THE ANNUAL COUCHICHING 2007 CONFERENCE
“The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity Work”
August 9–12, 2007
Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs
250 Consumers Road, Suite 301
Willowdale, Ontario M2J 4V6
Tel: 416 494 1440
Fax: 416 494 8723
Email: couch@couch.ca
Web: www. couch.ca
THE ANNUAL COUCHICHING 2007 CONFERENCE
“The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity Work”
August 9–12, 2007
Report submitted by the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs
to the Department of Canadian Heritage
December 31, 2007
Contents
Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................ 1
Résumé ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity Work ......................................................................................... 5
Thursday’s Discussions ........................................................................................................................ 6
Friday’s Discussions ............................................................................................................................. 7
Saturday’s Discussions ....................................................................................................................... 12
Sunday’s Discussions.......................................................................................................................... 17
Closure ................................................................................................................................................ 20
Appendix A: Session Transcripts ................................................................................................................. 22
Introductory Panel: Uneasy Partners................................................................................................... 22
Opening Keynote Address: The Challenge of Diversity..................................................................... 28
Canada — Who Shall We Be?............................................................................................................ 38
Diversity and Security: Diverse Threats to Security? ......................................................................... 51
Are Canadian Institutions Adapting to Diversity? .............................................................................. 58
Putting Diverse Talents to Work......................................................................................................... 75
Is There a Mainstream Canadian Culture?.......................................................................................... 88
What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders? ............................................................. 102
Closing Keynote: Where Do We Go from Here? ............................................................................. 116
Appendix B: Speakers’ Presentations......................................................................................................... 124
Sophie Body-Gendrot: Is Diversity a Threat to Society?.................................................................. 124
Farouk Shamas Jiwa: Notes for “What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders?”...... 130
Marie McAndrew: Reasonable Accommodation: Foundations, Guidelines and Issues.................... 135
Ratna Omidvar: Remarks at the Couchiching 2007 Conference....................................................... 139
Irvin Studin: What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders?....................................... 145
Appendix C: Speaker and Moderator Biographies ..................................................................................... 152
Michael Adams ................................................................................................................................. 152
Joan Andrew ..................................................................................................................................... 152
James Bartleman ............................................................................................................................... 153
Sophie Body-Gendrot ....................................................................................................................... 153
Marie Clements................................................................................................................................. 154
Drew Fagan....................................................................................................................................... 154
Chrystia Freeland .............................................................................................................................. 155
Alden Habacon ................................................................................................................................. 155
Lawrence Hill ................................................................................................................................... 156
Farouk Shamas Jiwa ......................................................................................................................... 156
Will Kymlicka................................................................................................................................... 157
Veronica Lacey ................................................................................................................................. 157
Kate Lines ......................................................................................................................................... 158
Audrey Macklin ................................................................................................................................ 158
Marie McAndrew.............................................................................................................................. 158
Zarqa Nawaz ..................................................................................................................................... 159
Ratna Omidvar .................................................................................................................................. 159
Pierre Pettigrew................................................................................................................................. 159
Tariq Ramadan.................................................................................................................................. 160
Haroon Siddiqui ................................................................................................................................ 160
Janice Gross Stein ............................................................................................................................. 161
Irvin Studin ....................................................................................................................................... 161
Bob Watts ......................................................................................................................................... 161
Milton Wong..................................................................................................................................... 162
Nora Young....................................................................................................................................... 162
The Annual Couchiching 2007 Conference
“The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity Work”
August 9–12, 2007
Executive Summary
The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs chose the topic of “The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity
Work” for its 2007 annual conference on August 9–12. The four-day conference brought together a wellrounded selection of speakers with a diverse group of delegates that ranged from students and young
Canadians to professionals and bureaucrats and interested citizens to retired civil servants and teachers
from across the country. They came to Couchiching to explore the topics of social cohesion, pluralism,
intercultural dialogue and the rapidly changing demographic profile of Canada over the coming two or
three decades. The conference examined these issues in the contexts of education, social policy,
institutional transformation and arts policy, in an informal, relaxed setting that promoted a free and frank
discussion of the issues that define public discourse in Canada — a country that has among the highest
rates of immigration from the greatest variety of countries in the world.
The conference opened with a special youth forum, in which the recipients of the awards from the Kurt
Swinton Memorial Fund, the Aczèl Fund and the Fresh Minds Fund engaged in wide-ranging discussions
about the themes of the conference — maintaining a core set of values and cultural harmony in an
increasingly diverse Canadian society — led by Janice Gross Stein, Belzberg Professor of Conflict
Management and Director of the Munk Centre for International Studies in the University of Toronto,
Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the Toronto Star, and Will Kymlicka, Canada Research
Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University. These three individuals, all contributors to the recently
published book Uneasy Partners: Multiculturalism and Rights in Canada, then carried the discussions
further in an introductory plenary session that explored the conflict between equality rights and the
implementation of multiculturalism policy in Canada.
This introductory session was followed by the keynote address on Thursday evening by Tariq Ramadan,
senior research fellow at Oxford University. Ramadan set the standard high for the discussions to come
over the next three days by addressing the changes that society has gone through and the challenges of
diversity, not only within Canada but also in considering Canada’s place in the world.
Friday started with a discussion of Canada’s intercultural and multicultural nature and shared values:
“Canada: Who Shall We Be?” Will Kymlicka as well as Michael Adams, president of Environics Research
Group, and Veronica Lacey of the Learning Partnership discussed immigration policy frameworks,
demographics and diversity in the school system. At lunch, Joan Andrew, deputy minister of Ontario’s
Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, extended the discussion to talk about credentialling and skills
development. Then, in Couchiching tradition, delegates and speakers alike formed discussion groups under
the trees to discuss various topics among themselves: working skills development, the limits of tolerance,
diversity in government and in the justice system, the economics of immigration, diversity in the media,
and so on.
The evening session tackled the topic of security, public safety and the freedom to express one’s own
identity. The discussion was begun by Audrey Macklin from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law,
Sophie Body-Gendrot, a professor from the Université Sorbonne, and Ontario Provincial Police chief
superintendent Kate Lines, and was moderated by the North American managing editor of the Financial
Times, Christia Freeland. As always, the discussion developed into an exchange with the audience as
delegates lined up to ask questions, explore ideas and challenge the speakers.
On Saturday, the focus shifted from an examination of who Canadians are to how we manage diversity. In
the morning, Ratna Omidvar, executive director of The Maytree Foundation and chair of the board of
Toronto Regional Immigration Employment Council, Marie McAndrew of the Université de Montréal and
Bob Watts of the Residential Schools Commission and former Chief of Staff to the National Chief of the
Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs 2007 Report
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Assembly of First Nations talked about the response of Canadian institutions and businesses to the
changing society and reasonable accommodation.
After lunch, in a session titled “Putting Diverse Talents to Work,” Milton Wong, chancellor emeritus of
Simon Fraser University and chair of HSBC Asset Management Canada, and Alden Habacon, CBC’s
Manager of Diversity Initiatives, engaged in a lively discussion about the cultural makeup of the Canadian
workforce and the interplay between technology and cultural identity. Then, once again, delegates and
speakers formed discussion groups to work through the ideas and challenges brought out in the plenary
sessions.
Saturday evening’s topic posed the question of whether a mainstream Canadian culture exists and defines
us. CBC Radio’s Nora Young moderated a freewheeling discussion among four of the country’s most
accomplished figures, representing various facets of the arts: Marie Clements, artistic director and producer
of urban ink productions and playwright in residence at the National Arts Centre, George Jonas, writer,
poet and journalist, Zarqa Nawaz, creator of the hit TV series Little Mosque on the Prairie and producer of
Fundamentalist Films, and award-winning novelist Lawrence Hill.
On Sunday morning, the fifth Couchiching Award for Excellence in Public Policy Leadership was awarded
to Preston Manning. As the founder of two national parties that changed the face of federal politics in
Canada, Manning has had a profound impact on public policy, not to mention politics.
Following the award presentation, the conference looked outside Canada to consider the notion of
citizenship in a world with fluid borders and decreased emphasis on the nation-state. Moderator Drew
Fagan, assistant deputy minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, opened the
discussion by talking about Canada’s diaspora. Former foreign minister Pierre Pettigrew followed with a
lively discussion with Farouk Shamas Jiwa, a Global Youth Fellow of the Walter and Gordon foundation,
and Irvin Studen, author of What Is Canadian? 43 Responses.
The closing remarks were made by the Honourable James Bartleman, Ontario’s lieutenant governor. His
comments ranged from a portrayal of his childhood in a family with both aboriginal and Scottish roots
struggling to get by in an unintegrated Ontario to his experiences as high commissioner to South Africa, to
his achievements and aspirations as lieutenant governor. In a fitting end to the conference, Bartleman
pointed to areas where change can happen: improving literacy rates, recognizing the sub-standard living
conditions in aboriginal communities here in Canada, improving governance models and finding ways to
reconcile communities and cultures to instill pride in being Canadian.
Thus ended four days of invigorating, stimulating and wide-ranging discussions that touched on some of
the most fundamental questions facing Canada today. The conference raised some major issues about
assumptions and perceptions about Canadian society, raising awareness about the possible tensions
between those who have arrived recently in Canada and those who arrived some time ago. Delegates
brought their own personal experiences to the discussion groups, dinner table conversations, the plenary
sessions and the cocktail receptions. In true Couchiching tradition, they left with many questions still
unasked, but many new perspectives from which to draw on to find answers, for Couchiching conferences
do not strive for consensus or a single viewpoint.
Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs 2007 Report
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Conférence annuelle 2007 du Couchiching Institute
« L’étranger d’à côté : réussir la diversité »
9-12 août 2007
Résumé
La conférence 2007 du Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs avait pour thème
« L’étranger d’à côté : réussir la diversité ». Cette conférence de quatre jours, du 9 au 12 août, a réuni une
liste d’éminents conférenciers et un groupe éclectique de délégués parmi lesquels des étudiants, de jeunes
Canadiens, des professionnels, des bureaucrates et des citoyens concernés ainsi que des fonctionnaires et
des enseignants retraités de partout au pays. Leur présence à la conférence du Couchiching visait à explorer
les défis liés à la cohésion sociale, au pluralisme, au dialogue entre les cultures, et au profil démographique
du Canada rapidement changeant au cours des deux ou trois prochaines décennies. La conférence a abordé
ces questions sous l’angle de l’éducation, de la politique sociale, de la métamorphose institutionnelle et de
la politique des arts. Un cadre informel et détendu a favorisé la tenue de discussions franches et libres sur
les enjeux qui définissent le discours public au Canada — un pays qui compte parmi les taux d’immigration
les plus élevés en provenance d’une très grande variété de pays.
La conférence a commencé par un forum spécial jeunes, au cours duquel les lauréats du Kurt Swinton
Memorial Fund, du Aczèl Fund et du Fresh Minds Fund, ont pris part à de vastes débats sur les thèmes de
la conférence — conserver un ensemble de valeurs et une harmonie culturelle au sein d’une société
canadienne de plus en plus diversifiée — animés par Janice Gross Stein, titulaire de la chaire Belzberg en
gestion de conflits et directrice du Centre d’études internationales Munk de l’Université de Toronto, par
Haroon Siddiqui, éditorialiste et rédacteur émerite au Toronto Star, et Will Kymlicka, titulaire de la Chaire
de recherche du Canada en philosophie politique de l’Université Queen’s. Tous les trois ont collaboré au
livre récemment publié Uneasy Partners: Multiculturalism and Rights in Canada, et ont approfondi le
débat lors d’une séance plénière liminaire au cours de laquelle il a été question de la lutte pour les droits à
l’égalité et de la mise en œuvre d’une politique du multiculturalisme au Canada.
Cette séance s’est suivie le jeudi soir d’un discours liminaire de Tariq Ramadan, chargé de recherche à
l’Université d’Oxford. M. Ramadan a placé la barre très haut pour les débats qui ont eu lieu les trois jours
suivants, en traitant des changements auxquels la société devait se soumettre et des enjeux liés à la
diversité, non seulement au Canada, mais aussi en examinant la place du Canada sur l’échiquier mondial.
La journée de vendredi a commencé par un débat sur l’aspect interculturel et multiculturel du Canada ainsi que sur
ses valeurs communes : « Le Canada : Qui devrions-nous être? ». Will Kymlicka et Michael Adams, président
d’Environics Research Group, et Veronica Lacey de Partenariat en éducation, ont débattu des cadres de politique
sur l’immigration, de démographie et de diversité au sein du système scolaire. Pendant le dîner, Joan Andrew,
sous-ministre des Affaires civiques et de l’Immigration de l’Ontario, a prolongé le débat en abordant la question
du perfectionnement des compétences et de la reconnaissance des titres de compétences étrangers. Par la suite,
dans la plus pure tradition du Couchiching, les délégués et les conférenciers ont formé des groupes de discussion
dans un cadre discret pour parler entre eux de différents sujets : le perfectionnement des compétences
professionnelles, les limites de la tolérance, la diversité au sein du gouvernement et du système judiciaire, les
aspects économiques de l’immigration, la diversité dans les médias, et ainsi de suite.
Lors de la séance nocturne, il a été question de sécurité, de sécurité publique et de liberté d’exprimer sa
propre identité. Le débat a été mené par Audrey Macklin de la faculté de droit de l’Université de Toronto,
par Sophie Body-Gendrot, professeure à la Sorbonne, et par Kate Lines, surintendante en chef de la Police
provinciale de l’Ontario, et animé par Christia Freeland, rédactrice en chef (Amérique du Nord) du
Financial Times. Comme à l’accoutumée, le débat a évolué en échanges avec le public à mesure que des
délégués se mettaient en ligne pour poser des questions, examiner des idées et remettre en question les
conférenciers.
Le samedi, les discussions sont passées de l’étude des Canadiens à la manière dont nous gérons la diversité.
Le samedi matin, Ratna Omidvar, directrice générale de la Fondation Maytree et présidente du conseil
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d’administration du Toronto Regional Immigration Employment Council (TRIEC), Marie McAndrew,
titulaire de la chaire du Canada sur l’éducation et les rapports ethniques à l’Université de Montréal, et
Bob Watts, directeur général par intérim de la Commission relative aux pensionnats et ancien directeur de
cabinet du Chef national de l’Assemblée des Premières Nations, ont parlé de la réponse des institutions et
des entreprises canadiennes à la société en évolution ainsi que des questions d’accommodements
raisonnables au Québec et ailleurs.
Après le dîner, lors d’une séance intitulée « Mettre à profit la diversité des talents », Milton Wong,
chancelier émérite de l’Université Simon Fraser et président de HSBC Asset Management Canada, et
Alden Habacon, qui s’occupe des mesures relatives à la diversité au réseau anglais de Radio-Canada, ont
participé à une discussion animée sur la transformation culturelle de la main-d’œuvre canadienne et
l’interaction entre les technologies et l’identité culturelle. Par la suite, les délégués et les conférenciers ont
de nouveau formé des groupes de discussion afin de mener à bien les idées et les enjeux évoqués lors des
séances plénières.
Le thème abordé le samedi soir portait sur la question de l’existence d’une culture canadienne traditionnelle
et si celle-ci nous définissait. Nora Young, du réseau anglais de Radio-Canada, a animé un débat libre entre
quatre des figures les plus éminentes au pays, représentant différentes facettes des arts : Marie Clements,
directrice artistique et productrice des Productions urban ink et du programme des Dramaturges en
résidence au Centre national des arts, George Jonas, écrivain, poète et journaliste, Zarqa Nawaz, créateur de
la célèbre série télévisée Little Mosque on the Prairie et producteur de Fundamentalist Films, et Lawrence
Hill, romancière primée.
Le dimanche matin, le cinquième prix Couchiching Award for Excellence in Public Policy Leadership fut
décerné à Preston Manning. Fondateur de deux partis nationaux qui ont changé le visage de la politique
fédérale au Canada, M. Manning a profondément marqué la politique publique, sans parler de la vie
politique en général.
Après la remise du prix d’excellence, le débat a transcendé les frontières du Canada pour étudier la notion
de citoyenneté dans un monde où les frontières sont fluides et où l’on accorde moins d’importance à l’Étatnation. Drew Fagan, sous-ministre adjoint des Affaires étrangères et du Commerce international, a lancé le
débat en parlant de la diaspora canadienne. S’en est suivie une discussion animée entre Pierre Pettigrew,
ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères, Farouk Shamas Jiwa, Global Youth Fellow de la Walter and
Duncan Gordon Foundation, et Irvin Studin, auteur de What Is Canadian? 43 Responses.
C’est à l’honorable James Bartleman, lieutenant-gouverneur de l’Ontario, qu’est revenu le mot de la fin.
Ses commentaires allaient de l’évocation de son enfance dans sa famille d’origine autochtone et écossaise
se débrouillant de son mieux au sein d’une province de l’Ontario non intégrée, en passant par son
expérience en tant que haut-commissaire en Afrique du Sud, ou encore ses réalisations et ses aspirations à
titre de lieutenant-gouverneur. Pour terminer la conférence comme il convenait, M. Bartleman a cité des
domaines susceptibles de connaître des changements : accroître les taux d’alphabétisation, tenir compte des
conditions de vie inférieures à la normale qui sont celles des communautés autochtones ici, au Canada,
améliorer les modèles de gouvernance, et trouver des solutions pour rapprocher les communautés et les
cultures et inculquer la fierté d’être Canadien.
C’est sur cette note que s’est achevée cette conférence de quatre jours émaillée de vastes débats stimulants
et passionnants qui ont porté sur certains des enjeux les plus pressants auxquels est confronté le Canada
aujourd’hui. Lors de la conférence ont été abordés quelques-uns des grands enjeux concernant les
hypothèses et les appréhensions à propos de la société canadienne, sensibilisant ainsi sur les tensions
pouvant exister entre les personnes qui sont arrivées dernièrement au Canada et celles qui sont arrivées il y
a déjà un certain temps. Les délégués ont fait part de leur expérience personnelle aux groupes de
discussion, lors de conversations à table, de séances plénières et de réceptions. Dans la plus pure tradition
du Couchiching Institute, ils sont partis, laissant derrière eux de nombreuses questions qu’ils n’ont pas pu
poser, mais avec une multitude de nouvelles perspectives dans lesquelles puiser pour trouver des réponses,
car les conférences du Couchiching ne visent pas un consensus ou un point de vue unique.
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The Stranger Next Door: Making Diversity Work
The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs brought together a diverse group of speakers, moderators and
participants at its 2007 conference from August 9 to 12, 2007, entitled “The Stranger Next Door: Making
Diversity Work,” to address issues of social cohesion, pluralism, intercultural dialogue and the rapidly
changing demographic profile of Canada over the coming two to three decades. The conference examined
the challenges in the realms of education, social policy, institutional transformation and arts policy. It
looked closely at those issues that define public discourse in Canada, a discourse that must take into
account the history of a country founded by three great, but very different, cultural groups (aboriginal,
French and English), and a country that today has among the highest rates of immigration, with the greatest
variety in source countries, in the world. (See transcripts in Appendix A and presenters’ papers in
Appendix B.)
The conference was a success, as judged by the vast majority of the more than 260 participants, including
some 40 students and young Canadians from a cross-section of Canadian universities, 27 principal speakers
who were experts in fields such as the law or the media, such as social sciences or the corporate and
business world. More than 70% of the presenters came from cultural backgrounds of identifiable Canadian
minorities, and more than half of those from visible minorities (see Appendix C). Their presentations,
sometimes as keynotes, sometimes on panels, were followed by vigorous question-and-answer periods. The
speakers and moderators for the 12 separate sessions, which took place over three full days and four
evenings, represented a range of organizations and backgrounds, with academic experts from the Université
de Montréal, the University of Toronto, Queen’s University, the Sorbonne and Oxford University,
government experts from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canadian
Heritage, the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, the City of Toronto’s diversity office, as well as
the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, a former minister of foreign affairs, the Assembly of First Nations and
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools, the diversity officer for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation’s English television service, aboriginal theatre groups, the originator and
principal writer from the award-winning CBC-TV program Little Mosque on the Prairie, a senior executive
from the corporate world, the chancellor of Simon Fraser University and several speakers from significant
non-governmental organizations and foundations.
In addition to the plenary sessions, each afternoon there were eight discussion groups led by moderators
from government (Human Resources and Social Development), business (Gowling Lafleur Henderson), the
arts community (Native Earth Performing Arts, VisionTV), the education sector (Colleges Integrating
Immigrants to Employment) and civil society organizations (YMCA, World University Service of Canada,
Knowledge Centre). The subjects varied, picking up the themes from the conference, such as the response
of Canadian institutions to diversity, as well as covering issues such as the limits of tolerance, the role of
the arts as well as the media in social cohesion, diversity in the government and judicial system, diversity
on Canadian university campuses and the process of integrating immigrants into the education system.
These groups were a rich opportunity to engage in a frank and open exploration of the ideas being
discussed from the auditorium stage and to benefit from the experiences and wisdom of all assembled
participants, delegates and speakers alike. And, thanks to the good weather, the discussions were held
outside on the grounds of Lake Geneva, on the shores of Lake Couchiching.
At least eight major articles in The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, the Orillia Packet and
Times and the Canadian Ethnic Media Association, covered the conference, broadcast in its entirely and
repeated several times through August, September and into October on the national public service channel,
CPAC. The conference is also available for viewing on demand at CPAC’s website.
In looking at diversity, social cohesion and citizenship, the 2007 Couchiching conference examined how the
country can create an inclusive society built on intercultural understanding and maintain a core set of values at a
time of such accelerating diversity. Is there such a thing as mainstream culture? What role do governments and
businesses play in drawing on the talents of such a multiplicity of cultures? What does patriotism mean in this new
world? Does diversity threaten security? What can we learn from our friends south of the border, or across the
Atlantic, in living together in harmony — and what can they learn from us?
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Thursday’s Discussions
Youth Forum and Introductory Panel: Uneasy Partners
The conference opened with a special Youth Forum convened for the recipients of Couchiching’s Kurt
Swinton, Aczèl and Fresh Minds scholarships. Issue-specific youth-driven discussion groups were led by
Janice Gross Stein, Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and Director of the Munk Centre for
International Studies in the University of Toronto, Haroon Siddiqui, editorial page editor emeritus of the
Toronto Star, and Will Kymlicka, Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University —
all three being contributors to the recently published Uneasy Partners: Multiculturalism and Rights in
Canada. Participants explored the conflict between equality rights and the implementation of
multiculturalism policy in contemporary Canada. This discussion was brought forward to a plenary session
entitled “Uneasy Partners,” which set a high standard and lively tone for the discussions to follow, covering
the issues of the friction between the rights of freedom of religion and equality, the impact of diversity on
social harmony, and immigration policy.
Opening Keynote Address: The Challenge of Diversity
The conference formally opened on Friday evening with a keynote address by Tariq Ramadan, senior
research fellow at Oxford University. He spoke about the changes that society has undergone, requiring
adaptation through discussion and political action. Because the differences among cultures are complex,
definitions and concepts themselves differ according to different cultural frames of reference. Ramadan
concluded that we sometimes must “change the words [themselves] to keep the meaning.”
He noted that globalization is challenging the self-identities of individuals and cultures, which in turn leads
us to question who we are and whether we are part of Canada, or part of Canada and the world. The influx
of new cultures leads to challenges from both sides. New Canadians must deal with different morals
imposed on them, while older Canadians must adjust to an increasing number of people of foreign
backgrounds and cultures. Both can react defensively and with a certain amount of fear, but what must be
realized is that these reactions are natural and that they are felt by both sides.
Ramadan suggested that this tension could be addressed by setting objectives to create peaceful societies
that also protect equality and the equality of rights. This, however, also means addressing the equality of
power, because economic opportunity and access to power are both essential to equality. In this context, we
can redefine the new “we” that is Canada as all the people striving together to create a peaceful society
where both equality and equal respect reign.
Ramadan talked about the duty of integration and the duty of consistency. The duty of integration is the
obligation both of a new citizen to learn the national language and culture in his or her new land, and of the
society and state to extend the education of new citizens beyond simply requiring conformity to the rule of
law. While we live in structured communities and, all members being equal, we must all obey the laws of
the land, societies are much more than that, and culture and history must be accounted for. A new citizen,
he said, cannot be truly free without knowing the national language.
The duty of consistency refers to the recognition that, despite the ideal of equal rights, racism,
discrimination and prejudice still exist at the grassroots level — and this situation is unacceptable. For
success, the duty of integration must be met with the duty of consistency.
Fear and inferiority remain significant problems, but the greatest problem is a lack of creativity. Creative
solutions are needed, and they can come in the form of poetry, movies, books and music. It is not a
situation of “you must integrate” but rather, “integrate yourself into the culture and language.” By doing
this, it will increase how well we know each other and with this knowledge will come the critical loyalty
that is necessary for true democracy.
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Other issues will contribute to a successful intercultural, socially cohesive society. Canadians must also
reassess their history in the education system, according to Ramadan, as the country was not built only by
white Canadians. And the responsibility of dealing with these issues must also fall on the media. A
disproportionate amount of coverage of events focuses on the problems and not the successes of
multiculturalism.
In terms of protection from terrorism, Ramadan said that terrorism cannot be dealt with by immigration
based on prejudice, nor is the solution to force integration. For progress in building trust with the Muslim
world, the West should first acknowledge that there is a lack of trust, governments must make it clear that
any form of racism is unacceptable and citizens must demand this from their governments, and there must
be equal opportunity for all people at the grassroots level. However, as he pointed out, this requires a
positive outlook and patience.
The next two generations will face challenging times, concluded Ramadan, but our job — and theirs — is
to make the situation better for all of us. Optimism should not be confused with naivety, but with
committed citizens we can work toward building the ultimate goal of “better living together.”
Friday’s Discussions
Canada: Who Shall We Be?
The opening plenary session on Friday morning determined that, to be able to talk intelligently about
diversity, social cohesion and citizenship in Canada, it was important to get the facts right, but also to
appreciate the profound contribution of Canadian thinkers to the global discussion of these issues. As with
all the sessions, there was a lively exchange between the speakers and the audience members, which
extended the presentations and brought more issues into the open.
Will Kymlicka said that there are three different policy frameworks, which he likened to silos, dealing with
three different types of diversity in Canada that have emerged historically at different times. The first silo is
for aboriginal peoples, including the issues of self-governance, rights and fiduciary trusts. The second silo
is the relationships between the two original colonial societies, the British and the French. The third silo is
groups that have their origin in Canada after it was established as a sovereign state. Together they make up
the Canadian model. All three are vital to the success of Canada and success is impossible unless all three
frameworks are working properly.
Canada has had a long history of immigration but people are expected to assimilate, said Kymlicka. Any
group seen as incapable of doing so was excluded from immigration to Canada. Canada has shifted from
racially restricted immigration to race-neutral immigration based on the point system. We also replaced
assimilation with the multiculturalism policy in 1971. Everyone should be free to participate in public life
without having to hide his or her ethnic identity. The core foundations of these three silos were put in place
in one decade — a period of intense liberalization in human rights in Canadian society. The transformation
of diversity policies must thus be seen as part of the larger process of liberalization and human rights
reform.
Kymlicka described the Canadian model, which, given our demography and history, accommodates
diversity and also acknowledges that colonization and institutions have historically privileged some groups.
We want to construct relations of equal citizenship. Canada’s constitution and the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms upholds the ideals of human rights and shared liberal ideals. Many think multiculturalism is
based on cultural relativism, but in fact this has nothing to do with the formation of the multiculturalism
policy in Canada. Newcomers are offered a set of rights that are available to them when they become
citizens.
These diversity policies can be seen as a kind of third wave of the human rights revolution, according to
Kymlicka. The first wave is decolonization at the international level. The second wave is the racial
desegregation movements that started in the United States. The third wave is a struggle for various kinds of
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recognition of diversity, around the world. These three waves are attempts to overcome legacies of earlier
racial and ethnic hierarchies that have been built into society for decades, if not centuries. Earlier relations
of hierarchy must be converted into relations of democratic citizenship. This process has implications for
how success is measured. If diversity policies are based on human rights and rooted in liberal democratic
values, what would count as success?
Kymlicka asserts that two tests should be applied: Are we making progress in creating equality across
ethnic, racial and religious lines? And are we protecting the rights of individuals within groups? We want
freedom within groups and equality among groups. We don’t want some members of groups to be able to
discriminate against other members of the group. Kymlicka thinks the rights of individuals are reasonably
well protected in Canada, but we are doing a mixed job with respect to creating equality across all lines.
Whatever our failings or incompleteness, those basic pillars put in place in the 1960s were the right ones,
and they are not reasons to reject those basic pillars that we built upon.
Michael Adams, president of Environics Research Group, said that understanding social change is very
important to understanding the trajectory that we are following. It is important not to look at all the things
that are going wrong; we also need some positive news about what is working. Canada wants to be a place
where people from all over the world can come, where people care about skills and not nations of origin.
Canada’s foreign-born population as a percentage of its total population is 19%. Between 1991 and 2000,
the majority of immigrants to Canada came from non-European countries.
The Greater Toronto Area receives 43% of all new immigrants every year, said Adams. Fourteen groups in
Toronto have more than 1% of the population in Toronto. The proportion of immigrants to Canada who
become naturalized is higher than in anywhere else in the world and is nearly double the next country. We
want them to be citizens, and they want to become citizens.
Adams explained that Canadian immigration policy requires that newcomers have certain qualifications,
and the first thing an immigrant does is look for a job and a place to live. Immigrating is a huge risk, and is
an enormous transition and sacrifice on the part of the individual. Yet although it is astounding that so
many newcomers still have enough energy left to get civically engaged, many are so caught up in trying to
survive that such civic engagement seems like a dream. We need to fight discrimination and help people
get jobs equal to their qualifications, and then their civic engagement and public participation will follow.
Canada is the only country with foreign-born representation in each of its political parties, according to
Adams. Indeed, the initial numbers show that people from different countries get involved in Canadian
politics. In the United States, many consider the idea of new Americans getting involved in politics as
ridiculous. But people who come to Canada know they need to be civically engaged. In fact, people are
elected here in areas that do not even reflect their ethnicity.
On the issue of ethnic-based political movements, Kymlicka said that compared to most other western
democracies, immigrants have been able to access mainstream political parties in Canada, and parties seek
support in immigrant ethnic groups. In some other countries, such as France, parties are willing to give up
the immigrant vote, but in Canada newcomers have not been excluded from the mainstream parties in such
a way as to make the rationale for the formation of ethnic-based political parties.
Adams pointed out that some researchers have made the claim that Canada does not have ethnic ghettos.
Italians in the 1980s were more ethnically concentrated than the Chinese today. Ethnic enclaves reflect selfselection. Groups that live in ethnic enclaves are more economically successful than those who do not.
Areas where we are not doing well are those where there are many different groups and they share their
poverty. However, most immigrants report improvements to their material lives after their immigration to
Canada, and 84% of new Canadians say that they would make the same decision again to immigrate to
Canada. Canadians are most likely of any G8 country to say that immigrants are good for the economy.
Canadians are least likely to say that immigrants commit more crime. Canadians are the most supportive of
immigration. Canadians are telling us that multiculturalism is increasingly central to our identity.
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Veronica Lacey, president and CEO of the Learning Partnership, said that people who have no children in
school make up 70% of the Canadian population. In a recent study, the Learning Partnership found that
Canadian children are doing very well in school, second to Finland in literacy and third to Japan and Korea
in math and science. However, because of rural depopulation, schools across Canada in rural environments
are getting smaller and are being closed. Furthermore, young people in rural schools are under-performing
compared to young people in urban environments. The school is the only public institution that brings
together people from so many different cultures, religions and races to learn how to be a Canadian, and
60% of Canadians believe that Canadian schools are effective in meeting the needs of immigrants.
In a city such as Toronto, with a broad linguistic diversity, many people feel that maintaining a common
educational standard requires fluency in English or French. However, according to Lacey, there is
insufficient funding for teaching English as a second language: it takes five years for a child to become
comfortable with a language. Because a child may be quite literate in a language other than English or
French, that child should be taught in his or her primary language.
Immigration is seen as having a bigger impact on education in Ontario, yet Ontarians are relatively more
likely to support resources to support aboriginal children. In the Prairies, the Learning Partnership found a
growing number of aboriginal people are seen to have the greatest impact on education, but support for
education of aboriginal children is average. The data indicate that more immigrants and visible minorities
pursue post-secondary education more than do Canadian-born youth. Yet when they get to the workplace,
there are fewer opportunities for them.
However, Lacey deplored the quality of aboriginal education. In Alberta or Saskatchewan only 25% of
students graduate from secondary school, and even lower in Iqaluit. In Canada, there is a group of children
who face greater hardship in the educational system than any other group — and this is a matter of concern
to all every single Canadian in the country. It is well known that a family’s socioeconomic background and
attitude toward education have a direct impact on the opportunities that young people seek for themselves.
In families that believe that education is the key to success, those children will succeed. In terms of the
aboriginal community, most young children live on reserves. People who live on the margins have the same
separation and identity crisis as other groups.
Lacey, whose background is in teaching, deplored the fact that Canada is the only country with no national
policy on education, although it is understandable given our political and cultural history. However, as a
result it is a struggle to find a common vision, and there are internal barriers in the educational system.
Recommendations for school boards dealing with visible minorities come into play only when there is a
crisis; otherwise they are forgotten. Our schooling must ensure that our visible minorities are taught by
teachers who look like them. They have to see themselves reflected as being successful. We need these
heroes in school.
With regard to faith-based education, Lacey warned that if attention is not paid to the demands of our
communities, they will form their own school systems and the public school system will become fractured.
The public school system should be the umbrella for all, so a model must be developed to allow individual
communities to identify their needs but subscribe to the values of the whole.
Lacey felt that, with her own experience both as a teacher and as an immigrant, Canada is the best place to
be, but it will take the will of everyone, not just the politicians, to say that these are our children — and
they are our future.
Unleashing All Our Diversity of Talents
Joan Andrew, Ontario’s deputy minister of Citizenship and Immigration of the Ontario government, gave a
lunchtime address on “unleashing all our diversity of talents,” from the perspective of Canada’s largest
provincial government. She told the conference about the emphasis that her ministry puts on what it sees as
some of Ontario’s greatest challenges: to continue the successful absorption of newcomers from all over the
world and to enable them to contribute all of their skills in a way that benefits both them and the wider
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Canadian society. The ministry is committed to several initiatives aimed at improving pathways for
immigrants to employment and social inclusion, including support for bridging initiatives such as the
Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council and Colleges Integrating Immigrants to Employment, and
to finding ways to recognize the professional credentials of people who received their training outside
Canada.
Following Andrew’s talk, participants formed discussion groups that looked at conference themes including
working skills development, the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, the limits of
tolerance, and diversity in the federal Cabinet and Supreme Court.
Diverse Threats to Security?
Friday evening’s plenary session examined the issue of diversity and security. It was moderated by Christia
Freeland, the managing editor of the North American bureau of the Financial Times, who contributed much
to the lively discussion. University of Toronto law professor Audrey Macklin led the discussion by
addressing the question of whether tensions exist in the relationship between security and diversity. The
first answer she gave was affirmative: diversity (such as race, religion or sexuality) can contribute to the
breakdown of social bounds, which therefore gives rise to insecurity so that the state must intervene, and so
there must be a focus on building social cohesion and generating trust in disparate social groups.
The second answer was more qualified. It is not diversity that is threatening to security, but specific entities
that are threatening. Thus, in a post–September 11 environment, the threat is often thought to refer to
Muslim men, and the question becomes one hinging on what threats Muslim men pose to security. This
question is uncomfortable and troubling, but if this is really the question, then we should deal with it
directly.
Macklin noted that there is a widespread, unstated framing of this issue: security requires giving up some
rights, or security can be bought with rights. For example, in the case of Maher Arar, the Syrian-born
Canadian who was deported by U.S. officials to his native country where he was tortured, human rights
were indeed violated and traded off for security concerns. Torture is a violation of the greatest human right,
that of one’s humanity. It is meant to break the individual as a human, reducing the person as a human
being. This case deals with the issue of legal citizenship. And in the case of Manickavasagam Suresh, the
Supreme Court was asked if a non-citizen could be deported even if the individual likely faced torture.
Suresh had entered Canada as a refugee but faced deportation because of suspected ties to the Tamil Tigers,
a group engaged in terrorist activities in his native Sri Lanka. The court concluded that deportation in such
circumstances was against Canada’s policy except in some unspecified cases.
When asked what rights could be given up for security, Macklin said there is no universally applicable
answer. There are only case-specific deviations for giving up human rights. In legal terms, the question is
always whether the surrender of rights is demonstrably justified. The response requires concrete evidence
of the need for the infringement on rights because the general concept of security does not legally count.
The answer “just trust us,” when coming from government or legal bodies, is not good enough.
Macklin also addressed torture. In order to be able to construct torture as acceptable, we first have to think
of the person as incorrigible. We must attribute that person with characteristics of irrationality, so that
individual is non-fully human. It thus becomes permissible to do things to that person, who is seen as not
fully human.
Another important consideration, according to Macklin, is access to information. In national security cases,
the Canadian government can refuse to disclose information to alleged terrorists, even if this infringes on
their ability to defend themselves legally because of security certificates against non-citizens. This was
evident during Arar’s inquiry, when information was not released to the public or other actors. Today it has
been revealed that the withheld information was not critical to national security but that, rather, it was
embarrassing to the government.
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The balance between rights and security is also a consideration in arbitrary detention. For example, in the
United States after September 11, several thousand people whose ethnic background was from several
countries with a Muslim majority were required to clarify their citizenship status. Many hundreds were
detained, even up to several years, but there was never determined to be a security issue with any of them.
Sophie Body-Gendrot from Paris’s Sorbonne University discussed the need for safety and the effect of the
media on the anxiety of the general population. She focused on urban life, because city spaces are generally
portrayed as theatres of unexpected violence, and asked two questions: Can a population be protected
without liberties being violated? How does the municipal level of government deal with threats to security?
Body-Gendrot said that we believe we think with words when, in fact, words think through us, and she
suggested reflecting on the word “security.” For example, the event of the murder of Theo Van Gogh, a
Dutch citizen, by a man of Middle Eastern background was culturally interpreted in the Netherlands as a
wound afflicted on Dutch society, so much so that the country’s belief in its multicultural values was
shattered and negative stereotypes about Muslims abounded.
People see the issue of “homegrown terrorism” as a collapse of the social contract, according to BodyGendrot. There is pressure on the government authorities to lock up these “others” and remove them from
the protection of the social contract. This punitive populism — a binary vision of us-versus-them — can be
seen in American gated communities. Emile Durkheim discussed this issue a century ago: when society
suffers, it seeks revenge against its fear, and the most easily found are those who are naturally already in
disfavour. These people become scapegoats.
In the case of the 2005 riots in France, Body-Gendrot said the young men who were burning cars were also
competing with each other to see who had burned more cars. This was similar to the violence of the Black
Panther movement in the United States. Even though some of their houses were ruined and their comrades
died, those at the centre of the movement felt vindicated because other people had seen them. Thus, it was
the media that made sense of this situation. Violence became contagious because of attention paid by the
media. During the 2007 French presidential campaign these riots were the elephant in the room, but the
result is visible ethnic diversity among the elected officials. The attorney general and the person in charge
of human rights, for example, are both visible minorities, and both women.
Body-Gendrot pointed out that because social order and disorder are so deeply interrelated, it is not helpful
to see them as binary elements. The focus instead should be on the emergence of stable and instable spaces
in the global environment.
Kate Lines, chief superintendent of the Ontario Provincial Police, noted that the OPP is in the process of
recognizing diversity as a positive attribute and translating it into a better working environment for
employees and the community at large. The OPP must try to police a diverse society effectively, while at
the same time internally becoming a more diverse organization. To do so requires all parties to endorse the
importance of diversity, to communicate the shared future vision and to conduct a critical examination of
current operating procedures.
As part of the process, the OPP held “Diversity Dialogues,” meetings with all employees to discuss their
needs for diversity. More than 18,000 civilian employees and 50,000 uniformed employees in 166
detachments and satellite offices have participated.
Lines emphasized that the OPP embraces diversity. This requires shifting our paradigm to a shared vision
of diversity. The OPP is working on creating a diverse pool of recruits for hire and promotion that will
match its various needs, such as intelligence officers who have a cultural or linguistic advantage when
relating to a particular group being investigated.
In all, she said, public trust and confidence must always be earned. The OPP must work with the public to
ensure safety and confidence.
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Saturday’s Discussions
Are Canadian Institutions Adapting to Diversity?
If Friday morning looked at who we are, Saturday morning’s session looked at how we might manage it all
— to the benefit of each of us as citizens in a country some may no longer recognize.
Ratna Omidvar, executive director of The Maytree Foundation, introduced a pragmatic view of diversity
that does not argue the strengths or weaknesses of diversity but considers it a practical expression with
barriers that need to be broken down.
As an example of an institutional response to diversity, Omidvar recounted how one bank lowered the level
of the counters in a branch in the ethnically diverse city of Markham, Ontario, to meet the height of its
South Asian clientele. However, she pointed to the Boy Scouts of Canada as an example of the many notfor-profit organizations that have been slow to recognize the changes in the world around it. The Toronto
Public Library has successfully reached out to a diverse base to guard against obsolescence, and provides a
multilingual audience access interpreters, support for citizenship classes and help with employment.
The bottom line, she said, is for institutions and organizations to recognize their customer base and change
according to their needs.
Omidvar pointed out that discrimination against minority groups has not stopped because of the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms, but it is certainly harder for institutions to discriminate. Furthermore, institutions
involved with politics, agencies, sports and commissions should also respond to Canada’s diversity. For
example, in the 2006 federal election, only 24 members of the 308 elected to the House of Commons are
members of a visible minority. At all levels of government, the voice of visible minority communities is
often muted due to a lack of participation, and communities need to work together to re-create rules and
restrictions. For example, there is a current proposal of electoral reform at the municipal level that would
allow landed immigrants the right to vote and would consequently encourage minority groups to participate
in civic life. It is also important for the boards and commissions of our public institutions to reflect the
diversity and heterogeneity of our population.
Marie McAndrew of the Université de Montréal opened her remarks about reasonable accommodation by
stating that, at best, multiculturalism is often treated as an “add-on” to society. Yet, paradoxically, there is a
growing sense that we have gone too far to adapt to religious and cultural diversity (for example allowing
the wearing of hijabs in schools). This sense is often perpetuated by politicians and members of the media.
McAndrew described a tension between two main concepts — one, whether or not visible accommodation
is troublesome and, two, the degree of accommodation and its compatibility with an institution’s mandate,
such as balancing the accommodation of the fasting period for Ramadan with the concerns of educators and
administrators. She pointed to several controversies born out of a misunderstanding of shared citizenship,
and noted that they may be fuelled by a lack of inclusive language. She said that we need to compare and
consider the various sets of values among themselves, and not compare all of them to one single
“fundamental value.”
McAndrew declared that the concept of reasonable accommodation should be distinct from both the
voluntary adjustments to promote integration and from the integration of newcomers. She also promoted
the concept of a collectivity of citizens, rather than adhering to the more conventional notion of minorities
and majorities.
Bob Watts, interim director of the Residential Schools Commission and former Chief of Staff to the
National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, answered the question of whether Canadian institutions
are adapting to diversity with a resounding no, but stated that there was hope. For a group of people that is
often too visible, said Watts, the history of First Nations peoples and their existence are often invisible.
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Sovereignty — the transfer of power from non-tribal decision makers — matters. Furthermore, stable
institutions and policies are critical for the development of and reconciliation with tribes.
Watts cited various examples of the mistreatment of indigenous tribes in Canada as a way to highlight his
answer. For example, in the court case of the Nisga’a tribe versus British Columbia, premier Gordon
Campbell argued that the treaty was not valid, while the tribe was frustrated because the powers of Canada
were not fairly distributed, especially since no indigenous tribes played a key role in the formation of
Confederation. This is obviously against the main purpose of Confederation, namely to reconcile diversity
with unity and to use federalism as a mechanism of reconciliation.
Using the residential schools issue as a key example, Watts explained that reconciliation is not the
transferring of guilt, but the asking of a question — how do we share the future? Reconciliation is
something that happens among individuals, families and communities, and not just figureheads.
Putting Diverse Talents to Work
The cultural makeup of Canada’s workforce is destined to change dramatically over the next few decades.
Does diversity deter or encourage meeting economic challenges?
Milton Wong, chancellor emeritus of Simon Fraser University and chair of HSBC Asset Management,
responded to this question by underscoring the importance of describing Canada as a tapestry, to celebrate
the multiple strands that woven together constitute Canada. He believes that Canada has been headed
toward pluralism, a more specific and less nebulous concept than what is implied by multiculturalism. He
referred to Charles Taylor who describes the liberal traditions of equal dignity and the politics of
difference, two thoughts that are, on the surface, incompatible, but that can coexist with equal respect and
recognition. Moreover, all human cultures that have animated human society for any amount of time
deserve to be heard.
Wong, recognizing the contribution of John Ralston Saul to his thinking, felt that the Canadian experiment
has perhaps been a happy accident. He spoke about Lafontaine and Baldwin and their joint history of
goodwill during the relatively peaceful elections in Toronto in 1841 that planted the seeds of growth
between the English and French communities in Upper and Lower Canada. Lafontaine and Baldwin were
not engaging in a deliberate act of “multiculturalism,” and Canadian multiculturalism is not something that
we actively think about everyday. It defies reductionism.
Wong also mentioned the Aga Khan, who believes the Canadian way of life is a model that should be
followed around the world. The Aga Khan chose Ottawa for the location of the Global Centre of Pluralism,
because he believes pluralism is vital for the future of society. Pluralism needs the correct context: it must
have values such as equality and dignity in order to survive.
For Alden Habacon, the manager of Diversity Initiatives for the English Television Network of the CBC,
Canada’s urban centres have outgrown the traditional mosaic model. There needs to be a new way to
describe the complexity of the Canadian identity that is not as constrictive. We need to focus on the hearts
and minds of the changing Canadians, rather than on the faces and the persons. Habacon founded Schema,
an online magazine that builds on the idea that we are complex individuals who move through complex
webs of cultures. His model is based on three fundamental assumptions: ethnicity informs one’s cultural
identity but does not define it, cultural identity is fluid, and cultural identity includes all forms of culture
(virtual, sports, food, etc.). Habacon referred to the concept of cultural intelligence, which is based on
principle that the most important thing to know is one’s own bias. There are differences between urban and
rural areas, and the youth who are the second and third generations in a family also have different issues.
Habacon acknowledged that technology exerts a greater influence than demographics. For the first time in
history, he said, something other than pornography is downloaded and used more, namely social
networking. There is a virtual transnational reality that exists now without moving beyond borders. The
ability for instant contact that text messages and email allow is replacing the delayed gratification of letter
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writing. Habacon gave an example of a networked, internet-savvy immigrant — perhaps not the norm —
who finds a place to stay using Craigslist (an online network of classified ads) and finds a job using online
applications before arriving. This process will continue to advance.
In many ways businesses are ahead of government, according to Habacon. Canadian businesses use cultural
diversity as an advantage. By contrast, in Malaysia, businesses still advertise job openings for “Malay
only” or “Chinese only” applicants.
Habacon has noticed two key sociocultural trends: second- and third-generation children have enjoyed
combined social, cultural and economic mobility. Canadians are not burdened by having to cut their ties
with their ancestral countries like their counterparts in Australia and United States. Race is simply not seen
by many as a core value. In Canada, there is plenty of intermarriage with mixed-race couples: Vancouver
has the highest percentage of mixed-race marriages in the world.
