MAKING AN IMMIGRANT NATION: The Fall of British Vancouver and the Rise of ‘Pacific’ Canada. Multiculturalism calls upon Canadians to ‘never again view Canada as a white [or] a British country’.
Ever since Canada was officially designated a multicultural nation during the prime ministership of Pierre Elliot Trudeau in the 1970s the age-old British character of this nation has been under relentless assaults. Multiculturalism promulgates the equality of all races, religions and cultures; accordingly, it demands a Canada in which no particular ethnic group has a privileged position in the nation’s history and culture. Will Kymlicka, the most prominent scholar and salesperson of Canadian multiculturalism, sums up succinctly what it all entails: ‘Adopting multiculturalism is a way for Canadians to say that never again will we view Canada as a “white”’ country … as a “British” country (and hence compel non-British immigrants to relinquish or hide their ethnic identity).’ Non-British immigrants can retain and affirm their ethnic identity; they have a ‘distinctive group identity’, which must be protected ‘from the impact’ of the ‘dominant’ white culture.
Of course, multiculturalism is always presented to the public through rose-tinted glasses as a pluralistic philosophy dedicated to the prevention of discriminatory acts and xenophobic feelings. Immigrants should have the opportunity to celebrate their heritages and religious beliefs as well as being encouraged to see themselves as members of a wider liberal-democratic culture. But multiculturalism contains a negation within its very essence. It protects the group rights of non-Western peoples while simultaneously denying the host (Western) nation any group rights of its own. The host culture is seen as a neutral site characterized by its provision of individual rights, which apply to everyone, and of group rights, which apply only to non-whites. The Anglo-French founders are mandated to be ethnically neutral and historically disinterested; representatives of certain deracinated values that belong to ‘humanity.’ While multicultural ideologues implicitly recognize that minorities have deep attachment to their ethnic backgrounds, and, in this vein, recognize that humans do have a natural love of their own heritage and ethnicity; they call upon whites to practice historical amnesia and pretend they were not the creators of Canada’s institutions, parliamentary traditions, and common law. The historical fact that Canada was built as a nation state around a founding ethnic core must be discarded and hidden from students.
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