be re-structured to facilitate this end through the recognition of ethnic minority rights in the school system, the workplace, the social services, government and the media? Can multiculturalism...