Many challenges loom ahead, said Habacon, such as preparing newcomers for Canadians’ acceptance of
people with disabilities and teaching newcomers about the aboriginal situation.
Is There a Mainstream Canadian Culture?
Saturday evening’s discussion, which tackled the arts, cultural policy and the entertainment industry, was a
departure from the other sessions. Four individuals participated in a discussion moderated by CBC radio
host Nora Young, among themselves and also with the audience. The four participants represented various
forms of cultural expression: George Jonas, poet, author and journalist, born in Hungary; Marie Clements,
artistic director and producer of the Vancouver-based urban ink productions, playwright in residence at the
National Arts Centre, and a Métis; Lawrence Hill, novelist and writer, and the son of a black father and a
white mother who came to Canada; and Zarqa Nawaz, freelance broadcaster and journalist and creator of
the TV series Little Mosque on the Prairie, and a Muslim born in Liverpool and raised in Toronto.
Young opened up the conversation by remarking on the improved sense of self-confidence in Canadian
culture and the arts, with greater involvement of artists at home and abroad. This has created a world of
cultural niches, which is inconsistent with the notion of a mainstream Canadian culture. But Hill pointed
out that mainstream can be viewed as a commodity, as a product that is consumed, recognized and taken
widely in our society.
Nawaz described the milieu in which mainstream television operates in Canada. Unlike in the United
States, Canadians cannot afford to fail by launching a new sitcom every season. While Canada has done
very well with Trailer Park Boys, Little Mosque and Corner Gas, the Canadian approach draws on modesty
and humbleness. In the U.S., by contrast, it is a celebration of money.
In the theatre world, Clements said most people think mainstream means something that is English or
American and sells tickets. But for many aboriginal and culturally diverse creators, mainstream can be a
dirty word. People are able to receive different types of story telling, and non-mainstream theatre is
engaging and vibrant in its present evolving state.
“It is right here,” said Jonas. “We are sitting in the middle of the mainstream.”
Hill responded that mainstream is not a static concept. Some people wanted Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last
Crossing eliminated from the list of books nomination for the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris
Award in 2003 — which it won — because some sections were situated outside of Canada and thus is not
really Canadian. That is like saying someone who has not always lived in Canada is not Canadian. In fact,
what makes things exciting are the things that some people say are not Canadian.
Hill said the increased value of the Canadian experience is reflected throughout our Canadian economy.
But Clements responded that what gets seen on stage is there because someone had the resources to put it
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there. The world of theatre revolves around who is funded and who is accepted — if you can get in the door
long enough.
The television industry is very competitive and expensive, said Nawaz. It is very difficult to compete with
American productions. Although Canadians are lucky to have the CBC, because it is supposed to represent
our culture, when Corner Gas made it on the privately owned CTV network, people began to recognize that
this can be done in Canada. Canada needs successful productions that people can work on and be trained
on, so the Canadian industry can learn and grow. Those opportunities exist in the U.S., but in Canada there
are fewer such opportunities because there are fewer shows.
Clements pointed out that, for the first time in Canadian theatre history, 2007 saw an all-Canadian season
of writers. For the first time in 50 years at the National Arts Centre, Canadian writers now feel they will be
supported. It was the first time aboriginal writers have been allowed to be on the main stage since 1986.
That it has taken so long should shock Canadians, and we should be supporting our writers and our
diversity. There should be more than one voice.
Jonas maintained that people who are gifted are usually recognized and Canadians are no different. People
look at Canadian writers with great admiration, and sometimes, in order to appreciate being Canadian, one
must go abroad. He believes that Canadians tend to display national emblems, more than trying to
distinguish themselves from Americans, because the intrinsic pride in being Canadian is recognized outside
of Canada more than within.
Hill picked up on the double-edged sword of being more Canadian abroad than at home. Black Canadian
fiction is hard to sell internationally because European editors will think it is not “real.” The real stuff
comes from the United States. He raised the issue, in the context of the mainstream, of how books enter the
Canadian school system. Each of his five children have had to read To Kill a Mockingbird as a book about
the black experience. The school system teaches more about American slavery and segregation than about
the black Canadian experience. But we are curious, partly because we are fascinated by things American, to
the exclusion of things Canadian.
Many years ago, Jonas described an American aircraft carrier docking in France as a literary agent. If a
country has some significance, it will have a significant proportion of literary significance. He pointed out
that he has had many scripts half ruined in Canada but until they were ruined in America nobody noticed.
We can ruin them just the same.
Clements said she wanted to bring a unique form of artistic expression and bravery to the stage, when she
started out as a performer. You dream the big dream, but if you are anything past beige, she said, that
dream will be halted very fast. She stopped acting to write because she was “post Pocahontas and not old
enough to be the Hollywood medicine woman.” The so-called stranger next door is in our genes, in our
beds, but not in Canadian theatre. It is hard to want to be part of the mainstream when you are not included.
Like so many children of immigrants, Hill was beaten over the head with achieving. To be well educated
and become a professional was the only way to escape the scourge of racism. This notion, however, did not
work. His brother wanted to be a singer and his sister wanted to be a poet and artist. As for him, he wanted
to have kitten. His father said he could have a kitten if he could write a well-written letter about why he
should. Every time Hill wanted something he had to write a letter, and so he eventually became a writer.
Young raised the issue of the challenge a single book or television show speaking to Canada’s diverse
society. Nawaz responded that despite the public angst about Muslims and how they are going to destroy
the world, but Little Mosque saved the CBC. In fact, the show got more attention in the U.S. than in
Canada, with coverage in media outlets such as CNN and the New York Times. Nawaz said the success of
the show drew from its ability to capture the sense of confusion and fear and the cultural stereotypes.
Although the North American Muslim community is the most successful in the world, it had never before
been represented in such a way. In Europe the community is ghettoized, and in the Middle East there is
corrupt governance and dictatorships. But because Canada has opened itself up to the best and brightest of
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the Muslim world, they have come here and settled. Muslims are in fact among the most educated in North
America. There is no Muslim ghetto.
Little Mosque is about the Canadian Muslim experience. Nawaz described her upbringing as a “normal
Muslim” and drew on that experience and the faith that has empowered her as a woman who can have a
faith and follow it. But the show could only be made in Canada because Canadians have enough separation
from September 11 to look at its Muslim community in a different way. Little Mosque was possible
because of how successful and well accepted Canadian Muslims are.
Hill agreed that Little Mosque is new and unique. In fact, he said, this new off-the-wall, margins sensibility,
which has not been done before, is now becoming the new mainstream. What popular Canadian writers
have had in common was that they wrote novels or books that took place in other countries, but these
experiences make these books quintessentially Canadian. Their unique international nature is what helped
catapult them into the mainstream.
Clements wished aboriginal people were as integrated as the Muslims. So many are fighting to be
integrated, which is odd, as the First Nations are the first peoples of this land.
Jonas asked if the show would have been so well accepted had September 11 happened in Canada. Nawaz
responded that there might have been a lot of anger and rawness. But she also described a show called
Alien in America, set in the American Midwest. If it were not for Little Mosque, Americans would likely
not be ready to see Muslims in the mainstream in a sympathetic way. But now, Fox Network is interested in
making an American version of Little Mosque. Six years after 2001, America becomes more introspective
about September 11.
Jonas said if someone wants to tell a story, chances are the story will be familiar to that person: we tend to
talk about our own milieus and backgrounds. Storytelling is less successful if it is done only to put a
community on the map or if the idea is propagandist.
Hill talked about the pressure that exists within communities, and described them as having eyes like a
watching god. For instance, when a novel published a few decades ago introduced a sexually liberated
black woman, there was pressure from the community about representing a black woman this way. So there
can be pressures from the community to be a role model and to make characters role models of the
community.
Aboriginal people generally practice acceptance as a way of life, said Clements, and their role models need
not to be perfect. They can be brilliant and who they are.
Nawaz commented on the range of criticism of Little Mosque from the Muslim community. She heard from
right-wing Muslims and left-wing pundits, accusing her of daring to depict Muslim Canadians as normal or
“softening” them up for another attack. She pointed out that no one would have such things about Jerry
Seinfeld and the depiction of the Jewish community as normal. Some critics felt she was duping the nonMuslim community. Right-wing Muslims were angry because the show did not depict perfect Muslims, as
though she was trying to depict the prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Neither side wanted the community
seen as normal people.
Jonas remarked that he has never felt the need to speak for the Hungarian or European community in
Canada, perhaps because the European community has done well everywhere except in Europe.
Young described Canadians as obsessed with the notion of identity, although she suggested that this
process of forming an identify has changed from defining ourselves in relation to Americans or Brits to
finding ourselves part of many communities.
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Hill declared himself happy to move between identities, and said our artistic ideas are part of our Canadian
identity. Artists need to find a way to dramatize and to bring new things into the mainstream by way of new
things that have never been imagined, that no one has ever done before.
Sunday’s Discussions
Sunday morning started with the presentation of the fifth Couchiching Award for Excellence in Public
Policy Leadership. This year’s recipient was Preston Manning, in recognition of his impact as the founder
of two national parties that radically changed the face of federal politics in Canada. Manning made a warm
and engaging acceptance speech.
What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders?
Moderator Drew Fagan, assistant deputy minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, announced that this session would broaden the scope of the conference to look at the international
implications of diversity. Does Canada have a diaspora? Of the 10% of the Canadian population who live
abroad, half were born in Canada. This capacity can be harnessed, perhaps following the example of Italy,
which has elected members of its parliament who live abroad.
Farouk Shamas Jiwa, a Global Youth Fellow of the Walter and Gordon Foundation, has been studying the
impact of multiculturalism on foreign policy and vice versa. The multiple identities, which he referred to as
the pluralism of identity, may or may not offer something to foreign policy.
Jiwa talked about two things that inspired him: being a young transnational immigrant and being a Global
Youth Fellow. When he travelled to Nunavut, he felt a connection that he realized was because of his
background and identity. It was this self-reflection that gave him the idea of looking at the relevance of
identities in foreign policy, for example by sharing our expertise on multiculturalism with the world.
Many people believe that foreign policy reflects our interests, so is there a relationship, for example, to the
Canadian stance on the Iraq war or involvement in Haiti and Ukraine.
In terms of the potential challenges that multiculturalism represents to foreign policy, Jiwa noted that
perception that some groups will engage in illegal activities in Canada and overseas. Also, Canada’s
foreign policy may create tension between groups within the country, and lobbying efforts by diaspora
groups can influence or derail foreign policy.
The impact of foreign policy on people and communities must be considered, said Jiwa. The fact that
Canadians have multiple identities does complicate foreign policy, but it also helps us be sensitive. The real
challenges and sentiments faced by multicultural groups must be determined so that the solutions are
adequate.
In conclusion Jiwa noted that civic and global engagement, investing in our communities, connecting and
engaging them create loyalty, create a Canadian identity and give all of us a reason to value our Canadian
identity.
Irvin Studin, author of What Is Canadian? 43 Responses, described Odessa in its 19th-century heyday as a
microcosm of the universe. Because of its cosmopolitan society, the damage done by the 1821 anti-Jewish
wave was mitigated. There are lessons here for Canada.
To start with, Canada was conspicuously assumed to be a place “not taken.”
Studin was inspired by a book called What Is a Jew? He asked instead, what is a Canadian? The only
coherent conclusion he drew from the 43 different Canadians he asked was that the Canadian is nothing
more or less than a citizen of the state called Canada. The Canadian, at this point in history, has no essence.
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A Canadian is a political creature that exists only because of the political project that is Canada. A citizen
of Canada is the beneficiary of rights and freedoms, as well as the responsibilities that come with
citizenship. Those responsibilities are hard and require complex work that takes time, whereas rights can
often be asserted without effort.
The first responsibility is to protect Canadian institutions, said Studin. Canada has few foreign enemies.
The Quebec question remains. Diasporic questions tug, too. The integrity of our Canadian institutions is
under the microscope. They also have to prove themselves relevant; they must change, must adapt, and
must “sell” their relevance.
Studin admitted that many might not feel Canada in their blood, because it is made up of many nations. The
people of this country do not form a nation. Perhaps that is a good thing, because Canada is young. Does it
really want to be a nation? Does it need the mythology that goes with nation building? Will some of these
myths have a fracturing effect? The issue at hand is state building, not nation building.
Canada, like Australia, is lucky because it has borders. Studin described Canada as a continental peninsula,
whereas Australia is a continental island. Canada’s stability and productivity come from its geography,
insulating it from the chaotic world. The Canadian reality is not all borderless, therefore; its geography
makes it lucky, affording an unusual opportunity to initiate “secondary institutions” that create a common
or collective consciousness — a consciousness, Studin said, that is not yet there.
Studin declared that Canada’s performance in most international sports is inadequate, considering the
country’s stability. Even in hockey there is no “national league.” Again he compared Canada to Australia in
the Olympics, and found that the Australians perform much better. We have much more work ahead of us,
he concluded.
Former foreign minister Pierre Pettigrew announced that he recently changed nations, having gone from
being a Québécois to being a Torontois.
Canada is a country that needs to be reinvented every generation. Pettigrew agreed with Studin that Canada
is a political country, although not an economic country. Pettigrew is proud of Canada’s advantage of being
a bilingual and aboriginal country. But he puzzled over the question of whether it is possible for people to
live together, as equals, but different. It is obvious that people must live together, and the Canadian mosaic
is a wonderful concept.
Pettigrew suggested shifting from the concept of a mosaic to the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, where colours
mix together more than in previous generations. Identity is a very relative element, and depends on one’s
experience. The further away one is, the wider one’s identity becomes.
Pettigrew told a story about how, in the town he grew up, his father organized a party to welcome the first
black family. He remembered when the first pizzeria opened in the mid 1970s in Quebec City. These were
both examples of the relativity of diversity, and how it has evolved — although people have always resisted
it. It is an asset, but has taken a long time to come. And now, said Pettigrew, we thrive on diversity.
But this is the end of a period, and Canada must again be reinvented. Canada is doing an extraordinary job
of sharing power with the whole population.
Quebec raises a complex question, said Pettigrew. It is, of course, one of the complex issues that has
shaped the country: the quiet revolution, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, free trade. Quebec has had a strong impact on all of these, and vice versa.
Closing Keynote: Where Do We Go from Here?
The closing address, by Lieutenant Governor James Bartleman, was a very personal and thoughtful talk,
reflective of the individual. Bartleman is a member of the Mnjikaning First Nation and considers himself
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first and foremost a Canadian. His great love for the country and for his roots — both aboriginal and
Scottish — came out in his speech. He talked about the beauty of his identity and spoke about his roots,
which go back to 1748. Bartleman grew up in Port Carling, and Muskoka was his hunting grounds.
Bartleman provided a keen look into his background and walked us through his childhood days, which
began in Rama, a desperate slum back in those days next door to Geneva Park, where the Couchiching
conference has been held every year since 1931. “You could tell you were at the reserve,” he said, “when
you hit conditions of the third world.” He wondered whether people used to avert their eyes as they drove
past on their way to attend the conference, and recalled Michael Ignatieff’s comment at the 1994
conference on tribalism and globalism: “If we are not careful, we will return to tribalization.”
Bartleman described an air of despondency; yet, despite the conditions, people were proud Canadians.
Although they did not have the vote, they looked to the future and saw their children and grandchildren
growing up and having their rights recognized. Ironically, even though aboriginal people had no rights,
they still participated in the war of 1812. In fact, if it weren’t for them, Canada would have been lost to the
U.S.: aboriginal people played a key role in the war, and a high percentage of men from the Rama reserve,
fought. Today, the reserve is the largest employer of First Nations people in this area and has emerged as a
real leader.
When Bartleman took office as lieutenant governor, he knew he wanted to use the opportunity to advance
non-political, non-partisan social causes. This was as a result of his background. He had grown up in an era
where people were racist at home and moralistic abroad. In a sense, he and his family were themselves the
strangers next door. His mother married his father at age 14 and in 1946 the couple ended up in Port
Carling. Their first home was in a tent on vacant land by the village dump. In fact, the Port Carling dump
constituted his first library, starting off with the comic books he found there, from which he learned to read.
The Bartlemans’ next move was to a summer cottage, where the temperatures inside would drop to same as
the temperature outside. This was after the Depression, and everyone seemed to be poor. They moved next
to an old house with no electricity, and an outhouse built from materials found in the village dump. They
were at the bottom of the economic scale, the social scale and the racial scale, in an Ontario where he and
his siblings were described as dirty half-breeds. His mother suffered greatly from depression. From this
hurt were born both Bartleman’s passion for anti-racism and his passion for mental health issues.
But the one light in his life was the library of Port Carling, where Bartleman found a world open up to him.
Children, he said, develop resilience through literacy. Learning to read was the key to loving school, and
once he started getting educated, all of a sudden, the people who once called him names were friends. He
went on to university, and then joined the foreign service. But, through it all, he never forgot the lessons of
his early days.
As lieutenant governor of Ontario from 2002 to 2007, Bartleman could see that racism still remained an
issue, despite great progress. Now Muslim and Arabs were at the top of the hate list, with aboriginals
second. When he spoke to children in Toronto, for example, he heard their stories of experiencing racism.
Bartleman described how, as Canada’s high commissioner to South Africa, he was attacked in a hotel
room. This brought on massive depression, and as he went through his own downward spiral, he realized
that the great stigma of mental health problems remains.
He also described the conditions of the North, which are like going from the first world to the third world
— because those areas are out of sight, they are out of mind. But Canada houses the third world right here,
at home: for example, 18% of people in jail are aboriginal, and 27% of incarcerated women are aboriginal.
Aboriginal people suffer from lower life expectancies, higher mortality rates, higher rates of tuberculosis
and diet-related diabetes; they are the poorest of all minority groups, their education levels are the lowest
and they have a 22% unemployment rate, compared to 7% across the country. They live in isolated and
contaminated areas. Many are one-parent families. Senior citizens live in packing cases with tarps for roofs,
and 50% of northern communities have lived with boil-water advisories for decades.
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The impact of residential schools on aboriginal people made the picture even more bleak. The experience
resulted in family violence and suicide, with 71% of aboriginal women abused, the suicide rates as much as
three times higher than the national average and seven times higher for young people. These high rates of
suicide are directly attributable to the lack of hope and the state of terminal depression: young people see
no future in a world that rejects them, and they are years behind other kids and lack equal opportunities.
Why is this the case? Because of poor governance — native, provincial and federal levels bumping up
against each other, said Bartleman. We talk about developing governance models for Africa, but not here,
and the children suffer the most. Governance is weak across the board. Within aboriginal communities,
bands receive funding for education but do not have sufficient expertise, capacity or resources. Native
leaders are very responsible and concerned, but not enough attention is paid to the conditions on the
reserves. The situation is similar to the United States before human rights legislation was brought in: black
people were separate but equal, where they did not have the competence.
At present, opportunities exist off the reserve. But if a person leaves the reserve without an education, the
situation can deteriorate even more. People are attached to their ancestral lands, so many do not want to
leave, and they have the legal treaty rights to stay where they are.
The greatest thing about being lieutenant governor is the ability to mobilize people to complement what
government is or should be doing. Reading and education became central to Bartleman’s plan, because they
lead to self-confidence. His first appeal for books started with libraries, extended through the newswires
and the Ontario Provincial Police, and brought in 1.2 million books, which were then sorted down to
850,000. These books were distributed by the military and Native airlines to the northern reserves. The
second appeal focused on children’s books, and had the same impact. The Young Readers program raised
$1 million to fund a program for children from kindergarten to grade five to receive new books every three
months. These children love reading. When the books arrive in the communities, they are waiting for them.
And, as an added advantage, the children are teaching their parents how to read.
According to Bartleman, what is now needed is reconciliation. There is a gulf between Native and nonNatives. His next project has involved twinning 100 Native schools with a matching number of non-Native
schools to break down the barriers between diverse groups. He is also developing a mentoring program,
with universities helping aboriginal communities with a variety of services. Bartleman dreams of
establishing in Canada a type of volunteer youth corps that would go into northern communities to help
with literacy. Native communities would also put in resources, because one must have pride in one’s own
culture before one can have pride in being Canadian.
Bartleman has observed that there is an enormous amount of goodwill in the population to tackle social
justice causes. If progress can be made with one marginalized group, progress can be made with other
disadvantages groups. And this is needed. The words “stranger” or “different” should not apply, he said.
Many sectors of society need help; disabled people are one. There are three million mentally ill Canadians
yet people refuse to talk about the issues. And there is an untold number of homeless people who need help.
Closure
This year’s Couchiching conference closed with very strong applause, comments of appreciation and
thanks, and a feeling of having participated in an invigorating, stimulating and wide-ranging discussion that
touched on some of the most fundamental questions facing Canada today. The conference as a whole raised
some major issues about assumptions and perceptions about Canadian society, raising awareness about the
possible tensions between those who have arrived recently in Canada and those who arrived some time ago.
Delegates brought their own personal experiences to the discussion groups, dinner table conversations, the
plenary sessions and the cocktail receptions.
It is not the purpose of the Couchiching conference to come up with a common viewpoint or to reach a
consensus; instead, the goal of the conference organizers is to ensure that each person — speaker,
moderator and delegate alike — leaves at the end of the weekend full of new perspectives, and perhaps new
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questions to ponder. By this standard alone, the conference was a success: at the end of the closing session,
people still seemed eager to continue the dialogue and tussle with ideas. Indeed, this year’s conference
generated a record amount of constructive feedback: clearly, it continued to resonate with delegates long
after their return to their regular routines.
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Appendix A: Session Transcripts
This appendix contains verbatim transcripts of all the plenary sessions at the conference.
Introductory Panel: Uneasy Partners
August 9, 2007, 3:30 p.m.
RIMA BERNS-MCGOWN:
Okay, welcome everybody, I think we’re going to get going because this is a relatively short session before
the president’s reception at 5:00, and I want to give our speakers a good chance to talk, and for there to be a
chance for questions. I’m not going to do the official opening of the conference, because that happens this
evening, this is kind of a pre-conference session, but it’s wonderful to see you all here, welcome, and enjoy
yourselves. I think it’s going to be a really exciting conversation that we’re going to have over the next four
days, and each and every one of you has a hugely important role to play in making it deep and meaningful,
so welcome.
I’ve been involved in Couchiching now for a number of years, and every year we have fascinating
conversations up here at the lake. Rarely are the conversations, I think, so critical to our societal wellbeing
as this one is. It’s really important that we get right the thing that we’re trying to figure out here. I come
from a place that did a spectacularly bad job of managing diversity. I was born in Johannesburg, South
Africa, and when my parents left and brought me as a young child to Canada, they did so with the express
hope that they were coming to a place that would figure it out a great deal better.
And I think it’s fair to say that Canada has a long history, if you look at it closely, of dealing with diversity
pretty darn badly, and a very short history of dealing with it relatively well. And I think the “relatively” is
important. I think there’s no doubt that we deal with it a great deal better than lots of other places, pretty
much every other place in the world, I would argue, and at the same time, the fact that we deal with it
better, and that we have mechanisms in place to deal with it better means that sometimes we tend to be
pretty self-congratulatory about how we deal with it, and that’s where the problem comes. We talk about
how tolerant we are. “Tolerance” is an absolutely horrid word. I couldn’t agree more with [name of
attendee], we were having a conversation a little while earlier about how important it is that we move
beyond tolerance. And if this conversation that we have over the next number of days does anything, it will
help to identify some of the avenues that will help us to move beyond tolerance. There is still, as I say, a
gap between rhetoric and reality, and we have to figure out how to close that.
I think that conversation — meaningful conversation — is one of the key ways in which that happens, and
it was really heartening to come one of the discussion groups with our youth, out by the lake, and listen to
some of the issues begin to be opened up, and to listen to how folks were starting to deal with them.
Because I think it’s really important to understand that if we’re going to have meaningful conversation and
if we’re going to all learn to make diversity work in a true way, in a true and deep way, we have to be able
to talk about anything. We have to feel that we can ask every question, and that we can probe every issue.
Having said that, it’s also really important that we deal with it, not with political correctness, but with
respect. If you have respect, you can talk about anything — there are no barriers.
So, without further ado, I want to say that we are extremely lucky to be able to welcome as the opening
speakers for this weekend three very thoughtful people on this very subject, on the question of having
conversation and figuring how to disentangle issues and get to the heart of what really matters. I’m not
going to read you their long bios, you have them in your programs, but briefly, we have Janice Stein here,
she’s the director for the Munk Centre for International Studies and the Belzberg Professor of Conflict
Management in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. As well, Haroon Siddiqui,
who is the Editorial Page Editor Emeritus of the Toronto Star and the Past President of Pen Canada, and
Will Kymlicka, Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Queen’s
University, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research,
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and an author. All three of them are authors in this book, Uneasy Partners: Multiculturalism and Rights in
Canada, which you can purchase right outside. It was edited by Janice Stein, and she is here to lead off the
discussion.
What we’re going to do is that each of our speakers is going to speak for 10 minutes, and then we’re not
going to have a break, as we will in all of the other sessions, we’re going to go right away to questions.
There are two mikes, and the one thing I will have to say is that questions should be brief, and they need to
be questions, please, not speeches. Thanks. Welcome, Janice.
(applause)
JANICE GROSS STEIN:
Thank you very very much for the warm introduction. And in some preliminary discussions that we had,
we said that we would just give you a brief taste of what’s in the book. It’s a wonderful collaboration
amongst seven of us, and we share the royalties, let me tell you, all five dollars, that’s right, that have come
so far, but I’m actually going to take just one strand of what I discuss in the opening chapter, which is the
bumping-up, the friction, between religion and rights, and focus particularly on women in this discussion.
I think most of us come to our scholarly research with some personal experience, and that’s no exception in
this case. You might well ask, what am I doing grappling with issues of religion and rights. It came at a
particular moment in time in my life where that was a meaningful discussion and it became a very heated
discussion in my own community, which is the Jewish community in Canada, where I would say quite
honestly we are having some very difficult discussions about the relationship between equality rights and
other rights.
Now, in this chapter I deliberately try to push the envelope as far as I could, in this, and let me start with
the most outrageous part of the essay — and there are several. But the argument I start with, and we were
talking about this in the youth session, is we have in fact rights in Canada which are enshrined in our
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but those rights apply to public space, and that is, in a sense, the legal
framework around which we think of the application of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the second
argument I make is that the boundaries between public and private space are a lot less clear than we like to
think, and what we intuitively think of as private space gets shadows of public space in it, and depending
on the way the conversation is going in the country, we sometimes have discussions in which private space
bleeds into public space. So this neat distinction which is so comfortable doesn’t actually fit very well with
the lived experience of many Canadians.
We were saying earlier that every single Canadian, with the exception of our First Nations and aboriginal
people, are immigrants or the children of immigrants, or the grandchildren of immigrants, it just is a
questions of how far back you trace this. And so the notion of private space which is immune from public
discussions of rights is, I think, one that doesn’t work very well in the way Canadians are living their life.
Now, where does this come up, and this is the issue, in a sense, that I grapple with in the opening chapter of
the book, deliberately invited more reasoned and moderate responses from my colleagues. It comes up, of
course, with respect to women, which is one aspect and one aspect only of equality rights, and the right to
freedom of religion. If you go back, for a minute, to the argument I was making, if you, in fact, think of
religious practice as something that is occurring wholly in private space, then the conflict that I am talking
about really disappears, it’s not an issue. But the outrageous claim I made in the book is that in canon,
when we actually look at our policy instruments, religious practice is not wholly private. Almost all
registered religious institutions do not pay property tax in this country. They enjoy a privileged statuswhich
is, in fact, public money. When you and I give a donation to a religious institution or a religious school, we
get a charitable receipt which we can then use to reduce the income tax that we pay to the government. And
therefore, to think about religious space as wholly private, it seems to me, is not wholly appropriate.
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How does that translate into the debates that we are having? In many of our religious institutions, and this
is not a new story, it has nothing to do with recent immigrants to this country at all, and to our growing
multicultural and diverse environment in Canada, and in fact it’s an age-old story, but if we look at
religious practice, there are many many religious institutions, and this is a shared problem across religions,
it is not unique to any one religion, which, frankly, systemically discriminate against women. And what led
me to write this essay was the experience I had in my own synagogue, where it takes ten human beings, I
always thought, to constitute a prayer group, but women are not counted as fully human, and that’s what
led to this quite angry essay that I wrote.
Now, this one case, and if we had time, and we will have time in the conversation, is illustrative, it seems to
me, of a larger problem that this country has been wrestling with, and quite successfully, but it’s a constant
conversation, as you put it. People use different language, and each of these words is loaded. We talk about
conflicting rights, competing rights. I talk about rights that bump up against each other and cause friction, if
you use a physics analogy. And I think about equality rights and the right to freedom of religion in this
particular case, these rights that bump up against each other and cause friction, but that is only one
example. The right to freedom of speech, but our prohibitions against hate speech. These are in fact, they
bump up against each other, and what we’ve done in this country is continuously redraw the boundaries.
Now, if we had a judge with us on this panel, or a legal philosopher, a legal philosopher would use words
like, we would “scope” the rights, we would make clear what the scope of the rights are, what the
boundaries of the rights are, and generally, our judicial system which has been active in the last twenty-five
years, and I think this debate has really grown in its richness since 1982, and the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, but judges have been very careful, very cautious, in putting boundaries. They generally tend to
follow a social consensus rather than to lead a social consensus, although there are some huge exceptions.
So it seems to me one of the questions which might be useful to talk about over the next three-and-a-half
days, and I only have three minutes left, I know, one of the big questions is what do we do when rights
bump up against each other? It seems to me that that’s a fundamental question for Canadian society as we
move forward. And we can look at this question at two levels. What are the principles we use to resolve
these issues? I remember having one discussion with a member of my synagogue who said, you know, you
can’t be right about this problem, you can’t be right because we are following religious law. When I had to
state the obvious, that it was possible that religious law systemically discriminates against women, it was
clear he’d never had that thought before. So it’s in this sense, what are the principles which we use when
rights inevitably bump up against each other. And here, it seems to me that there are two sets of answers,
two, or at least two ordering ways of thinking about this principles. The first are legal principles, and
there’s a rich legal tradition in which words like balancing rights appear in judgements. Principles of the
least harm appear in legal judgements, and these judgements are applied in a multitude of cases where
rights bump up against each other.
There’s a second argument, which rests very much on in the nature of society. It is not enshrined as a
formal legal principle, but it rests in the nature of society, which argues fundamentally that in a pluralist
society where people have choices, the friction created by rights bumping up against each other is not a
serious problem. So for example, in my own case, if I can walk down the street and find a service in which
women are fully equal, then my problem goes away. I have difficulties with that argument, both as a moral
argument and as a practical argument, but we’ll come back to that in discussion. And the third principle,
which you see articulated when you actually spend time in communities, is a functional compromise among
rights, a recognition that no right is absolute, that we live in a society in which multiple rights are part of
the culture that we have created in this country, and therefore, what our conversation is about looking for,
as Charles Taylor would put it, and his report which will come out this fall in Quebec I think will be a
fascinating one, looking for reasonable accommodation. Thank you.
(applause)
HAROON SIDDIQUI
Rima, Janice, Will, fellow Canadians, thank you all for coming.
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I’m just going to state some broad principles, given the theme of the conference, and then move on to the
specific points that Janice has raised and that we have discussed in the book, in an extraordinarily civil
manner, just like true Canadians.
I think, when we deal with the specifics of the conference thematically, let me float two propositions. One,
I think it is totally false to say that diversity somehow undermines core common values or social harmony
in Canada. I mean, that’s just a false proposition. The second false proposition, in my view, is to say that
diversity or multiculturalism, in any way, shape, or form, threatens security. That’s just not on. But of
course, it’s legitimate to discuss these things in forums like this, so that we can come to some sort of a
reasonable compromise and a reasonable understanding of why we are raising these questions.
We are raising these questions because we live in a post-911 world where people are afraid of their
security, where in fact we are constantly told to be in fear because the politics of fear works for certain
people, because you have to justify 620 billion dollars spent on two wars so far, and you have to justify all
the killing fields that you are presiding over at this point. It is in forums like this that we can puncture this
political hypocrisy and political chicanery that dominates the public narrative and continues to do so up to
this date, even though more and more people are revolting against it, including in the United States.
The second point I want to make is that Canada has always had diversity from day one. Canada was always
multicultural, even if not legally so. The 1867 British North America Act was a compromise of diversity of
three collectivities: aboriginal people, French Canadians, and English Canadians. Section 27 of the Charter
in the Multiculturalism Act is an inevitable growth of that particular original compromise.
It is also not new that we are now fearful of Muslims, are accusing them of disloyalty, or whether they can
integrate or not integrate. This issue is also as old as Canada itself. In both the First World War and the
Second World War, we interned Ukrainian Canadians, Italian Canadians, and most famously, Japanese
Canadians, mistakes for which we are still apologizing and paying. During the 1919 Winnipeg General
Strike, we blamed Italian Canadians, Ukrainian Canadians, and particularly Jewish Canadians for being
Bolsheviks who were trying to bring about revolution in Canada. And, of course, the debates during the
First World War and the Second World War as to where people’s loyalties lay — did they lie with Canada
or did they lie with the mother country, Great Britain? So these things are not knew, these things are as old
as Canada itself, and we deal with them in an evolving, democratic kind of way.
The next point I want to make is that terrorism is for real. Terrorism by Muslims is for real, at this point.
We cannot wish it away. The only real debate, in democracy, is what is the best way to tackle it? These
days, terrorists happen to be Muslims, as in other days they were Christians, and Jews, and Buddhists, and
Sikhs, and so on, and so forth. Do we tackle it by a war on terrorism, with a capital W and a capital T? We
know that has only increased terrorism in the world. Nine-eleven, 2,900 innocent people murdered; since
then, between 100,000 and 600,000 Iraqis are dead, dead. We don’t even know how many civilians have
been killed in Afghanistan. We don’t even bother to count them, which is a reflection of our racist attitude
as to how we are dealing with this war on terrorism.
Do we deal with it by weakening our democracy, by setting aside the rule of law, which in its extreme form
shows up in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, or shows up in Canada in security certificates which have
been found unconstitutional by our Supreme Court of Canada. Do we deal with it through the cases of
Maher Arar, for which we apologize and pay ten million bucks? Do we do so by charging the twenty-three
Canadians in 2003, but not a single one of the terrorism charges was proceeded with? Or do we do it the
way we are doing it now, in 2006, eighteen people charged, three people have been let go, we await, as taxpaying full-fledged Canadian citizens, for a transparent, fair and speedy trial so that if there are criminals
among us, that they be brought to justice?
The next point I want to make to get on with Janice’s arguments … Janice and I don’t have much
difference of opinion. It’s really, the issue is this. The gender discrimination, of course, exists in all
religions. The issue really is, is this a function of multiculturalism, or is it not? And my argument is that it
is nothing whatsoever to do with multiculturalism, because the tension that Janice speaks about between the
right to equality of women and the right to religion would exist with or without multiculturalism. It would
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exist with or without Section 27 of the Charter of Rights. It would exist with or without the
Multiculturalism Act. And the problem that women face is the same exactly in all religions. So the
question, really, that she has raised, which is what we need to discuss, is what is the best way of finding a
reasonable accommodation between these two competing rights. And judges hate like hell to come down
on the side of one or the other. But at the same time, I mean, life is a series of compromises. My freedom to
freely move my hand stops at your cheek, kind of an argument. My freedom to say whatever I want to say
stops with the hate laws of Canada, the laws of anti-Semitism, and so on, rightly so in this country.
So what is this compromise? And I think the compromise ought to be the following. Janice is bang-on
when she says that there is a certain public space involved here, because the churches, mosques,
synagogues don’t pay property taxes, for example. So they are subsidized by the state. The donations you
make to them are tax-deductible. So the issue would really be a charter challenge which would say, yes,
you want freedom of religion, fine, but we as Canadian citizens ought not to be a partner in subsidizing this
discrimination. That is probably the way to go, and would happen through the Charter of Rights.
And the final point is, in Canada we never had a separation of church and state. If we did, we would not be
paying for Catholic schools in Ontario, up to Grade 12, as we do, because this is the inevitable compromise
that we have made, dating right back to 1867. So the day we stop funding to the Catholic schools, who do
discriminate against women, do have the right to counsel against abortion and against gay rights, and so on,
is the day we can resolve the other issue as well. Thank you very much.
WILL KYMLICKA:
So in Janice’s essay, in the book, and also the original one in the Literary Review of Canada, she raises a
number of anxieties about the way in which Canada is dealing with certain issues around religion and
ethnicity and diversity. And in the presentation here today she really focused on one of them, which was
whether religious groups have been seeking exemptions from equality rights in the name of freedom of
religion, and how do we deal with the conflicts that arise when the right of freedom of religion bumps up
against equality rights.
In the volume, she raises a couple of other concerns as well, which for those of you who haven’t read it, I’d
encourage you to read it, because it’s a very rich and wide-ranging essay. She also raises issues about the
economic integration of immigrants, whether it’s been not going as well as previous cohorts of immigrants,
and also issues about, if you like, the social and political integration of immigrants, about whether, for
example, second-generation immigrants, the children of immigrants, whether they truly feel that they
belong to Canada, whether we see evidence of residential segregation and ghettoization of immigrant
groups, whether these are all possible warning signs, storm clouds on the horizon, that she encourages us to
take seriously and to discuss openly and frankly. And she’s worried that we’re stifling that debate, perhaps
out of a sense of misguided political correctness, that we don’t want to be seen to offend, to be offending
people by raising difficult questions about whether some people’s religious beliefs are conflicting with
gender equality, about whether some immigrant groups are being clannish and ghettoizing, and not strongly
enough identifying with Canada, and part of her aim in the volume, and, I think, successfully, is to open up
those issues for civil and forum debate.
So, as with Haroon, my main interest in this question is, what does multiculturalism, how does that fit into
the picture? Is multiculturalism part of the problem here, is it the cause of these conflicting rights, is it the
cause of failures of integration, or, on the contrary, is it part of the solution, we need more multiculturalism
in order to move forward on these debates? So before I give you my own take on these issues, I think it’s
important to put the issue in perspective, which is that the warning signs that she points to are very real. We
have empirical evidence about the way in which the economic integration of immigrants recently has been
tapering off, we have some contested empirical evidence about the extent to which second-generation feel
that they don’t belong, or feel that they are discriminated against, and so those are real.
On the other hand, and this goes back to something Rima said at the very beginning of this session, if we
compare Canada to other countries across a wide range of indicators, things look quite a bit better. In
Canada, support for immigration is higher than in any other western democracy. We’re virtually the only
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country in the world or among the western democracies, that doesn’t have an anti-immigrant party, a party
whose platform is to dramatically reduce immigration. We used to, with the Reform party, but part of its
shift to the mainstream is that it’s dropped its commitment to reducing immigration, it’s also dropped its
earlier platform of dropping multiculturalism, and its earlier platform of dropping bilingualism. All of these
have been shed on the road to the centre. So if you look at public opinion, support for immigration is higher
than in other western democracies, it’s the only country where support for immigration went up after 9/11,
there’s higher support for multiculturalism in Canada than in other countries. If you ask questions about do
you believe people get along, people of different races and religions get along well in your country, people
are more likely to say yes in Canada than in other countries. Rates of taking out citizenship are higher in
Canada than in other western democracies. Rates of voting by immigrants, rates of political representation,
that is, the likelihood that an immigrant may get elected to city councils, to provincial legislatures or federal
legislatures is higher in Canada than in other countries, and in terms of basic political values, that is,
whether immigrants, over time, and their children, whether they come to accept core, if you like, Charter
values of Canadian society — commitment to democracy, the rule of law, individual civil and political
rights, that basic process of political socialization is going well in Canada and better than in other countries.
So, again, on a relative scale, things look good compared to other countries. And my worry is, that we don’t
want to be complacent, we don’t want to ignore the warning signs, but on the other hand, in focusing our
attention on those warning signs, we don’t want to give up on what has been working, at least in
comparison with other countries. And, in my view, part of the success on those various measures which
I’ve just mentioned rests on our multiculturalism policy. I think it has helped the political integration of
immigrants; it has given them an avenue to access the state; it has encouraged them to become citizens; it
has encouraged them to view themselves as having a home here in Canada, and making them feel at home
in Canada, but doing so in such a way that doesn’t just say do whatever you like, we don’t care what you
do, it says we want you to participate in Canadian society, which has certain ground rules, certain Charter
values. That has always been a part of the multiculturalism policy. If we look back at the original statement
in 1971, or the Multiculturalism Act from 1988, or its articulation in the Charter, the multiculturalism
policy has been linked to ideas of democratic citizenship, to ideas of human rights, it’s institutionally
linked, it’s conceptually linked, it’s linked in terms of the jurisprudence that we have in the court system. In
my view, multiculturalism in Canada is part of the culture of rights that Janice is concerned to protect. It
emerged out of the same processes of human rights reform, of the struggle for gender equality, for gay
rights, multiculturalism was part of that larger political struggle for social and political liberalization, and
that it would therefore be, in my view, a real mistake if, in trying to deal with these warning signs, and
there are some out there, we think that the problem arose because we adopted a multiculturalism policy in
1971, that we went down the wrong road, and that in order to deal with these warning signs, we’ve got to
reverse tracks and start all over again with a different kind of policy framework. In my view, Canada has
done better than other countries. It’s done better in part because we have a multiculturalism policy, and in
tackling the new challenges that we face, we need to build on those strengths, we need to refine the policy
in order to ensure that it continues to be a success.
And then with respect to the very specific issue that Janice raises about the conflict of rights, I think if we
look at the … as Haroon says, this is a problem that every western democracy faces, about to what extent
should religions organizations be required to comply with gender-equality norms, or respect for gay rights,
this is an issue today in every western democracy. Actually, it’s a difficult issue, how we balance these
rights. It’s not obvious what the right solution is. But I don’t think it’s right that the multiculturalism policy
or the multiculturalism clause in the Constitution has systematically weighed in on the side of religious
exemptions rather than on the side of equality rights. I think if we look at jurisprudence in Canada, that, as I
said, the idea of multiculturalism is understood to be part of a larger human-rights framework, and that
when members of religious minorities or immigrant ethnic groups, or anyone in Canada invokes the
language of multiculturalism, appeals to the Multiculturalism Act, or appeals to the multiculturalism clause
of the Constitution, they are, whether they like it or not, they are being pulled into a set of institutions, a set
of laws and a set of discourses that’s human-rights based, that’s committed to the ideals of democratic
citizenship and committed to ideas of equality. And so that we shouldn’t view, and Janice doesn’t exactly
say this, but I think in places that she borders on it, implying that multiculturalism has systematically
operated in Canada to put less weight on equality rights and to strengthen the claim of orthodox religious
leaders to discriminate against women. I actually think that if we look across the range of cases,
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multiculturalism is sometimes invoked by orthodox religious leaders, but it’s also invoked by a broad range
of social movements as part of a larger human-rights discourse, and that’s what we need to defend. Thanks.
(Discussion.)
Opening Keynote Address: The Challenge of Diversity
August 9, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
HELEN WALSH:
It is my great privilege to introduce our opening keynote speaker, who has traveled over the last twentyfour hours from Mauritius to be with us here this evening. Professor Tariq Ramadan is one of Europe’s
most influential and widely read scholars. Born in Switzerland, educated in Geneva and Egypt, Professor
Ramadan has published over twenty books and over eight hundred articles. He is currently Senior Research
Fellow at St. Anthony’s College at Oxford and the Lokahi Foundation in London, and well known for the
university he didn’t teach at, which was resigning in 2004 from the University of Notre Dame, because of
the American government’s revoking his visa shortly after his appointment. In that same year, Time
magazine named Professor Ramadan one of the top 100 innovators of the twenty-first century. He is also
president of the Think Tank European Muslim Network, and has acted as advisor to the British government
in recent years, although he has not hesitated to be vocal in his disagreements with them over British
foreign policy, over rhetorically intemperate language in social and political debate on terrorism, or on the
debate on defining Britishness.
Professor Ramadan has written extensively on the integration of Muslims into European societies in such
books as To Be a European Muslim and Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, making a fundamental
distinction between the religious duties of Muslims and their social and political obligations, and arguing
for greater European-based Islamic scholarship that would provide cultural context for European Muslims.
He has also written about issues affecting Muslim-majority countries, including what he views as the
negative impact western institutions and cultures have had on those countries, and he sparked debates by
saying that the Muslim world must use its own terms of reference on areas controversial to the West, such
as corporal punishment. His latest book, In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of
Mohammad, is a biography that highlights the Muslim prophet’s spiritual and ethical teachings. As you can
see, Tariq Ramadan is capable of fomenting a rich and textured discussion in many areas. Please join me in
welcoming him to the podium.
(applause)
TARIQ RAMADAN:
Thank you. Thank you for your invitation, first, to be with you here this evening, and for this kind
introduction about the work I am trying to do during the last twenty-five years, not only in the West, but
also in Islamic-majority countries.
So, the topic is the challenge of diversity, and what I will try to do is to start with a short introduction with
four main points just to set the scene, and then to come to the respective responsibility within our societies
but also coming from the minority groups or [those who] are perceived as such, because I have some
problem with the way we are talking about minorities today, so I will come to this. And then a conclusion.
It’s thirty, forty minutes, so it’s difficult to go deep into details for every single point I’m trying to do, but I
am sure that as we have one hour of questions and answers out of this second part, I will be able to clarify
some of the points I wanted to make.
So the first point, as an introduction, is something that I’m not sure, it’s obvious, but I’m not sure that we
are realizing what it means exactly when we say that our societies have changed, that the old perception
that white, indigenous, western countries, in Europe for example, even in Canada, the States, this is over,
and then we have to look at this reality, meaning that if our societies have changed, we need also to adjust
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to these changes and to try to find a way, not only by very open-minded discourses, [but] by clear political
decisions. And I think that this is not clear in the way we have to deal with mentality. We know how to deal
with political diversity, it’s not a problem when it comes to, you know, different parties, political parties,
when we disagree, and we know exactly behind our disagreements that we are referring to something that is
a common point of reference. In fact, a universe of references. But when it comes to cultural diversity and
religious diversity, it is not always the same, because we may think that we are talking about the same
things, but still the references behind are not the same.
There is something which could be a paradigm, there is something which could be a universe of reference,
and something which is simple but not even understood terminology, definitions of the concepts we are
using. And a concept is not only a word that you are translating, it’s loaded with history, it’s loaded with
perception, it’s loaded with psychology, it’s loaded with something which is, I understand what you mean
now, but coming from a different universe of reference it may mean something else.
One simple concept, for example. When we speak about secularism and we come to the West, secularism is
a positive concept in the West. Why? Because it’s out of this separation between church and state that we
got freedom and acceptance of minorities. Go to the Islamic-majority countries and speak about secularism,
it has nothing to do with this. It has to do with colonization. It has to do with imposed culture or imposed
systems. It may be positive, but the way it was presented was quite negative, so you may speak about
Kemal Ataturk from here because you think he was promoting your perception of the world, there it was
positive. But to the Turkish people, it was not. It was really a very oppressive way of dealing with values
that you have to respect. And if we speak about secularization and laïcité in Islamic-majority countries, you
are not speaking about democrats, you are speaking about Saddam Hussein, you are speaking about Hafez
al-Assad, you are speaking about people who are representing something which has nothing to do with our
universe of reference, so you cannot just export a concept without understanding the context within which
this concept is taking its value, its understanding, positive or negative. It’s a very simple example, and
sometimes you have to change the words just to keep the meaning. Change the words to keep the meaning
between two universes of reference.
