A rchive Date
[ 20-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[The Great Mosaic
At last we're free to be unhyphenated Canadians
By HARRY BRUCE - The Issues Network
Monday, February 14, 2000
A group carries a quilt made of provincial flags and flags of various countries during the Canada Day parade in Montreal on Thursday, July 1, 1999. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson) |
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HALIFAX - At the risk of having people despise me, I say, "I am a proud Canadian." The reason it has taken me 65 years to discover this is that I've been a victim of what Professor Rhoda Howard-Hassmann of McMaster University, Hamilton, calls a multicultural "conspiracy" to repress Canada's distinctive ethnic character. The plot, she says, has been so successful that, "Saying, 'I'm a proud Canadian' is a little bit despised."
Howard-Hassmann argues that both public policy and academic analysis have long insisted the ethnic identity of Canadians must be that of their ancestors and has prevented us from recognizing that there really is "such a thing as an ethnic Canadian."
Writing in the current issue of Canadian Public Policy, and excluding Quebec and aboriginals from her case, she argues that English-speaking Canadians - whether newly arrived from India or third-generation descendants of Irish immigrants - can all claim to be ethnic Canadians, bound by a common history, territory, language and style of living. Trouble is, strident champions of multiculturalism have brow-beaten us into believing we have no ethnic identity, or shutting up about it for fear of being branded racists.
"Why is it so unpopular to say that Canadians are an ethic group in their own right?" the professor asks. "Instead, we're encouraged to say we don't have an identity unless we can pinpoint coming from somewhere else."
This wasn't always the case. About Cape Breton Islanders, a middle-aged character in Linden McIntyre's new novel, The Long Stretch, says, "Now you hear them going on about roots and connections. Placing tartans and bagpipes in obvious places to fool the tourists. The way I remember it, though, the old people in our family couldn't have cared less. They'd say where they got to was more important than where they came from."
The idea that Canada was a cultural mosaic, superior to the American melting pot, arose in the 1920s, but it was not until the 1970s that the federal government turned our nation into the first in the world with an official multiculturalism policy. The feds then poured buckets of money into ethnic festivals, carnivals, histories, and other programs that encouraged Greek immigrants, to take but one example, to think the Canadian thing to do was to settle down in Canada but remain as thoroughly Greek as they could possibly be.
Putting the best face on the policy, it discouraged racism by celebrating diversity. Putting a less idealistic face on it, it was an attempt to draw attention to a huge population that descended from neither of the so-called founding races of white settlers, and thereby to reduce the drama of the friction between anglophones and francophones. Putting the worst face on it, it bribed ethnics to vote Liberal in federal elections.
Oddly, it's often the most recent immigrants who insist on being seen not as members of ethnic minorities, but as Canadians, period. Having interviewed dozens in Hamilton, Howard-Hassmann reported, "Many said, 'Of course I'm Canadian.' Some were very insistent - whether black or Indian - that they were Canadian, and they wanted that recognized."
An articulate enemy of official multiculturalism, novelist Neil Bissoondath, born in Trinidad but proud as punch to be Canadian, says, "By sanctifying the mentality of the mosaic-tile, we have succeeded in creating mental ghettos for the various communities. One's sense of belonging to the larger Canadian landscape is tempered by a loyalty to a different cultural or racial heritage."
"I was born and bred in this amazing land," Laura Sabia, Ontario politician and fierce feminist, said more then 20 years ago. "I've always considered myself a Canadian, nothing more, nothing less, even though my parents were from Italy. How come we have all acquired a hyphen? We have allowed ourselves to become divided along the line of ethnic origins, under the pretext of the 'Great Mosaic.' A dastardly deed has been imposed on Canadians by politicians whose motto is 'divide and rule.' I am a Canadian first and foremost. Don't hyphenate me."
While touting Canada's home-grown ethnicity, Howard-Hassmann said she didn't want Canadians to adopt "the kind of gung-ho nationalism we see in the U.S," but surely a dose of Yankee-style patriotism would be good for us.
Our politicians are forever bragging that Canada is the most culturally diverse nation on the face of the earth, but it's also a nation of squabbling regions, parochial demands, divided loyalties, and selfish folk who don't give a pinch of beaver dung about the well-being of their fellow Canadians on the other side of the river, mountain, prairie, or great lake.
I want a Canada in which every citizen's first public loyalty is to the whole nation. I want a Canada in which--despite the feds' misguided multiculturalism policy of the past three decades - we all know that where we've got to is a heck of a lot more important than where we've come from. |
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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