This is the first point, which is very important. The second point is, we may speak about globalization and
say, okay, we are living in a globalized world, and when we are very positive about it, and you have a very
good feeling about a global world, you say a small village. The problem is that within the small village,
what we are all experiencing in our daily life is our old landmarks, milestones, are lost. Because we don’t
know exactly what it means to be a citizen of a specific country, what are our identities, who we are
exactly, because the global world is challenging old definitions of the self, of our identities. It comes that
the consequence of this is really quite an obsession today, to try to define who we are. Who “we” are, and
when we say “we,” you know, we were sitting on the table and say “we think as Canadians,” so, okay, who
is this “we” you are talking about? If not you refer to the first point, our societies have changed. So is it
“we” without “them,” “them” the new Canadians, or is it “we” with “them,” so a new “we” to just take into
account their presence, and then we are this discussion throughout the world: Dutchness, Britishness,
Frenchness, Canadianness? And defining “us,” our identity.
It’s coming from a sense of loss, that there is something that we have to redefine because we don’t know
exactly who we are while different people are part of us. Perceived as a threat, we defined our values as a
set of values that “they” have to accept, “they,” the people who are coming. And so it’s a defensive
definition of identity, and it’s sometimes an exclusive one, with this question that we all have to deal with
when you are Muslims in our contemporary world. Are you first a French or a Muslim? Are you first a
Canadian or a Muslim? Are you first a Dutch or a Muslim? Meaning by this that we are defining us, so tell
us about you? Who you fit, where you fit in the picture. And I think that this is a new question, and it
comes to an obsession. And we have to deal with it, understanding that the globalized world is pushing us
to something which is a reduction of our selves in a global world. The global world is pushing us toward
reductionism, exclusivism, to define our identity. Why? Because there is a great deal of fears, and some of
them are legitimate. When you look at your society and you have new visible presence of these people who
are not like you, of course, and it’s natural, for what we call “average” citizens, meaning all of us, when
you look at this you are asking yourself a natural question, “who are we, with these people coming?” And if
now you add something else, all the figures telling you that in the next generation the number is going to
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double. We need them. Our economies need the people coming from outside. We may be resistant on the
cultural ground, but we need them on the economic ground. And it’s everywhere. All the figures, for
example, in the EU are telling us that within the next twenty years we need between eleven and twenty-five
million workers coming from abroad. So it’s economic needs, and at the same time, cultural resistance. We
need them, but we are not sure that we can just cope with their differences. And then, legitimate fears, and
we have to deal with this.
So it’s not a reasonable discussion that we are tackling. It’s something that has to do with passion, with
emotions, with fears and perceptions. And this is why I completely disagree with all the discussion about
the clash of civilizations. I have traveled a lot in the Islamic-majority countries, and the South, even in
Brazil, South America, Africa, Asia … there is a clash of perceptions. A clash of perceptions. “Them,” the
West, with a monolithic understanding of who they are, what they are doing to us, on the other side, who
“they” are, these people coming, and what they can change in our societies.
So having said that, this evolution of fears, and we have to take it as it is — no one is wrong to be scared.
You cannot say to someone, you are wrong to be scared. You have to try to take this into account and to go
beyond it. It’s not an idea, it’s not an opinion. My opinion is I am scared, it’s not an opinion, it’s a state of
mind, it’s a state of heart. It could become a mindset in the way you are looking at the world, and first, if
we want to change our societies for the better, is to take it as it is, to respect people’s fears on both sides.
And the third point here is to ask ourselves what can our societies do to change this, and what should be
done also by the people who are the new citizens? So it’s a fact, what I want to stress and to focus on this
today is, our shared responsibilities. At our level, as citizens, at the governmental level, but in every single
field within our societies, shared responsibilities, it’s the right way to put it, I think. And also, when we
speak with minorities, maybe the Muslims but not only, today we are focusing on the Muslim presence
because it appears to be the most important challenge, but it’s not only this. The people who are facing the
more important racism, and the daily racism are not the Muslims today, they are the gypsies, coming
because we are adding those east European countries, and they are dealing with something which is
complete disrespect for their culture and who they are.
And the last point is to come to, okay, all this discussion for what? To set some of the objectives that we
have, and of course, what we want is peaceful societies, but peaceful societies means also equal rights and
equality, and very often we want to speak about peaceful, respecting each other’s cultures and belongings,
and memories, and all this, but it’s also a question of power. Are we ready to share power? Equality means
power, equal access to every single level within the society. So very often we are ready, we say, okay, we
can share, you two are respectful, who you are, who I am, but at the end, as a very young French citizen
was saying once to the mayor in Lyons when he was asking, “what do you want, exactly? We are trying to
respect you,” and he looked at him and said, “Your place. I want your seat. I want to be in your place. I
want to become the mayor.” Sending a strong message here. I want to be involved in the political system.
It’s a question of equal opportunity to get also power.
Why is it so important to speak about this? Don’t make it only a cultural discussion, religious, you know,
mutual respect. Don’t be naïve. We are not dreaming a world of people sitting here, it’s also a question of
economic opportunities and political power, and it’s also a question of power struggle and equality, because
if you come back to what we are talking about, if we promote democracy, democracy is respect. It is rule of
law, equal citizenship, and when we say equal citizenship we mean, equal opportunities to get power in our
society, and it’s important because power is representation, it’s also building a sense of belonging. And this
is what we want, a peaceful society based on equal opportunities, not to create what I call a “new we.” A
few months ago, in fact two years ago, I wrote a manifesto for a “new we,” in our societies, in the West.
And by the way, when I was in Morocco recently, I was talking about this in two universities, and they
understood exactly what I meant by let us come together and say, okay, the “we” we are talking about are
all the people, like all the people in this room coming from different backgrounds, different, you know,
universes of reference, but still living in this country and trying to make it better for all of us in the name of
our common principles. So here, there is something that is very important, a new “we” for a new society
based on the values that we share and that we want to promote, tending to a peaceful society with its
condition, justice, equality, equal opportunities and the rule of law.
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So I think that these are the four main points that I wanted to highlight by starting that. Now, let me just
start with the challenge, really, of diversity. The problem really is that we need a clear discourse of what we
want, and when it comes to diversity, the first point for me is really to start with is commonalities. If we are
serious about building a society together, let’s say Canada, or any European country, or any of the States,
Australia, or even an Islamic-majority country, there is something which is really important. A society is a
structured community. And now we are speaking and still, whatever is our view on globalization, we still
are dealing with nation-states in a way. Even if we think it’s less and less the case, still, our identity is close
to something which is our state, a structured society. And then we have to come to this commonality. If you
live in a country, you are a citizen, or you are a resident, it should be clear, you abide by the law of the
state. There could be a constitution or not, but there are laws and there is legislation that you have to
respect. So let us say, this is the framework within which we are acting and accepting that we are equal
members. So here there is, the rule of law is something which is essential, and the framework, the common
framework is, in my view, not disputable. Because if we lose this, on which ground are we going to say
okay, we are building something together. So the sense of togetherness, it’s coming from here, and then this
is the relationship between us and the state, which is the laws that are regulating our coming together and
so abiding by the law.
But now, it’s not enough. A nation is not a set of laws. It is also something which has to do with the
memory. It has to do with legacy. It has to do with history. It has to do with a culture, and it has to do with
a collective psychology, and you cannot deny this. You come into a society, you deal with something
which is a collective psychology, a legacy, a history, memories building. Institutions, even, institutions.
Why, for example, the Canadian way of dealing with secularism is not the French one, because you don’t
have the same collective psychology. You may have exactly the same process, which is the process of
secularization, but the institutionalization of secularization is not the same in every country. In Britain is
not the same as in France. In Canada, even, you have two ways to think about it. If you are in Toronto, you
do not speak about secularism as you speak about it in Quebec. From my own experience I saw that, and
you know that. You know how much it’s not the same. So this is one point.
When we are touching the question of nation, and to build a nation, we have to deal with all this culture,
collective psychology, institutions, and here there is something that, it’s clear, if you are part of a nation, of
a society, you need to have to have a kind of integration of all this in your culture, in your perception, it
builds your universe of reference. And anyone who is coming within a society should get the sense of this,
you cannot ignore this. You cannot say, I’m part of Canada and I don’t know anything about its institutions
and past and legacy. It’s not possible. So it should be in our curriculum, it should be officially taught, it’s
part of us. The problem Canadians may have today, and by the way, all the western countries, is this slow,
you know, it’s something that we can feel, it’s this kind of disappearance of history in our minds. It’s as if
we are not connected to history. The teaching of history in all the industrialized societies is a problem. It’s a
problem. You don’t know — where do you come from? What are your roots? So if you don’t know the
richness of your roots, if someone is coming with other roots, you tend to reduce your past, because you are
scared of his presence. But your past is richer than the way you deal with the present because you are quiet
and you are becoming ignorant of your past. All the discussion we have in Europe about the roots, the
European roots, you heard about the Pope’s statement — it’s such a reduction of the past to say — what? Is
there someone among you thinking that the roots of Europe are Christian and Greek only? Who could say
something like that? Someone who doesn’t know about his own history. Because it’s wrong. About
Canada, all the waves and all the immigration that you’ve had is a richness, that if you reduce Canada and
the past of Canada to some set of values — “this is Canada” — by reducing the past you just show that you
may be ignorant about your own past, but you are scared of something else, something which is coming
from outside. So you reduce, you become exclusivist, when your past is pluralistic.
So the point here, it’s important, because this is why we built a nation, and we need to come back to this.
So my advice to the new citizens is to say, you have to listen, and you have to learn, not only the language,
but the history, the institutions, and the psychology, coming from what? From the Canadian literature, the
British literature, the western literature, it’s part of a nation, this, it’s part of a universe, so it’s part of
psychology. And psychology is essential here. It may be that the main problem that we have today is not
social integration, religious integration, but psychological integration, that you feel at home here. So this is
a very important point.
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Having said that, when it comes to the first point, comes to this, you know, the building, the commonalities,
rule of law, common framework, common legislations, we abide by this, and we add to this something
which is knowing history, legacy, collective psychology, you cannot get it all but you need to get it. And it
starts by the language. Because there is something which is clear. If the rule of law is telling you [that] we
are going to deal with you on an equal footing, you are a citizen and you have your rights and your
obligations, it means that you are free. Freedom cannot be [reached or gotten] without command of the
national language. Anyone who is living in this country and doesn’t know how to speak French and English
is not really free. Freedom is to have a good command of the language. And this is the starting point of a
nation. So this is something which is really important.
The second point which is really important here is that all this is very nice, and you may be very happy,
saying yes, that’s good. But we have another problem, which is a duty of consistency. It’s good to say it,
it’s better to implement it. And this is not always the case. When, for example, you know, you are speaking
about equal rights, you know, because this is the daily experience of so many people living, Canadians are
residents living in this country, not living in Europe. When you are at the grassroots level, not within
academia, in universities the world is quite perfect in theory, but in the world it’s quite different when the
people are telling you, that’s fine, you speak about equal rights, but when I’m black, when I’m Asian, when
I’m Turkish, when I’m perceived as a Muslim, when I try to get a job, the problem is that there is no equal
rights. There is plain discrimination. So, discrimination and racism in every single field, so I may speak
English as they speak English, French as they speak French, still, my face is not so French. I can tell you as
a Swiss citizen that I am reminded by this, every time I am at the border, that a Swiss, it’s not like me, so
they have to look at my — that’s true, this is, you know, so I’m quite confident when you come, I am
confident with this. And it’s clear at the desk that he can or she can see that I am confident. It’s not always
the case for all your fellow citizens. So they may have a problem of, you know, feeling that they are at
home.
So what do I mean by duty of consistency? It’s that if we are serious about equal rights, equal
opportunities, it’s something which is really important for us, it’s to be able a very strong discourse on
policy, and this, you know, this is the challenge of diversity. If we want to tackle diversity and to make it
something which is positive, we need to be clear on the fundamentals of our common values and common
rules. And this is something that is important. All of us, this “new we,” all the citizens, we should be clear
that there is no way we can accept discrimination and racism and structural racism, so when — structural
racism is something which is embodied in even the way we deal with it, the way we read the laws. I’m
always saying, when you read the legislation, your laws, and you are confident about your fellow citizens,
you read the law to integrate them. But when you read the laws and you are scared and you don’t trust the
citizens, you use the laws to protect yourself from them. The same text with different disposition. One is
integrative, the other is to reject and to protect. So the point here is, duty of consistency is what we have to
promote when we say rule of law, and [when] we say equal citizenship. The problem is that we are not
doing this, and sometimes we are confusing cultural problems or religious problems with socioeconomic
problems and problems of this, this is the problem.
Two examples. The first one, you knew this, it’s November 2005, France, suburbs, demonstrations, and
these were French people asking their government for respect and rights and to be treated equally. This had
nothing to do with religion, Islam and culture. They were not Arabs asking to be recognized as Arabs, they
were French asking to be recognized as French citizens. Because, in the suburbs, to feel that you are
respected as a French citizen, I can tell you it’s difficult. First, because all the people from the same
background are put there, all the same social status are put in the same place, no social services,
discriminations, and when you come from there to get a job it’s difficult. So we have it here, equal
opportunities. But when it comes to the reality, nothing is implemented that way. So when I am talking like
this to some of the people in the suburbs, they say that’s very good, you are great in talking, but the reality
is quite different because the way we are treated by the police, the way we are treated by the civil servants,
the way we are treated by this government, is as second-class citizens.
And you know what is happening, and we have the confirmation coming from the Pew Report published
three weeks ago, is when you have citizens who are not treated the same way as others, they will go to the
secondary identity they can have, which is the religious one. Don’t treat me as a citizen, I will show you
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that I could be something else. And they go to something which is another identity. Exactly the same, the
Pew Report is showing something that is really important. African Americans in the inner cities, among
them Muslims as well, they are citizens. You don’t go to them and say, you have to integrate. It’s not for us
to go to tell them they have to integrate. They have been here for centuries, so they are completely
Americans, but their feeling is that they don’t get their rights. And even when I was there a few years ago
talking with them about citizenship, okay, what are you talking about, we are citizens. They don’t care. If
you are black like me, just try to get a job, you will wait, wait, wait, and five or six white American citizens
will get it before you.
So the problem is that they are facing social discriminations, socioeconomic realities, and the point is that
they come then and they can become more radicalized on another ground, which is a cultural plain or
religious differentiation, because they don’t get the civic — so it’s paradoxical but it’s understandable —
you don’t get the civic rights, you are not respected here, you find something else to resist. And we, from
where we are, we are confusing everything. We say, oh, it’s a religious problem, it’s an Islamic problem, it
may be that the Muslims cannot integrate in our western societies. It has nothing to do with the religious
discussion. It has to do with the socioeconomic reality that we have today. Come with social policies, and
you will have less. I’m not saying you will have no religious problem, because you have of course, but you
will have less. And why? Because this could nurture a sense of belonging. So we need to get duty of
consistency.
And by the way, you were talking about what I said to the British government, I was on the task force for
the British government, and I said, I’m ready to talk to everyone with one condition: I am free to say
whatever I want. And that’s normal. This is to be a citizen. And I said your war in Iraq was a mistake. It’s
unjust, it’s not right, it’s illegal, and you killed innocent people. There’s something which is really
important here, for me, which was to say on that field, which was, you are talking about, and this was to
Blair, a speech once, he said you have the duty to integrate. I said that’s fine, that’s free, that’s good. The
duty to integrate to what? He said, freedom, democracy, rule of law. I said, I don’t know so many Muslims
who have a problem with this, to integrate to this. But instead of only saying you have the duty to integrate,
they may ask you, you have the duty of consistency. By what you are saying, and what you are preaching,
and what you are saying at the grassroots level. So a critical discourse on this politics is something which is
important.
The third point is, I will try to stick to my time, the third point is education. And this is also coming, you
know, I’m just trying to say, the commonalities here. First, it’s really the framework, state, rules and
nations and all this collective psychology and institutions, past history, which is important, and language of
course, the duty of consistency. The third one which is coming from the governments which is really
important is about education. Look, I’m coming from Egypt. I was in Switzerland. And it was easy for me
not to feel a kind of inferiority complex when the people were talking, and when the people are talking
about Egypt, Egypt is a big civilizaton, not doubt about it. So when you feel, this was my feeling, I was
feeling that the people were respecting this culture because it’s a big one. And it’s a big one. Just for you to
remember. But let us say, when we are coming from Turkey, when you are coming from Morocco, Algeria,
Turkish, and when you are coming from Pakistan, you come here. And we are all saying, I hope that we are
all saying this. Our societies have changed, now it’s all the people who are all equal citizens. But this one is
coming with a culture which is a Pakistani culture, a North African culture, all these cultures, and they are
part of our society. Is it possible for us to continue in our official indication when it comes to history to say
the history of Canada is a history of white, indigenous, Canadians building this country when they came?
Or do we have to think about a reassessment of what it means to be Canadian? Yes, this history is right, but
it’s not the only one. Now we have memories coming in the country. People are coming from Morocco.
What do you say about this great civilization from North Africa? What do you say about India and Africa?
What do we say about all these cultures, if you are not officially integrating memories in our official
history. You will have a competition of memories. To avoid the competition of memories, we need an
official history of memories. Which is really important, why? Because people are coming — we have this
discussion in the UK, we have this discussion in France, you will have this discussion about colonization.
You heard, for example, Nicholas Sarkozy going to Dakar and speaking about the African, by the way, a
very bad speech. Unbelievable to listen to something like this today, saying that the Africans, by nature,
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have a way of dealing with time which is a cyclic perception of time, not open to the future and creativity,
so Africans are lost, you know why? Because they are Africans. Which is, okay, it is not my topic. I have a
personal relationship with Sarkozy, but — the point is that we need to introduce in our curriculum
something which is a more official way to deal with point of view. Points of view about, you know, history,
memories. And to make it official, in one way to integrate this. Why? Because if I am a Canadian citizen,
or a European citizen, and I come to school, and nothing is said about me, nothing is said about the
contribution of my culture, it is as if it doesn’t exist, and you say, but we respect you, but how could you
respect my presence when you neglect my past? How? I don’t get it. And it should be official, an official
history of memories. And being able also to be self-critical about the other perception, because things were
done in the name of colonization, in the name of freedom, and you know this about the Native American,
it’s important to have the other side of the story, not to nurture a sense of guilt, but to promote the sense of
justice, which is not the same, but it’s essential when you live with people coming from different horizons.
So, and then, this acknowledgement is really important, and also to speak about the contribution. Because,
when we speak about — you know, I’m coming from a political exhile. I never, to tell you the truth, I never
felt that I have something which is an inferiority complex with the surrounding culture. I was coming from
Egypt, I was born in Switzerland, I started, my first Ph.D. was on Nietzsche’s philosophy, and then on the
Islamic classical religious sciences, all this was — so this is, when you have both, you don’t have a
problem. And when you come as an economic exile, and you are the second and third generations, and now
the people are saying, you have to integrate to our society, while their parents helped to build this country
and nothing is officially said about their contribution, it’s not acceptable. They built the country, they are
building the country, and you have to officially acknowledge what they give, not only what they could be
perceived as a problem. So when you give and you build, you forget, and when you cause problems, you
remind you. It’s not the way to deal with recent history, and I think we have to reassess this sense of
contribution and this is also to help to get a sense of belonging. Just look at an official discourse saying the
people who build this country, they build this country, make it was it what it is now, it’s helping to get a
sense of belonging. This is us. This is us because you put my father and my mother in our common past,
not me as a problem for you at present, and I think it’s important here to understand that.
And, of course, all this, with the help of the media. I’m not, you know, paranoiac about this, because you
know, I know now that the media are not talking about the train arriving on time, and that’s natural. They
are always talking about the trains [that are]collapsing, and when there are accidents. By nature, it’s this.
The problem is that sometimes as a civic responsibility, it’s important to have the media talking about the
people who are building, and not only the people who are destroying. It’s a decision, it’s a decision. So we
have an alternative way to deal with media, but it’s a decision to also speak about the people who are
building, and millions of people coming from different backgrounds are building. A tiny minority are
destroying, and we are obsessed with this, and we distort the whole picture.
One example. A survey in the UK. This was when I was writing to be a European Muslim in the UK.
Where we have — at that time, it was in the beginning of the nineties — they were saying, less than one
percent of the Muslims there are radicalized or could be, you know, real radical Muslims. 0.8%. This was
the figure that we had at that time. And they were saying, 33% of the images are on these people. So one
image out of four, no, one out of three, is on less than one percent. Of course it’s going to change your
perception of 99% who have nothing to do with this. And it may be that we have to also be able to have a
critical discourse on this.
Very quickly now, just to try to be, to stick to my time. So the point here is not only to say these are the
responsibilities coming from the society, and I think that as citizens, as politicians, as journalists, as social
workers, at every level we have to do something on that. But there’s also responsibilities, so to say, coming
from the new people, the people who are here, citizens, newcomers, and coming from the perceived
religious or cultural minority. The first one, which is really important in the discourse, and you will find,
for example, I said this very strongly in the book To Be a European Muslim, and then Western Muslims and
the Future of Islam, you have to abide by the law. Not as an exception to your belief, but as the true and
full respect to your belief. And this is something which is important to say. It is not to say to the people,
okay, because you are here we respect, and then you try to adapt yourself. No. In the name of your belief,
in the name of your conviction, when you have a civic contract, you have a contract with your society, you
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are a citizen, in the name of who you are and who you believe — as a Muslim, for example, you abide by
the law. It’s once again non-negotiable.
And all this discussion that sometimes there are conflicts, very often I say to Muslims that, you know when
you had this discussion on the sharia court, for example. I was involved in the discussion with some
Muslim scholars or leaders here. I said, look. What are you asking for? First, to say the truth. What they
were asking for was not illegal. In fact, it was already there for other religious communities. So they were
not asking something new. So on the legal discussion, legally speaking they were not wrong, they were not
asking for specific rules as it was represented in some other countries and even here. So they were doing
what others were doing before them. So this is one discussion, you are not wrong on the legal. But it may
be that you can be right on the legal field and wrong on all the other fields, like for example the
psychological one, and even in the deep understanding of what the common legislation is helping you to
do. And this was my position. My position was that in the common legal framework that you have now,
you don’t need something that is specific, just use what you have and you can be a good Muslim, you don’t
need something specific. Because you know, all this discussion about mediation between the husband and
the wife, all this could be done within the limits of the law. Why are you trying to get something specific
where the latitude of the legal framework is just helping you to do what — you can do it! Why are you
coming to this discussion? You can do it. And this is the problem with some Muslims, when you tell them
you have to abide by the law, very often they haven’t studied the law, it’s as if this law is not ours, because
they have not studied law, so a very deep study of the law shows that there is the latitude for you. More
than that, when you come to the Islamic legal tradition, you understand that when it comes to a specific
situation, you have lots of flexibility in the Islamic tradition. So, between the flexibility on one side and the
latitude on the other side, all the so-called contradictions can be solved if, and only if, we study. And the
problem is a clash of perception — “we cannot.” And Muslims could have this perception, but then you
have the fellow citizens, they also share this perception. Oh, it should be very difficult to be at the same
time Canadian and Muslim. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It can be fully both at the same time with no real
compromise if only you know the way it works. But we, this is the discourse we need to have within the
Muslim community, but in fact in every single cultural and religious community, just to try to abide by the
law, the common legal framework, and try to find the way.
The second here, which is really important, the second is really to reassess the kind of education we are
giving in our western countries, and this is a challenge when we come to diversity. Because many of the
mosques or the religious organizations, and not only the religious organizations, the cultural organizations,
are coming, having their organizations here, and the perception is that you have to protect yourself from the
environment. And by the way, this is not specifically Islamic, all the immigrants at the first, have [been]
always the same. Always. The Polish, the Italians, the Spanish. When I was in Switzerland, they were all
doing the same, protecting yourself. It’s normal. If you are going to a country you do not know, the first, I
am sure that the first thing you will try to do is just to look for people who are not far from your culture.
Not going to the Indians straight away if you are a white Canadian going, okay, I am here, open to the
world. No, you will stay for awhile with the people you know. And then you open up. And then you reach
out. But when you are here to stay, and you build the sense of belonging, it’s really important here to
reassess the education. And the problem we have still, but it’s changing, and I want you to understand that
it’s changing here, is not to confuse the religious education with the cultural education. Meaning by that,
you are not asked to be in Canada a Pakistani Muslim or a Turkish Muslim or a Moroccan Muslim, you are
asked to be a Muslim, and to do this you should distinguish between what is cultural and what is religious,
which is not easy because you are dealing with your parents. You are not dealing with the Canadian
society. Look, it’s the reality. You are dealing with my father and my mother. They are just representing
this world of Pakistani Muslim, Moroccon Muslim, and then I have Canada here. So it’s not an easy task
just to deal with all that. But we need a discourse and education to construct this. And this takes time and
effort. It’s coming.
We need, you know, it’s not only one generation, it could take two or three generations, but it’s coming,
but it’s needed, and it’s really needed in order, for example, when it comes to some of our perceptions on
very sensitive issues. I’m not, you know, I don’t think it’s bad for Muslims to listen to people asking them
about women discrimination, because very often the women discrimination is not Islamic, or it could be
Islamic in the way literalists are reading the text, but it’s also cultural. Female circumcision is not Islamic,
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it’s cultural, domestic violence is not Islamic, it’s the literal understanding of one verse saying that we can
do it, so we have to challenge, to confront these discourses, we have to reassess the Islamic education in the
West, and you know what? By doing it in the West, we’ll have a tremendous impact in the Islamic-majority
countries. When now I go to Morocco, to Jordan and to Indonesia, I am saying, for example, female
circumcision is not Islamic. Domestic violence is not Islamic. Arranged marriage, or forced marriage, are
not Islamic. And you can see from where you are, this is not Islamic. This is coming from a wrong
understanding, this is coming from culture or from a literalist understanding, can you understand that from
what we are experiencing there, we are sending a message, by saying this: We remain truly Muslims, but
we are not accepting a distorted way of being Muslims coming from there, because we are blind to the
cultural influence. So this is something which is really important, and I wrote a book on the Prophet of
Islam just to show this, that he immigrated from Mecca to Medina to experience these two cultures, and to
say what was cultural there, you have to keep it there, and you have to deal with the new culture, and the
new culture in Medina was women much more involved in society, much more outspoken, much more
involved in social affairs, so this is something which is — could I have three minutes left? Okay. I’m sorry.
You know, I am always saying this. I am Swiss by nationality and still Egyptian by culture, Egyptian by
memory, and Egyptians have some problems with time. So it’s important, this, to differentiate between this.
And then, [the] third thing which is important to ask for the perceived minority on the religious ground or
the cultural ground and now to be involved in the society and to be involved in the mainstream. And this is
something which is important. When you look at the minorities very often, on the cultural ground or on the
religious ground, very often they are involved with things that are connected to them. Our problems, you
know, it’s — for example, when I was dealing with (I am still, by the way, dealing with) black movement,
African American movement, when I was there, everything, it was like an obsession, our involvement in
American society is through this window. This was the main involvement they had. When it comes also
with Muslims, it’s exactly the same. Everything which has to do with Islam, we are in. When it comes to no
Islam, no Muslims. And here, this has to be completely changed, of course. The sense of belonging is to
belong to a society, so you have to be in the mainstream in every single discussion which has to do with
this society. When it comes, for example, to the public system or the mainstream school system, you have
to be involved in it, you have to be involved in an employment, in every single thing that has to do with
your society, and not only when [it happens that] a Muslim has been discriminated [against], then we are
involved. Or in foreign policy, for example, many Muslims were very happy, you know, just before the war
in Iraq, because something happened in Britain which was quite unbelievable before that, which is that the
entire war movement, people, British people coming from all the different fields and political spectrums,
coming together, saying no to the war, and Muslims, non-Muslims, atheists, all together, you know, Jewish
people, Christians, all together. And it was perceived as, this is the symbol of a society which is a
multicultural society. That’s true and good, but it’s not enough. You know why? Because it’s very easy to
come together against something. When we reject we can be together. But to be together for something, it’s
completely different. Because against, oh yes, we are against the war, so whatever is your background,
come with me against this. But when we wanted a society for more justice, more equality, to come together
[in the long run], policy, to come together is the most difficult thing to do. But you have to involve people
in the mainstream. The problem is that within these communities, very often the focus is us, trying to
protect ourselves from them, and we have really to change this, this is a mindset, this is a mentality that we
have to change. And sometimes it could come from language, it could come from a lack of knowledge, of
institutions, literature, culture, collective psychology, and you know, if you work on that side it helps on the
other side, to nurture this and to try to get it, but this is something which is really important.
Why? Because it helps to avoid two things that we are all subject to if we are not aware. The first one is the
victim mentality. The victim mentality is really everywhere now because of this fear that I was talking
about. So they don’t like us, they don’t like Muslims, so we are the target of their criticism, so we have to
protect ourselves, to withdraw into ourselves, and there is this psychological pressure. It could be natural to
withdraw into yourself, but what should be done is exactly the opposite, to reach out to be with the people.
And then, the victim mentality is everywhere, and by the way, if you look to some — I was sitting with
some British citizens — and even in Canada, the last time I came here, I met people who were saying, you
know, we feel that we are not secure, because they are threatening us with all this, we don’t know what we
are becoming, because they have their culture, and so the victim mentality on the other side. We may be the
victim of their slow colonization of our society. So true perception of, you know, victims on both sides, of
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suspected intentions of the other. So I think it’s really important, and on the Muslim side it’s clear that the
victim mentality is something which has to be, we have to get rid of that.
But there is something else which is really important, and maybe more important than this, which is the
minority mentality. Because even in our discourse here, we say, okay, diversity, we as a mainstream or as a
majority, we are dealing with minorities. Okay. On the cultural ground that’s fine. On the religious ground,
that’s fine. They are religious minorities. But we are talking about a social project. We are talking about a
political project. We are not talking about a religious project. On the political ground, on the civil ground,
there is no minority/majority. If I am a Canadian talking to you now, don’t tell me oh you as a minority.
I’m sorry, it doesn’t exist, this concept of minority citizenship, it’s in your mind, not in the law. There is no
minority citizenship. We are citizens together, so we have to get rid of this minority talking to majority, we
are building it together. The “new we” is a we where there is no minority, majority process. There is no
power struggle. We are equal, so we are able to share views and power. Ready? Not sure. I am not sure.
This is something which has to be deeply rooted in our daily experience, and this is why we have to work
on that.
So this is something which is really important here, and there is a last point which I wanted to say, which
has to do also from within our community, for example, in the Muslim communities in the West. I may
surprise you. I think the main problem I am facing, for example, in having traveled during around the last
twenty-five years is really a sense of first, of fear, as I said. Sometimes a complex of inferiority, and
psychological problems much more than legal discussion that I am facing. But you know what, the main
problem is a lack of creativity. A lack of creativity. Lack of creativity means that when you are facing the
new environment and you are facing new realities, you need a creative mind just to tackle the issues in
different fields, on the legal one, but also in the cultural one. I don’t want, you know, to accept the
Canadian culture as mine. I want to contribute to the Canadian culture, because if it’s mine, I have to
contribute. Creativity is essential. Writing poems, writing novels, being part of movies and all this, I know
that some Muslim schools of law say music, unlawful. Movies, unlawful. This is one. On the other side, to
be creative is essential because this is the way you are building this sense of belonging. It means that you
accept, you integrate the language. You know, in our discussion we very often speak about you have to
integrate. My position, and what I say to Muslims, is not you have to be integrated, but exactly the
opposite. I say, you have to integrate, from the surrounding culture. You have to make it yours. The
language. The sense. The literature. You may be selective. There are things that are stupid and silly in
every culture. Of course, I am coming from the Egyptian culture, there are many Egyptian things that the
only true Islamic reference are Egyptians, saying, well, come, we will come, we will try to assess the
Egyptian culture. So, silly things, and we all have to be selective, and I hope that you are already selective
with the Canadian culture, if you think it’s perfect, you have to reassess it. So I think that’s a critical thing.
So the conclusion here to all this, is really to acknowledge this and to know that we have shared
responsibility and to come together. In the name of this “new we” and as citizens in our countries and to try
to do this. By accepting one thing at the beginning of our discussion if we are serious about it. We need
trust, and trust means that we need to know each other more and to come to this. And with trust, we need
critical loyalty. Critical loyalty is this intellectual disposition by which you look at yourself and you are
self-critical, and you are able to be critical with the other without losing his or her trust. Saying this, when I
am a citizen in a country, for example Switzerland, or in Britain, critical loyalties say in the name of my
country I disagree with my government, without being suspected [that] I am not really loyal to my country.
It’s exactly the opposite of the Bush statement when he said you are with us or against us. I’m sorry. I am
neither with you nor with them. I am with the principle of justice. Saddam Hussein was unjust, you are
unjust with the way you are doing it. So this critical loyalty is really important, because critical loyalty,
when it comes to this, it means that we need to trust each other, and every single question I have I can just
ask it to you, because you trust me. Critical loyalty is the true nature of a pluralistic society. Lose critical
loyalty, you are losing democracy. You are losing the essence of democracy, because there is no freedom.
There is pretending that we are in an open society, when we are promoting this, so trust and critical loyalty
are really important, and the last point with all this.
I am quite positive with all this, but I know it is going to be very difficult, and I think that during the next
two generations, not less than fifty years, we are going through very difficult times. Very difficult times.
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It’s going to be very difficult — it’s not ten years, it’s at least two generations. It’s going to take time, and
we need to prepare this, this is our job — our job is to prepare — to pave the road toward something which
is going be better. It’s going to be better for many reasons — because our economy needs this mixing
people, because the life is this, and people who are here are building the future of a better understanding.
So it’s going to be difficult, but we can succeed and we have to prepare the road, but let me just say one
thing. To be optimistic does not mean that we have to be naïve. Some politicians are using all our fears to
promote pluralization. When you are building bridges, they want to promote fractures, because this is the
way they can win the next election. Our timing of changing mentalities is not their timing of winning the
next election. Our timing, to try to change things is not the timing of the media. Media is immediate,
mentalities is a long-run process. Politicians is five years, and you have to build for twenty-five years. So
we may need courageous politicians, but we need much more than that. We need committed citizens able to
say, we may lose the next election, but we need to win the whole battle which is to build a better living
together.
Thank you.
Canada — Who Shall We Be?
August 10, 2007, 9:30 a.m.
GWEN BURROWS:
Good morning. My name is Gwen Burrows, and I sit on the board of Couchiching, and I have the pleasure
of moderating the panel this morning, which I can promise you is going to be a good one. The title of the
panel is “Canada — Who Shall We Be?,” and I think we’ve already started building the conversation that
feeds very nicely into this panel.
Last we had a conference call amongst the panelists, and sort of talked through how all the pieces fit
together, and at the time I said, you know, this is really the panel that frames the conference and frames the
discussion. Will giving the philosophical framework, Michael giving a lot of the data that we can then start
to discuss and take apart and put back together, and then Veronica giving some detail, particularly focused
on education around how this works on the ground.
In many ways, we got a terrific framing, though, with the panel with the panel yesterday, and the opening
keynote last night, so the conversation is well underway, but I think you’ll see that this then feeds into the
panels that will come, particularly around institutions, and how we structure our institutions, going forward.
And Will has a second kick at the can to deepen the framework that we’re working in, which I think is
wonderful, because I appreciated his thoughts so much last night.
So I’m not going to spend much time at the podium. I will just introduce our panelists. Each one will speak
for 20 minutes, and then we’ll take the hour-long break, and come back for excellent and to-the-point
questions. So the first speaker is Will Kymlicka, who’s a Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy in
the Department of Philosophy at Queen’s University, and he’s the author of many books, most recently
Multicultural Odysseys. Michael Adams, who’s a good friend to Couchiching and who has been on this
podium before, is the president and cofounder of Environics Research Group, and author of four bestsellers
with a fifth bestseller coming out in November, we’re told, so welcome. And you’ll also see on your seat
some information from The Learning Partnership, and this comes from Veronica Lacey, who is the
president and CEO of The Learning Partnership, and a director and vice-chair of the Canada Council on
Learning, as well. She is a former deputy minister in Ontario, of education and training, a former teacher
and principal and student, and she’ll be speaking, or giving us a more grounded case around education, so
it’s going to be a terrific morning, and without further ado, Will.
WILL KYMLICKA:
Thanks, Gwen, for the introduction, and thanks for the invitation — it’s my first time to Couchiching, and
I’m delighted to be here, and I’m enjoying it a lot.
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So my talk today will be about the policy framework that we use to accommodate diversity in Canada,
what’s sometimes called the Canadian model. As most of you know, there isn’t really a single model. In
Canada, we have at least three different policy frameworks dealing with three different types of diversity in
Canada that have emerged historically at different times. So the first concerns the relations with aboriginal
peoples that, from the time of the European colonization of North America, the European colonizers had to
recognize the fact that there were aboriginal peoples here on the territory and had to work out some sort of
modus vivendi with them, and the terms of that relationship have changed over time, and we have
developed a quite rich and complicated set of ideas and policies and to regulate that relationship. Ideas of
the inherent right of self-government, treaty rights, sui generis aboriginal title, fiduciary trust, you’ll be
familiar with some of these guiding concepts that we use in our legal and political relationships with
aboriginal peoples.
The second set of policies concern the French fact in Canada — the relationships between the two original
European colonial societies that from the time that the British conquered the French at the Plains of
Abraham, we faced the question of how to accommodate, or integrate, New France, or the French fact, in
what was then British North America. And again, the terms of the relationship between the British and the
French have evolved over time, and we have developed a range of concepts to discuss that relationship,
ideas of bilingualism, of French-English duality, of distinct society, of provincial autonomy, asymmetrical
federalism, you’re familiar with all those.
And then the third one, which is really the one that we’re focusing primarily here at the conference,
concerns the accommodation of groups that have their origin in immigration to Canada after it was
established as a sovereign state, beginning with European immigrants and now, more recently, from all
parts of the world. And again, the terms of that relationship have changed over time, and today we use
ideas of multiculturalism, of citizenship, of integration, and non-discrimination, to discuss that relationship.
So these are three quite distinct policy frameworks. We use different words to describe them, but they’re all
so institutionalized, different government departments deal with each of these three frameworks, different
laws govern them, different sections of the constitution govern them. So in many ways we can think of
these actually as three silos. They’re quite separate, there’s very little connection between them, they stand
parallel to each other, and together they make up what we call the Canadian model.
As I say, our focus here is primarily on the third, but I think it’s important to remember that we have all
three of them in Canada, and that all three of them, to my mind, are vital to the success of Canada. They, I
don’t think we can succeed as a country unless we get all three of these policy frameworks working
properly.
I think it’s fair to say that many Canadians have a kind of schizophrenic attitude towards these sets of
policies around diversity. On the one hand, there’s quite strong evidence, and Michael may talk about this,
that many Canadians feel pride in the level of diversity in Canada, in the way in which we take it in stride
— we live with extraordinary levels of diversity in our personal lives, walking down the street, in the
workplace, schools, and in our political institutions, and by and large, those relationships across ethnic,
racial, and religious lines are peaceful, they’re civil, they’re not necessarily based on love and harmony and
understanding, but they’re peaceful and civil, and we appreciate the fact that Canada has allowed us, all of
our diversity, to live freely and peacefully together, and we appreciate the institutions that have made that
possible.
On the other hand, I think many Canadians feel quite a bit of anxiety about these diversity policies, on
many different fronts, but let me just focus on one. There’s a perception that maybe we have gone too far in
accommodating diversity, or that we’re kind of — we’re out of balance in the relationship between
recognizing diversity or emphasizing our differences on the one side, as opposed to trying to highlight or
build on our commonalities. And so many people think we’ve gone too far down the road of recognizing
and emphasizing and valorizing our differences, and have not put enough emphasis on highlighting what
we have in common and trying to build shared values, shared identities and shared citizenship.
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Now this is not a new debate, we’ve had this debate many times in Canada in the past, nor is it unique to
Canada. Every western democracy is going through this debate right now, about the relationship between,
or trying to find a balance between recognizing diversity and building shared values and common
identities. I think that debate’s inevitable, and it’s useful. On the other hand, I think there are also some
ways in which it’s misleading, the ways in which that debate is framed. And in particular, I think the idea
that there’s a kind of trade-off or a choice between emphasizing shared values of, say, human rights and
liberal democratic values, that there’s a trade-off between that and support for diversity policies, that that’s
a false choice, because I believe that our diversity policies are themselves a manifestation of our shared
values of human rights and liberal democratic values. It’s because of our commitment to human rights and
liberal democratic values that we have the diversity policies we have, and that we need to understand the
connections between them if we are to make sense of our current debates.
So, in order to explain that a bit, let me just unpack a bit these three different policy silos and say a bit
about how all three of them have undergone a quite dramatic transformation over the last forty years. So let
me start in the reverse order — start with the immigrant, multiculturalism policy silo. As you all know, in
the past, up until the 1960s, Canada, we’ve had a long history of immigration, but we expected immigrants
to assimilate into the hegemonic British-Canadian culture and society, and that any group that was seen as
incapable of that was actually excluded from admission to Canada. We had racially restrictive immigration
laws up until the 1960s that kept out most Asians and Africans because they were seen as incapable of this
kind of assimilation to the hegemonic British Canadian society.
In the 1960s, that whole framework was reversed, was abolished and replaced in two ways. First of all, we
shifted from racially restrictive immigration to race-neutral immigration admissions based on the points
system, and as a result we now have immigrants from all over the world. And secondly, we repudiated the
expectation of assimilation and replaced it with the multiculturalism policy in 1971, which operates on the
premise that immigrants, and their children and grandchildren, should be free to participate in public life
without having to hide their ethnic origin, they should be able to freely and with pride express their ethnic
identity in public space and in politics, and they should be able to have that identity reflected in public
institutions, in the schools, in the media, in museums, in symbols of the state, and so on.
Okay, so that’s the first transformation, from racial exclusion and assimilation to race-neutral admissions
and multiculturalism. With respect to the aboriginal framework, up until the 1960s, in Canada as in other
British settler states, there was the expectation that indigenous peoples would disappear as distinct groups,
that they would, either they would just die out, or that they would intermarry, or that they would assimilate.
And a number of policies were taken to hasten this process of the disappearance of indigenous peoples as
distinct societies — things like residential schooling, banning the use of indigenous languages, the
abolishing of traditional forms of aboriginal self-government, and other institutions. Starting in the late
1960s, that framework was contested — the last great statement of this assimilationist goal was the 1969
white paper, which was decisively repudiated almost immediately, and starting early in the 1970s, we have
a series of court cases and legal reforms that have affirmed the premise that aboriginal peoples will
continue to exist indefinitely in Canada as distinct societies, and who have the right to — who have a
legitimate claim to the rights needed to maintain themselves as distinct and self-governing societies
indefinitely. So rights of self-government, land claims, as well as cultural and linguistic rights which are
now recognized in the constitution. So that started with the land-claims case, the 1972 [?] case, the James
Bay agreement of 1975, the MacKenzie Valley pipeline decision, these were all a dramatic transformation
that built towards this new model of recognizing aboriginal peoples as permanent constituents of the
Canadian fabric, with rights of land-claims and self-government.
The third policy framework concerns the French fact in Canada, and here we have — the original
settlement in 1867, when Canada was founded, had already accepted that the French fact was not going to
disappear. The expectation of assimilation that we had with respect to immigrants and aboriginal peoples
did not apply in the same way to the French in 1867. The British had tried this briefly in 1840 but gave up
very quickly. By 1867, it was accepted that the French were here to stay permanently as a distinct
constituent of Canadian society, and that was recognized in two ways. First of all, by bilingualism, at the
federal level, and through provincial autonomy, the province of Quebec with a French majority. But by the
1960s, it became clear that, at least as those institutions were operating at the time, they were not working
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to ensure equality for French Canadians, that the kind of bilingualism that existed in the federal civil
service in 1960 was very weak, it was tokenistic, and French Canadians were underrepresented at the
federal level, and provincial autonomy was not working, in fact, to enable francophones to determine their
own fate. Although they were a majority in Quebec, they were, in fact, a subordinated majority. They were
less well off than the anglophone elite which controlled the economy and de facto controlled large chunks
of the government, and so starting in the 1960s, the Quebec nationalist movement demanded twofold
reform. On the one hand, real bilingualism at the federal level, a pan-Canadian bilingualism to affirm
French as an equal official language throughout Canada, and secondly, strengthening provincial autonomy
to enable the francophone majority of Quebec to use the powers of the Quebec government to enhance the
status of the francophone majority. And those two claims were accepted by the Royal Commission on
Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s and were codified in the Official Languages Act of 1968 and a
series of intergovernmental agreements to strengthen Quebec’s power, like the Immigration Agreement, the
Pension Agreement, the Health Care Agreement, all of which have given Quebec enhanced powers which it
has used effectively to strengthen the status of its francophone majority.
So those are the three — so dramatic transformations along all three of these policy frameworks, and all in
the direction of a more accommodationist line, a more pro-minority position, if you like. And notice the
timing. All of these, they all started in the 1960s, and they were all basically in place by the mid-1970s. It’s
basically a single decade, between 1965 and 1975, the core, if you like, foundations of these three silos
were put in place. The core governing concepts are for immigrant multiculturalism policy, of the official
bilingualism, provincial autonomy, of ideas of land claims and treaty rights and self-government for
aboriginal people, all of those were basically put in place between ‘65 and ‘75 and then reaffirmed in the
1982 constitution.
So that’s interesting. What was happening in 1965 to ‘75 that explains these dramatic, almost revolutionary
transformations in our approach to diversity? So my argument is that this decade, and I hope Michael’s
going to back me up on this, was a period of intense liberalization in Canadian society. This was a period of
the rights revolution in Canadian society. This was the same decade in which we saw the origins of the
women’s movement, beginnings of the gay rights movement, this was the liberalization of abortion,
divorce, contraception laws, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the abolition of the death penalty, I
could go on and on. This was the decade in which the human rights commissions were formed in every
province in the federal government, this was the human rights revolution. The human rights revolution took
root in Canada in the decade between ‘65 and ‘75, and then, as I say, was formally codified in the Charter
of Rights in 1982.
And in my view, the transformation of our diversity policies has to be understood as part of that larger
process of the human rights revolution. It’s one dimension of that larger process of liberalization and
human rights reform. And what all of these reforms have in common is that that they’re contesting
inherited forms of hierarchy, inherited forms of stigmatization and exclusion and restrictions on people’s
liberties.
And so one way to think of it is that all of these — I apologize for the jargon — this is what sociologists
sometimes call citizenization. That all of these policies are aimed at constructing relations of citizenship
between people in a country. That if you think about — historically, the relations across ethnic and
religious and racial lines in Canada have been marked by a series of uncivil, undemocratic, and illiberal
relationships. I mean, the relations between colonizer and colonized in the case of indigenous peoples, the
relations between conquered and conqueror, in the case of the French Canadians, between allies and
enemies in the case of the Japanese during the internment, or between masters and slaves, because we had
slavery in Canada, or between the advanced and the primitive, the barbaric or the backward — those were
the kinds of terminology that we premised our relations across ethnic and racial and religious lines in
Canada. And the task facing Canada, as in all western countries, was to transform that kind of catalog of
illiberal and undemocratic relationships into the relationships of democratic citizenship, in which we can
interact with each other as free and democratic citizens.
It used to be assumed, and it still is assumed in some countries, that the only way to do that is to impose on
every citizen a single, undifferentiated, unified model of citizenship. So this is the French model, that you
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just sort of wave a wand, and you declare everyone to be an equal, undifferentiated French citizen, and you
ignore all the differences between them. And that’s the way to convert this historical catalog of uncivil
relations into relations of democratic citizenship.
The Canadian model, and it’s one that other countries share, is that, given that history, given our
demography, given our history, that we have — it’s appropriate that there be accommodation of diversity,
that we acknowledge the facts of colonization, of conquest, we acknowledge the ways in which our
institutions have historically privileged whites, Protestants, anglophones, and that we have a range of
policies intended to remedy those hierarchies, and to create equality, and that these will inevitably and
appropriately take certain kinds of group-differentiated forms, like our diversity policies do, but with the
goal of constructing relations of equal citizenship.
So one way to think of this — another way to think of this, would be that these diversity policies that have
emerged since the 1960s can be seen in a kind of historical context as a kind of third wave of the human
rights revolution in the sphere of ethnic and racial relations. So, up until World War II in Canada, as across
the western democracies, ideas of racial and ethnic hierarchy were taken for granted. They were the basis of
our immigration policies, of our relations with aboriginal peoples, of our relations with the third world, and
international law was also premised on the idea of an inequality of races and ethnic groups. That was
discredited in World War II as a result of Hitler’s murderous policies, and since World War II, we have a
world order that’s premised on the idea of the equality of races and peoples. We have delegitimized racial
and ethnic hierarchies.
Now, that’s a huge change, and it has consequences that take time to work out. The first — and so we’ve
seen waves of reforms that try to work out the consequences of this new commitment to the idea of the
equality of races and peoples. The first wave was decolonization at the international level, which was
roughly 1948 to 1966 — this new commitment to the equality of races and peoples delegitimized
colonization, and so we had this first wave of decolonization from ‘48 to ‘66. The second wave was the
racial desegregation movements that started in the United States with the African-American civil rights
movement. And that started roughly in1955 to ‘65, and we had a whole slew, around the world, of
movements against racial discrimination and against racial segregation. And then the third wave, I think, is
the struggle for various kinds of recognition of diversity — minority rights and multiculturalism and
indigenous rights. And those movements around the world have been the third wave. They have followed
on from the decolonization, racial desegregation, and now the struggle for a more proactive recognition and
accommodation of diversity.
But all of these three waves have in common that they are attempts to overcome legacies of earlier ethnic
and racial harmonies that have been built into our societies for decades, if not centuries.
So, if that’s right — I mean, insofar as that’s right, that’s why I say I think it’s misleading to say that we
face a choice between emphasizing universal human rights values as shared values for our common
Canadian identity, as opposed to recognizing differences. I just don’t think we can separate them in that
way. The policies we have for the accommodation of diversity arose because the human rights revolution
took root in Canada in the 1960s. That our diversity policies are an outgrowth of that human rights
revolution. And if we, today, decide that we should reemphasize and recommit ourselves to the value of
universal human rights and liberal democratic values, and I’m absolutely in favour of emphasizing the
importance of universal human rights and liberal democratic values, the effect will be to simply reinforce
the foundations on which people demand respect for diversity. Those two are logically as well as
historically and politically connected.
That’s the way I see the two being connected — chronologically, as it were historically, and conceptually.
Now that’s mainly an account of what our aspirations are. That’s what I think these policies were intended
to achieve, to convert these earlier relationships of hierarchy and inequality into relations of democratic
citizenship. That doesn’t yet tell us anything about what actually — about whether it’s working. Are we
having any success in this noble goal? So I hope that over the rest of the conference, that’s what we will be
discussing, with respect to different kinds of institutions, different kinds of policies, fears, are we making
any progress toward this lofty goal? And so, I won’t say anything about that; I have my own views about
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where we’re making success and where we’re hitting roadblocks. But let me just end by saying, if I’m
right, it has implications for what we take to be success. How would we measure success, if this is what our
policies are aimed at?
So if our diversity policies are human rights based, and rooted in liberal democratic values, what would
count as success? To my mind, to dramatically oversimplify, we can think of it as — there’s two tests we
should be applying. The first and most basic one is, are we making progress in creating across ethnic and
racial and religious lines, that is to say, in contesting these inherited inequalities and hierarchies and
stigmatizations, and equality here is a multidimensional idea. It includes questions of political equality,
political representation, political voice, it includes questions of economic opportunity, of standard of living,
poverty rates, and so on, and it includes issues of cultural equality, of the extent to which people’s identities
are reflected in public institutions and respected in terms of levels of prejudice and stereotypes, and so on.
So that’s one level, one test, is how are we doing on this multidimensional goal of equality across racial,
ethnic, and religious lines against a history of these hierarchies. The second is, insofar as it’s a humanrights based and liberal democratic model of diversity, it’s also important to protect the rights of individuals
within groups. So the way I phrase this is, we want freedom within groups and equality between groups. So
how do we make sure that our diversity policies, while they’re aiming to perhaps remedy inequalities
between groups, that these aren’t perhaps having the unwanted consequence of enabling some members
within a group to oppress other members of the group. So, for example, discrimination against women, or
against gays within minority communities. Are we firmly protecting the rights of individuals within groups
at the same time as we’re trying to remedy inequalities between groups?
And so this is partly what we were discussing yesterday in yesterday’s afternoon panel, is is there in
Canada a conflict between protecting the rights of vulnerable individuals, and is it the case that our
diversity policies are sometimes having an unintended effect on the liberties of individuals? So my own
view is that I think we’re doing reasonably well on that front, I think we’re doing a reasonably good job of
protecting the rights of vulnerable individuals. Our diversity policies are not having the effect of
suppressing individual liberties. We’re doing a mixed job with respect to creating equality across racial and
ethnic, religious lines. And we’re obviously doing better, for example, on the French fact than we are on
the aboriginal fact. Obviously. Within the immigrant file, we’re doing better for some groups than for other
groups, or we’re doing better on some dimensions. Some groups are doing better economically and less
well politically, or vice versa, and so this would be — it would be a very complicated map to try to test
how well we’re doing on all of these dimensions. But the last line is that whatever our failings, and I think
there are many failings or incompleteness in our achievement of these goals, I think that those basic pillars
that we put in place between 1965 and ‘75 are the right ones. Those transformations that we went through
were good ones, and I think that whatever our failings, they are not reasons for us to reject those policies
and their foundations, but to build on them. Thanks.
(applause)
MICHAEL ADAMS:
Well, good morning. Tariq has joined us, moving into our time zone a little more comfortably I hope.
Thank you for that last evening.
You talked about nations needing shared memories. I’m going to nominate Will Kymlicka to write our
national memoir. I think he’s got a very good template there, and I hope he keeps writing for a very long
time.
I’m Michael Adams, and I’m with Environics, I’m just in the copyediting stage of a new book, and I’m
here with my colleague, Amy Langstaff, who’s worked with me on this book and on four previous ones,
with the exception of Sex in the Snow, for which she feels blessed.
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I had originally threatened Helen Walsh with a Powerpoint presentation, being a pollster. I think I’ve
actually inflicted a Powerpoint presentation on this group, sometime before. But I came to my senses, so
it’s just poetry today, just poetry.
So I write these books in order to be invited to Couch, I do everything in self-interest, and that sort of lies
behind it all. I actually can’t think of a better place for an author who’s just in the early stages of figuring
out what the hell it is he was trying to say in that book, to talk among a group of kindred spirits and friends,
and that’s what I consider Couch to be, kind of my extended intellectual family. And to share a platform
with Will Kymlicka and the estimable Veronica Lacey is a real honour for me. I actually consider Will to
be one of Canada’s, and I think one of the world’s great philosophers of multiculturalism and in fact, in
writing my book, I got on the train and went down to Kingston to meet with the man, and I said, I read this
book you wrote about ten years ago, and he said, wouldn’t it be great if we had some metrics about how it
was happening. And I said, finally, I’m going to see if I can find some out there to see how we may be
doing on that issue of multiculturalism. So there are a few metrics I will be throwing at you today, these
will be statistics, numbers, all, of course, drawn from the census, Environics surveys, other people’s
surveys. There is a margin of error with some of these, but with my interpretation, there is no margin of
error.
So, the elevator version. We don’t have elevators here, so it’s going to have to be really short. We are
debating this, discussing this whole issue of multiculturalism. Will did a great job of talking about this idea
— we like it, but have we gone too far, and the long and the short of it is, we’re doing okay, but not
perfectly. So we’re a work in progress, the glass is, oh, a little more than half full. But I’ll just say half full
just to milk the metaphor.
Like all efforts of interpretation, of course, it’s an unscientific and intuitive process, you see a dot here, and
dot here, and dot there, and you draw a line through it, and then you kind of interpret what is going on,
what patterns are we seeing? And that’s the job of me as a social scientist, and all social scientists and
economists and others, is to draw patterns and try to understand what the meaning is. And in terms of
discussing, Will, this question of what happened in the 60s and 70s and why that idealism burst forward in
our culture, let’s do that in the Q&A, let’s do it over more glasses of wine, but I just think an understanding
of social change is very important to understand the trajectory in which you’re going. If you’re too
negative, you’re going to become complacent — you’re going to become so intimidated by all the bad
news you’re not going to do anything. Like, if you’ve got a kid on school and they get all Ds, you say, well
why don’t you work next term to get a C, they’re going to say forget it. So you’ve got to have some As and
some Bs and some Cs, and we all have feel that. We have to find that in ourselves, you know, where we’re
at, and you know, cultures need to find that in themselves too, they need to find their uniqueness, but if
they become too complacent, then of course we won’t get progress.
The name of the book is Unlikely Utopia, and the subtitle, I think, sort of puts it all together — The
Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism. So I have beyond, as a pollster, just the opinions that people
give me, opinions, attitudes, and a lot of people say that people lie to pollsters, I think they do present
themselves, and we have techniques, we hope, to draw out the real truth from people. Certainly face-to-face
interviews would have an impact. If you’re telling somebody what you think about all sorts of other people,
you’ll want to give politically correct answers, so we have telephone surveys, we have self-complete, and
then we have our own common sense — are people really telling the truth? One of the things we look at
even if we think the questions are not that great, is we ask the same stupid question year after year, and then
see if it’s actually increasing or decreasing, so at least then we know the trajectory in response to a question
that isn’t perfect. And the other thing is that you take that same question, and you compare it to other
countries, so you have the longitudinal over time, and you have the comparative, and you try to put
everything into some perspective.
So I think, and I said this earlier, I think it’s important not to just look at all the things that are going wrong.
We humans, of course, need to be aware of things around us that might be dangerous, but again, I think we
also need some positive news about what is working, we need negative feedback and positive feedback,
and the whole Canadian way is, of course, to have a balance.
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The words “unlikely” and “surprising” in the title and subtitle refer to the fact that for most of our history,
as Will said, since Europeans arrived, Canada has accepted immigrants, but its relationship to newcomers,
from criteria of entry to their treatment upon arrival was explicitly racist, and we are all well aware of the
Chinese head tax, the “none is too many,” the inexcusable policy with regard to Jews fleeing Europe in the
1930s and during the Holocaust — inexcusable, we are well aware of that. But we, again, came to our
senses in the 1960s, we introduced the point system — actually, modeled on the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, which we signed in 1948, so, a lot of the values were there, it’s just that we weren’t
realizing them prior, in fact, that Universal Declaration of Human Rights was partially written by John
Humphrey, a university law professor from McGill who had a role in that. So Canada played an important
role in that.
The department that was asked to take on this point system was the new Department of Manpower and
Immigration, so obviously this is the pragmatic Canadians saying we need some people here, I don’t know,
Canadians, of course, have a great sense of humour, we’re sick of work, so what we need is some more
people to come here and work in this country, but I’m not sure how much tongue in cheek it was, it was
really a pragmatic policy, we need to be a place where people from all over the world can come, and it’s
their individual skills we care about, it’s not their nations of origin.
So I now am going to do the verbal version of the Powerpoint, I’ve got some facts and figures that I think,
again, are some of those metrics as to how we might be doing. By the way, I understand, Gwen, that these
presentations that were given are going to be put on the website, and people will have access to them, so if
you don’t scribble down every number, it will be there as a record of this conference.
So it’s not my “top ten” David Letterman list, it’s my top twenty-one list of statistics that kind of, again, are
indicators of how we might be doing. First of all, Canada’s foreign-born population. As a proportion of the
total population, is 19%. And it’s second only to Australia, which is at 23%. And by the way, that compares
to Japan, which is 1.5%.
Forty percent of Canadians, four out of ten, are either first or second generation. This is just an astounding
statistic, four out of ten. Prior to 1960, 90% of our immigrants came from Christian Europe; in the decade
from 1991 to 2001, the majority of our immigrants came from non-European countries, largely nonChristian, and 58% from Asia.
The GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, receives 43% of new immigrants every year, and of course the story
there is one of incredible diversity. There are cities, other cities in the world that have higher proportions of
foreign-born than Toronto. Dubai does, needs a lot of foreign workers; Miami does; but in these other
cities, there are far fewer groups in those cities. Just think, in Miami, generally Cubans or from Latin
America. Toronto’s newcomers come literally from everywhere in the world. There are 14 groups in
Toronto that have more than 1% of the population in Toronto. And I’ll list some of these. China, India, the
UK, Italy, Philippines, Jamaica, Portugal, Poland, Sri Lanka, Guyana, the former USSR, Vietnam,
Pakistan, and the former Yugoslavia. You know this means, don’t you. Incredibly good restaurants. Joanne
Kates, who writes for The Globe and Mail, says there’s a certain law about the total population you need to
support a good restaurant, and it’s around 25,000, so we’ve got that.
But I think we’ve got more going on than just good restaurants in Toronto, we’ve got a lot more going on.
The proportion of immigrants who come to Canada who become naturalized, who become citizens is
higher in Canada than anywhere else in the world. It’s nearly double the next country. So I think that means
that we want them to be citizens, and they want to become citizens. That is a huge metric, them wanting to
become a citizen of this country.
The proportion of our national legislature, our House of Commons, that is foreign born is 13%. That
compares to the 19% of the population. Is the glass half full? It’s more than half full. It’s 70% full. These
foreign-born MPs come from all over the world, and indeed, Africa is over-represented in the Canadian
House of Commons. You learning something. In America, you knew I had to come to America eventually,
for a comparison, for the population there to represent the foreign-born, there’d have to be 52 foreign-born
members of the House of Representatives; there are eight. And one senator, and, of course, one charismatic
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governor, the Gubernator in Sacramento. In France, 6.2% of the current National Assembly is foreign born,
as opposed to a foreign-born population of 10.6%. Sounds pretty good, except when you go and get on the
website and you look at the backgrounds of all these foreign-born people in the National Assembly, and
they are the children of diplomats and bureaucrats who represented France in Algeria, Tunisia, and
Morocco, and elsewhere in Africa, interestingly. The large proportion. The most famous of these African
foreign deputies, of course, was presidential candidate Ségolène Royale, born in Senegal, and who, during
her ill-fated campaign for the presidency recently, wished to make flag-waving Marseillaise-singing
patriots of all who live in France. Interesting.
Canada’s antipodal cousin, Australia, is second to Canada in terms of the sheer number of foreign-born
members of the lower House. But when it comes to mirroring the population, Australia’s House looks less
like Australia than Canada’s House looks like Canada. Of the 150 members of the Australian House of
Representatives, 15 are foreign-born. And of these 15, 11 are European, while 6.4% of Australia’s
population was born in Asia, suggesting that parity in the House of Representatives would be 10 —
actually, just one Australian member of the House of Representatives was born in Asia.
So back to Canada again, Canada’s the only country that has foreign-born representation in each of its
political parties in the House of Commons. And I say that, and it sounds normal, right? And then imagine a
foreign-born member of the National Party in France, and it doesn’t quite compute. So we’ve got foreignborn members in every one of our parties, Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat — and the Bloc
Québécois. Juste pour rire, right? So here they come to Canada, and they feel comfortable getting involved
in all the ideological cleavages in the country. It’s perfectly natural. But even more funny is that they think
they then can join the family feud. The Bloc has three foreign-born members of parliament. One from
Haiti, one from the Ivory Coast, and another from Cameroon. Two of them are women. Two out of three
ain’t bad. So that’s pretty cool, isn’t it. Now I’m bragging about something that other people would say,
this is all treason, you’re letting people come to get involved in treason, but we brag about this stuff. Only
in Canada, eh, so.
Some might assume that our foreign-born MPs are just being elected by those famous ethnic enclaves that
we hear about, that their seats are in, you know, areas where, well, they’re getting elected by only their own
people. Well, in fact, only a very small minority of our MPs are actually being represented, coming from
ridings in which all they had to do was to get their own people to vote for them. It’s a very small — there
are about two of them. And in fact, in one of our ridings, it’s funny, in Scarborough, we have a riding that
by Stats Canada’s definition would a Chinese enclave. So who is their member of Parliament? Greek-born
Liberal Jim Karygiannis. Well, it’s only natural, right? That the Chinese Canadians would elect a guy from
Greece. Well.
Speaking of enclaves and ghettos, this is getting into kind of another topic, Alan Walks and Larry Bourne,
who are professors of geography at the University of Toronto, make the claim in their research that Canada
does not have ghettos. And by that, I mean, areas in which the concentration of one ethnic minority group
is greater than 60% of the population there. We have ethnic communities, we have ethnic enclaves, but we
don’t have ghettos. And while there’s much fretting about these ethnic enclaves in the media recently,
we’re told that this is a sign of breakdown in our immigration and multicultural policy. But we’ve always
had ethnic enclaves, or immigrant reception areas. We’ve always had this. And the reason for the eyepopping statistics about the proliferation of visible-minority enclaves, and the eye-popping statistic is, in
1981 there were six, and in the year 2001 there were 254, and everybody’s, oh my God, what’s happening
to us, is of course because of the incredible immigration we’ve had from all over the world. These people
have to live somewhere. Tariq made the point, when you come to a new country, where do you go? Well,
you go where your cousin is, or your friend is, or your coreligionist, somebody there who can maybe help
you. You know, make that first difficult step. And don’t imagine that the Italians, and the Greeks, and the
Portuguese and other Europeans didn’t stick together when they arrived in Canada. They did. [Phung?] Ho,
of Statistics Canada, tells us, in fact, that Italians in the 1980s were more ethnically concentrated than the
Chinese or South Asians today.
Ethnic enclaves, unlike ghettos, reflect self-selection rather than racism and exclusion. Certainly
immigrants struggle upon their arrival here, and we know that visible minority groups in Canada have
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higher levels of poverty than whites, and that white immigrants catch up to native-born faster than visibleminority immigrants. The work that Jeff Reitz and Rupa Banerjee have done on this score has been much
discussed, and rightly so. But the impression one would take from media coverage of this work and Stats
Canada reports on residential patterns in Canadian cities, the idea that immigrants arrive and live ethnically
segregated ghettos, whose poverty and isolation they and even their children will never escape is, simply,
false. According to Walks and Bourne, the groups with the highest incidence of living in ethnic enclaves
are those often cited as the most successful examples of simultaneous integration and community pride.
Italians and Jews, examples. More recent waves, the Chinese and South Asians, are also living in
concentrated neighbourhoods. This is probably a good sign, not a sign of disastrous balkanization. Groups
that live in ethnic enclaves are more economically successful than those who do not live in ethnic enclaves.
This was true for the Jews and the Italians, and it’s now true for the Chinese and South Asians. According
to Stats Canada, over 9 in 10 immigrants say that after two years in Canada, their quality of life was better
than it was before they immigrated, although there is less satisfaction with economic activity, and
immigrants report employment challenges about which I need not educate anybody in this room, most
immigrants report improvements to their material lives after two years in Canada, and after four years the
picture is even better. According to Stats Canada in their huge surveys that they are able to afford to do
with our tax dollars, 84% of new Canadians after four years say that they would make the same decision
again to immigrate to Canada.
And finally, a few notes from the survey of Muslims that Environics undertook earlier this year, part of it as
input to this book, and part of it because I felt it was time to talk to the new “other” in our midst, and
learned a little bit about them, and also thereby help them learn a little bit about themselves. It’s one of my
idealistic goals, as the president of Environics, just to see us as an agent of understanding and social
change. So we surveyed Canadian Muslims. I gotta tell you, it was one of the most joyous experiences of
my life. English, French, Urdu, Arabic — we don’t do that every day. The interviewers were levitating with
joy in our interview that we were going to do this. They would have done it for nothing, actually doing a
survey of a random sample of 800,000 of their fellow people who they think the Canadians really don’t
understand. It was what makes my day, when we do this kind of thing.
Muslims in Canada, who are 90% foreign born, register higher levels of pride in Canada than the
population at large. Our research finds that the longer you’ve been here the more dissatisfied you are.
Ségolène Royale would be impressed. Canadian Muslims are less likely Muslims in any European society
surveyed, and that included UK, France, Germany or Spain, to feel that most or many of their fellow
citizens are hostile to them. Canadian Muslims told us in our survey they love Canada for the same reason
other Canadians do. Peace, freedom, equality, humanitarianism, multiculturalism. They deliberately wanted
to come to a good country.
The thing Muslims like least about Canada, they should come to Couch, actually, the thing they like least
about Canada is the cold weather. But global warming will solve that problem, so we … After the weather,
it’s discrimination. A third of Canadian Muslims have experienced personal discrimination. Canadians,
moving on from that, are the most likely of any G8 country to say immigrants — this is now the Canadian
public — are good for their country. Most likely of any country surveyed. We believe they help the
economy. They don’t take jobs away from Canadians. Canadians are also the least likely of any western
society to hold the misconception that immigrants commit more crime than other people born here.
And finally, I think, and I’m getting to 21 — 21 sets of facts, are enough for any presentation — Canadians
are the most supportive of immigration, of immigrants, of any country. And this is Pew studies, these
wonderful studies that Pew does, Ipsos-MORI studies, and so on. And finally, in our polling, we find that
Canadians, over time, are telling us that multiculturalism is increasingly become central to our identity.
They’re proud of the charter — it’s right up there on the pedestal — and they’re proud of multiculturalism.
Is this man smiling yet? It’s, you know, it’s kind of a good story.
Now, I apologize for all this good news. I promise the book is not all triumphalist multicultural chauvinist
propaganda. I do have some bad news to feed the Canadian soul. But for that, you’re going to have to wait
until October 26, and as Helen Walsh says, as a publisher I’m allowed to make a blatant plug for my book.
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I have a few more thoughts, reflective thoughts, but I think I’ll do that in the Q&A, because I’ve taken my
allotted amount of time and I dearly want to hear what Veronica, who I hope I’ve set the table a bit for, on
the important role of education in all of this wonderful process.
(applause)
VERONICA LACEY:
Good morning, and thank you very much for the invitation. There is nothing that I love to do more than to
talk about public education, and I can do that at any time, so to be given this opportunity is really
absolutely fantastic.
Let me just say a couple of things about The Learning Partnership to put our work in context. The Learning
Partnership is a not-for-profit organization, and we bring together people from government, private sector,
labour, educators, to do essentially that — to talk about public education, because we believe, that, in fact,
a strong public educational system is the cornerstone of a civil and democratic society, and, of course, that
is what we have been talking about and continue to talk about in this conference and in this country.
Personally, having grown up in Latin America, and understanding what a disadvantaged and impoverished
educational system does to the potential and the psyche of a country, I am more than ever understanding
that that half glass full has the potential of becoming depleted in Canada around public education. So, I
don’t want to be negative about this, but I do want to lay some of the facts on the table before you.
The way that we do our work is through innovative programs, and you will know, of course, Take Our Kids
To Work, which is the program where Grade 9 kids go to work with their parents. We do programs around
women in the workplace, we do programs on pre-kindergarten, and we do programs that are innovative and
creative, trying to energize what is happening in our schools across the country. We also do public policy
and research. We do engagement of Canadians, and we also do capacity building or leadership
development for principals — we have a program called Canada’s Outstanding Principals — but also with
the Rotman School of Management, we work with senior superintendents and directors of education to talk
about the kind of changes, profound changes, that are taking place in our society that need to be reflected in
our schools.
One of the ways that we are talking to Canadians is through a series called The Quality of Public Education
in Canada, and the report that is on your seats is actually an abbreviated version of the research that I’m
going to be talking about this morning. We started, and our very first report on the quality of public
education in Canada was a good-news report. And it was mainly talking to people who don’t have kids in
school. And that makes up 70% of the Canadian population. Seventy percent of Canadians do not have
children in schools. So all the stories that come, and that has to do with our demographics, but all the
stories that come, come from sources other than people have children in their local school. So our first
report talked about our international standing for our 13-16-year-olds using OECD data, [Tim’s?], SAPE,
and what it says is that Canadian kids are actually doing very well. They are only second to Finland in
terms of literacy, and they’re only third in terms of math and science to Japan and Korea. And that is
tremendously good news. We are better than France, and Germany, and Italy, and all those other countries
that we have heard about for decades. Our kids are actually doing extremely well. The problem is, not all
our kids are doing very well. And so our second report was Students at Risk. And we learn about the kids
who are likely not to graduate from secondary school, or the kids who disappear. And so how you peel the
onion, what happens in Canada, you say, well, if all the students in Canada did as well as the kids in
Alberta, we would be number one in the world. The problem is that if we all adapted the Alberta model, we
would be the worst in keeping kids in school. And so those are the stories that are very important for us to
understand and to remember.
Our third report is in fact this one, The Demographics of the Student Population in Canada. Our fourth is
going to be on early childhood and early learning, and I think there is a growing awareness in our country,
in spite of federal policies, that if we don’t invest in early learning in young children, the gap is going to get
wider and wider. To such an extent, and any kindergarten teacher in this country will tell you, that if they
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do not come prepared for kindergarten, it takes ten times as long to work with children. Now, you
remember when your children were three- and four-year-olds and what they were like in a class. Three
months is a world of difference. Never mind children who come from turnkey, from latchkey, from
marginalized communities. But they are all our children. Our children.
So this is a demographics report, it is the early childhood report, and our last report in the series is going to
be a report on resilience. In spite of all these conditions, there are kids in our communities that are doing
extremely well. What is it about them? What is it that helps them to say, no matter what the circumstances,
I’m going to be successful? And thank God they are.
And so, back to the demographics. It was a multi-phased process. We started with a research report, which
is a hefty 150-page report that was co-authored by Réne Houle, who is a demographer from University of
New Brunswick, and Dr. Harvey, who you will know was the former chair of the Department of Sociology
of the Ontario Institute in Studies in Education. Having finished the report, we then moved on and did a
survey using Environics, asking Canadians how they felt about the issue and how we should deal with our
young people, and then we went across the country talking to communities about how they were
experiencing their change. The demographic study looks at young people in our classrooms from three
phases of the prism: immigrant and refugee, aboriginal, and rural depopulation. I won’t spend a lot of time
on the last two, but just on the rural depopulation. You need to know that this is a very serious issue in
Canada because schools across the country in rural environments are getting smaller and are being closed.
Furthermore, our young people in rural schools are underperforming as compared to young people who live
in urban environments. So this is an issue.
Going back to the whole issue, then, about the demographics and the changing demographics of our student
population. You have heard a lot of discussion around the aging population, and of course, there is going to
be in the middle of the next decade more people over 65 than there are under 15 in our country. Public
education is paid through taxes, and where the will of the people is to maintain this profoundly important
public institution, this public institution which is the only place, the only place that brings together people
of different cultures, of different religions, of different races, to learn how to be Canadian. What will be the
tax base of public education? That is a very very significant issue.
There is a quote by Lawrence Martin in the The Globe and Mail on June 28 which I would like to share
with you: “Immigration, not the other dramas, is what is redefining Canada. It’s the elephant in the room.
How important is immigration, with boomers retiring and a lack of bloomers to replace them, the labour
pool shrinks, new immigrants become the key to our economic growth. Immigration will determine our
population size, our post-911 security, our social cohesion, our multicultural fabric. It will determine the
identity of the new Canada.” And of course, this is exactly what we found in our demographics report.
We then worked with David MacDonald from Environics to ask Canadians what they thoughts in terms of
investing in these three areas, and that is immigration, aboriginal, and rural. What we found out is that
increased immigration is seen by more Canadians as having the biggest impact on public education, so 53%
of Canadians are quite aware of the fact that immigration is having a profound impact. It’s followed by
20% who cite migration from rural and urban areas, and 4% who identify that growing number of
aboriginal peoples is having an impact on public education. 60% of Canadians believe that Canadian
schools are effective in meeting the needs of the children of immigrants, and the majority support
increasing resources. But when we talk about Canada, we have to differentiate between the different
regions. Atlantic Canada is more likely to feel that migration from rural to urban areas is affecting
education most, and are most supportive of increasing resources to help rural students graduate. Quebec
residents are more likely to feel that migration from rural to urban areas is affecting education and support
resources for those students. They support, clearly, language training for French as a second language, and
are most likely to agree that Canadian schools are doing an effective job of supporting immigrant children.
They are the least supportive of increasing resources to help aboriginal students graduate from highschool.
Immigration is seen as having a bigger impact on education in Ontario, yet Ontarians feel relatively more,
or are relatively more likely to support resources to help aboriginal children. Residents in the Prairies see
the growing number of aboriginal people as having the greatest impact on education, but only average in
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terms of added support for aboriginal kids. Albertans see immigration as having the greatest impact, and
fewer are willing to accept increased resources to help rural or aboriginal students graduate. And BC
residents match the national averages on most measures, but are less willing to accept increased resources
to help rural students. They, in fact, are closing dozens of schools in northern BC.
So it’s very interesting to see what is happening across Canada, but it certainly is not a homogenous
picture. So, how well are all our kids doing? Well, the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
looked at the performance of children of immigrants in Canada compared to Canadian-born children. Both
groups were aged four to 14. Despite the economic disadvantage of some immigrants, as you know, in
visible minorities, children of immigrant families perform as well as Canadians, in fact, in many cases,
better. Particularly if they speak English or French as a language of origin. But because fewer immigrants
speak either English or French when they arrive in Canada, now, it is a signal of a different level of
performance for our kids. In other words, the traditional source of immigration is changing, and more and
more, the school system is dealing with children with whom we have not had success. The data indicates, in
general, that immigrants and visible minorities go on to train in universities more than Canadian-born
youth. But this is the catch. When they get to the workplace, the opportunities are not there for them. And
for those of you who are teachers in this room and have had the opportunity to work with young people,
and work with them to get them to a situation where they believe they can do it, they make it through
highschool, they struggle through post-secondary institutions, those doors are closed. And that is a reality
in Canada. The aboriginal situation, in terms, the fact of the aboriginal children, is an absolute disgrace. If
you go to Alberta or Saskatchewan, you will see that 25% of kids graduate from secondary schools. In
Iqaluit, it’s worse. And so, although we’re only talking about immigrant children, the fact that in our
country we have a group of children who are facing greater hardship in the educational system than any
other group is a matter of concern to all of us as Canadians, no matter where we live.
And so, what we have found, talking to people across the country, is so much more interesting. I had the
opportunity to conduct a roundtable in Edmonton. The people that I met, and the issues that they talked about,
were actually about the Somali families. Somali families in Edmonton? Where are they from? Rexdale. Outside of
Toronto. That’s where they’re from. What happens in terms of the kind of support, social, economic support, for
newly arrived immigrants in terms of federal policies? It doesn’t follow people. The other next challenge for
Edmonton schools is the Kurdish population. And so there is a group of young people, a very large group of large
people, 15- and 16- and 17-year-olds, who don’t know how to read or write. How could that be? You know how
that could be? Because they come from refugee camps. Do you remember in the 1960s, Vietnam? That’s how
those kids came. If you travel across the country and you go to Halifax, generations of African Canadian children
are not making it in school They’re not immigrant children. Their parents and grandparents were born in this
country. And so we have a huge challenge.
At the end of June, the last week of school, at C.W. Jeffreys, a secondary school just east of Jane and Finch
in Toronto, a young man, 16 years old, was shot and killed in a hall in one of our schools. The altercation
had taken place outside. I know that area very well. I was the director of education in North York board for
nine years. Jane and Finch is my area, it’s my home. The school board brought in Julian Faulkner, a lawyer
with a human-rights background, to do an investigation. What is the first thing he found? A young Muslim
woman had been sexually assaulted more than once. Why? Because they knew she would not speak of it at
home. In our schools, I’ve lived long enough to see this in our schools. Most of our children do well. It’s
untenable that this should happen in one of our schools.
So our report has recommendations. It does have recommendations for the federal government. Why are we
the only country that does not have any kind of national view on education? But we have more serious
recommendations for school boards, and that is, you can’t deal with visible minority communities only
when there is a crisis, and forget them when you go on. We must deal with the issue of faith-based schools,
and we can talk about it in the Q&A. Our schooling must ensure that our visible minorities end up in a
classroom as teachers in front of kids who look like them. They have to see themselves reflected as being
successful. We need those heroes. Together, it can be done. I am a 1960s, 70s person. That’s when I started
to teach. I believe, as a teacher, as an immigrant, that this is the place to be. But it will take the will of
everyone, not the politicians, of everyone, to say, these are our children, not your children, not his children,
they are our children, and they are our future. Thank you.
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Note: No transcript is available for “Unleashing All Our Diversity of Talents,” the address by Joan
Andrew, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.
Diversity and Security: Diverse Threats to Security?
August 10, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
CHRYSTIA FREELAND:
I was really thrilled to be invited to moderate this specific panel. It’s a tough thing to speak at a session on a
Friday night starting at 7:30, but I promise you it’s not going to be tough to be in the audience. These are
three really distinguished speakers, a Canadian lawyer, a French professor, a Canadian police chief
superintendent, and they’re going to give us three really fascinating perspective on this issue of security and
threats to security.
How we’re going to run it tonight is, each of the three speakers has promised me solemnly that she’s not
going to talk for more than 20 minutes, so we’ll do that, and then we’ll have a 15- or 20-minute break, and
come back and have lots of questions and answers, which I am assured and I’m sure will be the most fun
part of the evening. The speakers all have said they’re excited about speaking as a way of setting up a
discussion.
So without further ado, let me ask Professor Macklin, she’s a professor of law at the University of Toronto,
one of really Canada’s leading thinkers on these issues, and she is going to kick off our session.
AUDREY MACKLIN:
Thank you very much, and I’d like to thank the organizers for inviting me to participate in this wonderful
conference. It’s a great honour to be here, and I very much look forward to the rest of the conference,
where I’ll continue to learn from all of you here.
The title of tonight’s panel is “Diversity and Security,” subtitled “Diverse Threats to Security?” Question
mark. And I want to start by just talking a little bit about the title. I think the organizers very wisely put out
something that is in itself worthy of question. That is, what is the relationship between security and
diversity? The subtitle might suggest that there is some obvious or natural tension between security and
diversity. And I want to keep running with that question. Well, in what sense might there exist a tension
between national security and diversity? Well, I was thinking about this, and I came up with two
possibilities.
One might posit that the fact of diversity itself is somehow a threat to national security because the
diversity of a population — and then you have to start asking, diversity according to what (right, is it race,
religion, nationality, ethnicity, ability, sexuality) — diversity writ large. Somehow itself might contribute to
the breakdown of social bonds or social cohesion, if you will, that thereby gives rise to a sense of
insecurity. The fact of diversity itself creates a sense of insecurity that then leads to the state intervening to
somehow create or impose through coercive means some notion of security, and well, if that’s the
relationship between diversity and security, then I guess the questions that come out of it are, well, what
can we do then to deepen, foster, generate trust within disparate identities, precisely so that people
experience a sense of security that they may not currently experience. So the question would be, how do
you build social cohesion? That’s one view of where you might go with this idea that there is a tension
between security and diversity.
Another direction might be that it’s not diversity per se that is in tension with security, but certain
identities, groups, whatever, that are identified because of their somehow essential nature as threatening to
security, that there are some groups who fall within the broad group of diverse groups who are threatening
to security. If that’s what is implied by the relationship between diversity and security, then I think plainly
given the post-911 mentality, we’re really talking about Muslims, and Muslim men. And if that’s what
people think is meant by what the implied relationship between diversity and security is, that in fact it’s
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what is the threat posed by Muslims to security, then it’s worth saying that explicitly and then having a
conversation about what the underlying beliefs are about Muslims, about the relationship between the faith
and security. That’s a, I think to put it out there, is uncomfortable and troubling, but if it is uncomfortable
and troubling, it is certainly not better dealt with by putting it in code language, and saying that it is
something other than what is, in fact, happening.
(applause)
So, I am going to actually proceed from that second one, because I think that’s often what is out there in the
public discourse, the code between diversity and security is really about Muslims, and it’s mostly about
Muslim men, and it’s mostly, actually about men who are seen as Muslim, whether or not they are, so
there’s a kind of conflation, if you are Middle Eastern, right, even though you may not in fact be Muslim.
But I think that’s a lot of what’s going on.
So with that in mind, then, I want to turn to the relationship that is seen between the human rights of certain
individuals, namely Muslims, and security. Because if that’s really what’s on the table, then I want to talk
about that. And what is it that we can learn about the meaning of security and our confidence in human
rights by thinking about this issue? Well, I want to start by saying that there is, I think, a widespread — I
won’t go so far as to say belief — but an unstated framing of the relationship between rights and security,
something like this. To get security you gotta give up some rights. Right? And it’s kinda like, you take a
certain amount of rights, and you give them up, in exchange for security. So you buy security with rights.
And if you somehow give up –you hear this a lot — well, you know, it’s true that they’re coming down
with these laws, and they’re not so nice, but you know, to be secure you gotta give up some rights. And so
what I want to do is actually talk about that quite concretely, and the concrete way I want to do it is by
starting with the cover story of today’s Globe and Mail about Maher Arar. And what I’m going to do with
that is use is as a little bit of an entrée point. And I can’t talk about all the issues I think are important, and
so I give you an apology in advance. If I don’t talk about everything, it’s not because, you know, there isn’t
a lot more to say, but please, bear with me, and I treat this and I regard this as providing the opening for a
conversation, not a beginning, middle, and end to it. And so that’s my goal in speaking to you today.
If we start by thinking about Maher Arar, and I think we all, in this room, the story of a Canadian man who
is also a dual citizen of Syria, who, frankly, for all external appearances on the success front of an
integration of somebody who immigrated to Canada, was doing very well. Who was, in fact, stopped, en
route, on return from a vacation, coming back to Canada, he was stopped at JFK airport, detained there,
subsequently rendered, in a process called extraordinary rendition, to Jordan and then to Syria, where he
was detained in a Syrian prison and tortured for almost a year. It, through the Arar inquiry, we came to
know that the information that led to his detention at JFK airport was provided by the RCMP, and that the
decision to subsequently render him to Syria was made by US authorities on the basis of that information.
We also know, based on the outcome of the inquiry, that while it does not appear that Canada played a role
in the decision — that is, there is no evidence that they colluded in sending him to Syria — there is, I think
it’s fair to say that they did not put their best efforts into having him released from detention in Syria once
they knew he was there and once they had every reason to know what kind of conditions he would be
detained under.
So here’s someone whose human rights were, I think, pretty clearly violated. So let’s talk about what were
the human rights that were traded off here in the name of security from terrorism, recognizing, in fact, two
things. One, Maher Arar was subsequently found, and I think, it was widely believed relatively early on,
that he was in fact completely innocent of all allegations against him, but also, let me make a second point
before I go on, that the example of Maher Arar and the other examples I am going to give you share
something in common besides the fact that they concern Muslim men. There’s the issue of legal
citizenship. Maher Arar is a citizen of Canada who was sent abroad by the United States. He was not a
citizen of the United States. So what the United States did in rendering him was something that the United
States does to non-citizens. Canada would not do it to a Canadian, the United States would not do it to an
American, but if a Canadian happens to be in the United States, that person is a non-citizen and things can
be done to him or are done to him that would not be done by a citizen of the country doing it, namely the
United States.
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Other examples that I want to give for your illustration are ones that concern non-citizens in Canada. And
this is the whole security certificate process that I’ll mention briefly. And so what these examples all share
in common is, in a sense, a manipulation of citizenship, that you have things done to people who are noncitizens with respect to the state doing it to them. Not all cases that arise today are of that sort. Now we are
seeing issues arising with respect to the prosecution of citizens within the country of their citizenship, and I
think that raises interesting questions which I probably won’t have time to get to, but I just want to put that
out there at the outset.
So. Maher Arar was tortured in Syria. Well, what were the rights — what does it mean to violate somebody
rights by torturing them? Well, I think we all appreciate that torture is a violation of the most fundamental
human right imaginable. It is an utter negation of one’s humanity, and I think it is well documented that the
purpose of torture is not necessarily to extract any information, it is also simply to break somebody’s
human condition, to break them as human beings.
Now, Canada wouldn’t torture people itself, certainly not in Canada, and, but on the other hand, we, like
others, have made use of evidence obtained by torture, and this was part of what happened in the Arar case.
So there’s that to consider about the use of torture in the name of security. In the Suresh case, in Canada,
the Supreme Court of Canada was asked to consider whether it would ever be permissible to deport a noncitizen to a country where he may face a substantial risk of torture. So the very question of would we
knowingly subject somebody to a circumstance where they might be tortured was answered by the court in
the following way: it would be contrary to our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in virtually all
cases to do that, but there might be some exceptions. We’re not going to tell you what those exceptions are,
but we’re going to tell you that they exist. And that was the answer that the court gave in Suresh.
Well, what possible exceptions can one imagine to the right to be free from torture? What is it that you can
imagine that you’d have to know about somebody to say that it was okay to torture that person? Would it
be that you thought they possessed information that you needed? Well, it’s well known that torture is in fact
a not very good or useful device for extracting information. People will say anything under torture. So
there’s the question of the utility of torture. In fact, recently, I don’t know if you’ve read about this, but
U.S. soldier who were employed at Guantanamo Bay to interrogate detainees there a couple of them have
kind of come out and said, you know, we were involved in this, we were involved in waterboarding, and
we’ve got to tell you that we never got anything out of this. So there’s the question of what are you doing it
for. In the case of Suresh and the question of whether you can deport somebody to face torture, this was a
circumstance where the court wasn’t even dealing with a situation of trying to get information from
somebody, you know, that kind of trade-off — would you torture somebody to save a life? All that kind of
stuff — that wasn’t even at issue in Suresh. All that was at issue is if somebody is deemed a sufficient
threat to national security, are there circumstances where it might be permissible to deport him, get rid of
him, even though he might be tortured. So you’ve got to say, well, in that circumstance, there isn’t even an
attempt to argue that there’s anything useful, if you will, about torturing them. It’s just that they are worth
so little and our national security is so important that it’s better to get rid of them, even if they are tortured.
Okay.
Now, you have to ask yourself, when did the Supreme Court of Canada imagine that this exception would
ever arise? Well, they certainly wouldn’t spell it out for us, and for good reason, but in every single case
where a non-citizen in Canada is held under what is called a security certificate, and where they have been
deemed liable to deportation to their country of origin, the Canadian government has taken the position that
even if that person faces torture in their country of origin, it’s okay, they fall into one of the exceptional
circumstances. Every single one of them. Even though not one of them has ever been accused of being
involved in direct acts of violence. So it raises a question about what the courts say and what the executive
hears. It also, I think, gives us an insight or raises a question about well, what is it about these people then,
that the government thinks makes them exceptional, so that torturing them somehow doesn’t, is not
unconscionable.
Well, if you read through the documents that the government prepares to say it’s okay to deport this person,
what you get is something like this. This person is a deep-down fundamentalist, somebody who believes in
violence, who’s affiliated with organizations that believe in terrorism, and they can never change. They are
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so deeply rooted in their beliefs that they will never change. Okay, so they are incorrigible. And what I
think is going on here, and the point I want to get to about thinking about torture as a human right, is the
message that you get from this is, whoever these guys are, they are not rational. They are somehow beyond
the reach of self-reflection, of an ability to change their views, reflect on who they are, the sorts of things
that we associate with being a rational person. And being a rational person is what we associate with being
fully human, able to reflect on your actions and act autonomously, be guided by your own conscience. And
so there is in these, what are called pre-removal risk assessments, this idea that the people we are talking
about are not fully rational and therefore not fully human. And if somebody’s not fully human, then it
becomes permissible to do things that would otherwise be almost unthinkable to people we regard as fully
human.
And so I think that’s what’s going on in the making of torture thinkable. And you have to ask, who is made
more secure by that? You can think of a lot of people made less secure by that, but I’m not sure who’s
made more secure.
Let me move on to give you a more prosaic example of the sacrifice, the trade-off, between rights and
security. And that’s about access to information, and this is part of what you will have read today about the
Arar case. The government in a lot of national security cases raises a concern about national security
confidentiality as a reason not to disclose information that they have against a person. Not just to the
public, not just to us, but also to them. So that means people who are alleged to be terrorists are not given
access to the information against them so that they may properly defend themselves. And there’s a whole
elaborate process called the security certificate process for non-citizens which is designed to nevertheless
decide whether it’s appropriate to deem this person a terrorist even though they will not experience a
process where they have a chance to respond to the allegations against them.
And what you see in Arar is the government also doing the same with respect to the Arar inquiry. Not
wanting to have information released to the public on the grounds of national security confidentiality. But
what happened today and what you would have read in the paper was the release of information ordered by
a court that said we have the entitlement to review whether this information was really confidential. The
information was released, and what did it reveal? It wasn’t information that anybody could reasonably infer
could endanger national security, but it was information that was certainly embarrassing to the government.
So when we hear the defence of processes that do not allow a person to know the case against him, and
nevertheless be subject to dramatically coercive consequences, whether it’s detention for indefinite periods
of time, or deportation, possibly to torture, on the grounds of national security, you have to ask, is it
appropriate to just take the government’s word for it? Or do we need somebody who can second-guess this?
Because the government’s trade-off between national security and the rights of that individual appear to
include matters that have less to do with national security than one might think.
And again, you have to ask: whose security is advanced if people are deemed to be terrorists or otherwise
dangerous to national security on the basis of that kind of information?
Now, recently, the Supreme Court of Canada considered this issue in a case called Charkaoui, where they
considered the special, the security certificate process that I just mentioned, and they found the existing
process unsatisfactory. It violated the fundamental rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms that would include the right to know the case against you and to have an opportunity to respond
to it before being subject to violations of your liberty or freedom. And what the court did is say, the current
process is unsatisfactory. What it didn’t say is here’s what’s better. And this I will put out to you as an
existing challenge. So lest you think that I am perhaps not taking seriously the concerns about national
security, please let me assure you that I do take them seriously, and this is a matter of great concern to
many people who are trying to devise a better process. But a better process has to be one where the
concerns about confidentiality can be directly linked to the advancement of security, as opposed to simply
asserting, hey, you gotta give up some rights if you want to get more security. And to put the government to
that test, I would suggest, is an appropriate test, and to not simply take things at face value.
Another example I can give you of rights versus security would be in relation to arbitrary detention. In the
wake of 911, several hundred thousand non-citizens of the United States were asked to report to
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immigration there to clarify their immigration status. But of course, the only people who were required to
report were citizens of certain countries, and those countries just happened to be all Middle Eastern
countries, or countries with predominantly Muslim populations. They all reported; several hundred were
detained for years, no charges against them; and eventually, most of them were released — but to this day,
not a single security-related charge was ever brought against any of them. So again, whose security is being
advanced by this? It’s pretty clear whose security is being diminished by this, but it’s not clear how it is
being advanced.
Now, let me say, though, that Arar in some sense is a story where the government took some responsibility
for the outcome, right? I mean, Arar was the subject of a public inquiry, the inquiry reported, recommended
compensation for Arar, and Arar received compensation, or is about to receive compensation. Now, the
story that Arar reveals has something to do with the meaning of citizenship and the concern that some
people’s citizenship is worth more that other people’s citizenship, that Maher Arar’s status as a Canadian
citizen was somehow devalued, if not by his citizenship in Syria, then by the fact that he was a Muslim,
Arab man. And the fact that the government chose not to intervene, not to do as much as it could have to
have him released, is in a sense evidence of this. And what message does that send to other citizens of
Canada who see themselves as potentially vulnerable, whose security is vulnerable to this sort of
devaluation? The question to ask about Arar and the inquiry outcome is the extent to which the result, and
what the government has done to compensate has restored any feeling of security amongst that population.
What has it done to repair the rupture to the social bonds that we think about in terms of social cohesion,
and that give meaning to membership and to citizenship. And Arar, I think, the result in Arar is very
commendable, and I want to credit the inquiry and the government for acting the way it did, but it’s
important to see that the damage done and the repair that needs to be done extends beyond Arar himself,
but to all those who would see themselves as having their citizenship, both legally and in a kind of social
meaning, substantive sense, diminished.
Let me conclude, I’m thinking, by saying that the Arar case is in some sense easy for people to rally
around, because everybody came to the conclusion very quickly that Arar was innocent. And I think that
has been validated, substantiated. How much does this matter to us? How much should this matter to us in
how a person is treated? If the allegations against Arar — if, for example, somebody was detained on
suspicion of killing somebody, let’s say in an armed conflict, and there was some evidence to support that
maybe he had killed somebody in the course of an armed conflict. And let’s say that that person was being
detained in solitary confinement for about five years, about a quarter of his life actually. And let’s say that
he had also been subject to physical abuse and possibly torture. Would we withdraw from our concern
about human rights if we thought that there was some reason to believe that he had killed that other person
in the conflict? That’s the question that I think is left to us when we think about the case of Omar Khadr,
somebody who is the antithesis, the, I can say, the bad twin of Maher Arar. Comes from a bad family, not
well liked, all that sort of thing, alleged to have thrown a grenade — how much do we have to know about
somebody, though, to say you can’t torture anybody? You can’t detain people in solitary confinement for
five years without charges? You can’t subject them to torture? You can’t treat somebody who is alleged to
have committed an offense at the age of fifteen — a minor — to treatment that is in violation of human
rights? What then, I think, poses the question to us, the hard questions of citizenship and human rights, and
I want to leave you with that as something to think about. Thank you very much.
(applause)
CHRYSTIA FREELAND:
I’m an editor, so cutting people off comes naturally to me, but Audrey sure made it hard. It was so riveting.
A former colleague of mine from The Globe and Mail interviewed her this afternoon, and I ran into him a
moment ago, and he said his editor said, “Ah. An intelligent article. We can publish this. And having
listened to Audrey, I now understand fully that compliment. I’m also grateful to her for referring to
newspapers so often, people talk about how that’s a dying entity, but I guess not at Couchiching, and she
has made me very scared about returning to the United States, where I am not a citizen, but I am indeed an
alien. Anyway, I look forward to all of us having a chance to pepper her with questions.
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Our next speaker is Sophie Body-Gendrot. She is a professor at the Sorbonne and founder and director of
the Centre of Urban Studies in the Anglophone World. She is an expert in these issues and is going to bring
us a specifically European perspective, but she has also done a lot of comparative research, including about
the United States, and so I hope that in her talk she’ll also raise some of those issues as well. And Sophie
has asked me to be particularly tolerant on the time-keeping because of not being a native English speaker,
and so I’ll consider that. Please, Sophie.
SOPHIE BODY-GENDROT:
[TBD (per priority list)]
(applause)
CHRYSTIA FREELAND:
Well, thank you very, very much, Sophie. Thank you for traveling so far, not only to come here but to bring
us a comparative perspective from around the world. I think that’s really particularly valuable in talking
about these issues. I also like the kind of pattern which is emerging. We had Audrey setting us some tough
challenges, some tough questions we have to ask about our own responses to things, and how we’re going
to handle things, and we have Sophie offering us some quite inspiring, perhaps local but effective solutions.
I didn’t think the media was going to get away with the scot-free night, it never happens, so I accept that we
distort the truth in a cheap effort to gain readers. It’s our job, and if you guys didn’t fall for it, we wouldn’t
do it. But I am sorry.
Our final speaker I’m particularly grateful to because she’s come in at the last minute. She is Kate Lines.
She’s a chief superintendent of the OPP, one of only three women chief superintendents, impressive in and
of itself. She’s in charge of the investigation support bureau, and what I’m particularly looking forward to
is — we’ve had some really interesting results of studies, of comparative research, of thinking about ideas
and dissecting them, and I’m really hopeful that Kate will tell us about what it’s like on the ground. So
thank you very much.
KATE LINES:
Thank you very much. Yes, I am kind of a last-minute participant, and actually met Dawn on the phone last
night at about ten o’clock, seeing today’s newspaper, understanding why Mr. Judd was rather busy today.
And Dawn described to me what seemed to me like public-affairs summer camp, and was quick to point
out that he originally called for Commissioner Fantino to attend this evening, who would have been a male
panel member for us, but for those of you from Ontario, maybe particularly southern Ontario, our
commissioner was not available this evening, not because he was handing out traffic tickets on highway
400, but because he’s taking a very well-earned vacation overseas, so he unfortunately could not be here
this evening. But actually I was quite excited when I heard of this group, and admittedly had not heard of
this association before, so hopefully what I can do in the “making diversity work” theme of your gettogether is to give you a rather grass-roots version of diversity, kind of where the rubber meets the road,
with diversity and public safety, and delivering public safety, in my particular case, to the members of the
community in Southern Ontario.
I do have some prepared comments, but as was mentioned earlier, mine are going to be rather brief because
I’m very anxious to participate in the dialogue and discussion afterwards, but please be kind.
The diversification of our country has become a serious issue for all law-enforcement agencies in Canada.
Problems of new-immigrant integration, discrimination, language barriers, and negative attitudes towards
unfamiliar cultural, religious, and social practices have generated serious concerns for law-enforcement
agencies and made policing significantly more complex. However, organizations like the Ontario
Provincial Police have developed measures to adapt to working in culturally diverse settings, and are
continually striving to meet the needs of the communities we serve.
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I’d like to share with you the OPP’s journey, as I describe it, toward recognizing diversity as an asset, as a
strength, and translating that recognition into a better working environment for our employees and for the
communities that we serve.
As you have no doubt discussed over the last few days, and I looked with great interest this morning when I
was figuring out what I was coming to this evening, and understanding what some of your work and
discussions have been about, I imagine that you have discussed how Canada has woven massive numbers
of immigrants into its social fabric, creating a country that is now multicultural and multiethnic in
composition. In light of the significant alteration in ethocultural make-up of our population, Canadian lawenforcement agencies have realized and experienced the challenges to policing our culturally, racially,
ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse society. Police services have had to address the need for
radical change in policing policy and procedures. Considerable efforts have been made to develop a
policing paradigm that is more inclusive and tolerant of diversity while maintaining racial harmony
alongside enforcing the law.
Although this has had a slower than desired evolution, for the most part police agencies like the Ontario
Provincial Police still do not sufficiently mirror the communities that we serve. There has been progress in
the form of increased cultural understanding, sensitivity to values and beliefs of visible and non-visible
minorities, and community police interaction and cooperation. The Ontario Provincial Police has developed
measures to adapt to working in a multicultural and multiethnic environment. However, the most important
factor for all police services to keep in mind [is] that meeting the needs of diverse communities is a
collective goal. It requires communication, cooperation, empathy, tolerance, and flexibility. To cultivate
and effectively sustain diversity, all parties involved must continually endorse the practice and vision of
diversity. My OPP executive colleagues and myself clearly understand the importance of providing
leadership and communicating the shared vision in order to move the OPP into the future.
Embracing the diversity concept is vital to both strengthening relationships with the public and achieving
our organization success. The first phase of our OPP diversity approach was to start from within. We
acknowledge that providing a framework for organizational change related to diversity was going to be a
complex task. Diversity strategies impact all levels of our organization and internally as well as externally.
Starting from within was a critical examination of our current operating procedures and prevailing police
culture, and then making the necessary changes in order to craft healthy and inclusive environments and
relationships.
The OPP is responsible for upholding and valuing diversity and all associated guidelines and policies,
including a discrimination-free workplace. Respecting our own employees’ diversity, the starting from
within, was our first step in delivering respectful and professional policing services to the public. We are
nearing completion of a two-year initiative to conduct what we’ve referred to as diversity dialogues, and
meet with all of our employees to present and discuss their collective definition of diversity and the impacts
for them in their workplace and in the communities that they serve. This has not been an easy task for the
OPP, with our 5500 uniform employees, 1800 civilian employees, and 800 auxiliary volunteers, working
out of 166 detachments and satellite offices across the province. I’m sure you can all appreciate the
challenge of implementing any strategy in a large deployed organization such as ours, let alone a strategy
that is values-based, one that evokes deeply held personal thoughts, feelings, and attitudes.
We provided facilitation training to over 70 uniform and civilian employees and assisted them in
developing communication plans unique to their particular areas of employment. Diversity affects different
areas of the province differently. Our employees needed to understand the business case for diversity in
their particular area, whether patrolling Highway 401 in the GTA, or policing a rural community in
northern Ontario. It has not been surprising that not only as employees of our police agency, but as
members of society as large, our diversity dialogues have identified internal cultural divides,
misconceptions, miscommunications, myths, and in some cases, prejudices. Discussions that have occurred
included topics such as multiculturalism and criminality, stereotyping, concerns for potential limited
promotions for males in favour of the female gender or those of diverse backgrounds, the possibility of
recruitment having to lower standards, conflicts with employees’ religious beliefs and working with
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alternate-lifestyle colleagues, in particular operational assignments. Insensitivity, workplace harassment,
discrimination, and the importance and necessity of bias-free policing.
Participants brought issues and concerns out into the open and resulted in what I would describe as
enhanced cultural awareness, understanding and mutual respect. As was mentioned earlier, these were
uncomfortable and troubling conversations, and we encouraged our employees to lean into that
uncomfortableness and that it was okay, and I could tell you that, quite frankly, to describe them as lively
discussions would be a significant understatement. But again, it brought the issues out into the open, and
people could talk about it.
The OPP acknowledges that developing and implementing a sustainable diversity strategy represents longterm change and requires a foundation of committed leadership and organization-wide understanding, buyin, and commitment. Our business plan incorporates mechanisms to continue to track the success of these
diversity dialogues and many other diversity initiatives that we have. I’ve just highlighted this one to you
this evening, unfortunately I don’t have the time to highlight the others, but all of our employees’s
performance plans incorporate the need for the employee to tangibly demonstrate their commitment to
diversity. We will also continue to conduct policing for results surveys, to measure community satisfaction
with the delivery of our service, and of particular interest, how we deliver our service.
As an organization seen as welcoming and valuing diversity, we are attracting a diverse pool of candidates
for recruitment, specialized assignments, and promotion. Their cultural and ethnic backgrounds, language
skills, educational achievements, life experiences, are vastly different from those of our employees in the
past. Granted, our business needs are very different from the past as well. For example, police officers
working undercover, or on an intelligence-collection assignment, have a distinct advantage when they
speak the mother tongue of their targets or informants. In addition to language, they may also share
cultural, ethnic or religious affiliations, but these officers also know first-hand that ethnocultural
generalizations can alienate segments of the population, hinder community police efforts, and ultimately
impede their criminal investigation and intelligence-gathering efforts. They understand the importance of
not placing emphasis on classifying groups engaged in criminal activity along ethnocultural lines, but rather
focusing on the investigation and intelligence-collection and analysis of any criminal activity independent
of the racial, ethnic or cultural identities.
It is very clear to not only us but to all our policing partners that public trust and confidence must
continually be earned. New laws and public policy, for example, human rights and protection of privacy,
freedom of information legislation, will continue to have impact on the design and delivery of our policing
services. We must work together to ensure public safety, and the right for the public to express their own
identity and have confidence in that protection.
Policing will always be tied to a complex environment globally, politically, demographically and
economically. The better we understand the communities, the better we serve, and the better our crime
prevention programs. Our diversity strategy is a journey with many challenges to create cultural
competency. It is, in effect, a paradigm shift that must occur within the OPP in order to solidify our success
in the future. This shift includes creating a shared vision of diversity, which in turn provides a view of
future goals and policies to enhance our own working environment, and at the same time, our community
relationships. Thank you.
Are Canadian Institutions Adapting to Diversity?
August 11, 2007, 9:30 a.m.
CETA RAMKALAWANSINGH:
Now, since we began these discussions on Thursday, we’ve heard a wide range of presentations of analysis,
presentations of data, issue identification, research results, theories, examinations of history. But at the end
of the day, we now know what the demographics of our diversity is, but the implications of what that
means for what we have to do to make it real, requires practical, on-the-ground, concrete actions. And our
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discussion today, it now moves into that arena, and we sort of started that discussion a little bit with the
presentation by Deputy Minister Joan Andrew, as well with Kate Lines from the OPP and Veronica Lacey
also identified some of the practical issues that we needed to get into.
The context for many institutions and central to many institutions is, with the changing diversity of our
communities across the country, what will we do, what will be the rules of engagement, how will we
abolish the notion of tolerance and actually practise respect? How do people talk to each other, how do you
actually demonstrate that respect in the workplaces and social activities that take place in organizations,
including activities such as this?
We have three people who will speak to the role of institutions, and their full biographies are in your
program. I will introduce each of them more specifically as they come up to speak. And just to remind you,
we’re going to speak in this order: Ratna Omidvar from Maytree; Marie McAndrew from Quebec,
professor of education, and Bob Watts, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Now, I’m going to introduce Ratna, she’ll be our first speaker. I’m going to just give you a couple of points
about Ratna. She is the executive director of the Maytree Foundation, and she’s also a director of the
Toronto City Summit Alliance, and currently she is the founding chair of the board of TRIEC, the Toronto
Regional Immigration Employment Council. Now, Ratna has also been adviser to premiers and prime
ministers, and as to which ones, you’ll just have to read the bios in your kits. She’s the recipient of
numerous awards, and with respect to Couch, the infusion of diversity that we have at this year’s
conference is in no small — well, really, we owe that to Ratna, who’s brought with her a cadre of twenty
leaders from the diverse communities of Toronto. And one of the things that I can say about Ratna is that
she has always led by example, and is very practical in what she does and what she expects of other people.
So, without further ado, I give you Ratna Omidvar.
(applause)
RATNA OMIDVAR:
Thank you, thank you Ceta for that introduction, and thank you to Couch for welcoming the Maytree
delegation with such open arms to your wonderful four-day powwow here. I was speaking to my colleague,
and I want to know more from him what a powwow is, but I kind of think of this as a way of talking and
discussing, but I’ll get illuminated further.
I have to say that when we put out the invitation to the twenty delegates to come to Couchiching, most of
them said what? Who is that? And so this is our first introduction, their first introduction, and we really
enjoyed talking to you, exchanging ideas, and discussions and debates about diversity, and we want to
continue to do so with you in a vibrant and curious fashion, but I think that we also want to do so in a spirit
of mutual respect. This is not an abstract discussion, it gets intensely personal, it’s about my life and your
life, and so I think enabling us to have these discussions within certain boundaries of respect is important.
We also have an observation to make, so far, and I think Helen has put it very rightly when she says we’re
only halfway through the conference, so in the other half of the conference, we hope that we have a greater
opportunity to talk not only about immigration or multiculturalism or Islam, which are aspects of diversity,
but not the whole of diversity, we hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss issues of race and
ultimately inclusion.
So a lot of people in the audience have been asking me so who is or what is the Maytree Foundation, so I’ll
start a little bit about, talking about the institution that I work for and the institution that I represent. We are
a private foundation, we’re a very small private foundation, but we have some very big ambitions of
change, and social change in Canada. We have our own endowment, and we invest a significant part of our
resources in helping Canadians — and the Canadian government in particular — understand and work
better with immigrants and issues of migration. And we do this for a sound business reason. We are a
young country, we are still in the process of nation-building, and we know that the prosperity of our nation,
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and particularly of our urban regions, is going to depend to a great deal on the prosperity of the many
immigrants and diverse communities who flock to our urban regions year after year. We see this, therefore,
as a sound investment of private money for the public good. We have also, over the years, developed a
particular approach in our engagement with issues of diversity and immigration. We are always practical.
We focus on the lived reality of people’s lives. We don’t spend hours looking into the crystal ball, arguing
about the strengths and weaknesses of the multicultural model, we kind of leave that up to the academics
we heard from, rather we deal with its practical expression — we focus on barriers — we try and
understand them, and we develop a laboratory of solutions that we test out and promote if they work. This
because we know that diversity is no longer, at least in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, possibly Calgary,
it’s no longer an abstract question for discussion. It simply is. Toronto is diverse. Let’s get on with it. So
I’m going to actually take the byline, which is “making diversity work,” and give it some legs I hope.
I want to start by giving you three examples of institutional responses to diversity by three different
institutions from the corporate, the not-for-profit, and the public world. Markham, Ontario, in Toronto, is
one of the most ethnically diverse communities in Canada, with over 54% of its population being derived
primarily from Chinese and South Asians. A local bank, many years ago, about ten years ago, noting this
trend, decided to lower the typical height — the height of its bank counters — to match the typical height
of its residents. Clearly, I should move there. (laughter) In another case, the Royal Bank of Canada decided,
about three years ago, to stop asking job applicants for place of education, for country of education. And
with that single change in the application in the resume box, they started to see a diversity of applicants
making it into the second screening for job interviews. So they saw resumes from Harvard, from the United
States, from Canada of course, but also from India, China, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, and so on and so forth.
Each of these measures has in subtle ways changed the operating behaviour and the customer profile of
these two banks in question.
The Boy Scouts of Canada, an example from the not-for-profit world, a venerable institution, on the other
hand, has been rather slow in waking up to the fact that the world has changed around them while they
were scouting or sleeping. Girls, I understand, were only permitted to join in 1994. Once a powerful global
movement, its membership today is in decline, and the institution has begun to realize that if it does not
adapt itself to appeal to youth of many cultures and many interests, it will become less and less relevant. It
has changed its motto, and today the motto is, “be prepared for diversity.”
One of my favourite examples, though … (laughter) yes! Thank you! I love to get a good laugh. One of my
favourite institutions, though, absolutely my favourite institution is the Toronto Public Library. It has been
the most aggressive in reaching out to a diverse space, because as it says, if it does not do so, it runs the risk
of becoming obsolescent. The library has extended its traditional concept of its business as a place to read,
borrow books, bring books back, to a place where a multilingual audience can access interpreters, prepare
for citizenship classes, get help for employment, and so on and so forth. The Toronto Public Library today
enjoys the highest visitorship and the highest readership of any public library in North America, and I
believe possibly in the world, but I can’t promise you that for sure.
Each of these institutions is motivated by a common factor: the need to capture a customer base, the need to
stay relevant in a changing world. And each has enjoyed different degrees of success. The question of
institutional responses to a growingly diverse constituency is an important one, though, because it’s more
than simply customer-based, because institutions, I believe, are the best mirrors of society, its beliefs and
its values reflecting back to us who has voice, who has power, who is included, whose needs are taken into
account, who matters. And as society changes and evolves, so do our institutions. Think, for example, of
marriage, how we have changed our thinking about what a marriage is. Or family, for that matter. So while
institutions may appear rigid at a certain time, to stay relevant they have to change with the value base of
the times.
Public institutions, and I want to focus particularly on public institutions, because they are charged with
ensuring and safeguarding public good, and because they are the living expression of our commonly held
and current values. The laws of our land, the constitution, and the Charter are, of course, the best examples.
Whether we like it as individuals, whether we like it as institutions or not, and whether certain institutions
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with their own expressions of encoded behaviour and values like it or not, we must all bend to this highest
expression of our public will. Discrimination against women, gays and lesbians, racial minorities, has not
stopped because of the Charter, but it has become increasingly more difficult for institutions to openly
practise such behaviours.
I reflect back to what we heard from Tariq Ramadan. Public institutions have, more than possibly other
institutions, the duty of consistency. At a more practical level, because the Charter, whilst it’s there, doesn’t
really enter into our daily life maybe, in the way that our hospitals or our schools, or libraries and
universities do. These institutions, I believe, have a central place because of the role they play in building a
nation, promoting values of social cohesion, a discussion which, I think, is going to become much more
important today than yesterday, because of the many divides we are seeing in our society — rich and poor,
east and west, urban/rural, minority/mainstream, transnational/national. So these institutions define us, give
us purpose, motivate us to action, and reflect our collective choices, either good or bad. And this is where
we build a shared memory.
This discussion, I think, is also important because it allows us to focus on society and its behaviours. In too
many discussions on diversity, and partly some of the discussions in the last two days, a lot of attention is
paid to the deficits in minority communities. How can we fix them? How can we change their accent? How
can we polish their credentials? How can we change the food they eat, the clothes they wear? And not
enough attention is paid to the deficits, in our society, in our selves, and in our institutions. And I think it is
foolish to think of the sole discussion of diversity as a one-way street — the road to nirvana is clearly a
two-lane highway. But there are limits, and I would be the first to say that there are limits. If there is one
institution that occupies central place in the life of many Canadians, it is religion. And religion is all the
more important because the reach of its value base extends far beyond its organized practice, and has the
potential to extend from the private sphere into the public space. Many religions institutions have their own
sets of laws and rules and conducts, which may bring them into direct conflict with the law. Religion, I
believe, does not adapt well, as Kymlicka says, to the culture of rights. And I would add my voice to the
others who have said that when religion and the law come into conflict, our law must be supreme. An
important reason many newcomers come to Canada is because there is rule of law and we need to abide by
it.
I want to move now to our shared institutions and how well we are doing. And I’m not a demographer like
Michael Adams. I am an optimist like Michael Adams, I want to say, but I do want to view the data a little
differently. And I want to frame my comments within a factual base, and looking into the future, looking
into 2017, what are some of the key demographic factors that we need to be considering?
By 2017, 22% of Canada’s population will be foreign-born. By 2017, visible minorities will constitute
between 19 and 23% of our population, and will constitute majorities in Vancouver, Toronto, and possibly
Montreal. In the world, Toronto is now known as a majority minority city, and that’s the language that’s
being thrown out there. Unlike other nations, our diversity is and will continue to be truly global. The U.S.
is a story of two cultures — blacks and Latinos. In Germany, it is mostly the Turks. In France, it is mostly
the Arabs from the Maghreb. Canada’s population is, as we know, totally homogeneous and truly
multicultural, and this is one of our greatest strengths because we all look out for the rights of others,
because if we know the rights of another group are impinged upon, then possibly the rights of our group
will be impinged upon.
By 2017, for every 100 people who look like me, and who will leave the workforce, another 145 of people
who look like me will be ready to take my place. Let me pick on Michael Adams. For every 100 people
who look like Michael Adams in 2017, who will leave the workforce, only 75 of his profile will be able to
enter the workforce. So aside from these demographic factors, we also need to be aware of
intergenerational changes and intergenerational distinctions. Frank Graves of IKOS Research predicts a
radical paradigm shift between the under-40s and the other-40s. Young Canada, he finds, is unremittingly
more diverse, more cosmopolitan, more internationalist. The new breed is colour-blind, it is more anti-war,
it is less paranoid about terrorism and not terribly ideological. Its ethnic diversity imbues it with a different
conception of the nation-state, one less tied to the traditional French-English, two founding fathers concept
of Canada.
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Political institutions are, of course, really important for too many reasons, I won’t mention. They govern us,
they lead us to places whether we like to go to these places or not, but anyway. When we look at the
machinery of our parties, our political parties, we do have a kind of a stop-and-lurch scenario. The
representation of women in the House of Commons has reached a plateau, with only 64 of 308 spots being
occupied by women. The figure is actually not much different for provincial and local governments,
hovering around the 20% mark. With all the noise that our political leaders make about the participation of
women in electoral life, the results are actually fairly discouraging. In the most recent 2006 federal
elections, 24 visible-minority candidates were elected to the House of Commons. This is a 7% figure, as
compared to Michael Adams’ 13% figure, which is foreign-born. But when you take race into the equation,
the figure drops significantly. The overwhelming majority of these representatives, by the way, were South
Asians. In the City of Toronto in the last election, the City of Toronto, the most diverse city, possibly, in
the world, only four of 43 city councilors are minorities. This is down from our previous city council of six.
Voter turnout is low. At the federal level, it hovers around 60%, at other levels it can be lower.
Neighbourhoods in Toronto with high levels of immigrants are much less likely than other neighbourhoods
to vote in both municipal and provincial elections. The voice of newcomers and minorities, and therefore
the voice of Toronto, we put forward, is significantly muted in the critical realm of governmental decisionmaking.
In order to invigorate our political institutions with new voices, new ideas, new blood, new levels of
participation, we need to recreate some of the ways our political institution works. And I’m going to put
forward three ideas that I hope we can discuss.
Proportional representation, which will be put to a referendum in Ontario this fall, for all its merits and
demerits, would have a positive impact in enabling a diversity of opinion and representation to emerge. We
would be clearly able to see who’s on the list, and who isn’t. Another idea would be changing the eligibility
criteria for who votes in municipal elections and extending the right to vote in municipal elections to landed
immigrants; currently, the right to vote in municipal elections is restricted to Canadian citizens. It used to
be, at least in our city, it used to be available, I believe, 1985, to citizens of the Commonwealth, and the
City of Toronto, in an effort to be fair to all, took away that privilege from all. And we are putting forward
the opinion — and there’s a campaign rolling out — that in fact, local elections are about local issues,
they’re not about national or even provincial issues. That, we think, is space that should be reserved for
citizenship, but local elections, about who gets to be a school trustee, how is our garbage picked up,
etcetera, etcetera, could be opened up to landed immigrants. This would add, by the way, 263,000 voters to
our electoral polls.
We also need to encourage minorities to take a greater part in civic life. Standing for election, working in
campaigns, putting themselves out in different ways. At the foundation, we are so concerned about the
absence of new faces and voices that we have recently launched a school for civics where we hope to train
a new generation of political candidates, and my word for that is that it’s really a boot-camp for would-be
politicians, and you can go on our website and take a look at what we do.
The public service of Canada, and I want to spend, it’s not in my notes, but given the discussion, I thought
I’d talk a little bit about it. The public service of Canada has remained a fortress. In 2001, when the last
data was available, 8% of federal public civil servants identified themselves as visible minorities. Mind
you, this is self-identification. But when you compare it with self-identified cohorts in private industry,
let’s say banks, where the participation by visible minorities rates anywhere between 18 to 22%, then I
think it give us cause for concern. And the federal government, by the way, regulates financial services and
industries to meet employment equity quotas, while it itself cannot seem to do so.
And I know that there are issues of citizenship, bilingualism, these are all barriers, but I think we need to
look at other jurisdictions, like the UK, where citizenship is not a criteria for becoming a public servant, or
New Zealand, where they have different classes of public service, allowing for a greater diversity of
participation.
I want to move to agencies, boards and commissions, places where people get appointed. These
organizations have an enormous impact on the everyday life of Canadians. And who gets appointed is
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really a function of who knows who, who owes who what political favours. And the foundation, in a sense,
wanting to create a practical solution in this area, has started a program called ABCGTA, which is not
alphabet soup, but “Agencies, Boards and Commissions in the Greater Toronto Area. We head-hunt, we
have a list, we promote participation, we give institutions like the Ontario Science Centre or the Liquor
Control Board or Dixon Hall or the local hospital, a prescreened list of candidates. We’ve also published a
number of publications helping institutions to cope better with diversity, and copies of these are outside.
I’m not going to talk too much about public schools, although I do want to say that Ontarians who think
like me are incredibly worried about the election that we are going to have, which will feature policy
proposals to extend public-school funding to religious schools. And I think public schools are really the
primary institutions that knit our society together, and as such, we need to be really careful about some
proposals. And whilst people say there are only two solutions, one is, extend public funding to religious
schools, the other is to do away with the Catholic school board, I think there is a third solution, and that is,
let sleeping dogs lie. I also liked Veronica’s suggestion, which is, allow public schools, as public schools,
to offer religious educations after three o’clock in the afternoon — keep the tent, make it broader, let more
people into it.
(applause)
Okay. So I’m going to jump a little. I had so much more to say about the private sector, and about
universities and colleges, but I don’t think the time allows me to do that, hopefully. I am an optimist, and I
look for ideas that can help us improve our institutions, and I’m a bit of a Luddite, but even I have been
incredibly impressed by the capacity and the power of the institutions on the Web. And I think of MyFace
and YouTube — and I’m not being cute, but that’s really — you know, Wikipedia and all of these — are
totally fascinating, because they have a new order of behaviour, and maybe there is something we can learn
from them.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. It isn’t peer-reviewed, or edited. Instead,
you can create an account and edit your own material. Facebook is a website primarily for social
interaction, it allows people to join networks, it allows people to communicate based on interests — I
understand you can have a virtual pet and care for it — I understand you can throw a sheep at someone — I
don’t know why you would want to throw a sheep at someone, but I believe you can. Facebook, I think,
will only grow. What do these new tools tell us about new institutional behaviour? First of all, the
characteristics. Most of them are flexible. They can mean more than one thing to one person. For some
people, Facebook is a way to catch up with old friends; for others, it’s a way to make new friends. They are
quick. They provide information instantly. Think of the information we have to wait for from some of our
institutions. Anyone can update the encyclopedia right away, making it timely. They are adaptable. They
are transparent. They are vertical, not hierarchical. Wikipedia, for example, allows everyone to add and edit
to it. And they have a tolerance for imperfection. Again, most of these new forms of interaction are open
and anyone can join.
So in closing, I want to get back to being practical, and I want to get back to how institutions should
respond to diversity. I’m going to focus on the institution that we are all guests of today: Couch as it is
venerably called, affectionately known. I know Couch has its traditions. One of them is you come and it’s a
bit of a cottage weekend. The other one that I’ve heard of that I think I’m looking forward to is at ten
o’clock on Sunday morning, the president of Couch leads the crowd in skinnydipping in the lake. (laughter)
We all need to be there. So I will leave Couch with a number of questions drawn from some of my
observations. Are you flexible? Are you quick? Are you adaptable and transparent? Do you follow a
vertical form of governance? Do you tolerate imperfection? Do you see diversity as an asset to invest in, or
a problem to manage? Do you want to engage with these issues with energy and vision, or do you want to
do so slowly and reluctantly? My bias is clear: I think institutions should be eager to change. At the very
least, they must follow the letter of the law. For Couch, I hope that you will fully embrace the spirit of the
law. Thank you very much.
(applause)
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CETA RAMKALAWANSINGH:
And so Ratna has given us much to think about, and with more food for thought, I invite Dr. Marie
McAndrew to the podium. She is a full professor in the Department of Education at the University of
Montreal, where she specializes in the education of minorities and intercultural education. Marie has been
heavily involved in developing many policies in consultation with the Quebec government, and most
recently she was appointed to be a member of the consultative committee on integration and reasonable,
reasonable accommodation in the school setting in Quebec. She is an academic with many civil honours,
and recognition for the excellence of her research, and she’s joining us from Montreal. Welcome, Marie.
(applause)
MARIE MCANDREW:
So I’m very very glad to be — just that we don’t see what we are reading, but I’m not going to be reading,
hopefully. I’m very, very glad to be with you, and I started this paper thinking about the question that was
asked by the organizer, which was “are institutions adapting to diversity?” And I know they were hoping
me to cover a little bit education, but I’ll have a focus on education, but I’ll think a little bit more globally.
And one paradox struck me. We all know that institutions — and we have many data to prove it — are not
fully adapted to diversity, not even if we are only speaking of ethnocultural diversity, all the other type of
diversity, I agree with you, but let’s think of this [?] points us to ethnocultural diversity. And in fact, not
even to the mere representation of people of different origin, as very well pointed by the first speaker. In
education, for example, we know that the percentage of teachers from visible minorities is very low. We
know that the high dropout rate in some immigrant communities — not all, but some — especially those
who come with prior disadvantage and those who are from some visible minorities — but more worrying,
we could say that it’s not only a matter of what you bring into the country, because in some instances,
second-generation don’t do better than the first generation. So, only on the front of equality, education has
not delivered.
About cultural representativity, we could say, and I guess I am summarizing very quickly, that at best we
are at what Banks has called additive multiculturalism, or multiculturalism as an add-on. So we have
frequently added and treated cultural differences, citizenship, values, but more contentious issues such as
inequalities, racism, interpretation of history, for example, are something teachers are very afraid to
discuss, although there are some innovative approaches, I don’t want to make it sound too pessimistic. But
overall, at the level of Canada, you will find some actively critical anti-racist approaches in school, but
most of the time will be more into this song-and-dance multiculturalism, additive multiculturalism. And,
although we’ve turned to international education, most of the time international dimension of education is
western dimension of education, with coming up of India and China, because they are inescapable
nowadays.
So, we could go on and on with this situation, but the paradox is that the same time, there is a growing
sense, filled by the media, by court rulings, and filled by some politicians, that we have gone too far. So
actually, the team of institution being too adapted to diversity, and especially to religious diversity, is an
important thing, as we can see from those working group of the Limit of Tolerance — in Quebec we use
more the limit to diversity than the limit of tolerance, but they pretty much cover the same debate. And as
you probably know, since six months, sparked by the ruling of the Supreme Court by the wearing of the
kirpan in a Quebec public school, we’ve been under a major debate about this so-called reasonable
accommodation controversy. There’s many reasons you could think why it’s happening more in Quebec, I
don’t want to dwell much into that. First a more critical relationship with religion, especially its
sociological role, it’s understandable, due to the history of Quebec, where the religion — I’ve had such, I
wouldn’t say negative, but important and very much criticized until the 60s — a newer relation to diversity
is certainly a fact; a stronger value, I would say until recently, on public and civic space, influenced by
France, I would say; and also something which is not always alluded to — the weight of the North African
Muslim population which is a very very divided population regarding the legitimacy of religious diversity
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in public institutions, because a lot of those people came in the ‘95, during when there were this orthodox
or fundamentalist [trip?] in Algeria.
So all those factors have certainly contributed to this debate on the place of religious practices in school, it
is very important. But I would not say that it’s absent in other parts of Canada. We’ve seen, for example,
data on the lack of support of the public opinion for the major ruling court on religious diversity, especially
the kirpan case, where the difference between English Canada and Quebec was not that great, so I think this
is something, it might be more silent, or a silent preoccupation, but it’s there.
So I’m trying to understand why do we get this sense that institutions are too much adapted while we have
many data to prove that they are not enough adapted? And I’ve divided my answer in three main types of
factors, some of which tend to confirm that there might be some cases of excessive adaptation, and other
points clearly to a misunderstanding of what is at stake when you’re dealing about diversity.
So the first factor will be the mismatch of the concept of reasonable accommodation and of the
interpretation of religious diversity, freedom, by the Supreme Court, to the reality of institutions like
education, who don’t have only a mere mandate of reflecting people, they have a transformative mandate
and an intensive mandate, and that might be complex. My second factor I’m looking is the
misunderstanding among majorities and minorities of the implication of shared multicultural citizenship.
And the third thing is the ambiguities of some of the practical guidelines put forward in public policy in this
regard, has the public policy answer been sufficient?
So regarding the limit of the concept of reasonable accommodation as applied to institutions of services and
institutions with an intensive mandate of changing people, I’d just like to remind us that originally,
reasonable accommodation is conceived, until 1999 it was applied only in employment, and it’s basically
conceived as a response to indirect discrimination. We all agreed that even in the absence of the intent to
discriminate, a rule and a practice that is neutral, that is applied to everybody, may discriminate more on
one category of the population than on the other. So it can be an infringement on the right to equality. And
from this very central concept, the court has asked us either to modify the rule of practice, or practice in
question, if it can be modified. If you were asking people to be one metre seventy to be a member of the
police, you didn’t do it on purpose to have less women and less people from Asiatic background, but it did
have this impact. You don’t have to do a reasonable accommodation, you can just go away with the rule,
and that’s a way. But many, many rules are central to the institution, so they cannot be abolished, so in that
concept, reasonable accommodation is asking to grant an exception to a person or a group of persons that
are touched by these rules.
I won’t get into many details, just to say that normally, the limit, once it’s been proven that you do have,
that a rule or practice has an indirect discrimination effect, the main limit is the limit called undue hardship.
This limit applies much better in the big business than it applies in the school. Undue hardship means
basically would this accommodation jeopardize my capacity of running my business, or of running my
institution. So it’s mostly very managerial types of things, like financial costs or organizational factors,
magnitude of risk.
The problem with the concept of undue hardship applied in institutions who have a very intensive role in
promoting values and promoting the transformation of people is that most of the time, the debate is not
about would this accommodation be a trouble for me — I mean, some teachers would say yes, it’s a
trouble, it’s a hassle for me — but most of the time it’s not at that level. The level is, how much is the
accommodation compatible with the institution mandate. We all know that there is a relation — there must
be a relationship between school and families and school and communities, but school can never be the
mere reflection of communities. If we believed that, then we would not have created public school, we
would have made home schooling everywhere. So there’s always a tension between the role of schooling,
which is creating a distance from your family, whether you belong to a majority or a minority, and this idea
of reasonable accommodation, which is based on the idea of full-grown-up adults that have already
developed their own identity and their own moral independence.
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In the case of school, you never have a single adult questioning a manager. You have two people arguing
about a third party, the child. And two people deeply convinced that they are doing it for the good of the
child. I have hardly ever seen a teacher saying I am doing that because I hate minorities, and I don’t want
hijab in my class because I hate minorities. They would say I don’t want hijab in my class because this poor
girl, I want her to be fully independent, and when she’s a grown-up — they may be misled, but what I am
arguing here very importantly is that both parties — and when parents say I don’t want my child to cover,
to go to phys. ed. without covering her legs, for example, they are not saying it only because I want my
tradition to be preserved, and my culture to be preserved — they are saying it is in the interests of my child,
because she won’t be an object, and she’ll be a respected woman.
So everybody has this idea that they are actually defending the good of the child. So — and then, it brings
us to a complex issue of the power of society and parents and family to define the values to which future
citizens should be exposed. These are not simple. There are some indications in the international law, but
not that much. It also brings us to a complex issue about when is the child supposed to exert its moral
majority. Because theoretically, you are a major person at 18 years old, but in fact in western countries, and
Canada especially, we have tended to see the right of parents as more, as something they exert on behalf of
the child, and that they should slowly, slowly relinquish it until the child is 18 years old. For example, I
don’t know how it is in other provinces, but in Quebec a child has the right to choose if they want to go in
moral education or in religious education — because we do have religious education in Quebec as opposed
to Ontario. At the second half of the [secondary?] when they are thirteen years old — before that the
parents make the choice, after that the child does it. Same thing about the protection for professional
secrecy. From 14 year old, a child is protected — they can go and consult a nurse about an abortion, for
example, without parents being told. So we actually have a vision, that a child should be exerting its moral
majority much before 18 years old, and on the other hand, you will find in some immigrant families that
you never actually exert — you’re never a — you’re always a minor, because if it’s not your father, you
will have to relate to your older brother, and then you see in some adult education centres, people who are
20, 21, 22, and parents are still coming to argue, and — so that’s a different [issue?] about when you get to
be major, and obviously, what’s the nature of parental authority.
But there is more to that, to the complexity. Also, the definition of religious liberty, the Supreme Court has
engaged in two since 1999. Before that, the criteria to define what was a genuine religious requirement had
some “objective” markers. You had to prove that your practice that you were invoking was part of,
somehow, not necessarily the mainstream religion, but the somehow significant part of religious
interpretation of your tradition. There were some objective criteria. This was seen in some cases, and I can
understand, as an imposition of community value on the individual rights. But, on a very interesting, I
would say, pervert effect, the court adopted a very very individualistic, relativistic interpretation, saying
that sincerity is the main proof that must be made, and obviously no differences also between sect and
religion. So that opens a situation where, actually, the more orthodox interpretation of religion are getting
momentum inside public institutions and inside educational institutions. So it’s funny, because they did it
because they didn’t want the community to decide what was religious freedom, but actually, if, you cannot
work with the organized community if you are the school principal and you cannot take the phone and say
hello imam, those people are fasting and the little girl is fasting at eight years old, is that a religious
requirement, or just something she does for the sake of feeling a grown-up? Before 1999, the school
principal could go back and say, I’ve been told by the imam that before puberty, they don’t have to fast, so
if this is causing a problem, we have to respect the feeling of the child that she wants to do it to do it like
the grown-ups, but we are not into a so-called legally binding situation, so there’s more room for maneuver.
After 1999, and we’ve seen a lot of cases like that — music, for example — pretending that music was
against the Koran — I mean, you have to be a Taliban [Farsi?] from the fourteenth century of Islam’s
culture to believe that music is contrary to Koran, but now, with this interpretation you are running, for the
people on the ground, they are very, very cautious, because they say now, it’s sincerity, so it’s actually
made things much more complex. Hopefully this [Amsalem?] ruling, was a five-to-four ruling, so the
Supreme Court may come back to a more balanced view, and I’m saying it doesn’t stem from the Canadian
constitution, it is really the way the court has interpreted it, because you could interpret religious freedom
in a different manner. So sometimes people say, oh yes, that’s the constitution, it’s more complex than that.
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And obviously, last thing, there’s a grey area of reasonable accommodation on a major topic of schooling,
which is the curriculum. All the ruling is about socialization, you know, like should we wear the school
uniform, should we be able to wear kirpan, should we put the hijab, so this, we are seeing it. But the step,
just of the curriculum, and we all know that cultural relativism is much more easy to accept in terms of
values than it is in terms of cultural connectivism. I mean, equating creationism with Darwinism is more
challenging in my regard [than] is discussing about are women who put make-up more liberated than
women who put a hijab. I mean, this is an open discussion, while the status of knowledge, critical
knowledge, is much more challenging, and I don’t think — I think we are seeing that, because in the
committee I’m heading — I’m not heading, I’m part of it in Quebec, we are seeing that although media is
always talking about those sexy things like the hijab and [?], most of the adaptations now are exemptions to
the curriculum, and so, and I would also add that most of reasonable accommodations are no more additive,
putting more diversity, but actually subtractive, and that’s a major thing we should look at. I mean, a lot of
taking into account diversity should be adding diversity, the level of diversity to which everybody is
exposed. But now, with the exemption to curriculum, what we are seeing is actually diminishing the level
of diversity to which either a single child, when they are not enough — you know, exemption — or the full
student body, because when you get the weight of a lot of people asking the same thing, the teacher may
well decide that they’re going to skip — that they’re going to go over — instead of asking fifteen kids
outside of the classroom when they speak about Darwin, they may decide to present that after all,
creationism is as valid as Darwinism, because then they don’t have to have fifteen kids going outside of the
classroom.
So — no, I mean, it’s a very real issue, and I don’t think we’ve tackled it enough, and gladly enough,
Canada has not gone to the level of the U.S., but in the U.S., this is a real issue. And what is interesting, I
know time is running, is that I would say that it brings us all back to the fact that this problem of reasonable
accommodation is not a problem about immigrants or even other religion. It’s a problem of the orthodox —
the fringe of the orthodox, I never use fundamentalist because I hate it, it’s too related to terrorism, but
orthodox interpretation of religion, and what place do we give them, we have to give them a place in a
democratic society, but it’s a complex thing, and we have also found that a lot of those requests are not
made by immigrants or newcomers, they are made by fundamentalist Christians, I mean, orthodox
Christians, orthodox Jews. I know, it’s a discipline.
Now let me go, because I know time is running. Having said so, there’s a real problem, but having said so,
a lot of the controversy we are now facing is based also on the misunderstanding of the full extent to which,
of a shared citizenship, and mostly by majority. I think, first of all, the fact that the debate is always
focused on newcomers, while actually the problem, as I mentioned, is basically a problem of the place of
orthodox practice of religion a democratic society. And again, it’s surprising how much we always put it in
the we/they situation, how much the language used is not an inclusive language. Most of the time you hear
that it’s about us the majority, should we grant or refuse them, the minority, this privilege? And actually, I
think if we adopt inclusive and win-win language, we the collective, the collectivity of citizens, the
collectivity of people living in the school, we have to agree about the better [conditions?] for diversity, and
also some limits that would render diversity compatible with other fundamental value.
Another problem also, that’s why I have used other fundamental value, is that often fundamental values are
presented as opposite to diversity. Diversity is one of the full fundamental values we have — the right of
religion — and whenever we have conflict, it’s two fundamental values, two rights of equal importance that
we must find the balance in. That is very complex, but we cannot say that we are protecting fundamental
values against diversity. And this is something you will hear often, in the school setting, but in public
debate too. And it brings me to the last point I want to do on this heading, which is I think that we haven’t
really fully grasped the distinction between fundamental values or civic values and majority value. And I
think part of the fad for citizenship and education in civic, is that there’s a natural tendency in all group to
belong, that their beliefs, that their values, are universal. So whenever you are telling people, now we’re
going to be speaking about civic values, they hear about a mix of civic and very ethnic values. And the
problem that you encounter then is, people will oppose some accommodation on the reasonable grounds
from a civic perspective, but they will also often oppose it from the very ethnic perspective. And they will
play the game wherever it fits them, so whenever they want to defend the Christmas tree in the classroom,
then they’ll put back the hat of we English Canadians, or we French Canadians, that’s our right, to have a
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Christmas tree because this is not religious, it’s our culture, it’s our tradition. But at the same time they will
oppose, rightly or wrongly, other practices on more fundamental values, such as equality of sexes, the
rights of children, and so on and so forth. So people are always moving through civic versus ethnic values,
and that makes the debate extremely complex.
The last thing I wanted to look at with you is the weakness of the public policy answer. And we often hear
that people on the ground, they are all misled, they are all confused, because there would not be any
guideline about how far to adapt, I mean, this is something that we hear a lot. I am not sure that this is the
case, certainly not in Quebec. Since 1990, for the committee I am part of, I have reviewed twelve public
documents in which everything you can desire as normative guidelines about what type of thing you must
take into account are clearly set. And even in English Canada where this has been less discussed, I see a lot
of recent work from Heritage Canada, even the Spicer Commission so long ago, already [at stress?], what
could be our values, and I think this can be used as guidelines for how far we can go in adapting to
diversity. CIC has done some work. Supreme Court ruling, also, they sometimes point clearly to what we
should look at.
These are pretty well known, and I don’t know how much longer time I have — I have finished my
presentation? (laughter) You didn’t send me my five minutes. Okay, two minutes? That’s good.
So let’s say I will skip the list of those values, I can come back and question, I have all them, the core
central values that we have seen in many many many public documents. But what I question more is that
the devil is in the details. If it was sufficient that you had a list of twelve values or ten values or guidelines
that you must take into account when you are adapting diversity, then we wouldn’t have that controversy in
Quebec for one year about reasonable accommodation.
So let me take an example. For a professional or a manager in the field, how do you implement those
normative guidelines? Let me take a very simple thing that we all agree on in theory. Accommodation of
diversity should not infringe on the other fundamental rights of the child at stake, nor on other children’s
fundamental rights. This is very easy to agree on. But now, I’m not proposing that we do that because then
we’ve going to have a second Couchiching conference, let’s suppose we split in small groups and we take a
few examples. In the first instance, about, you know, the rights of the child at stake, hijab, [?], exemption
from the swimming pool, full exemption from music, exemption from full physical education. This is a
continuum, I pretty much know the right answer, but I can’t tell, which one falls, is acceptable, which one
is not, but I can tell you that before a group of 230 people here can grasp how do you use this normative
thing, and to distinguish what is acceptable and what is not, it takes training. It doesn’t take only, you
know, let’s discuss it. Same thing for the second instance. Why is it that the Supreme Court, and I think
they’re rightly did so, consider that the kirpan as accommodated by this cotton stuff and everything, that it
did not infringe on the right to security to other children? While some much more lenient approach, such as
offering a locale for prayer, all different religions, may be an infringement under right of access to services
to students if you don’t have enough room to do other things, for example. So I think what we see is that
we need a lot of time to develop a shared understanding about how does a perspective of rights condition
when an accommodation will be acceptable and when it won’t be acceptable, and this we also need — most
of the training has been done to the manager, while now, in schools, we need to involve the communities
and the parents, because obviously, if you are a member of a religious minority, it doesn’t mean that you
have a better grasp of the limits of diversity — you may have a different perspective, but you don’t
necessarily have a better grasp of this complexity of balancing of rights, that if you are a majority or
minority teacher by [?]. So that’s an important thing.
And I would also say another thing that public policy has not looked at enough, is, I think we’ve overly
assumed, and I’m sorry to say that Will Kymlicka, we’ve overly assumed that the civic definition of our
identity was prevalent, and we’ve not paid enough empathetic [attention to?] the identity insecurity among
majority population, and I would say especially those who are not in contact with diversity. Because what
we are seeing in Quebec is two totally different problems. We are seeing a real, very well-focused and
circumscribed problem, which is how to manage in every day the place of religious diversity, which is
raised by people who are in contact with diversity, many of which are immigrants or ethnic minority or
religious minority teachers, so it’s not something very divisive; and a much bigger controversy happening
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outside of Montreal where people are not actually in contact with diversity, and that’s actually what’s
driving the politicians. It’s not the real issue, it’s the media and political issue. And I’m not saying that —
we may always hope that this won’t happen in English Canada, everybody now is open to diversity, but I
know that there is a growing sense that this [hiatus?] between big cities and people who are not in contact
with diversity may pollute totally the debate and give it an importance that it should not have. So I’ll quit
with this, and we can continue later.
(applause)
CETA RAMKALAWANSINGH:
I’m wondering if everybody would just like to stand up and take a stretch before we do our last speaker.
Get the blood flowing a little. Take a stretch. Reach for the sky, on your tiptoes.
Okay, now I invite you to take your seats. Okay, thank you. I don’t know how many of you know that
Canada has established its first Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and that commission, the interim
executive director is Bob Watts, who’s our next speaker, and the commission will examine and make
recommendations with respect to the Indian residential school era and its legacy. Until he took this
position, Bob was Chief of Staff to the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine. And
he is also a former Assistant Deputy Minister to the government of Canada, a graduate of the JFK School
of Government at Harvard University, and a fellow of the Harvard Law School. What I would also like to
say is that Bob has taken time off from his family vacation in Washington, D.C., where he is attending a
powwow, to join us, and Bob, we’re really thrilled that you would abandon your family for — I think
somebody else referred to the “Couch summer camp” where people take breaks from their kids and family
— anyway, Bob, we know that’s not why you’re here, but we really look forward to hearing what you have
to say about the commission. Join me in welcoming Bob Watts.
(applause)
BOB WATTS:
[words in a First-Nations language]
As it says in the program, my name is Bob Watts. Thank you very much for that kind introduction.
I’d like to first of all recognize the people whose territory we’re in here, the Chippewas of Mnjikaning, and
one of our real special guests here, Mr. [Bartleman], is a member of that First Nation. Good to see you here,
sir. I’d also like to start off by saying [word in First-Nations language], thank you, for the beautiful day that
we’ve been given, this opportunity to come together to share. I want to thank the organizers for inviting me
to speak here before such a distinguished group of people.
So the question for this panel is, are Canadian institutions adapting to diversity? The short answer, from my
perspective, an indigenous perspective, is no. Thank you. No. That’s what we call time-sharing. I guess the
question is, is there a hope? And from my perspective, I think the answer is an emphatic yes. Getting to yes
will be no easy task, however. So over the next few minutes, I’d like to review some of our interaction with
Canadian institutions, some history, and then talk a bit about an institutional response to both history, to
diversity, to reconciliation, which is an organization that I’m helping to build, called the Indian Residential
Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
A few months ago, I had the honour to speak to the Indigenous Bar Association in Saskatoon, and I had this
nice speech that had been prepared for me, on self-government, and when I arrived there and looked at the
program, I found that I was on the program to speak about something other than what my speech was
about. So I phoned a really good friend of mine, an Elder from Onegaming First Nation in northwestern
Ontario, whose name is Fred Kelly. I said, Fred, you know, I’m at this conference, I’m supposed to give a
speech on, I think it was on legal pluralism, and I’ve got a speech on self-government. What do you
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recommend, Elder? And our Elders are wise people. Bob, he says, do you know about Google? And ah, he
did. And I said yeah Fred, I know about Google. And he said, go out and Google Nisga’a v. Campbell. And
he said, you’ll get some really good information on there. And then he touched on some of that
information. So I went and did that, and I think a couple points from Nisga’a v. Campbell are important in
terms of our discussion here today.
One of the things it talked about in Nisga’a v. Campbell, this is now Premier Campbell arguing that the
Nisga’a treaty wasn’t a valid treaty. So the court looked at that. One of the things it looked at is whether or
not, in sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act of Canada, whether or not all the powers of Canada had
already been distributed, and if they had been distributed, then was there any power left for First Nations
people, was there power left for the Nisga’a? And a couple interesting things that the court said. First of all,
it said that the purpose of Confederation was to reconcile diversity with unity. That federalism was a
mechanism by which diversity could be reconciled with unity. And up until the last couple of days, I
thought that was a pretty good thing. Now I’m not so sure. First of all, our people weren’t present at the
time of Confederation, weren’t at the table, weren’t part of the discussion. So a big chunk of diversity
wasn’t there. And whether or not, in terms of the notions of diversity and unity, juxtaposing them and
trying to reconcile them, I’m not sure if that’s the right approach, whether or not unity needs to embrace
and recognize and respect and honour diversity rather than some sense of just trying to reconcile
differences. I really think it’s taking a different approach, rather than sort of a values-based approach to
how do we live together as people, is taking probably a lot different approach.
The other thing that this court decision talked about, made it clear that indigenous laws had been here prior
to Confederation, prior to Contact, survived Contact and continue to survive today. And one of those laws,
and one of those rights, is the right of self-government. It also talked about this idea of section 91 and 92.
And it said that at the time of Confederation, when these two parts of our constitution were put together,
that what was being done was a distribution of powers that basically Upper and Lower Canada had. And
Upper and Lower Canada didn’t have the indigenous right of self-government, they didn’t have the Nisga’a
right of self-government, they didn’t have an Ojibwa right of self-government, or a Mohawk … they had
different powers, and so they couldn’t distribute those indigenous powers amongst themselves, because it
wasn’t theirs to distribute. That those powers existed at the time of Confederation, at the time of Contact,
and continue to exist today.
It also recognized the idea of customary law, and the idea that customary law, or even communal law, are
those things that a group of people accept as law, and that the Nisga’a had those kinds of laws, and other
groups of indigenous people in Canada have those same laws.
In terms of, from an Anishinaabic or Ojibway point of view, we try to keep in mind this idea of the
importance of relationship. And we talk about rights, we talk about communal rights, we talk about the
relationship of rights, communal rights, to individuals, but most importantly we end up talking about
responsibilities. And for most Anishinaabic people, we talk about being born with the right to, maybe, a
couple of very basic rights. The right to speak your language, and the right to die. But we’re also given a lot
of responsibilities. And rather than being born with a whole charter of rights, our people look at it as being
born with a charter of responsibilities. And part of those responsibilities speak about relationship. And not
just relationship between family members or people, but our relationship to all of creation. And that all of
creation has particular rights, too. Animals have rights, mother earth has rights, the air has rights, and all of
these things when we look at that, we look at it in terms of relationship. How do all these things relate
together, and what is our responsibility with respect to the rights of the rest of creation?
So it’s a type of celebration, if you will, of diversity, but a recognition first and foremost that we’re not the
only ones here and that we have responsibilities probably before we have rights.
Some of that’s changing, oddly enough, through the treaty process. Some of our people and some of our
communities have become a lot more rights-oriented. Part of that is because a lot of our treaties and a lot of
our laws and a lot of traditions have been ignored, and until the 1950s it was illegal for First Nations people
to hire lawyers, and now we have a lot of catching up to do, and we’re doing it. Whether that’s a good thing
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or not is a matter of some debate; I think there are better ways of sorting things out other than having
people represent you as lawyers and fighting things out.
Two days ago, as Ceta said, I was in Washington, and I was at the Museum of the American Indian. And it
was a pretty emotional experience for me to see the beauty of hundreds of indigenous cultures and nations
represented in a very respectful way. And then to see the destruction of so many of these nations, so many
of these tribes, languages and cultures. And then I could just walk through to witness the rebirth of so many
our ceremonies, our languages, our cultures and our communities. It was an incredible journey for me, and
one not seen by that many people.
It really puts in context, in stark contrast, our indigenous people are generally perceived, and I don’t want
to be too stereotypical, but the 1987 edition of a U.S. high-school history book, it reads, “For thousands of
centuries, centuries in which human races were evolving, forming communities, and building the
beginnings of national civilizations in Africa, Asia, and Europe, the continent known as the Americas stood
empty of mankind and its works. Europeans in the New World is the story of the creation of a civilization
where none existed.” This is a 1987 history book. So you juxtapose that with what you end up seeing at the
Museum of the American Indian where people are commenting on, for example, the fact that there are no
wild species of maize, so with the creation of modern maize, Indians performed a feat so improbable that
archaeologists and biologists have argued for decades over how it was achieved. Dozens of different
systems of writing; trade networks, track the orbits of the planets, and on and on, all of the things that
would normally represent manifestations of civilization, or at least, human beings, but not taken for that.
The narrator at one of the exhibits said that for people who are so visible, and I think there are places in this
country where indigenous people are particularly visible — you go to the streets of Winnipeg, Regina,
Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Edmonton, and we’re all too visible — but for people who are so visible, we’re
invisible. And our history is invisible. Why is that? I think, in short, there’s a discourse that kind of says,
much like this textbook for 1987, that says that when the first explorers came here, what they found was
empty land, Terra Nullis, and governments still argue that in court, that the land was empty, vacant, and
when they lose on that, they say, well, maybe there were people here, but they were uncivilized, so they
don’t have the rights of civilized man, so it’s all okay, whatever happens to them, because they’re not
civilized. And then we became trading partners, military partners, then we became in the way of expansion,
treaties happened, things like the Act of Gradual Civilization — or aggressive civilization in some places
— the Indian Act, residential schools, and now we’re in many places managers of our own poverty and
forced into claims processes, lawsuits, dealing with institutions like the Department of Indian Affairs.
From our point of view, our history didn’t start in 1492. We weren’t like Pinocchio, waiting for Geppetto to
come and cut our strings so we could walk, talk, and fly. And contrary to what a lot of the courts said, our
history didn’t end in 1492 either. Our development as nations, as peoples, wasn’t frozen at the time of
Contact — it continues, and continues to exist despite of a lot of obstacles today.
One of the things that becomes really important in terms of this time that we’re in, some people call it the
time of the Seventh Fire, the Seventh Generation, some people call it born-again paganism, I kind of like
born-again paganism, actually — but identify clearly plays a role in terms of our development. And
identity, in terms of how our identity has been abused and how it’s being recovered. Part of that abuse of
identity is a power relationship between non-Indian institutions and Indian people. A part of that is through
institutions like the Department of Indian Affairs and the residential school system. I’m going to talk a bit
more about that in a few minutes.
But in terms of where there’s hope, researchers at Harvard notice that there was a big difference in a
number of tribal communities in the United States, some who thrived and some who floundered, even
though at times they had access to the same resources. So they asked the question, this is an economist,
what was the difference? They came up with a few different answers. One was that sovereignty matters.
When tribes make their own decisions about what approaches to take, what resources to develop, take the
power away from non-tribal decision makers, tribes do better. Kind of makes sense in a lot of ways. If
you’re responsible for your own decision making, you might make better choices than someone who may
have power over you but maybe not have your best interests at heart. They also found that institutions
matter, that stable political institutions and policies, independent mechanisms for resolving disputes,
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separating politics from business, all of those things that we think of as good government, they’re all
important, and tribes are doing that. And also important, culture matters. That the most successful tribal
economies stand on the shoulders of culturally appropriate institutions of self-government, that enjoy the
legitimacy of their tribal members, tribal citizens, and that even the way things like forestry is done, or
mining is done, or other enterprises are done, when they’re done with the reflection of the culture of the
people, that it’s often done a whole lot better than it was done before.
So what Harvard was saying was that poverty was not just solely an economic issue — it’s a political issue,
and that these three keys are important — and there’s a legal tradition in the United States that supports the
idea of sovereignty. There’s no legal tradition in Canada — one that may be evolving, but none that
supports that notion of First Nation sovereignty.
I just want to skip over a couple pages here.
One of the things that we end of talking about, perhaps from an indigenous legal tradition point of view, is
really looking at different ways of thinking about sovereignty, thinking about relationships with the rest of
Canada. And one notion that’s been gaining a bit of prominence is this notion of complementarity. This is a
notion that something that is complementary is something that completes, makes up a whole or brings to
perfection. The quantity or number needed to make up a whole, either of two or more parts that complete
the whole, mutually complete each other. So when we are talking about relationships between indigenous
and non-indigenous people in Canada, and we’re talking about issues of sovereignty, many of us would
argue that Canada’s sovereignty is incomplete, given that it does not recognize indigenous sovereignty, that
it puts into question the future of Canada, by non-recognition of indigenous sovereignty, but equally as
important in terms of the future of Canada, is this recognition of the identity of indigenous people, this
complementarity that is required so that indigenous people are part of a whole, that they are not invisible,
that their history isn’t invisible, and that their future isn’t invisible.
A couple of months ago, I was briefing a senate committee on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
and a couple of things that the senators were very strong about in terms of thinking through why a Truth
and Reconciliation Commission is required with respect to Indian residential schools is this idea of it’s
difficult to have a shared future if we don’t have a shared history. And residential schools, for the most
part, aren’t part of Canada’s history. It’s difficult to pick up a history book in any part of the country and
find anything to do with residential schools, and residential schools have probably had a greater impact on
our community than just about anything else in the last 150 years. Prior to that, things like smallpox and
other diseases had huge impacts, in many places 8 or 9 out of 10 people died, some places entire tribes
were wiped out. But in terms of more modern history, residential schools have played a huge role in our
communities, and it continues to play a huge role in terms of the legacy of residential schools. Residential
schools were experimented with as early as the 1600s, became very popular with the federal government
and churches in the 1800s, lasted for about 150 years. Laws were passed that were enforced by the RCMP,
so that children were taken off, at times from their parents’ arms, and transported away, sometimes
hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away from home. Some as young as two years old, to be educated.
One of the Indian superintendents at the time said the purpose of residential schools was to kill the Indian
within the child, and thankfully in terms of our community, that hasn’t happened, but that doesn’t mean
that there wasn’t huge suffering. The stories that are starting to come out in terms of sexual abuse, physical
abuse, psychological abuse, I think, are shocking to me, and I think will be shocking to the Canadian public
when it becomes part of general discourse. The last residential school closed just ten years ago, so it’s one
of these things where it’s going to be difficult to say, well, that happened a hundred years ago, or that
happened way back when, we can’t do anything about that. There are still 80,000 people alive who
attended residential schools, and a few hundred thousand people that are affected by the legacy of
residential schools.
We have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as part of the largest class-action settlement in
Canada’s history. There’s going to be individual compensation for the experience of residential schools,
and other types of compensation for abuses suffered and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which
is going to last for five years. We’re just in the process of nominating potential commissioners, some of
you may have seen the ads in The Globe and Mail and other places. Feel free to put your name in, you have
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until August 14th. It’s going to be really important that we have people like some of the folks assembled in
this room, to be commissioners, people that are thoughtful, that care about their country, that have an open
mind, that are good listeners. This Commission, I think, and we’re trying to be modest in terms of our
expectations for the Commission, because a lot of people want it to a lot of different things, and it clearly
can’t. We’ve had other commissions in Canada that have examined other sort of indigenous issues. The
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples made its report about ten years ago. There was a celebration of
that last year in terms of the tenth anniversary of that report. The government of Canada as an institution
was given a failing grade in terms of the implementation of that report. Whether there were too many
recommendations to try to deal with, or whatever the reason, most of the recommendations weren’t
addressed in any way at all. And ones that were were generally addressed in an nonsubstantive way.
So anyway, we end up with this Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will spend five years touring
the country, giving the opportunity for former students to tell their story, to complete a part of Canada’s
history that hasn’t been written before. To give the children and grandchildren and families of those
students an opportunity to tell their story, and it’s an equally interesting story. You end up hearing, and a
good friend of mine, Ken, he’s about 63 years old I think, and he’s been talking a lot more about his
residential school experience, and what it meant in terms of him being a husband and being a father, and
not being able to say things like I love you to his kids, and not being able to hug his kids, because it wasn’t
the way that he was raised, and then you hear stories of abuse, of children that were brought up in a school
of abuse, and that’s what they understood the relationship between an adult and a child was, and carried
that on into their relationship, perhaps as a husband or as a father, or as a wife or as a mother, and so there’s
intergenerational abuse that’s happened in our communities, and that’s part of the story and part of the
legacy of the residential school era.
One of the things that gets talked about a lot, and I have the great honour of meeting with a number of
residential-school survivors in different parts of the country, is that the purpose of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission shouldn’t be about the transference of guilt. It should be about, I guess as [?]
has talked about, how do we build a shared future? And there have been good responses from former
students, and from Canadians generally. There’s a group out in BC that’s working on a Reconciliation Day,
where they hope to have several hundred thousand people march together, similar to what was done in
Australia a few years ago. When the government wouldn’t apologize for the treatment of aboriginal people
in Australia, the citizens came together and held a march of several hundred thousand people to say I’m
sorry to aboriginal people, and in terms of relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in
Australia, that’s viewed as a huge milestone, a huge turning point, in terms of relationship, and I think we’ll
see similar things here in Canada.
One of the things that I’m surprised at from time to times in terms of meeting with survivors, and it became
most clearly articulated at a meeting I was at in Montreal about a month ago, with survivors from eastern
Canada, was the great faith that survivors have in the average Canadian, that when Canadians find out this
part of our shared history, that it will change the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous
people in this country. And I think that coming from folks that have suffered so much, to have so much
faith in the average Canadian is astounding. But they have that. And I think that really speaks to some of
the themes of this conference in terms of some of the foundations of diversity, that idea of a shared
understanding, perhaps some shared values — there are some values that are hard to share, but there are
other values, in terms of sometimes simple values, that we can rally around, and I think that we can do that,
everybody deserves a good future. Everybody deserves an opportunity. People deserve a fair chance. These
aren’t high-falutin’ values. These are some simple values that I think that all of us can rally around. There
are probably a number of principles that we can all rally around too.
And I think that in terms of the work that I have the opportunity to participate in, is that it is an institutional
response to diversity, it’s not all about truth-telling, actually I think as hard as it will be to hear people’s
truths, the harder part will be talking about reconciliation. Because I don’t think reconciliation is something
where the Prime Minister and the National Chief embrace each other on Parliament Hill and we have
reconciliation. I think there are some systemic things that those two important leaders can do to help all of
us, but I think reconciliation is something that happens between individuals, between families, between
communities, and I’m already hearing stories about people that are prepared, and are preparing for that,
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some of them actually getting together to build bridges, not sort of bridges of the imagination, but actually
building bridges that their kids can walk across together. And I think that it’s going to be those types of
efforts, that type of working together, that type of understanding of the importance of relationship, that type
of understanding that we do have a shared history here, that we can’t ignore, that we need to understand
and to build upon to have a shared future. Because I think all of us in terms of a human value, value the
importance of the future for our children. And that’s what this is really about. It’s about our children and in
terms of the Truth Commission it’s about children. It’s the only truth commission in the world, there have
been over twenty truth commissions, it’s the only truth commission in the world that’s ever looked at
massive human-rights abuse of children. And that’s what this was. And so those children are going to come
together now as adults, some of them very old, some are over a hundred years old, to tell their story in the
hope of understanding, in the hope of it becoming something for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren
to learn from, and it’s something for all of Canada to learn from.
This morning, we had a good conversation at the breakfast table that I was at, that was one of the things
that was raised, about the importance of truth commissions, is to, one, as Michael Ignatieff would say, to
limit the scope of permissible lies, but also to put things in the proper historical context, so that they are not
repeated again. And from a political, perhaps a philosophical point of view, some of those things are being
repeated again. There are more aboriginal kids in the care of the state now in Canada than there were at the
peak of residential schools. So we have some issues that we need to deal with. Part of it’s going to take us
looking at each other differently. Part of it comes back to, in terms of the number of kids in state care, is
really almost going back to the foundations of residential schools, of whether or not Indian people are
educated enough, are civilized enough, to be able to take care of their own families, to be able to run their
own affairs, to be able to govern their own communities. So these are all questions of relationship that I
don’t think are just going to be answered by politicians. They are going to be answered by folks like you
and I being able to engage with each other and thinking through and sorting through some of these issues.
Residential schools, as we were told by the Royal Commission, wasn’t just an attack on individuals, it was
an attack on the collectivity of First Nations people. And it was deemed that one of the best ways of doing
that was to remove children from the influence of their parents. The best way, the quickest way to
assimilate First Nations people into the body politic of Canada was to remove children from their parents.
Some of that’s still going on. Whether or not, in terms of questions of diversity and questions of respect,
whether or not that’s a way to build a country, I think is something that we all need to reflect on. I know my
answer.
But when I said at the start whether or not there’s hope — I truly believe that there is hope. I see changes in
some institutions. I see the TRC as an opportunity. But more closely, when I look at my kids, they’re
learning their language in school, they’re learning their traditions and culture, and you see that happening
in many many communities across Canada. You see non-indigenous people and indigenous people coming
together to try to understand each other better, some of them participating in sharing circles, in healing
circles, and understanding things like how our medicine wheel becomes, really, a teaching that shows all of
us, all the different races of mankind, sitting together, standing together, in a circle, each with beautiful
gifts to bring to each other, different attributes to share, different histories to share. And that medicine
circle, that medicine wheel, it really talks about the need for all of us to be in that circle together, because
that wheel is the wheel of life, and it requires all of us to be part of that in order for that wheel of life to
move and toreally animate the love that the creator has given all of us.
So I’ve lots of reasons for optimism, and again, when I hear those elders talk about the faith that they have
in the average Canadian, the impact thatunderstanding will have in terms of unity, the opportunity for
recognizing our diversity, and how diversity is a strength and a pillar of unity, not an obstacle to unity, I
think gives me great hope.
I just want to take one second and respond to Ratna about the powwow. End of November, Rogers Centre
in Toronto, biggest powwow in Canada is going to happen. Come to it, bring all your friends, because it
really is, it’s a celebration of culture, or life, of music, it’s a huge festival. So I invite all of you to attend
that, it’s probably next to our powwow at home at Six Nations, it’s probably Canada’s premier powwow,
it’ll be a great time, it’ll be a great celebration. By that time, hopefully we’ll have our commissioners
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appointed, and they’ll be able to be there to be able to meet some of you folks. So, Rogers Centre, last
weekend of November. [Word in First-Nations language] Thank you.
Putting Diverse Talents to Work
August 11, 2007, 2:00 p.m.
HELEN WALSH:
And now, I just want to introduce Don McCutchan, who is the Vice-President of Program for Couchiching,
and in his day job he works for something called Gowlings, and we like to pretend he doesn’t so we can
have more of his time. So, please welcome Don, who will be our moderator today.
DON McCUTCHAN:
Thank you. I don’t now have to introduce myself, so that makes my job a little less difficult. And just to
pick up from John, I think there’s something underway here, that when next year we have the second Eric
Koch and the drinks in the Sundowner Lounge, we hope that it will be on Koch Walk. (laughter) What can
I say?
Before I actually get going here, I’d like to — everybody that comes to Couchiching is special, but I’d like
to make particular note of two people. One is our youngest-ever Couch attendee, and that’s Hal, Prince Hal
MacKay, two weeks of age, and the second, and he probably will be a little embarrassed by this, because he
doesn’t like much fuss, but a great friend of Couch, the Honourable James Bartleman is at Couch this
weekend. He’s usually at Couch, he’s a great friend of Couch, and he has a very busy schedule, but
especially so as he winds up his term, which I think is the most distinguished of any Lieutenant-Governor
in my lifetime, so we’re very grateful that Mr. Bartleman could make the time to attend.
(applause)
Now, my panel, we’re building on the narrative here. We’re running a little late, so Qs and As, and I think
there will probably be a lot arising out of this, we actually will now have yet another discussion panel, we’ll
probably have a few of Qs and As in here, but for those of you who want to continue on, Milton and Alden
have agreed that we’ll find our own place to go and continue the discussion if you so wish.
Now, my panelists are Milton Wong and Alden Habacon. Milton first attended Couch in 1964, and I think
the only other person in the room who was here at that time was Eric. We hope we don’t have to wait
another 43 years for a return visit, if only because he is a perfect panelist. Not only does he come with
impeccable credentials, but he brought his own copanelist, and as those of us on the Couch program
committee, we’re most appreciative of that.
Milton’s bio is in your pack, so I’m not going to read what’s already there, but I would like to elaborate just
a little bit. First of all, his remarkable life would be two lifetimes, two-plus full lifetimes, and when I was
meeting him this morning to discuss the panel, he described himself as an entrepreneur and a social activist,
and I thought that was an excellent, albeit a modest description. Though, let me now tell you what his own
comment was, as he was doing his own preparation for the panel, he thought that it needed to be made
better, and that gray hair, and by the way, those of us who have no hair really like the gray hair, that he
needed to get somebody younger, to complement his remarks, and he said the best person he could think of
was our fellow panelist.
So what I would like to say is that Alden, who will be introduced by Milton, he has had set for him the
rather modest objective of reforming the CBC so it is a relevant twenty-first-century organization, and if he
does that, we’re going to have to have him here many times as a panelist.
I did have an opportunity to speak with Alden, and my first question was met with a respectful “No one
under thirty years thinks like that, much less asks the question.” (laughter) So. Okay. You’re right, I’m a
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little over thirty. He said that his life was, that he was Canadian, but that his life was far too complex to be
so narrowly pigeonholed. He said I’m Canadian, but I’m also five other people at the same time. And then
he started explaining a little bit, and he’ll elaborate on this, but [hold up card] there’s him as a Canadian
and here are all the little things that make up the rest of his life, so I think for those of us over thirty, it will
be an interesting discussion. I did pay particularly close attention, because he is the old man at the table
yesterday, other than me, he was 33.
Now, the rest of the table piled on and immediately agreed with him, so I decided immediately to do what
Jim [name?] said last year, be the snowplow, get out of the way. So for those of us over thirty, I’m sure
we’ll learn a lot from Alden. Those that are under thirty and who are already there, like Jeremy [name?],
that was also telling me just how old I was, hopefully you can then get into the dialogue, and I’m sure now
Milton will get us started.
(applause)
MILTON WONG:
I always believe in turnkey situations, you can control the events much better.
I just want to acknowledge Don for being the moderator, thank you, and to the board of directors of
Couchiching Institute for putting this on. It’s a lot of effort, and I’m really very very pleased that I had
accepted the challenge of addressing you. So thank you very much for the opportunity.
I wanted to speak at length about cultural diversity, the survival of the planet, and how pluralism and
sustainability may be the emerging common moral sentiment that will lay the foundation for a positive
future for mankind. There’s something a little bit of War and Peace on this address, about such a weighty,
daunting topic.
I’ve been thinking and speaking about multiculturalism for many years, and never has it been more
important to understand the contribution it can make to a peaceful world. So I’m going to offer some
opening remarks that will, I hope, give you the background and perspective you need to fully appreciate
what Alden Habacon is going to talk about after me.
When I first began to be intellectually preoccupied with multiculturalism, I was quite fascinated with the
metaphor of tapestry to describe the Canadian model. And after all these years, I still think that metaphor
works beautifully. We still receive a quarter of a million new immigrants every year, one of the highest
immigration rates in the world, and we continue to add them to the tapestry. Their unique identities are
what make the tapestry attractive in its entirety, yet we never fully lose sight of the individual strands
either. That’s the beauty of it. We are, I believe, a resilient and a vibrant nation because of our immigrants.
Canadian multiculturalism has also been called a mosaic. Either way, it’s about celebrating and protecting
diversity to our society in a way that produces a harmonious and united result.
You might wonder how multiculturalism is different from pluralism, another often-discussed term. A
standard definition of pluralism is this: a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial,
religious or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their traditional
culture or special interests within the confines of a common civilization. We could quibble over the subtle
differences between multiculturalism and pluralism. Personally, I believe pluralism is more specific and
less nebulous than what is implied by multiculturalism. Pluralism takes a stronger position. It clearly
assigns diverse cultural groups autonomous identity to which they can adhere, while at the same time living
in agreement with some of the ground rules that describe Canadian citizenship.
For some time now, I’ve believed pluralism is the direction we’ve been taking in Canadian society, and I
believe it’s the right direction for Canada. Of course, not everyone agrees with me. Some people lean more
towards a more American style, melting pot concept. Some would prefer a model in between, more cultural
intermingling, than what pluralism describes. But not quite the melting pot. And then there’s what I call the
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post-modern view of ethnic diversity which Alden is going to talk about soon. But personally, I have
always found wisdom in the writings of Charles Taylor, a Canadian philosopher and writer who has studied
the transformation of human identity and who believes in the necessity of multiculturalism. Taylor
describes between two traditions in liberal democratic theory, on one hand, the politics of equal dignity,
based on the notion that all humans deserve respect and equal rights, especially — and equally and on the
other hand, the politics of difference, based on the notion that all humans, including individuals and groups,
need and deserve recognition for their unique identities.
These two perspectives might appear to contradict each other at first. The former requires treating people in
an indifferent, blind manner, while the latter demands differential treatment. Yet Taylor maintains that
these perspectives are compatible, because they are both built on the notion of equal respect. Taylor has
written that humans create their identity dialogically, that is, in relation to others. According to this theory,
since human identity is at least partially shaped by recognition, when recognition is withheld, it can damage
a person’s dignity. The same can be said for groups of people who share a common identity. To
extrapolate, for example, if we fail to recognize the aboriginal claims to a unique identity, we injure their
dignity. Due recognition, according to Taylor, is not simply a courtesy, but a vital human need. Taylor’s
multiculturalism is a logical extension of the politics of equal respect and recognition. In his own words,
“All human culture that has animated whole societies over some considerable stretch of time has something
important to say and deserves to be heard.” And I think we heard that from Bob Watt this morning.
My impression that immigrants make us stronger as a nation also seems to be supported by the research
done by Environics, Michael Adams, who was here yesterday. In his latest book, Adams shows that the
percentage of ethnic groups participating in the political process is higher here in Canada than in other
countries. To me, that’s proof that our process of accommodation works, and it’s evidence of how we
differentiate ourselves from other countries that are perhaps less welcoming of immigrants or less
accommodating of differences.
Because of this success, a question that has long preoccupied academics, journalists and political leaders
interested in the Canadian approach to multiculturalism: How did we get here, and why are we here today?
How can other countries learn from our example?
Some people seem to have the impression that Canadian multiculturalism was a deliberate experiment
based on intellectual discussion and decisions about how to shape our society. But I would argue that it has
been more of a happy accident, a serendipitous outcome based on historical events. Before I elaborate, I
will tell you that some of these ideas are not all mine. Many come from John Ralston Saul’s book,
Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the Beginning of the 21st Century, so I want to give him due
credit.
When I opened that book and started reading more about some of the early events in Canadian history, I
realized that they give us a sneak preview, so to speak, or call it a foreshadowing, of modern
multiculturalism. It seems to me that the Canada we know today owes much of the nature of its existence to
the partnership of two men, Robert Baldwin and Louis LaFontaine. Both men were lawyers, LaFontaine’s
political career began at age 23 when he was elected to Lower Canada Assembly. He was known for his
dedication to French Canada. Baldwin also entered politics in early life, motivated by a desire to change the
Canadian political system.
So early in the nineteenth century, in Canada, elites dominated the British colonies of Upper and Lower
Canada. They were smugly content with their position of privilege, supported by British governors, and
paid scant attention to the elected assemblies of the colonies. I will simplify things a bit here, but
essentially the complacency of these elites, the lack of willingness to engage the elected assemblies,
eventually generated a great deal of resentment among the colonies. When the resentment peaked, rebellion
broke out in Upper and Lower Canada. Rebellion was quickly defeated in Upper Canada, but it was long
and bloody in Lower Canada. When the fighting ended, the British government sent a representative to
investigate the colonial grievances. The report that went back to the government prescribed a greater power
of autonomy for the colonial assemblies, exactly what Lower Canada wanted, but it also recommended that
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Upper and Lower Canada be united, a proposal that many Lower Canadians adamantly opposed. If this
story is starting to sound familiar, you probably know that Lower Canada is now known as Quebec.
Nevertheless, in the winter of 1841, a union between the two areas was proclaimed and an election was
called. LaFontaine ran in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, but on election day, two hundred armed thugs
prevented his supporters from voting, and he lost the election. Meanwhile, Baldwin had been elected to two
different ridings in what is now called the Toronto area. He met with the constituents in one of those
ridings, Fort York, to see if they would agree to let LaFontaine in his place. Then he sent a letter to
LaFontaine, a letter asking if he would agree to run in a byelection in Toronto. LaFontaine agreed. He
campaigned in Toronto on a platform of French-English cooperation, and easily won his seat. Meanwhile,
Baldwin’s gesture of goodwill garnered him francophone support in Lower Canada. And that is how, in the
absence of any specific design on uniting French and English in Canada, Baldwin and LaFontaine sewed
the first seeds of a nation that would eventually celebrate the relatively peaceful co-existence of two
cultures and two languages. A respected francophone journalist of the time, Etienne Parent, wrote: “If all
the inhabitants of Upper Canada are like Baldwin, I predict the most brilliant results of the union of the
Canadas.”
My point is that, whether they knew it or not, Baldwin and LaFontaine planted the seed when they shook
hands. That seed grew into an unusual union, a uniquely Canadian form of multiculturalism. It grew into a
Canada founded on the union of two distinctly different cultures to combat a mutual adversary: the ability
to embrace that which is different, to work together towards common goals despite cultural and linguistic
differences, is the heart of Canadian multiculturalism. By Confederation in 1867, accommodating French
language and culture, laws and religion, was a matter of fact, not a matter of debate. Canada had been built
on a revolutionary commitment to cooperate and compromise.
The requirement for accommodation was an inherent feature in the Baldwin-LaFontaine agreement. That
requirement was built into our Constitution officially in 1982. But what’s more important, is that it is also
built intuitively into our behaviour. Multiculturalism in Canada has truly been an organic, grassroots
process. It would not be a stress to suggest, as Canadians, cultural tolerance is one of the defining features
of our national collective unconscious. In other words, it isn’t something we make a conscious effort to
practise or think about every time we get up in the morning. Instead, it’s just there, invisible in the
background, framing the way we think about our lives, our country, and our common value system.
There never was a grand, deliberate experiment. No, Canadian multiculturalism really defies reductionism.
Its beauty is in its complexity. However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take some pride in how we
manage the unique brand of multiculturalism that has evolved from historical events. History may have
created it, but as a society we have made choices about how to support and encourage it, and perhaps no
one is more interested in how we pulled this off than His Highness, the Aga Khan. As a member of the
board of directors of the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada for many years, I’ve had lots of opportunity to
familiarize myself with the Aga Khan’s work in international development around the world. The Aga
Khan has looked at multiculturalism in Canada, and concluded that the Canadian way of life is a model that
should be studied and copied in other parts of the world to promote peace. He believes, and so do I, that
countries around the world have much to understand about we fuse a diverse nation together so peacefully
here in Canada. That’s why he’s establishing the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa. The Centre is
founded on the idea that tolerance, openness, and understanding towards other cultures, social structures,
values and faith of other people are now essential to the very survival of an interdependent world.
One of the central reasons for the Centre’s existence is the Aga Khan’s belief that pluralism is no longer
simply an asset or prerequisite for progress and development. It is vital to our existence. The Aga Khan’s
interest in Canadian multiculturalism was sparked back in the 1970s, when many Ishmailis seeking refuge
from the ethnic strife in East Africa were welcomed by Canadian communities. As the Ishmailis spiritual
leader, His Highness Aga Khan was interested in understanding how Canada has succeeded so well at
managing diversity. Ten and twenty years ago, he began asking Canadian leaders about it. Then, several
years ago, he launched a formal pluralism initiative to better understand how Canadian multiculturalism
works and how its lesson can be shared with other culturally diverse societies. The Global Centre for
Pluralism is meant to function as an international centre of excellence for the study, practise, and teaching
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of pluralism. Because of his belief that Canada epitomizes what can be achieved through commitment to
pluralism, the Aga Khan has committed $30 million of his own money towards this project, describing the
Canadian commitment to finding unity in diversity as Canada’s gift to the world.
Of course, pluralism needs the right context to establish itself successfully, to grow strong roots and
blossom. It has to be based on dignity and equal opportunity, on population-based health care and
education system, for example. Values and systems like these are what allow pluralism to develop and
thrive. Without them, pluralism cannot exist.
I believe the Aga Khan Foundation of Canada and the Global Centre for Pluralism offers Canadians
concrete ways to participate in sharing what we have and what we have learned. They are a way of the
future. In fact, I think that because of the increasingly global nature of our world, pluralism and
sustainability may join hands to become the twin central emerging common values that are capable of
bringing peaceful unity to diverse communities. Because of the precarious state of the planet, it’s quickly
becoming apparent to people everywhere that a massive cooperative effort will be needed if we want to
rescue our Earth from a devastating tipping point. We’ll need to put our differences aside and work towards
a common purpose of living together in a sustainable relationship. That’s why I feel that the challenge of
saving the world from climate collapse and other environmental disasters has the potential to soften the
cultural differences that once divided us. Slowly but surely, it is becoming apparent that no matter where
we come from, what we look like, what religion we practise, or what language we speak, we are all in this
together.
This is a brand-new phenomenon in modern history. The world has never felt quite so small. Looking at the
world through the lens of sustainability, you see that everyone has the same DNA. You realize suddenly
that at the cellular level, we’re all the same. When you think about it this way, it seems unfathomable that
around the world, so many people seem to have so much trouble respecting each other and respecting the
planet.
Years ago, when I was working on land-claims issues with the Nisga’a, I was at Joe Gosnell’s home for
breakfast one morning. As the chief negotiator for the Nisga’a people, Joe was responsible for the signing
of the historical Nisga’a Treaty of 1999. That morning, I said to him, “Joe, according to some research I’ve
seen, the aboriginals may have come from central China over the land bridge to Alaska and down to South
America.” I remarked that maybe I had a stronger right to land claims than he did. (laughter) I was only
joking, of course, but I thought this theory added a whole new dimension, not only to land claims and
aboriginal rights issues we were discussing, but to my understanding of how, as human beings on this
planet, we really are all related.
So yes, we all share the same DNA, science tells us that. At the same time, multiculturalism is based on
recognizing and respecting social behaviour, customs and values that are different from each other. Yet I
don’t see a contradiction here. Socially and emotionally, there are more important ways in which we are all
the same than there are ways in which we differ. For example, all human beings love their children and
want the best for them. What they mean by “best” may differ according to culture, but the fundamental
impulse is the same everywhere you go. And increasingly, more of us around the world are recognizing the
importance of sustainable living. There’s an emerging common social value, one that I believe has the
potential to unite us despite cultural differences. The need for us to work as the united global society
towards a common goal whose achievement will mean nothing less than the survival of our planet, may
have a powerful harmonizing effect on the way we relate to each other.
Alden Habacon, who is about to replace me here at the podium, has some very interesting thoughts on
taking multiculturalism to new and exciting places. He’s going to explain how Canada’s already going
beyond pluralism to a whole new view of diversity, to where ethnicity begins to encompass other facets of
identity such as people’s values, like sustainable living. The idea of pluralism and sustainability working
shoulder-to-shoulder to unite us in our diversity and commitment to accurately reflect Canada’s diversity,
both on air and behind the scenes.
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So let me introduce Alden here. He’s the manager of diversity initiatives at the English television network
of CBC. Alden designs and oversees initiatives that support CBC’s commitment to accurately reflect
Canada’s diversity, both on air and behind the scenes. Outside his work at CBC, Alden is also the founder
of an online magazine called Schema, whose mandate is to reflect the experiences and sensibilities of
Canadians, Canada’s most culturally diverse mainstream population. As a well-known cultural thinker, he
regularly speaks and consults on cultural diversity, multiculturalism, youth and Asian Canadian identity.
Most recently, he was a guest speaker in Kuala Lumpur in a 2007 seminar on cultural diversity in
broadcasting, cohosted by Asia-Pacific Institute of Broadcasting Development and the Canadian High
Commission in Malaysia. Please join me in welcoming Alden.
(applause)
ALDEN HABACON:
I just want to thank Milton, first of all, for making such an effort to bring me today. I’m very humbled to be
here — all the speakers before me have had such a incredibly long credentials, and I feel a little
embarrassed, just being so new at this that my list is really quite short. But this is a wonderful opportunity,
and I hope to share a lot and thank you to the Couchiching family.
I’m going to speed through a lot. I have a lot to cover in a very short period of time. So if I seem a little bit
fast and missing a few details I’m sorry, but please join us afterwards, and I can fill in the gaps.
I’ve called my part of the presentation “Beyond the Mosaic: Canada’s Multiculturalism 2.0.” Everything
these days has a 2.0. Let’s not talk about multiculturalism in 2001, we’re at 2.0.
As Milton pointed out, it’s important to understand where we’ve come from as a multicultural nation, but
it’s also my opinion that Canada’s urban centres have outgrown both the traditional model of
multiculturalism, otherwise known as the mosaic, and the conventional language we use to describe our
contemporary reality. So essentially, what I’ve been saying in the last three years is that the mosaic model
is dead in the big city, and we need a different model to start talking about where multiculturalism will be
in the future.
And as a result of being stuck in the language of the mosaic, we’ve had a very difficult time discussing the
complexity of the Canadian identity. In the same way that new technology in our relationships with the
Internet have spawned what is so commonly known as Web 2.0, the conceptual devices we need to describe
today’s Canada also need to be updated. So today, I’m going to expand on these conceptual devices and
talk about their application to the workforce in Canada.
First, a little bit of background about what I do at CBC. Like Milton said, my work at CBC is part of the
corporation’s larger agenda to reflect contemporary Canada accurately. CBC’s motivation towards
diversity is simple: the public is changing. And the public is changing everywhere in the world. My task at
CBC is to help create and test the tools that enable decision-makers, programmers, and content producers to
reflect the face of Canada, but more importantly, to connect with the hearts and minds of today’s
Canadians.
Now, because the public is changing, CBC has also had to change. It’s moving away from being a
prescriptive broadcaster, creating programming about what Canada should look like and think about, and
aiming instead to be connective tissue that presents Canada as it actually looks and sounds, and that’s much
more challenging than that sounds. The changing face of Canada is certainly a reality which all business
and media are grappling with; however, I would like to argue that to achieve genuine relevance with
Canadians, what we really should be focusing on is the changing heart and mind — the public psyche, and
the sensibilities that are uniquely Canadian and not necessarily tied to demographics. Too often, all we
consider are the faces, what’s on the surface, and we forget to consider what’s really going on in the hearts
and minds of Canadians. The mosaic in all of its variations is really about the collection of faces.
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The other project, as Milton had mentioned, that has informed my work, is this project called Schema
Magazine, which, about three years ago, with Milton’s support, I began to develop. And I’m just going to
give you a little brief description of what it is online. Using a new model for cultural identity, or schema,
we envision individuals as dynamic identities that move through a complex web of cultures. Cultural
navigators see themselves as the product of these networks available to them through immigration, family
roots, and residency in diverse cities all over the world. Schema explores the unique evolution and
experience of Canada’s diversity.
So I’ve been obsessed with this idea of tomorrow and today’s multiculturalism for a very long time now,
it’s a bit of an obsession, and it drives my friends crazy a little bit. In the rest of my presentation today, I
will cover four areas: first, the trends that set the context for diversity in Canada beyond statistics and
demographics; secondly, what’s new in Canada’s diversity, including this new model or schema of cultural
identity and the concept of cultural navigators; three, new approaches needed to make diversity work; and
four, looking forward to some of the coming diversity challenges that Canada’s workplaces will have to
solve.
One of the new approaches I will expand on is this concept of cultural intelligence, also referred to as CQ.
CQ is a corporate term that’s been used to describe the people skills needed to manage a global business.
For example, the need to understand the different meanings or cues or tips in order to interpret new
situations. However, I would argue that the most important piece of intelligence is actually knowing your
own bias. So I’m going to begin with the bias of my own presentation.
First, much of the evolving discourse around diversity in Canada is primarily focused on the metropolitan
reality. The trends I will be speaking of are based on the experiences — and actually, the trends we’ve been
speaking of in general at the conference — really have to do with Canada’s growing cities. So in this way,
the mosaic model of multiculturalism actually remains intact and is quite relevant in most rural centres.
Secondly, the experience of ethnicity and multicultural identity that I will refer to is more readily observed
in the lives of second- and third-generation children of immigrants, Canadian youth and young adults. And
that is to say that there is both a regional and generational inconsistency to the experience of cultural
diversity in Canada, and these are certainly worth discussing at a later time.
So, to begin with trends. I’d like to talk about — I’d first like to say that the experience of cultural diversity
today is really part of a lot of trends in Canada, and often all that we really talk about is demographics. And
the problem with trend-watching is that because the act of trend-watching is pulling something out of a
soup of movement, we forget the interrelation with other trends. Now this is really important — I’m saying,
demographics is a really important thing, but it’s not the only most important thing to note. It doesn’t really
explain how Canadians operate. You know, Canadians don’t think of think of themselves necessarily as
statistics in a demographic study.
How changing with live, move, and relate is more influenced by the progressive changes in technology and
technology usage. As Patricia Aufterheide, Professor of the School of Communication at the American
University of Washington, D.C., has stated, and this is a very techno-versed statement: “The blogosphere is
doubling every six months. It is a multilingual and multicultural environment. What has happened is that
the audience is gradually being supplanted by a new entity, a wildly fluctuating set of networks, of people
engaged in issues and topics and passions, among them clusters of public who seize upon communications
media to make their networks real and make things happen.”
Now, there are a number of reasons why technology exerts a greater influence than demographics. First of
all, for the most part, technological change is moving at a much faster rate than demographics. Moreover,
advances in technology are being driven by industry and commerce, and greed. Yesterday, Yahoo was the
number-one website, it seems like just yesterday, and today everyone is dealing with their addiction to
Facebook. For the first time in the Internet’s history, something other than pornography is driving the Web,
and this is very important to note. Namely, it’s social networking. The impact of technology on our lives is
especially apparent in the way we consume media and culture. When I first began working on Schema, the
idea of podcasting didn’t even exist, and we were faced with this difficult challenge of having to send a
magazine about cultural diversity to the far reaches of Nova Scotia. And it was far too expensive to actually
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do that. It didn’t make sense in terms of our economies of scale. And the podcast has revolutionized the
opportunity to actually reach everyone in Canada. And in the same way, you know, the Internet has had
effects on television broadcasting and radio broadcasting. A lot of people have talked about the end of
radio, and yesterday we heard about the impact of the Internet on the print news. Canadians overall are
getting their entertainment and information via a more complex mix of platforms, and that they demand
even greater control of their time and media might even argue that Canadians have lost control of their
relationship to gadgets and Web usage.
The proliferation of the Internet and the reduction of the manufacturing costs-to-processing power ratio has
made computer technology even more accessible. Now, these two developments combined have certainly
increased Canadians’ mobility, but they’ve also increased our connectedness, both within Canada and
outside of Canada. Now, imagine a new immigrant population that is not only proportionately larger than
ever before, but also more technologically savvy that previous waves of immigrants, staying even more
connected, in real time, with family and loved ones overseas. More connected than previous waves. The
delayed gratification of letter-writing and card-sending has been replaced by the instant gratification of email and text-messaging, and this is how I keep in touch with my mom.
What this enables is a virtual transnational reality of traveling between countries without ever moving. It
has empowered Canadians to feel connected to the news, culture, and interests of their country of origin.
This is, in fact, the everyday life of many foreign-born Canadians who’ve since moved back to their
countries of origin. It also means the world’s issues increasingly weigh on Canada’s psyche, and this
includes the villainization of Muslim men in Europe. It kind of feels like it’s become our issue despite the
fact that we’re not physically connected to Europe.
Now, the most Internet-savvy new immigrants who arrive in Canada, and there are a few, this is a minority,
but they have even better survival skills and have done even more real research before they arrive. I’ve
heard many stories of new immigrants who come to Canada who already have friends that they have met
online in the cities they plan to move to. They’ve already found places to live on Craigslist via the Internet,
and if they’re very lucky, they’ve already landed an entry-level job online. Right? Now this is rare, but
we’re moving in that direction.
Now, the new immigrant of 2017 will be even more technologically savvy, even more virtually mobile and
more connected as industry-driven advances in communication and media technology continue to rocket
forward. Canada’s demographics, and the impact on our labour force are the next two major trends to note,
and because we have spoken so much about that, I’m going to avoid talking about it. What I will say is that
what the demographic data cannot tell us is how people interact and move through a city on an everyday
level. So, for example, in 2001, according to the 2001 statistics, Richmond, B.C., had a visible-minority
population of 59%. And everyone talked about Richmond being this mecca of visible minority. The reality
is that residents of Richmond don’t just live and work in Richmond. They travel all through the Lower
Mainland, and so, as a result, all of Vancouver and the surrounding municipalities enjoy and share the
challenges of the impact of Richmond’s visible diversity.
The Canadian corporate response to Canada’s demographics, the third trend, is really worth examining,
because it is here we stand in contrast to business practices in Asia and the U.S. In many ways, the business
sector in Canada is far ahead of our academia, our media, the public sector, and professional fields in
responding to our changing demographics. And we all know why. From both a labour and a market
perspective, business in Canada wants and needs to tap into all the available talent pool and all the available
market in Canada. Why would you want to miss out? To achieve this, banks, for example, have had to
provide services in languages that their clients want to use, which naturally requires hiring a diverse
workforce. And in this way, diversity is being used as a competitive advantage. And this is actually what
we called the new diversity plan at CBC — the Diversity Advantage.
Business in Canada is moving beyond accommodation and competing for culturally diverse customers and
talent. Now in contrast, Malaysia, a very diverse and multicultural country, businesses have responded to
their country’s diversity very differently. As Canada will in the future, Malaysia relies heavily on
immigration for growth in the labour force. Since the 1990s, migrant workers have accounted for more than
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half of the growth in the less-skilled labour force in Malaysia, which actually makes up the larger part of
Malaysia’s labour force. But unlike Canada, it is still common to see job postings that exclusively say “for
Malays only” or postings that specify Chinese only. Now, at first glance, this appears to be simple racial
segregation. But in fact, the Malay government has initiated tax breaks for Malay businesses that are meant
to protect the Malay workforce from becoming disadvantaged in the form of levies. Businesses owned by
ethnic Chinese are taxed differently, creating an environment that, while peaceful, is protectionist and
reactionary. Malaysia’s business legislation has had an enormous impact on the hearts and minds of the
diverse residents of Malaysia that far defies the reality of their demographics. So although the segregation
was meant for the business sector, it has spilled over into all the social sectors of Malaysia. So as a result,
Malaysia’s model of cultural diversity is much more segregated as efforts to create a Malaysian national
identity have clashed with political and structures still organized by ethnic identity.
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the corporate response to its demographics has been all over the map. The impact
of affirmative action in the workplace remains debatable. The assumption in the U.S., and this is a huge
simplification, but the assumption is that all Americans are similarly American. And therefore, business has
not felt the need to adapt to meet the needs of the changing U.S. market, which is predominantly Hispanic
as defined by their demographics. As an example, Nielsen’s, I don’t know how long ago, was sued, it is the
largest class-action suit to Nielsen’s, for the misrepresentation of Hispanic viewers, and they won the suit.
Rather, the diverse population of the U.S. is expected to adapt to the American ways of doing business.
American companies are spending millions to recruit diverse professionals, but not in the strategic way
seen in Canada, and for example, in previous years, there’s an organization in the U.S. called the North
American Association of Asian Professionals. At their national conference last year, the engineering
companies were there in full force. They weren’t there to recruit diversity, they were there to recruit
engineers for the war on Iraq. In Canada — and what a better place to find engineers, you know, that’s the
stereotype, that, you know, Asians are great engineers, and they’re all brainiacs, and so this is what they
were thinking.
In Canada, the motivation is market relevance — it’s good business, they commonly say. This has required
a shift away from diversity hiring to strategic hiring of talent with access to, or cultural intelligence of the
market a company wants to be relevant to. Most public broadcasters know this to be the case, and this is
especially the case in Europe, where they are actually saying, if you don’t hire strategically, you’ll always
be second-guessing. Now, that’s not to say this is perfect. Visible diversity tends to decrease the higher up
the corporate ladder you look. However, diversity and community connectedness have become a common
corporate value and are generally endorsed by the highest levels of management, and that’s a bit of a novel
thing, and we saw that yesterday with the example of the OPP. As new generations of young professionals
learn to navigate the system that seemed impenetrable to their immigrant parents, this will inevitably have
to change, and I’m being a bit idealistic.
The other contributing trends to Canada’s cultural diversity are sociocultural. There’s an emerging
sensibility in Canada that I’ve already referred to as the New Canada, and I’ve borrowed this term from a
study conducted by the Centre of Research and Information on Canada, the CRIC, and The Globe and
Mail, which took place in 2003. This study attempted to measure and articulate what many Canadians
intuitively know already to be contemporary Canada, and there has been a report and a book that has come
out of this, and I will highlight two key trends from those findings. First, the research affirmed that secondand third-generation descendants of immigrants and foreign-born Canadians who immigrated as young
children have an incredible combined social, economic, and cultural mobility that’s never been seen before
in Canada. Their experience of cultural identity is so complex that it has been challenging to articulate with
our older models, and this complexity is actually the core of Schema’s inception. They are important to
note because they are a natural bridge between immigrant communities and what is conventionally
considered “mainstream Canada.” And we didn’t actually even bring this up at all in the conference, what
bridges are we actually — organic bridges — actually exist that bridge our new Canadians with the
Canadians that are here already.
Now, unlike their Australian and American counterparts, Canadians are not burdened by having to cut their
ties to culturally rich ancestry in order to find acceptance as part of mainstream culture or vice versa. The
emergent group of Canadians is not only the face and voice of Canada, they also influence Canada’s psyche
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as members of both Canada’s immigrant communities and the mainstream collective. Second, there has
been a major shift in attitude towards ethnicity. So we talked a little bit yesterday — you know, the
question was out there — where’s race? So here’s where’s race. It isn’t seen as a core value. Period. We
take this for granted in Canada, but there’s countries like China and Japan, or India and Pakistan, where
ethnicity is everything. When I tried to talk about this in Malaysia, I could see everyone’s eyeballs start to
cross.
According to the survey conducted by the CRIC and The Globe and Mail, when asked how important
ethnic background was when choosing a spouse, it was the lowest on the scale. Attitudes toward family and
children were considered the most important factor. This is very important to note, as one of the places
where xenophobia will often organically manifest itself is in the families at the prospect of interracial
marriage. And as you know, marriage, for East- and South-Asian families are a very big deal, and they’re a
big deal for all families, actually. The battle of whose traditions will be observed at the typical Chinese tea
ceremony can drive prospective couples to wish they had eloped, and I’ve gotten this advice many times.
In most East Asian countries, mixed-race Asian couples are not allowed or openly acknowledged, and
we’ve many stories in Vancouver of ESL students from different countries meeting each other, studying
English, going back to their countries, coming back to Vancouver to marry, because they know their
children would not have normal lives in the countries they’ve come from.
A couple of years ago, I gave a talk at Simon Fraser University to a U.N.-looking class of communications
students, and I like to ask this question. I asked them, how many have been in or are in a mixed-race
relationship, and they all raised their hands. And then I asked (laughter) and then I asked, how many would
be okay with having a mixed-race child, and again, all of them raised their hands. And this one day that I
was doing this talk, I had with me an intern from a — an ESL student from an East-Asian country, and out
of the corner of my eye I could see her completely frozen in terror. And I went up to her afterwards, and I
apologized and I said, I’m sorry I put you in an uncomfortable situation, and she confessed that she was
horrified at the thought of not having a pure blank child — and you can fill in the blank. Now, I shared the
same story to an audience of Asian broadcasters in Kuala Lumpur, and I asked them what Asian-Pacific
country do you think she was from? And there was a strange silence as the representatives of over twenty
countries in Asia assumed it was their own.
Vancouver, on the other hand, has the highest percentage of mixed-race marriages in North America. At
first, this doesn’t seem to make sense, because many people consider Vancouver to be part of Asia. It’s
often called North America’s Asian city. I’m one of them, who claim that. You might assume Vancouver
would reflect Asia’s xenophobic tendencies, and in many cases, you will find it there, especially with
regard to ethnic relationships. But actually, it’s quite the opposite. Overall, mixed-race relationships are
mainstream in Canada — not necessarily any easier to manage, but much more accepted as common
Canadian reality.
Now, what the data on ethnicity does not suggest, however, is that cultural similarities are not unimportant.
In fact, they indicate that the cultural values, such as attitudes towards family and humour, which are often
very culturally specific, are more important than ancestry, race, or skin colour to Canadians today. The data
also indicates that the most universal cultural values, such as family, and as sense of humour, survive the
longest over time. The intersection of technological, business, and sociocultural trends have heightened our
awareness of and response to Canada’s diversity, and that’s why we’re here today. Combined, these trends
are creating the tipping point needed to make diversity a priority in all industry and to make Canadians
acutely aware of the lack of diverse representation in our media, in our school systems, and our public
sector. But they have also led to new ideas about multiculturalism and diversity in Canada, which brings
me to the second area I said I would touch on, what’s new in Canada’s diversity.
I’ve already mentioned some of the new features of Multiculturalism 2.0, and I had to use the term “new
features” because that’s what they use when you, you know, when you upgrade to new software, there’s
always new features. So some of them are: the heightened degree of global connectedness many Canadians
have, in real time, and it’s important to note in real time. The fact that transnationalism is now
commonplace, and the fact that cultural diversity is at the core of mainstream Canada, and I have been
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quoted as saying that butter chicken is the most mainstream thing of Vancouver. I would like to expand
more on a new model of multiculturalism which I have called the schema model. I’ll begin with describing
the three fundamental assumptions that distinguish this model from the mosaic that Milton had described
earlier.
The first assumption is that ethnicity informs one’s cultural identity, but does not define it. Ethnicity
informs one’s cultural identity, but does not define it. Now, in the mosaic model, by contrast, you are
defined by your ancestry, regardless of how little or how much your ancestry is actually part of your
everyday life. As I explained earlier, the traditional mosaic model is problematic for Canadians who’ve
lived in Canada for most of their lives, but come from somewhere else. Secondly, cultural identity is fluid.
For example, if in the next few years you learn to speak Mandarin, and as a result make a few friends in the
growing Taiwanese community, and if this leads to you progressively internalizing some Taiwanese
mannerisms and cultural intelligence, then your cultural identity will also change. The same is true if you
are promoted to another department of a company with a slightly different work culture, or if you make a
lateral move from the department of Heritage Canada to Foreign Affairs. Our identities adjust to our
surroundings, influences and interests. Third, the schema model includes all forms of culture. Work
cultures, music, academic cultures, virtual, media consumption, subcultures, and the most commonly
shared Canadian cultural space, amateur sports.
The schema-model multiculturalism is based on the Internet. So here’s the concept. Imagine each one of
the websites you use on a daily basis as an online space you occupy for a certain amount of time. Using
this, you could draw a map, or a schema, of the online spaces that you navigate through, and essentially
create a snapshot of your online identity, which, like your cultural identity, is fluid and not limited to
websites about websites. It’s easiest to describe when drawn, so I took the liberty to draw you my schema.
So at the core of my cultural identity is my ancestry, which is fixed, and everything else around is moving
all the time, so now, CBC plays a really big role, but if I were, for some reason, to move to Foreign Affairs,
this would be cut, and that would become a bigger part of my cultural identity, the culture of working for
the government. Other parts that are part of my core identity are my education and my access to certain
social circles in Vancouver, my access to the art world through my board membership on the Contemporary
Art Society of Vancouver, and my access to the Chinese community through some of the community work
I do, you know, allows for me to have this complex schema. Now, what’s interesting is that my parents,
although they are core to my cultural identity, don’t make up who I am. And my relationship to my
ethnicity might change at time, and generally, new immigrants, as they get older, sorry, young immigrants,
as they get older, want to rediscover their ancestry, and this might grow to be more important for them.
Next year, my schema snapshot might look, probably, very different.
Our cultural identities are an organic collection of these cultural spaces that we navigate on a daily basis,
constantly changing and wildly diverse. I’ve come up with a term for the generation with the greatest
ability to navigate through and around these cultural spaces. I call them cultural navigators. This group
includes urban aboriginals, those who’ve immigrated to Canada as young children, and most second- and
third-generation descendants of immigrants. What I especially alike about this model is its inclusiveness.
This model is not exclusive to people of colour. And for the most part, the discourse around diversity,
multiculturalism, privileges people of colour, which I believe has held back the advancements of this
discourse.
So a variety of experiences, such as travel, language, education, friendships, and a variety of cultural
environments, and marriage, can provide someone access to various cultural spaces. So if you want to
expand your schema, you’re welcome to — you’re not limited to it only being this. The model
acknowledges the diversity of those who would otherwise appear to be least visibly diverse.
Now this brings me to the third area I would cover, which is new approaches. How do you create a work
culture that values, encourages, thrives, and can manage a difference of opinion and perspective in cultural
background? This past March, Adrienne Clarkson delivered a lecture called “The Society of Difference” as
part of the annual Lafontaine-Baldwin lectures. Her answer to this pressing issue is an attitudinal shift from
the traditional “them vs. us” paradigm to an “us and us” position, which we’ve heard hundreds of times. It’s
very, actually very difficult to do. My adaptation of this is redefining the perfect family picture. Family
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pictures are a great indicator of how open a society is to diversity. At the level of family, the most basic
organization unit, issues of difference are experienced intimately and meaningfully. The mosaic model
would traditionally celebrate a diverse range of family pictures, so you would see the pictures of the
Japanese family, and the Canadian family, and the First-Nations family; however, within each picture of
this model, there is very little visible diversity. For many, the family picture is the symbol of harmony, and
I’ll share with you this little story.
About ten years ago, I met a young woman who just immigrated from Taiwan with her family, but her
parents were not so fond of me, this is not an uncommon story (laughter) — didn’t mean to come out that
way, but you can laugh. Initially, their complaint was that I could not speak their language and I would not
be able to communicate, and for many Chinese families, that bond is very important. So what I did was, I
responded by learning Mandarin, very very fast. And in my ignorance of having cultural intelligence to
deal with the situation, I was quick to brag to them about how fast I was learning Mandarin, faster than they
were learning English. And every time I’d come home for dinner, I was that much more versed in
Mandarin. Instead of being impressed, they felt that they had lost face, and frustrated by my determination,
their statement was that my skin colour would ruin their family picture. The imagined family picture marks
the boundaries between them and us, and what her parents were trying to say was that I could never be one
of them.
The family picture is also an indicator of where our comfort level is. And now, when I conduct these
workshops, these diversity workshops at CBC, I’ll begin with showing the traditional pictures of these
diverse family pictures, and I’ll say, very honestly, if you’re not ready to take the diversity in these family
pictures and put it into your own family picture, you’re not ready, you’re probably not ready, to make
diversity work. And you know what? That’s okay. Let it go. Don’t feel guilty about that. That shift is so
hard to do, and my observation at CBC is that many of our white colleagues and employees harbour this
guilt of not being able to make this jump to total accommodation immediately. It takes time to make that
kind of change, where the stranger next door is no longer a stranger, but actually a person in your family
picture.
(applause)
Organizations that are not mentally prepared for a labour force where at least fifty percent of the members
are foreign-born Canadian or indigenous peoples of Canada are more likely to respond to our changing
demographics buy closing the doors even more tightly, as in the case of Malaysia, where segregation was
the preferred solution. This is one area where social policy in Heritage Canada and our school systems
might play a role collectively, deconstructing conventional notions of the family picture and replacing them
with more inclusive and visibly diverse models for young children, can create a familiarity with diversity,
and early-childhood CQ, one might say, that equips Canadians, young Canadians, for the Canada of 2027.
Now part of this is that our use and understanding of cultural intelligence, or CQ, also requires a slight
adjustment. In the book I’ve taken the definition from, CQ: Developing Cultural Intelligence at Work,
which was published in 2006, it’s not an outdated text, it defines cultural intelligence as a person’s
capability for successful adaptation to new cultural settings. This is a really informative book, and I would
encourage a read; however, for Canada, the multinational and multiethnic workforce described in this book
is no longer a thirteen-hour plane-ride away. That global work assignment it talks about is here, and it’s
coming. For the most part, the book also positions a culturally diverse workforce as the other — as the
foreign, and not one of us. CQ as it’s being used in Canada actually is quite different. While I was
conducting a diversity workshop at ABS/CBN in Manila, one of the journalists asked me, if you are
increasingly getting cultural sensitivity training, can you become oversensitive, to the point where you are
afraid of offending everyone, thereby compromising your journalism? That is the best question I’ve ever
been asked in a room of journalists. My response was, not offending other cultural groups cannot be our
goal. We have the potential to offend even the closest people to us, the people we know the most!
Therefore, the mere fact of not having offended someone cannot be used as a measure of success. Our mere
goal should be to cover the issues with the broadest range of perspectives and to do so intelligently, as
intelligently as possible.
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So I would like to modify our definition of CQ from the successful adaptation to a foreign environment to a
person’s accumulation or use of relevant insider information so as to be intuitively familiar with a variety
of cultural contexts. We need this insider information to make choices about programming, remain relevant
to culturally diverse communities, reflect all points of view, and make jokes with our culturally different
parents-to-be. (laughter) They don’t always work. Rather than using CQ to approach a new culture, the
application of CQ in Canada is more about gathering information, consulting and connecting with
community, or, even better, hiring or developing management with genuine familiarity, or intel in the
military sense of the term, of the target audience you wish to reach. Real CQ means having familiarity.
Lionel Laroche, president of MCB Solutions and an expert on cultural intelligence in the workplace, has
conducted a lot of research in this area, and he has found that misunderstandings about the acceptable range
of emotional expression at work is often the cause of turnover, especially amongst aboriginal employees in
the workplace. So what happens is, in the normal range of this is good, this is great, it actually offends
many aboriginal employees, who in turn respond with the most offensive display, which is to not come
back, and actually not tell anyone they’re not coming back.
CQ can also affect the success of a recruitment, and what we found at CBC is that this desirable type-A
personality model does not fit all cultures. What is needed in the workplace is a deeper understanding of
how people’s cultural influences, their schema, can affect their workplace expectations, including
acceptable forms of communication. It will also require greater education around what cultural norms to
expect during hiring and staffing of new immigrants, and educating our new employees about Canadian
corporate culture.
The fourth, and last, area I said that I would talk about is how cultural innovation needs to take the lead.
Many Canadians generally overlook the role of artists, writers, and cultural producers. Canadians don’t
want to read instructional books or attend didactic workshops about making diversity work. We’ve tried
this. Although many Canadians claim they want more educational programming at CBC, the statistics
show, in reality, Canadians want to be entertained and creatively stimulated. Artists and writers have this
potential to create innovation. In May, Jen Sookfong Lee published her first novel, The End of East,
published by Random House, and the question was asked by a crowd at one of her readings, does Canada
really need another Chinatown story? Her response was, does Canada really need another Little House on
the Prairie story? And the answer is, of course it does, in both cases, as long as it’s not the same old story.
It’s cultural innovation that makes our cultural diversity interesting. Interesting to the world, and accessible
to all Canadians. What Canada can provide the entire world is a safe place to experiment, the creative space
to challenge notions of identity and convention, and we’re doing this already. We have the potential to
export to the world the creative expertise to intelligently subvert the imagination, and in this way, to expand
our imagined family picture. And the recent success of the Little Mosque on the Prairie, both in Canada and
around the world, is a great example of this.
Likewise, in preparing our managers and work cultures for an increasingly diverse workforce, this should
not begin with educational strategies but with creative stimulation. Creativity breeds diversity. Looking
forward to the future of Canada, a number of challenges are looming that should be part of our newcomers
plan, and we are working on a newcomers plan at CBC. There are dozens of unanswered questions. For
example, as many new immigrants come from countries where people with disabilities are institutionalized
at home, how will we prepare newcomers to accept and protect our ongoing efforts to integrate people with
disabilities into the workforce? How informed are newcomers about aboriginal issues? How informed do
we expect them to be on aboriginal issues? Another pressing question: How do we deal with Canada’s
unionized environment? As we hire diverse talent, it tends to be newer or younger, and at the lowest level
of seniority. They are therefore the most vulnerable during budget cuts. How are unions responding? Did
we even invite them to our discourse this weekend?
There is no shortage of questions, and I’ve run out of time. So I actually prepared five tips for creating
successful initiatives, but I’m going to skip to an anecdote that Trevor Phillips of the Britain Human Rights
Commission shared at an address to the European Public Broadcasters in May. So the story goes, he was
telling an anecdote about South Asians moving into an elderly-care facility that was predominantly white.
And despite the high tensions, the South Asian and white elderly women, as they got to know each other,
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found that they had one amazing thing in common: each believed their son had married the wrong woman.
Simple anecdotes like this remind us that it is through the universal, and the universal can be anything, that
we are all connected. Thank you.
(applause)
Is There a Mainstream Canadian Culture?
August 11, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
NORA YOUNG:
Hi there, and welcome to tonight’s culture panel, “Is There a Mainstream Canadian Culture?” I’m Nora
Young, as Helen said, a journalist and broadcaster with CBC. And thanks to the conference organizers for
asking me to do this, I’m thrilled to be here after having heard so much about Couchiching for many years.
So, we’re going to do something a little bit different tonight. Instead of panelists giving individual talks,
we’re going to open things up for a bit of a back-and-forth. We’re hoping for a spirited dinner-party yak,
not to say free-for-all, though we’ll see how things go. And so we’re going to talk for about an hour, and
then take a little break, and then do a Q&A.
It’s probably true that we have a greater sense of self-confidence in Canadian arts and culture today than
ever, we would seem less likely than ever to be looking over our shoulders at American, British, and
French culture for affirmation. For instance, artists are more likely to be part of many cultural
conversations within Canada and internationally, excited by the range of our cultural contributions to the
world. But at the same time, in 2007, we find ourselves living in a much more globalized culture, a culture
of niches. As Canada proliferates into ever more diverse cultural products, can we really talk about “a”
Canadian culture at all, and if we can, how do we create a mainstream culture that truly builds on the
strength of that diversity.
Well, I don’t know, but to help us crack this nut I’m joined by a panel of creative Canadians. Marie
Clements is an award-winning playwright. She’s also a performer and director who has written for radio,
TV, film and multimedia. She just finished up as playwright-in-residence at the National Arts Centre in
Ottawa. Hi, Marie.
(applause)
and Lawrence Hill is a celebrated writer whose most recent works include The Book of Negroes: A Novel of
the African Diaspora, and the nonfiction book The Deserters’ Tale. He’s a former journalist at The Globe
and Mail the Winnipeg Free Press. Hi, Lawrence.
(applause)
Zarqa Nawaz is best known, these days, as creator of the hit CBC TV series Little Mosque on the Prairie
and the driving force behind Fundamentalist Films. She’s also a documentary maker and was formerly a
writer and broadcaster with CBC Radio. Hi, Zarqa.
(applause)
And finally, George Jonas, who’s a leading journalist and also a novelist, playwright and poet. He’s
currently a syndicated columnist for CanWest and a columnist for the National Post. His newest essay
collection is called Reflections on Islam. George, welcome.
(applause)
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So to start, I’d like to do a quick canvassing of individual opinions before we open things up to a more
general discussion, at which point I hope you guys will all be talking to each other more than I’ll be
involved at all. So to start, Lawrence, what does the idea of “mainstream” Canadian culture mean to you,
coming out of your experience?
LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, I’ll start with a bare-bones description and let my fellow panelists add texture and nuance. I think
mainstream can in some respects be viewed as a commodity. Mainstream is an idea or a product that enjoys
a widespread commercial recognition, and is consumed and recognized and taken in our society. I can
delve into a few more personal reflections, but perhaps I’ll just let the mike go around before I do that.
NORA YOUNG:
Okay. Zarqa, I mean, big hit on CBC TV, that’s pretty mainstream success, how do you feel about the
potential of institutions and audiences to incorporate diversity?
ZARQA NAWAZ:
It’s interesting to me today because I was trying to think what are the commonalities between — because in
Canada, obviously, up to this point, I would say we haven’t had a history of success in sitcoms, which is
the area I’m in, because unlike our American neighbours — they can afford to fail, they can make ninety
pilots a year and send them all out, and then one or two will stick, and they cost millions and millions and
millions of dollars, but in Canada, we only make a handful, and if those fail, that’s the end of that year. And
it’s taken Canada this long to reach a critical mass where we now have, I would say, three comedies —
Trailer Park Boys, Corner Gas, and Little Mosque on the Prairie, and so I was thinking today, what is it
about these three that one can unite, that unites them and makes them an embodiment of Canadian culture?
And I would say, sort of, modesty and humbleness, you know? Because in the United States you have the
OC, the Hills, like these flashy dramas, everyone’s dressed to the hilt, and it’s the celebration of wealth and
ostentation, yet in Canada we have, our three sitcoms, you know, one is about a mosque in the middle of
nowhere that’s sort of a backwater, Corner Gas is about these unassuming people in the middle of the
prairie, and then, Trailer Park Boys (laughter) — I’m not going to say it, but it’s about white trash! What
could be more unassuming than that, right? So, I mean, it’s strange that it’s taken us this long so that I can
say, these are the things that unite us in our sitcom culture, if I can say that.
NORA YOUNG:
Marie, how about you? I mean, coming from the point of view of making art from an aboriginal
perspective. How do you see your relationship to the mainstream, or what do we mean by this idea of
mainstream from where you sit?
MARIE CLEMENTS:
I think, in theatre, I guess specifically, most people feel that mainstream means English-based or Americanbased theatre, and it usually means it sells tickets. I think that if you look at most of our regionals that
specialize in mainstream theatre, for the most part you’ll see that it does sell tickets, and therefore it is
called mainstream. But for a lot of aboriginal creators, and if I can speak also for a lot of culturally diverse
creators in Canada, mainstream can be a bit of a dirty word, meaning we are presently and currently very
involved in creating our own forms of theatre. Because mainstream also depicts perspective. A form of
people being able to receive different types of storytelling, in the way that they’re used to. So I think what’s
exciting about non-mainstream theatre is that it’s evolving, that it’s alive, that it is not a dead art, that it is
not a well-made play, it is a play that is vibrant in its present creation.
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NORA YOUNG:
And George, you’ve been an observer as well as a participant in Canadian culture for a long time. Where
do you sit with respect to this question of the mainstream?
GEORGE JONAS:
It’s right here. We’re sitting in the middle of the mainstream. I discovered, having just done a bit of
research in the last two days, that Couchiching started in 1932, and the first conference was called, if I am
not mistaken, “Depression: Can Capitalism Work?” (laughter) and I noticed that the title today was “The
Stranger Next Door: Can Diversity Work?” I think the answer is probably yes. We’re all sitting here
together. But that is one of the questions that we’re about to discuss tonight.
NORA YOUNG:
Well, let’s unpack this idea of the mainstream culture a little bit. I guess another way of attacking this is,
what gets included in mainstream culture, and why? I mean, if we take this idea that, like what you’re
saying, Larry, that mainstream culture is by definition what a lot of people like and respond to. What
determines what people like and respond to, and who makes those decisions?
LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, I think it helps to think of mainstream culture as a living beast that sometimes brings on new life and
sheds other life. Mainstream is an aesthetic concept, and I’d like to bring to your attention a couple things
that have been booted out of the mainstream, or that have been attempted to be booted out, because I think
it sheds light on the idea. There are two really interesting examples. One has to do with a novel, of all
things, by Guy Vanderhaghe, a wonderful Saskatchewan writer who wrote The Last Crossing, and in 2004,
CBC held its venerable “Canada Reads” series to discuss which book that year in Canada should be
selected as the book that all Canadians would be encouraged to read. So, as you know, there are probably
five or so panelists, each promoting a book and trying to get the other books bumped off the series. Well,
The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaghe was one of the novels in this series. It ultimately won, but one of
the arguments that I heard that just made me cringe in disapproval was as I heard a voice on CBC, was that
the last selection should be booted off the list, should be eliminated from contention, because significant
sections of the novel were set outside Canada. Therefore, it wasn’t truly a Canadian novel, so therefore, it
shouldn’t really be considered any longer in this discussion. And I was mortified by the argument, because
I felt it was terribly provincial, and it makes no more sense to say a novel’s not Canadian because it’s not
set in Canada than it is to say that you’re not Canadian because you haven’t lived always in Canada. So
sometimes, there are efforts to limit one’s access to the mainstream as well, and the very idea of setting
something outside Canada, which I think in many ways makes much of our literature dynamic and exciting
to Canadians, can be seen by some as making it un-Canadian. So there’s an example of trying to boot
something out of the mainstream.
NORA YOUNG:
Any thoughts from anyone else on that whole idea of what, what gets included in the mainstream, and why
is it narrower, is it getting broader?
GEORGE JONAS:
Just as a footnote to what you have just now said, I believe there were seven Greeks states that competed as
Homer’s home town. In Canada, there were, in the sixties or seventies, when the question arose in
connection with Brian Moore. The issue raised was whether Brian Moore was sufficiently Canadian or
Irish or American. I think the Greeks had it right.
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NORA YOUNG:
But is it surprising that we are still having that conversation in 2007, you know, is it Canadian enough if
it’s not set in Canada? Does that surprise you, that it’s still a discussion that we’re having?
LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, I think it reflects a Canadian preoccupation with things Canadian as being somehow more legitimate
in many respects, than things acquired or that are unfolded elsewhere. The very idea of Canadian
experience trumping experience acquired in other places we see reflected throughout layers of our
economy. So it doesn’t surprise me, because I think it reflects an overall Canadian trend to place more
value on something done here or acquired here than elsewhere.
NORA YOUNG:
Marie, do you have thoughts on what makes something — I mean, you have a little bit more of an
oppositional stance with respect to the mainstream. Do you have any sense of what gets things put on the
mainstream or booted off the mainstream?
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Well, people don’t like to say it often, but I think it’s funny, if you have the money to produce your work,
get your work produced on the stage, and if those doors can be opened, right? So if you look at most of the
theatres in Canada, which are a majority of mainstream theatres, and maybe, I think there’s over 150
theatres in Canada, there’s five aboriginal theatre companies that are on operating, which means supported
by the same national funders as over 150. Then you’re looking at who has the resources to get what, where.
And a lot of that cosmology that we live in theatre, which means, it’s not just mainstream, it’s
experimental, it’s alternative, it’s women’s work, it’s culturally diverse work, it’s aboriginal work, then
you’re looking at, really, who’s being funded by who’s being accepted. And that’s a juried process, that’s a
critiqued process, so I think it’s from the bottom up, it’s a very complex web of why things get done, when
they get done, and if you can get in the door long enough when somebody’s opened up that small wedge.
NORA YOUNG:
So maybe this brings us to another sort of question, which is that the subtitle of this conference is “Making
Diversity Work.” I guess, what would we need to make diversity work better in mainstream Canadian
culture? What do you think are the gaps at this point that need to be filled. Zarqa?
ZARQA NAWAZ:
It’s interesting — I mean, because I come from an industry which is so expensive, you know, it’s so hard to
compete with American programming, because we just don’t have the millions upon millions of dollars it
takes to get these televisions shows created and off the ground, and then to spend the millions of dollars in
promotion to compete with American commercials for their shows, to get Canadians to say, you know,
watch Canadian programming. It’s a very, very difficult process in Canada, and we’re so fortunate to have
the CBC, because for them, that’s their mandate, to present the regionality and the diversity of the country,
and they have to think about that first, but at the same time, they also have to think about ratings, because if
they can’t justify the ratings, you know, they can’t justify the money, as well. So when Corner Gas, when
CTV made Corner Gas, and it was a huge success, I think it was, it made people feel that it could be done
in Canada, that we could take these chances. And not only that, but we needed — in order for writers in this
country to have enough experience to go on and make other shows, we have to have successful shows
where we can train for several years and to learn the ropes of comedy writing, so that they can go and make
another show. And it was huge news in Canada when Paul Mather and Rob Sheridan from Corner Gas
came aboard to our show, Little Mosque, and we benefited greatly by that, because it was the first time
there was competition for writers, because there’s never — you know, in the United States there’s hundreds
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of shows and people are competing and giving these writers a great deal of chances to learn and grow and
become show-runners. But that number is very small in this country because there just aren’t the
opportunities for them to learn and grow because there just aren’t the shows. And it was the first time that
these guys — I mean, I talked to Paul and he had been at Corner Gas for four years, and, you know, those
four years that he learned the ropes and then became the show-runner of that show, and then came to Little
Mosque, we benefited greatly from his experience, and now all the writers on Little Mosque — because
now we have, I think, six or seven — and now all of us have a lot of experience, because there’s just wasn’t
a place to get that experience from. You know, with this show, we’re now going, in a couple of years, to be
able to go off and create other shows, and we need that success in order to build this industry, because it is
such a small and critical industry and it’s such a hard one, to compete against the American deathstars of
programming, so. (laughter) I mean, it’s very hard!
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Well, I mean, we’ve been here for, I think, three days, and we’ve been talking about Canadian identity,
we’ve been talking about what that means in all its different forms, and I mean, to put it in context in
theatre, this is the first year in Canadian theatre history, which is probably fifty years old, that we’ve had an
all-Canadian season of writers, and that happened at that National Arts Centre this year under Peter
Hinton’s direction. And so what that means is that for the first time in fifty years, we feel that there’s an
audience that will support all-Canadian writers being premiered at the National Arts Centre. So, I mean,
that in itself is a long time coming. When a lot of people will go see a classic of fabulous theatre, of English
and American musicals and the big favourites, but are less inclined to go support a Canadian writer of any
diversity, be that gender, race, culture. So I think that’s a first huge hurdle, to realize that we’re still very
young in supporting ourselves, our own identity as Canadians.
The second thing. I was very privileged to be a part of that first season of Canadian writers, but for an
aboriginal creator and writer in Canada, this was the second time in history that we have been allowed to be
on the main stage in Canada. I think the first one was Thompson Highway, back in ‘86, and so this was the
second production in the history of Canada that we were able to have our artists on stage in an allaboriginal cast, written by an aboriginal writer, (applause) thank you, but I guess I’m saying that to, you
know, to really, to me it’s shocking, and I’ve lived here all my life and worked, you know (laughter), go
crazy, right? But I think it should be shocking, that we should be supporting our writers, we should be
supporting our diversity, that there is more than one voice in any form of expression. That’s it.
NORA YOUNG:
George, you’ve been an observer for some time, how do you see things changing over time with respect to
that?
GEORGE JONAS:
It’s very hard to say. I mean usually, people who are gifted tend to be recognized, and Canadians are no
exception. Canada is not a very good literary address in Canada, but it’s a pretty good literary address
around the world. A number of people look at Canadian writers, film directors, from David Cronenburg to
Norman Jewison to any number of people, Brian Moore, and so forth and so on, with great admiration.
Sometimes it seems to me that in order to appreciate being a Canadian, you have to go abroad, and there is
a reason why Canadians tend to display national emblems when they — not simply not to be mistaken for
Americans, but also there is an intrinsic pride in being a Canadian which is, I think, better recognized
outside Canada than in Canada. When it comes to newspapers in particular — I’m not mentioning this
simply because I happen to be working in print — but newspapers have kind of lost — they have two
significances in the past. One, they disseminated information, and two, you could wrap fish into them. And
the packaging industry did away with the second, and the Internet did away with the first. (laughter) We
have a problem.
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LAWRENCE HILL:
That’s an interesting point, George. But, you know, if this is about Canadian art carrying abroad perhaps
more convincingly than it does sometimes here, that can be a double-edged sword as well, and my literary
agent — you know, the job of an agent is to sell your work to publishers around the world, and she says
that black Canadian fiction, which is sort of my thing, exploring or dramatizing different aspects of black
experiences in the world, it’s very hard to sell internationally because, say, European editors, for example,
won’t think that a black Canadian novelist is the real McCoy. They should be going to the States for that.
But I think that plays out in Canada as well, and that problem exists here in this country too, and all you
have to do is look in our school system.
And you were asking, Nora, about what would be an indication of movement into the mainstream. Well,
one of the ways you could assess that movement is, how are our books entering the Canadian school
system? And I have five kids, and the eldest two, Geneviève, who’s seventeen, and Caroline, who’s here
tonight, is fifteen, have each read one book three times in the school system, the public-school system in
Burlington, where we live, that has to do with the black experience in Ontario, I mean, that has to do with
the black experience, period. They’ve each read one book three times, and the book that they’ve been
assigned three times is none other than To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. And it’s funny, but it’s
pathetic, I mean, with [Brian Bran?], Austin Clarke, George Elliott Clarke, Makeda Silvera, there’s so
many incredibly interesting and engaging men and women writing the black Canadian experience, how can
it be that we’re all still stuck on To Kill a Mockingbird in the Canadian school system? So that’s an
indication of the difficulty of entering the Canadian mainstream. Our books registering in the school
system.
(applause)
NORA YOUNG:
Okay, so why is that happening, then?
LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, it’s a long question, and I don’t want to go on too long. But I think one reason why is because we in
Canada know more about — and in many ways, we are more interested in the black American experience
than we are in the black Canadian. We know more about American slavery than we do about Canadian
slavery. We know more about segregation in, say, the Deep South than we do about segregation in Toronto
or Montreal. And so, I think part of it is a fascination with things American to the exclusion of a real
understanding of things Canadian.
NORA YOUNG:
I agree with you. One of the things that strikes me — oh George, did you have something to add?
GEORGE JONAS:
I just wanted to say, it’s a big country. It is many years ago I saw an American aircraft carrier docking in
France, and somebody said, what, why is this ship docking in France? And I said, it is a literary agent. And
there is, for a big literature you need a big navy. If you have a country of some significance, you will have
an out-of-proportion literary significance. And I suppose I had many scripts that I have written kind of halfruined in Canada, but until they were ruined in America, nobody noticed them. (laughter) And we can ruin
them at least as well.
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MARIE CLEMENTS:
I don’t know what to say. I guess theatre’s so strange, right, that you kind of think, like, the mainstream just
goes, wow, why would I want to join the mainstream? I think I want to, like a lot of fellow artists that I
work with and admire, I want to bring a unique sense of expression, a unique sense of artistic bravery, that
has its own form, it has its own stream, and it’s definitely not mainstream, and maybe this is — it comes
from — I started out as a performer, and like all great performers, you dream the dream of acting in
Hollywood, acting in the big stages, and what you come to realize — well, most performers will realize
something down the road anyways, but if you’re anything past beige, you begin to realize that that dream is
going to be halted fairly fast, and that a lot of people, I mean, I think I stopped acting to begin writing,
because I felt that I was post-Pocahontas (laughter), and you know, not old enough to be the Hollywood
medicine woman. And that’s a long, you know, there’s a few decades in there, so. And you know, as an
artist you want to be the best that you can be, you want to train, you want to act with the best people, you
want to create with the best people, you want to challenged, and that’s very hard to do if you’re doing the
same role over and over again. I think we have to — we’re talking about the stranger next door, but really,
most of us at this current stage in the game, we have — the stranger next door is in our bed, it’s in our
genes, it’s our girlfriend, our boyfriend, our kids, and I think that that is not reflected in the stages in
Canada with any great regularity, so it’s hard to really want to be on the mainstream when you’re not
included as part of it.
GEORGE JONAS:
Oh, I thought I was just holding it [the microphone] (laughter). I suppose one of the reasons you turned to
writing is because you could. Many performers could not — they would have difficulty reading, let alone
writing. (laughter)
MARIE CLEMENTS:
They’re gonna love you! (laughter)
LAWRENCE HILL:
I’ll share a little bit about — I’ll save George in that infelicity. I’m all for saving one’s fellow writers from
infelicities. I’m a product of American immigrants — black father, white mother who came to Canada after
marrying in the South. Moved to Canada a day after they married, actually, in the South, in 1953. And, like
so many children of immigrants from all over the world, I was batted over the head daily with the necessity
of achieving scholastically and professionally, and my father would walk around saying, you’re going to
become an engineer. This one’s going to be a doctor. This one’s going to be a lawyer. Of course, it all
backfired — all three kids moved into the arts — but he was obsessed with the desire to see his children
become hyper-educated and hyper-professional, because he felt that that was the one ticket to avoid the
scourge of racism, which moving up the class system would help minimize, he felt, you know, the scourge
of racism, which he’d encountered on a daily basis growing up in the States. And so, when I was — it
didn’t really work. When my brother dropped out of school –the eldest son drops out of school to become a
singer/songwriter, you can imagine how that went over with my father, and my sister moved into poetry
and painting and stuff, and what happened to me, I guess I’ll tell a little bit about later, but I wanted a kitten
at the age of six, as children want things so unstoppably, and my father said no, you can’t have it, and I
asked again, I want to have this kitten. My friend down the street had a cat that had a litter of kittens, I want
one too. No, Larry, you can’t have it. And on the third request he sent me packing to my bedroom, and I
still remember being able to print in block letters but not yet master cursive script, and he said, write me a
letter if you really want that kitten, and tell me in the letter why you deserve to have that cat, and whose
allowance is going to pay for its cat food, and how you’re going to prevent it from having babies in the
closet. (laughter) And if you can write me a well-rendered letter with no spelling mistakes, I’ll give your
request due consideration. Now that’s the request of an immigrant father (laughter), because he wanted to
drive that necessity to express oneself on paper right into my cerebellum. He just absolutely wanted that
lodged in there, and it was a, in a way, since he wanted us to become professionals, it was a foolish move
on his part, because from that point on, every time I wanted something, I had to write a letter for it, and that
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made me a writer. (laughter) So you were asking, George, about what might lead one to become a writer,
and so convincing one’s parents of one’s needs is a good starting place.
NORA YOUNG:
One of the things that struck me as I was thinking about this question was that it’s not just that Canadian
society is getting more diverse, which obviously it is. It’s that the more general cultural landscape is
changing, it’s becoming more “niche-y.” As George reminded us, we have the Internet, which is now
threatening to eclipse newspapers. We have Amazon to get books from wherever we want to all over the
world, we have specialty channels, it’s not choosing between The Beachcombers and Littlest Hobo
anymore. What are the real challenges there? I mean, how can one book or one television show, excepting
unusual hits like Little Mosque, speak to this incredibly diverse country. Is that even too much of a
challenge to say, that we can have one Canadian culture that can answer all those questions? Or could —
you have this strange, anomalous hit television show.
ZARQA NAWAZ:
I know for all the angst people feel about Muslims and how they’re going to destroy the world, you know,
we did save the CBC. (laughter, applause) They’ll never be able to take that away from us.
NORA YOUNG:
Thanks!
ZARQA NAWAZ:
You know, what’s interesting — why did Little Mosque become the success that it did? It was the most
unlikely scenario, I mean, a minority community, this strange religion, set in the middle of nowhere in
Canada, in the prairies, and yet it got international global attention, and we were very fortunate. We, in fact,
were fortunate — we got more attention in the U.S., in fact, than we got in Canada. It was odd. We had
CNN and Paula Zann and The New York Times, and it was incredible — they were actually fuelling the
interest in the show, which was helping us in Canada. It’s really odd — sometimes you need to be
successful in the U.S. before your own country notices you. And we — it was interesting. I would say that
in our particular case, and obviously this is very unique, is that there is a lot of confusion and angst and
worry and fear about the Muslim community, and there’s a lot of stereotypes and what — who are they? —
and no one had been able to capture that and find a way to represent this community ever before. And it’s
very complicated.
I would say that the most successful Muslim community in the world, I would argue this, exists in North
America, in a way that doesn’t exist anywhere else on earth. Europe, you know, it’s a disaster in Europe,
they’re ghettoized, they’re marginalized, they’re alienated, in Muslim countries themselves there’s a lot of
problems, dictatorships, yet, because the U.S. and Canada is a country that’s made up of immigrants, it was
a place that welcomed immigrants, and doesn’t have necessarily a defined culture — I mean, maybe it did
in the past, but it’s opened itself up and attracted the best and the brightest of the Muslim world here. And
they came here and integrated and assimilated in an incredible way. I mean, if you look at the statistics,
Muslims are the highest educated among all people in North America. They’re very successful. There’s no
Muslim ghettos, they live all over North America. We’re in every sphere of the economy, from doctors to
lawyers to teachers, and now we’re even getting into entertainment in large numbers. And Europe looks at
Canada and the U.S. and goes, what did you do right with this community that we haven’t done right? In a
way, you’ve integrated and assimilated this community in a way that we can’t do. And it’s amazing, and so
when the idea of this show came out, people were like, are there going to be riots in the street, are there
going to be beheadings, are people going to burn cars in the street, like, how can you make a comedy about
this community when there’s so much anger and racism associated with this community? And so people
were waiting for something to happen. And then, you know, people thought there was going to be some
edu-crazy show about Muslims, and yet it was a very friendly, modest Canadian comedy about a
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community which really wasn’t much different than any other show that, you know, Corner Gas. And
people were surprised that nothing had happened. Like, it was just — all it was was just a comedy about
people who happened to be Muslim, and it came from the Muslim Canadian experience, because I grew up
in Toronto, I went to the mosque my whole life, I got married, I have four children, and I have a normal
Muslim upbringing. And the experience of Little Mosque came from my personal upbringing as a Canadian
Muslim woman, you know. I don’t have a chip on my shoulder, I’m not angry, I don’t think it’s a racist,
patriarchal religion that encourages us to be violent, I mean, that’s not the way I grew up, that’s not the
religion I was taught. This is the faith that empowered me as a woman and made me feel very comfortable
being able to be Canadian and yet have a faith that I believed in, and feel — you know, I went to public
school, all my four children go to public school, they’re all in French immersion, I mean, you’re
quintessentially a Canadian person. And so this show came from a good place, it came from a place of —
someone who felt very comfortable in her skin and her identity, who felt very accepted as a Canadian, and
so I think this is why a show like this could only have been made in Canada. No, I think the Americans
were experimenting with something like this, but didn’t know how to do it, yet it would have taken a
country like Canada, which had that degree of separation from nine-eleven, so that we could look at our
Muslim community differently than the American community was looking at, and could do it. And so the
CBC was willing to take a chance, and the Canadian population was willing to say, well, we’re willing to
watch this, and see what it is.
And so, I mean, it was this show which, I think, was well written and well crafted, and yet we were able to
harness this whole angst in the media that generated so much media. And thank God it did, because we
needed that to survive. We needed that media to get those eyeballs to watch those screens and get the
numbers, so we could justify — because, you know, it costs seven hundred thousand dollars an episode —
can you imagine how expensive it is to make one television show? And so this year they ordered twenty.
So if you do the math, like, how expensive it is. And this is modest compared with how much they spend in
the U.S. per — seven hundred thousand would be maybe a salary of one person on an American show.
Right? It certainly isn’t our salaries, you know, in Canada. So I know I answered this question in a very
roundabout way, but that’s what I would say made Little Mosque happen in Canada. I would say it was
hugely a part of how Canada treated its Muslim minority community, and how well integrated we are, and
how successful we are, and how well we’re doing in this country, is a testament to the show, really, because
I think it comes from a really good place.
LAWRENCE HILL:
I think another thing is that, in the context of Canadian television, it’s new and its unique, and it hasn’t been
done before, and as much as we might like to categorize mainstream as something unthinking and
unwilling to adjust, the very mainstream that some of us aspire to commercially sometimes loves the very
unique, off-the-wall, new, from-the-margins thing that’s been created that hasn’t been created before. It’s
thirsting for something new like that. What do — if you think of maybe a half-dozen ultra-prominent
Canadian writers — some white, some black, some Asian — let’s think Jane Urquhart, Michael Ondaatje,
Afua Cooper, Rohinton Mistry, and Austin Clarke. Well, what did they all have in common? They all have
set novels or books that are largely taking place in other countries. And yet, these locations are Ireland,
Greece, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, India, Barbados, these experiences and these countries end up making these
books quintessentially Canadian and extremely appealing to Canadian readers. Canadian readers eat these
novels and books for breakfast, and so they’re highly popular, and I think the very international nature of
them, the uniqueness of them, is what has helped catapult them into the mainstream.
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Well, I was listening to what you said, and I, you know, it’s going to sound strange, but I kinda wish that
aboriginal people were as integrated as you say the Muslims in Canada are. We had — I was very touched
by Bob Watts here today and what he had to say, and I think, you know, a lot of us are still fighting to be
that integrated, which is a strange thing to say, as the first peoples of Canada, of this land. So I think that
has filtered down, not only as human beings in our societies, but also in the arts, in the politics, in
everything that we are here to be. So it’s a bit, it’s a little bit strange, because we are fighting really hard to
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be included in what is ours. Also, which is a strange way, but I think I’ll leave it at that. I think George
wants to talk. What do you think of that, George?
GEORGE JONAS:
I’m eager to talk. Seven hundred thousand dollars is a fairly small budget in Canadian terms, never mind
American terms. You said two things that struck me. One is well crafted, which clearly has a lot to do with
it, for a show to be successful it needs to be well crafted, especially in the mainstream. And the second is
six degrees of separation, or whatever degree of separation from nine-eleven. This is probably true, but it’s
an interesting question. Canada did not have anything to do with the separation — or did it? Is it particular
to Canada, or is it the way it happened? In other words, are we saying that if nine-eleven happened in
Canada the way Madrid happened and London happened, the show would have had more difficulty to gain
acceptance, or could not have been done?
ZARQA NAWAZ:
I think it’s a very interesting question, I ask myself that a lot. If it had happened here, would we have been
able to make Little Mosque. And I’m not sure. I mean, there would have been a lot of rawness, a lot of
anger, and people may not have been ready to laugh about a community. But at the same time, there’s a
show called Alien in America, have you guys heard about this show? It’s going to be premiering on CW,
and it’s about — yet again, it’s really odd. It’s a show set in the Midwest, in the prairies. I don’t know, the
prairies seem to be more like Newfoundland, I don’t know why, but a lot of comedies are being set out in
the middle of nowhere, and it’s about — I saw the — I was in Los Angeles for a meeting, and my agent
gave me a DVD and goes, I think you should see this. CBS is making the show — I don’t know how it
works, but CBS kind of owns this network called CW, and this is, they asked me to watch this. And it’s
about a mother who has the nerdy son in highschool, and she wants him to be popular, and she decides to
get a foreign-exchange student from a Nordic country — tall, blond, gorgeous, good-looking, who will go
with her son to school, befriend him and make him more popular in school. And lo and behold, there’s
some weird mix-up in the exchange program and it’s a Pakistani kid, shalwar-wearing, dopi, who arrives at
the airport as the friend. And the mother’s just horrified, right, like this is not going to help her son in the
Midwest become popular. And I’m just watching this show with amazement, right. And this Pakistani kid
goes to school, and immediately the kids start blaming him for nine-eleven and saying that he was
responsible. And he’s like, what are you talking about, I wasn’t there, and I don’t, the brochure in Pakistan
didn’t say this was going to happen to me in some Midwestern school, and it was incredible. Like, I was
watching the show, and they were discussing nine-eleven and they were being very sympathetic to this
Pakistani teenager who was an orphan and this mother, meanwhile, desperately trying to get rid of him and
deport him back to his country, and when she finds out that he’s an orphan and he lost his parents, she
finally sees him as a human being and decides to let him stay and the sons bond, right? And I just watched
the show with amazement, because it’s going to be starting in September and it actually was developed at
the same time as Little Mosque and would have beat us to the air had CBC not decided — I don’t know if
you guys know, but we were supposed to launch Little Mosque this September, but they were so worried
that someone was going to beat them to it — like who would think that you would have competition about
Muslims in a sitcom — but they were so worried that someone was going to beat them to it, they forced us
to launch in January, so we lost six months of our production schedule, it was like, literally, I was sitting at
home one day in September, and I got a call saying get on a plane, we’re starting to make it tomorrow,
we’re launching in January, and it was like, oh my God. And so we were only able, you know, we could
only physically make eight of them, and we launched in January, and the people who are making Alien in
America, that was the first time they heard of us, and they were like, wait a minute, there’s another show?
And they’re going to beat us? And they were –I was reading comments about them in the media saying
they were hoping that we’re going to fail and that they would succeed instead. But our success meant that,
in the end, they have a potential to be successful because we’ve proven that it’s possible to take a Muslim
character and make him mainstream and likable. So if that show hadn’t existed, I would say yeah, I don’t
think America is ready to see Muslims in the mainstream in a sympathetic way, yet they’re launching in
September, and he’s very sympathetic. He’s — and it kills me, have you guys seen Little Mosque, like
Baber dresses in shalwar kameez and dopi, well this guy dresses exactly the same way. And it’s happening,
and there’s incredible amounts of interest from U.S. broadcasters to make the American version of Little
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Mosque, because in the U.S. they tend not to get the indigenous show, they’ll buy what they call the
formatting rights, like The Office, right, the British The Office, they’ll make the American, so, what they
would like to do is take Little Mosque and make the American version, God help us, and it’s Fox Network
that’s interested, right? (laughter) So I don’t know, maybe it’s like counter-programming, right, they’ll
have 24 and then they’ll have Little Mosque, and then, so no one can complain. (laughter)
So I’m amazed that, you know, nine-eleven happened in the year 2001, and now we’re in 2007, and yet
now America is starting to look into these shows and be more introspective about what happened, and it’s
amazing to me.
NORA YOUNG:
Well, maybe I’ll move things along then. One thing I wondered about is, are there particular challenges as
creators when you come from a particular cultural community, and you’re doing something in mainstream
culture where there’s, you know, you feel this heightened sense of responsibility to “represent” your
culture, or, I mean, are there question like that that come out when you’re engaging with being, like, the
show with Muslims on it, or the aboriginal play on the main stage, or whatever.
GEORGE JONAS:
I don’t think — I speak only for myself, but ideas tend not to occur to you on the basis of — you want to
tell a story, and chances are that you will tell a story that you know. It will be difficult for you to tell a story
— although people often try — that they don’t know. So you tend to talk about your own milieu, your own
background, and so forth and so on. And you have to tell it in a way that strikes a resonance with the large
community. If you simply want to put your community on the map, if your idea is not storytelling, but the
preoccupation of a PR person or a propagandist or an educator even, chances are it’s not going to work.
The story has to work on its own level. It has to be of interest. This is why the line well-crafted resonates
with me when I hear about a successful show of any kind. I would put that probably, at the head of every
list. If — a show, a novel, whatever it is, a performance needs to be well done, it needs to be well crafted.
And almost everything else — of course, then it needs to fit the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, any number
of factors. But it needs to be well done. And clearly, in the case of the Little Mosque, the well-crafted
factor, right off the top entered into it. How do you guys feel about this?
LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, I feel that it’s very true that things have to be well-crafted to be succeed and to have a better chance
in the marketplace, but I do think there can be tremendous pressures from within communities on the artists
that are working inside those communities. I’m going to give an example from another country just to
illuminate the matter, and then come back to Canada. In 1937, the terrific black American writer, Zora
Neale Hurston, released the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which is about a free-spirited,
independent woman who drops one husband and takes up with another man without bothering to divorce
the first. And so she’s a sexually liberated, free-spirited woman, well in advance of her times, and she is
absolutely lambasted by the leading black American author of that time and just thereafter, Richard Wright,
author of Native Son, who condemns her for writing a book that has no theme, no message, no thought.
And so the point I am making is that Zora Neale Hurston offended certain elements of the middle-class
black American community for depicting a liberated sexually aggressive woman, and I think that if you
succeed in a so-called minority culture, there can be a significant amount of pressure on you to become a
role-model for your community. But even worse, to make your characters role models for the community.
And when — what happens when you don’t feel like being a role model? Or what happens if you feel like
writing a rebellious, unsavory, unpleasant character who needs to be expressed? There can be real pressures
on you in your community to hold back on that. Just look at Mordechai Richler. Some of the most vicious
critics of Mordechai Richler’s work were within the Jewish Canadian community, because they were
offended by the depiction of the community from within. So it can be a delicate and dangerous thing to
write critically and aggressively and artistically and free, from inside a community.
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GEORGE JONAS:
You’re in the wrong occupation if you yield to that — you should run for politics. (laughter)
LAWRENCE HILL:
I agree, you’re in the wrong occupation if you listen to it, but the pressure is there.
GEORGE JONAS:
No question. No question.
NORA YOUNG:
What about Marie and Zarqa, do you have that sense of that pressure from within the community to be a
role model and all that?
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Well, I think, yeah, myself I think that’s part of it. I mean, the greatest thing about a lot of aboriginal artists
that I know is that a role model doesn’t necessarily have to be what we believe, what we think role models
are. I mean, we’re pretty good at accepting people with all of their, you know, their ugly bits and their
beautiful bits, and I mean, we just finished the production in Ottawa, and it was based on Norval
Morrisseau, who personified this idea that he was an aboriginal artist, you know, way before his time, that
broke the mold, that was brought up Ojibway, that, because of his passion for belief and because of
residential school, he also took in the Catholic cosmology, he also took in artists of all kinds, and became,
whether he was aboriginal or whether he was not aboriginal, became a brilliant artist, a Canadian artist that
we can be proud of. So, was he perfect? Was he a role model? He wasn’t perfect. He was a very complex
man that had a very complex life, but was he a role model? I would say for most aboriginal creators across
form, he was a role model, meaning he did break down a lot of doors, saying that yes, he was raised
traditionally, he practised traditional art, and he also practised contemporary art. Contemporary aboriginal
Canadian art. So I think, our role models do not have to be perfect — they can be brilliant, and who they
are.
ZARQA NAWAZ:
I think the disadvantage the Muslim community has compared to the aboriginal community is that the
aboriginal community has gotten used to seeing themselves in media. You know, there’s been North of 60,
so many great television shows and radio plays and Tom Jackson, and books, whereas the Muslim
community has never seen itself depicted as a normal community ever on television before. Like, if
anything, they’re like minor characters, like terrorists, or the oppressed, beaten Muslim woman, those are
the stock stereotype characters — so it was a huge shock for a certain segment of the Muslim community to
see themselves represented on television as just normal people going about their day. They had never
experienced that before, and I sort of realized that going in — it was interesting to me that criticisms that I
would get from the extreme, sort of right-wing Muslims were ideologically aligned with the right-wing
pundits almost. It was hilarious — I would get comments that were at least as frightening from, say, rightwing, really right-wing non-Muslims like how dare she show Muslims as normal everyday Canadians, as if
that actually exists. You know, she’s softening Canada for the next terrorist attack by making Canadians
trust them, and we should never trust them. And that was — you know, I would get e-mails like that and
go, oh my God, you know? Like, where are the beheadings, where are the people burning the cars in the
street, the rifles, and the Gaza Strip — that’s what she should show as the reality of her people. And I was
thinking, would anyone ever have said that to Jerry Seinfeld — the Jews in New York — how dare he
portray Jews in New York being peaceful — where are the crazy Jews? I mean, no one would ever have
said that to him, but I got a lot of criticism for making Muslims be normal, as if we weren’t normal, as if
there wasn’t a normal, perfectly normal Muslim population living and thriving in North America for
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decades, and yet showing that on television was like somehow not fair, you know. I was duping the nonMuslim community. And then the really extreme right-wing Muslims were upset with me because they felt
that the Muslims weren’t good enough. They weren’t all perfectly upstanding Muslims, each and every
single one of them. You know? Why was Yasir cheating? Why wasn’t Sarah wearing the headscarf? Why
wasn’t Baber making his daughter wear the headscarf? And it just killed me, right, because they were like,
every Muslim should be perfectly and without fault and without sin, as if I was making a story about the
Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. I think that’s what they wanted, right? And so it was interesting to me
how both sides were, even though they despised one another, they were ideologically aligned with their
hatred of the show. And so it was interesting to me why they didn’t like it — both sides didn’t want the
community normalized as regular people with regular faults, and everyday foibles and quirks, and just
regular people. And so that was very fascinating for me to watch.
GEORGE JONAS:
For beheadings, you have to watch [?] — the CBC specializes in sitcoms. But it is actually quite
interesting. I have never, unlike a writer emerging from the aboriginal community or the Muslim
community or the black community — I never felt the need, certainly, to speak for the Hungarian
community in Canada, possibly because — not to mention the European community — partly, I suppose,
because the European community has always done well everywhere except in Europe. There were no
problems in Canada or in North America or in Australia being a European. Once you got out of Europe,
everything was fine. (laughter) But I was intrigued by — I did understand you to say that the Muslim
experience in North America, unlike Europe and unlike the current Muslim countries, was on the whole a
very good one. In terms of achievement, in terms of integration, in terms of — do you feel that this is a
result of conscious policies that Canada pursued?
ZARQA NAWAZ:
Yes, very much so. I think the Muslim community in Europe was only brought in as a labour class, a labour
force, never — the Europeans never expected them to stay, didn’t want them to stay, didn’t give them the
same rights as the general population, didn’t allow them to become citizens. They were allowed in to be a
labour class with the intention of being expelled, and thus — or ghettoized, marginalized, and dealt with
intense racism, so that now — I’ve gone to Europe at conferences and I’m trying to figure out how to
reverse the process. Whereas in Canada, we brought in Muslims as equal members of the community,
meant — we looked for where in the country we were lacking in terms of jobs, looking for engineers and
physicians and scientists and people to fill certain positions, and it was a given that they were going to be
Canadian citizens. There was never a question of that. And you know, my father came from England — my
father actually emigrated to Europe first, he went to England, and didn’t want to raise his kids there
because it was a very difficult place for him to live, with the racism, and Canada came knocking and said
we’re looking for engineers who have the skills that you have, because we’re lacking them in Canada. And
he said okay, and he packed up his wife and his kids, and he brought us to Toronto, and that’s where I grew
up. It was a result of Canada’s immigration policy that they were looking for successful Muslim — not just
Muslim, but, you know, successful immigrants who had skills that they needed for the country to grow, and
they — and so we knew, and we got our citizenship right away, and we lived in an apartment building in
downtown Toronto, and we went to public school, and you know, there was a mosque, and I went to a
public school and I went to a mosque, and there was never a sense that we weren’t expected to live there.
There was a sense that we were Canadian and growing up, I felt very proud to be Canadian I try to look
back and think about what it was like growing up, but I never lived in a special enclave for just Muslims, it
was always — my neighbours were all white, non-Muslim, and there was always a sense that you belonged
and you were part of the community, and it worked. And I have to say that if you look at the statistics in
Canada and in the U.S., to be fair to the United States, the statistics show the success of the Muslim
community, because they have the lowest unemployment rate, the highest income rates and education rates,
and Europe is agog at how successful the Muslim community is in North America, because it’s phenomenal
— I mean, they have an eighty percent to ninety percent unemployment rate of the Muslim community in
Europe. And it’s almost lucky — I guess the similar parallel would be what the Mexican community in the
United States is, how they’ve been treated in the United States, is how the Muslim community has been
treated in Europe. And the difference is night and day between the two communities. So that’s the
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argument that Muslims make, is that you can’t take a community in isolation and say, well, they’re so racist
and so violent, because they’re Muslim, you have to look at the political climate around them and see what
it was that caused these issues for this community to decline and fail so miserably. And that would be my
answer to the aboriginal community as well — what were the conditions that caused the racism against this
community, that caused the decline of this community, it’s probably quite similar to what caused the same
conditions probably exist for the Muslim community in Europe that didn’t exist for the Muslim community
in North America.
GEORGE JONAS:
I just wanted to raise one question. Europe, of course, has not been until very recently geared to
immigration of any kind. People traveled but there was no mass movement of people from one country to
another until very very recently. North America is based on the idea that people come from all over the
world, and eventually they become Americans and Canadians and so forth. I’m not quite sure, when it
comes to the aboriginal community, I’m puzzled — explain to me why it didn’t happen.
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Why what didn’t happen? We’re here, we’re here. Why what didn’t happen?
GEORGE JONAS:
We emigrated to North America. Why did we not get absorbed in the aboriginal community? (laughter) We
were few in numbers, we were certainly not as skilled and as successful in pursuing life, pursuing as it were
our careers, as the native inhabitants of North America. Why did we not become part of the native culture?
Why did we not succeed in the terms of the aboriginal culture? A handful of people?
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Well, I think there’s some great historical documents on that, but I think generally we felt sorry for you.
(laughter, applause) And so, but, I mean there’s so many variables, but really, that was it. You know, it’s —
I think it was a little bit shocking to come from Europe and to arrive on shore and not have the right clothes
and nowhere to eat, and you know, those kind of things are kind of important in Canada, given the climate
and geography, so I think that was a little bit of our downfall, just being compassionate. But I think in a
more aboriginal thought, I think it is what Bob Watts was talking of today, of the idea that we don’t look at
ourselves as the only ones here. We look at ourselves as belonging to the world, and that there’s other
peoples in the world, and that there’s enough space for everybody. So I think that has always been kind of
our grounding thought, that we’re connected to the earth, and we don’t even belong that. So if you look at
that kind of philosophy and living belief, it’s a lot different than the belief of manifest destiny, of
colonization, of dominance of one culture over another.
(applause)
NORA YOUNG:
We’re going to take a break soon, but I guess I’d just like to wrap things up just by asking you, I mean, as
Canadians we’re typically obsessed with identity, famous, at least within Canada, for doing so, but maybe
things have changed in the course of the last generation, have gone from saying, you know, who are we vis
à vis Americans, or who are we vis à vis Britain, or whatever, to now having a much more complicated set
of many identities. You know, many of us are members of multiple communities, where we find ourselves
allied with many different groups of people, and that shifts over time. I mean, what kinds of impacts does
that have on shaping a mainstream Canadian culture that can respond to these — this very complex kind of
sense of identity that we all have now, where we’re multiple types of Canadians?
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LAWRENCE HILL:
Well, I’m perfectly happy moving between various communities. I don’t feel any great thirst to have a
single solitary definition provided to me about what constitutes Canadian culture. I think that the
imagination should be foremost in our artistic definitions of the nation. I’m just going to step outside
Canada for a minute for an illustration of a fantastic use of the imagination, and then come back again.
Some of you may have read Sebastian Faulks, who is considered to have produced one of the best World
War One novels, called Birdsong, and that — I mean, my grandfather was a black American officer in the
trenches in World War One, but I never heard these stories from him. But in Birdsong, as Sebastian Faulks
describes trench warfare like you’ve never seen it before, and he describes the Allies digging deep down
into the ground, tunneling under the Germans and trying to blow the Germans up from underground, and he
describes the Germans digging deep down in the ground, tunneling over towards the Allies and trying to
blow the Allies up from underground, and occasionally they’d meet, the Germans and the Allies,
underground, and fight it out to the death there, they’re horrific in graphic scenes, and never can I think
about trench warfare or World War One in the same way thanks to the work of a novelist who’s dramatized
a personal struggle in a global situation, and brought me into it in a way that I had never been brought in
before, even at the knees of my own grandfather. And so I think we, as artists, have to find ways to
dramatize the human experience and excite Canadian and other readers with things that they haven’t really
even been able to imagine before, and to bring new things into the mainstream by dint of creative
imagination. And so that’s what I’m looking to do.
MARIE CLEMENTS:
I’ll agree with Larry. (laughter)
NORA YOUNG:
No, but I mean, are there particular challenges that you see as an artist, at this particular juncture of
Canadian theatre?
MARIE CLEMENTS:
Yeah, I think there are huge challenges. I think there’s massive challenges. But I also think — I mean, I’ve
been at it for a while, and I’m among a group of really dynamic, and a critical mass of aboriginal creators,
and artists, and actors, and writers, in all genres, and I feel that we’re coming into our own, that this is a
wave that is just breaking, and I’m excited about that. I don’t think the challenges will go away, but I mean,
I think, I don’t think we can say that it’s just one thing, that there’s just one challenge, or that we’re just one
Canadian identity, I think it’s a cosmology. Our history, together or separate, has always been complex,
ideas have always been complex, and we’re here now to work that out, and as artists, to comment on that,
to reflect on it, to fight with each other, to wrestle a bit with George, but I think that’s an important part of
being alive at this time.
NORA YOUNG:
Well, thank you all very much. I think, unless someone else has something else to add, we’re going to take
a short break and then we’ll have a little Q&A. Thanks.
(applause)
Note: No transcript is available for Preston Manning’s acceptance speech for receiving the Couchiching
Award for Excellence in Public Policy Leadership.
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What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders?
August 12, 2007, 10:00 a.m.
DREW FAGAN:
Let me introduce myself off the top, I’m Drew Fagan, I’m Assistant Deputy Minister for Policy at Foreign
Affairs and International Trade. I’m no longer a journalist, I’m a public servant in a public setting, so I’m
going to leave all the controversial stuff to my panelists. Be very careful about this.
Anyway, look, it’s an absolute pleasure to be here, I’d like to thank the organizers, Helen Walsh and others
for inviting me. I’ve planned to come for years, I haven’t been able to make it, it’s great to be here, it’s
really a treat. It’s got such a great reputation, has for years, and so far I think there’s been a fascinating
series of sessions. So it’s, I hope to wrap this up, at least the sessions — we have a later event as well, with
a certain pizzazz.
And I’m confident we will, given the panelists and the subject matter, because we’ve been talking a lot
about diversity in a domestic context. Now what we’re going to try to do is broaden that a little bit into the
international implications of diversity, which are actually quite interesting as I say. We have a very
interesting panel. One of the things that are interesting, and I’m going to take an aside off the top if I might,
is all four of us either now work in government, in this instance at the federal level, or have worked in
government in various phases. So I’m just going to say something to the young people in the audience,
everybody younger than me, that in fact, government work, there’s a whole series of ways that you can
work in the international arena, but think about government work as well, as one of them. And there’s a lot
of opportunity right now, particularly at the federal government level. Kevin Lynch and others, the Clerk of
the Privy Council is really focused on this. There’s a demographic crunch right now within government, a
lot of executives retiring in the next three, four, five years, there’s a variety of reasons for that, and there’s
going to be a big recruitment drive over the next few years in order to bring people, not just to FAIT but all
across government. Huge demographic challenge, as I say, the need to recruit and replenish, government
responsibilities becoming more complicated, in fact, over time, and we need good people. I remember
when I went into government, the clerk of the Privy Council at that time, Alex Himmelfarb, and this was a
line he gave to everybody, he said, you know, come in, come to Ottawa, you’ll make less money than you
do in the private sector, you’ll get more abuse, you’ll work harder, how do you like my pitch so far? And
there’s some truth to that. But believe me, it can be very, very fulfilling.
So let me get on to the topic at hand. As I’ve said, we’ve concentrated so far on diversity at home, so let’s
concentrate a little bit about diversity abroad, and the implications of both for Canadian foreign policy. I’m
going to ask a question right off the top, and that’s a very simple one: does Canada have a diaspora? And
we don’t really think in those terms very much. But I found a study by the Asia Pacific Foundation last
year, very interesting. And it came out around the time of the Lebanon evacuation, so it was very timely, in
fact. And they looked at a whole series of international statistics, and judged that close to three million
Canadians, their assessment was about 2.7 million Canadians, close to ten percent of the Canadian
population, actually live abroad. And about half of those are actually Canadian born. That is a remarkably
large number of people, in terms of international comparisons, as compared to other countries. About half
of those people live in the United States, a little less, in fact, something over a million people, but that’s a
large number of people living outside our borders. Just by an international comparison, that’s about, 2.7
million is about a third as many as Americans who live abroad, who have, after all, nine times as big a
population. About one-seventh the size of the Indian diaspora, one-twelfth the size of the Chinese diaspora,
and think of the number of billion people in both those countries, or roughly so.
So Canada actually has something of a tradition — we think of it as an immigration society, and it
absolutely is, and an extremely successful one. We also have a bit of a tradition of emigration as well, and
we should think of that a little bit when we talk about foreign policy, I’d argue. You know, diaspora, the
word itself is Greek. It comes from biblical times, and we don’t really have the tradition of what you think
of in some ways as going with the term diaspora, the idea of a traumatic dispersion if you like, although we
have examples of that, like the Acadians. The myth of a homeland. The consciousness of return. The ethnic
group consciousness and the like, that are typical for use of the term diaspora. But I would argue, and
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there’s plenty of research going on right now, in fact, there’s a study that was in the papers just the other
day, Frank Graves and his EKOS polling with regard to the international mindset of the younger generation
of Canadians. This is probably going to become a larger issue over time. Canadian youth are as
international as this country’s ever had, and among the most international, obviously, if not the most
international, of youth populations around the world. So this is going to become a bigger issue.
Now, in terms of DeFAIT and foreign policy, we’re thinking a little bit about how to try to harness that,
and one thing that we’ve done is the Connect to Canada program in Washington to try to ensure that some
of the large number of Canadians living in the United States — and I was talking to the Consul General in
San Francisco just last week about this, and he estimates that there are about 250,000 Canadians living just
in the San Francisco and surrounding area — how we can harness that capacity to our own foreign policy
and trade goals to some extent. And there are other programs as well.
Let me just throw out another couple of questions that relate to this internationalization of the Canadian
population, out there as well as in here. One obviously is consular work, which is a huge and growing
responsibility of my department. I need only cite, I think, the Lebanon evacuation last summer, which was
among the biggest flotillas this government has ever organized under any circumstances — 13,000
Canadians leaving and raised questions in the public mind, in the press, and elsewhere with regard to dual
citizenship and all the questions that arise from there.
And I note that there are other questions as well, and other countries are grappling with it, they come back
to Canada. Like the Tremaglia law in Italy, which actually had an impact on the Italian election just about
18 months ago, in which Italy decided that a certain number of members of their parliament would be
elected exclusively by Italians who live abroad to represent their interests. Interesting questions raised, for
example, in the large Italian-Canadian population here in Canada.
Now let me just reverse it just a second, and bring this back to the Canadian population, the diversity of the
Canadian population living in Canada just to finish. As you know, and I think there’s statistics in your
packet, eigheen percent of Canadians are foreign-born, that’s not as large as it was a hundred years ago,
interestingly, but it’s about as high, close to as high, as we’ve ever had, substantially higher than the United
States at eleven percent, lower, however, than Australia at twenty-two percent, but we’re among the
highest. And it’s a generally accepted, I think, fair enough to be a social good, and progress, and diversity.
And God knows we need immigrants in order to maintain our workforce going forward. But there are
trends, I think, that have the potential, interesting potential, with regard to foreign policy. What’s
DeFAIT’s, you know, a little trivia question, what’s our largest mission? It’s not Washington, although
most people would answer it’s Washington, it’s in fact New Delhi, because, simply, the number of
Canadians working in the mission, largely because, not exclusively because, but largely because of
immigration.
There’s an interesting factor with regard to the huge flow of Indians from the subcontinent to Canada. And
that is that, although Sikhs represent roughly two percent of the population of the subcontinent, they
represent something close to fifty percent of immigrants to Canada. Does that have a potential impact with
regard to foreign policy? Or, for example, we could ask all sorts of questions with regard to that. The
difference in balance with regard to Middle Eastern policy given the relative growth of Muslim and Jewish
populations in Canada, and we can ask others like that, and maybe we’d want to.
Anyway, let me close, and turn it over to the panelists. Each of them are going to have fifteen minutes to
discuss — I’ve got my Blackberry here, not to check e-mail, but in fact to make sure that they stay on time,
I use it as a clock now. And let me turn it over to the three panelists as I say, and let me introduce Farouk
Jiwa to start off with. Now he’s an example of somebody who’s coming to the federal government, and in
the last four years since 2003 when he joined, he’s worked in all these departments: SIDA, Finance,
Treasury Board, he’s worked at the Privy Council Office, and most recently at Canadian Heritage. And at
the same time, over the last year he’s been working on a fellowship — The Walter and Duncan Gordon
Foundation gave him a fellowship to examine, in depth, a topic, the impact of multiculturalism on foreign
policy. What do you you know? So I think he’s probably just right to kick this off. So Farouk, over to you.
Thanks very much.
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(applause)
FAROUK SHAMAS JIWA:
Thanks very much, Drew. Thank you to the organizers for this wonderful opportunity. It’s truly an honour
to be here, and to be part of the history of this conference. I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank
my partner, [Teniel?], actually, because if there’s any coherency in what I am saying today, it’s because of
her.
My presentation takes inspiration from two warmly reinforcing aspects of my life. The first is my
experience as a young transnational immigrant to Canada, and the second is my experience with the Walter
and Gordon Duncan Foundation as a global youth fellow, where I’ve been looking at issues of
multiculturalism and diversity and the pluralism of identity for Canadian foreign policy.
The major points I’m trying to get across today are the following. First, multiculturalism and diversity have
important implications for foreign policy, and vice versa, but this presents some opportunities as well as
some challenges; and second, the multiple identities and affiliations that people have reason to value, which
I’ll refer to as the pluralism of identity, may or may not offer something for foreign policy, and vice versa.
Finally, I’ll suggest some possible avenues for how we could deal with the complexities of these issues.
And I should note that what I say today does not represent the department where I work, the department of
Canadian Heritage, nor the Walter and Gordon Duncan Foundation. These are strictly my own views.
All right, let me begin with a story. Those who know me know that I like to share stories. So I think
yesterday, in one of the sessions, someone asked this question of immigrant experiences and how that could
relate to, say, the experiences of aboriginal peoples. So I want to tell you a little story on that.
Last spring, my partner and I traveled to the geographic centre of Canada, which, if you don’t know, is
Baker Lake, and is in Nunavut. In the short time we spent there, we came in touch with some of the real
challenges the community is facing. And I remember being struck profoundly and personally by a
connection that I had with the people there, with the community there, the feel of the community, the
landscape. On the flight back down south, I was trying to make sense of this connection. And it was clear to
me that a big part of this sense of connection was because of my own background, my own identity, my
own diversity. I was born and I grew up in Africa, in Tanzania, Kenya, and in Zambia, to parents of Indian
descent. My father’s family was brought by the British to Kenya. I’m a Muslim, and an Ismaili Muslim. I
have lived and I’ve studied abroad, and I’ve traveled extensively, and in Canada I have lived in Alberta and
Quebec, and most recently, in Ontario, and I’ve visited several parts as well.
It was in this vein of self-reflection, also, on that flight, that this idea of looking at the relevancy of
multiculturalism and diversity and the many identities we have could have any relevance for Canadian
foreign policy.
By way of some background, some of you may know that multiculturalism and diversity, it seems to me,
have been used to justify some Canadian foreign policy roles. Some examples include sharing our expertise
on managing multiculturalism and diversity with others, sharing our expertise in federalism, consultation
with specific diaspora groups in post-conflict reconstruction, security issues, strengthening trade relations,
and representation on international institutions, such as La Francophonie.
To further understand some of the underlying motivations of these issues, and to gauge the opportunities
and challenges associated with them, I interviewed leaders in Canada, the UK, and South Africa, and what
I’m going to say today focuses predominantly on my Canadian interviews.
Generally speaking, many informants agreed that multiculturalism and diversity were and are important for
Canadian foreign policy. Why? Many people believed that this was true because foreign policy is a means
of defining and expressing what and who we are as a country, and what our national interests are and what
our national values are. At the same time, however, some were not sure if this was always a direct
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relationship — if there was always a direct relationship between multiculturalism, diversity, and Canadian
foreign policy. But nevertheless, there seemed to be some sort of relationship, even an indirect one.
So for example, our stance on the Iraq war, and the province of Quebec, where there was resistance. Or our
involvement in countries such as Haiti and the Ukraine, as a result of those diasporas in Canada.
In terms of some of the opportunities that multiculturalism and diversity offered for Canadian foreign
policy, well, first, many people said that in many respects, we’re already taking advantage of some of these
opportunities. So for example, most recently, the role of Quebec at Unesco, the consultation with diaspora
groups, and so forth. In fact, the diaspora of Canada and their transnational networks were seen as an
advantage in many other ways as well, such as the use of members of diaspora groups and transnational
networks, and to tapping into the assets and the skills that they bring, such as linguistic skills, knowledge of
the countries or cultures where they come from, knowledge of the religions that they bring to Canada, their
remittances to their homelands, business contacts, and so forth.
In terms of the potential challenges that multiculturalism and diversity presented for foreign policy, there
are three interrelated ones that came up. First, with the increase in bringing people of diverse backgrounds,
there’s a perception that some of these multicultural groups will engage in illegitimate activities, such as
terrorism, in Canada, and/or be involved with this overseas. In some instances, people spoke to this also in
terms of the challenges of integrating some of these multicultural groups, and to the challenges of
ghettoization and so forth. Second, some felt that there was a risk that Canada’s foreign policy positions, as
a result of lobbying or not, may instigate or exacerbate tension or conflict in Canada among communities
here. An example that was given was the strong stance that this present government took vis a vis the
Israel-Lebanon situation last year, which was seen as a result of the Jewish and the far-right Christian
lobby. Third, a feeling existed that the lobbying efforts of diaspora groups were actually derailing Canada’s
foreign policy interests. Note that I said interests here, and not values. Furthermore, there’s the perception
that our politicians, not Pierre of course (laughter), had leveraged political advantage by acting on the
appeals of diaspora groups.
Okay, so what about this idea of having multiple affiliations and identities, and that relationship with
Canadian foreign policy? In asking people what they thought about what this could offer for Canadian
foreign policy, and some of the challenges, in terms of the opportunities, people noted the following. First,
some said that they liked the idea, because it implied a foreign policy that could be seen through a
“hospitality of difference” within Canada and outside of Canada. That is, as an international expression of
our diversity, our multiple identities and affiliations that united us with the diversity that is inherent in the
world. Specifically, one person said that this was an idea that has the potential — I like this one — has the
potential to take us into a universe that goes beyond seeing Canada as a rich North American country of
European stock, and which eventually could bring us more into the realm of talking about human rights and
being serious about them.
In terms of the potential challenges associated with the pluralism of identity in foreign policy, the following
were mentioned. Number one. It makes thinking about foreign policy a hell of a lot more complicated. For
instance, we have to think about not only a person’s or a community’s ethnic or religious background, but
we in fact have to think about how foreign policy would affect people or communities based on their
gender, sexuality, and so forth. Secondly. In a stream of multiple identities and affiliations, how the hell do
you find ones that unite us as Canadians and those that could inform Canadian foreign policy? Thirdly.
Interestingly enough, when I asked this question about the pluralism of identity, it was here that this notion
of dual citizenship came up. That is, thinking in terms of having multiple identities and affiliations in this
case could legitimate one identity over another. So in other words, how therefore do you know when a
Canadian chooses to be a Canadian when she or he lives in Hong Kong or Lebanon? So there’s a real
loyalty issue here, the idea of people being casual Canadians. And second, what happens when someone
who holds dual citizenship gets embroiled in difficulty or gets in trouble in the country of their other
citizenship?
So how do we try to make some sense out of all this? Specifically on the issues of multiculturalism and
diversity, first, it’s interesting to note that on the idea of certain groups engaging in illegitimate activities
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and posing a security threat, one of the responses, the institutional responses of the Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, has been the creation of a Muslim working group, which I believe was
done in good faith, no pun intended. But it does bring up the question of the understanding of the
complexities, the dynamics, and the diversity in the Muslim community, and the capacity for the
Department of Foreign Affairs, as opposed to another department, to look at some of the dynamics and
complexities associated with the Muslim community. So, for instance, would my voice as a Muslim from
Kenya have the same consideration as a Muslim from Syria? Secondly, to what degree does this policy
actually create the potential for exacerbating the stigmatization and discrimination, making a community
feel that they are under the microscope here in Canada? Third, are we actually looking in the right direction
with this institutional response? Are there other things, broadly speaking, that would ingrain a sense of
understanding cross-culturally, across religions, to create a space for dialogue?
On the issue of the lobbying of diasporas and derailing Canada’s foreign policy interests, the question that
comes to mind is, well, who gets access to decision makers? Who represents who, and why is this
important? Because when people are concerned about employment or housing, are they able to spend the
time thinking about foreign policy considerations? And some may be in a better position to do this than
others.
On the issue of the pluralism of identity, multiple identities and affiliations, well yes, it does make foreign
policy complicated. But perhaps it also does enable us to continue to be sensitive to differences in foreign
policy. Just as a general example, one of the biggest lessons that the international community had learned in
the conduct of war is that the experience and effects of war is dramatically different on men, women, and
children, with women and children being disproportionately affected. Second. When we are developing
foreign policy, can we take the challenges of multiculturalism and diversity at face value? Black, white,
Shia, Sunni. Not entirely, I think. As an example, when I was in South Africa, one of the things that came
up quite a bit in my work was that the divisions were not only between black and white today. One equally
big challenge is that at the same time South Africans are wanting to reassert their African identity, their
Africanness, a lot of South Africans are actually quite xenophobic against other Africans. Africans coming
in from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and so forth. So there is a real underlying class issue here. Third. When it
comes to issues of dual citizenship, there are indeed some deep technical diplomatic and legal issues
involved when attachments and identities conflict.
But I think we should not lose sight of the economic and the global opportunities that dual citizenship
potentially offers too. We should not get lost in a debate about where our loyalties lie. Example in the case
of Lebanon. I think we need to ask ourselves if we would have reacted the same way if something had
happened in Western Europe and we had to move Canadians out of there. And just as a general point, when
it comes to issues of loyalties, recent research has shown that actually, the biggest challenges in terms of
loyalties lie with some of our historic groups in Canada, francophones and aboriginals as opposed to
immigrants.
Finally, let us not lose sight of the fact that multiple identities and affiliations do connect us with the world
beyond border, a world that is in Canada today. What this suggests, that through our connections
internationally we come to appreciate, I would hope, how the opportunities and challenges that people
outside our borders face are similar to ours and vice versa, as well as our commonalities with one another.
So for example, how a woman in Canada today may be able to understand and fight for equality of women
overseas, and similarly, how a Muslim woman from elsewhere can be a lawyer and fight for the rights of
women in Canada.
So what, if anything, are some practical things we can think about when it comes to these issues? Well, I
think that one of the first things is possibly opening doors. And what I mean by this is that if there is a
perception that some groups have more access to decision makers than others, then there is an inequality in
this, and then it implies that the government must have the structures in place to ensure that all voices get
heard. And I mean that this should be available not only in times of developing our international agenda, as
has been done before, but when those decisions and input are needed on a daily basis. In other words, as
Tariq Ramadan said at the beginning of this conference, there needs to be a duty of consistency, at least in
terms of access.
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Secondly, on more structural issues, and here I’m talking about getting those diverse voices in government,
and so, recruitment and so forth, as Drew was mentioning. But also, a dialogue between those who make
decisions on our foreign policy and those who actually work on the ground on immigration issues. That is,
what are the real challenges and sentiments the multicultural communities are facing on the ground so that
we do not end up with possible ad hoc solutions to understand those people in communities that happen to
be under the orbit of foreign policy. Without question, in our quest for equality, it means enabling those
who come to Canada to be in a position to take part in the foreign policy debate on an equal footing. And
this means, at the very least, that they need jobs. They need opportunities to get involved. They need to be
involved in networks.
Third, I think that an argument can also be made for education. Take the example of schools. If we can
agree that our schools are the promoters and arbiters of our values, they are also the seats of learning about
our neighbours, our solitudes. So this means not only giving an accurate picture about Canada’s history,
conquests, colonialization, as Bob Watts pointed out, but also seeing the diversity of Canada reflected in
those histories. I would also add, in being cognizant of the international dimension of our education, and
moving beyond the western as Madame McAndrew pointed out, yesterday.
Fourth, and this is my final point, civic and global engagement. And here I mean things like sports fields,
literature, the arts. I mean investing in communities, then in our neighbourhoods across Canada so that we
can engage with each other, getting communities connected with technology, and to invest in the power of
individuals and communities to make connections with each other and the world outside of them. That is
what creates loyalty. That is what creates a Canadian identity. By giving people the reasons to being a
Canadian, amongst the many identity variables that we have. Thank you.
DREW FAGAN:
“What does citizenship mean in a world without borders?” is our question. I think we’re on point. I’m
going to introduce Irvin Studen now. You know, do any of you remember Tom Lehrer, the humorist in the
1960s. I used to, I remember — my dad would play them on eight-tracks when we’d drive around in the
car, I was a little precocious, and I remember one line in particular that seems appropriate for Farouk and
Irvin. He said that when Mozart was his age, he’d been dead for ten years. (laughter) And I mean, they’re
very much alive, but it kinda depresses me, so, anyway. Irvin Studen, and you’ll know why I’m saying that,
has accomplished quite a bit at his age, let me tell you. He’s worked in the Privy Council office in Ottawa.
He also was on a yearlong fellowship or exchange with Australia and worked at the equivalent of the Privy
Council office in Australia. He’s a Rhodes scholar, and many of you may have seen his recent book, which
his right on point, What is a Canadian?, in which he brought together about forty well-known Canadians to
write essays with regard to precisely that and connected it all up. So, next speaker, Irvin Studen. Thanks
very much.
IRVIN STUDEN:
Thank you, Drew. I hadn’t heard of Tom Lehrer, actually. (laughter) Thanks for having me. I want to thank
the board of directors of the Couchiching Institute and the conference organizers for having me. It’s a great
privilege and indeed a distinct honour for me to be here, such a wonderful venue, wonderful day.
It’s also a distinct honour, I should say, at the outset, to be sharing the panel with Pierre Pettigrew, Farouk
Jiwa, and Drew Fagan, all of whom I’ve had exchanges with in Ottawa, and Pierre, I’m an admirer of his
— he was a guerrière politique in his years in Ottawa, serving in very turbulent times, so thank you Pierre,
for your service, and thank you to both Farouk and Pierre for giving me five minutes of your time.
(laughter)
Farouk and I, as Drew said, are members of the younger generations, so I want to say without too much
hubris that we have miles to go before we sleep, to quote Robert Frost, many responsibilities ahead of us,
so in the context of the so-called borderless world, I want to touch specifically on responsibilities, less
rights, and opportunities, actually, that flow from the nature of our country.
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From the outset, let me strike a somewhat dissident note, to be iconoclastic a bit, as is my wont. To stir a
little, to make things a bit interesting. Two things. First and foremost, I disagree with the premise of the
topic at hand, that our world, that Canada’s reality, is somehow uniquely borderless and that our identities
are somehow singularly complex as a result. And second, and this in way of propelling the discussion on
rights and responsibilities, that a Canadian in this turbulent, fascinating, so-called borderless world is
nothing more, nothing less, than a citizen of a state called Canada. All of our rights and responsibilities as
Canadians, and I stress, as Canadians, originate in this basic reality. The rest is commentary. Asked what
the basic lesson of the Torah, the Old Testament, is, the wise rabbi said, quite curtly, “Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you. The rest is commentary.”
A brief digression, if you’ll allow me, but not as long a digression as my father’s famous digressions, which
are tangents on tangents on tangents. I’m the firstborn, the first son, if you will, of détente Jews from the
former Soviet Union, children of Jackson-Vanek if you know the history. My parents hail originally from
the port town of Odessa in today’s Ukraine. [?] country, not [?]. Now Odessa, before it was part of
independent Ukraine, was originally founded by Catharine the Great as a key strategic port in Imperial
Russia following the Russo-Turkish Wars. And back then, like most port cities, Odessa was
hypercosmopolitan. Far more so back then than in the Soviet period or after perestroika. Hyperborderless,
its geist hypercosmopolitan. Indeed, in the nineteenth century, the city was the most important port in
Russia. Home not only to Russians, but to Ukrainians, Kozaks, Tatars, Moldovans, Poles, Turks, Greeks,
and of course, Jews. I could go on. The borderless theme seems not so unique to today.
After Warsaw, Odessa was the most important city in Eastern European diaspora Jewry. A real intellectual
nerve centre. People like Isaac [Bavel?], [?], [?], and need I say it, Leon Trotsky, were from Odessa. All
these Jews played massive, massive roles in some of the major political movements of their day, and some
of the major political movements of the last century and a half, and I’m not talking about political
movements that were specific only to Russia, but all of Europe; indeed, these were global, so-called
transnational political movements. I speak here of anarchism, communism, Zionism, and nationalism, they
all had trickle-on effects beyond Russian borders. But the basic point is that Odessa, at least in its
nineteenth-century heyday, much like other major cities of the day — Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, London, that
eternal city of exiles — was a microcosm of sorts for the universe. There was general bonhomie among the
ethnic groups; assimilation, as the famous Australian political thinker, the late political thinker Donald
Horne once eloquently said: “was best done in bed.” (laughter; audience: “Hear hear!”) I see we have some
fans of Donald Horne in the audience, I’ll get back to Donald Horne a bit later. (laughter)
But proof of this cosmopolitan, indeed this borderless bonhomie, if you’ll allow me. When the anti-Jewish
pogroms came, and come they inevitably did — if I need to repeat it, in 1821, 1850, 1871, 1881 and after
the famous assassination of Alex the Second, 1905, 1906, etcetera — the damage in Odessa, relative to
other cities, there was damage but it was mitigated by contrast, mainly because of this cosmopolitan
coexistence, this borderless geist.
By the 1970s, as you’ll know, tensions between the Soviet Union and the West had somewhat diminished,
temporarily of course, and my parents emigrated on the strength of Jackson-Vanek. One long train ride, at
once a borderless and border-ridden train ride out of the USSR, through Czechoslovakia, then in the
USSR’s orbit, through Vienna, and finally to Roma, Italia, where they stayed for a year, see, [Italian
words], in 1976. I won’t go on to why they chose Canada, someone was asking over breakfast about the
narcissistic reasons we give ourselves for why immigrants choose Canada, I’ll only venture to say that there
was something called conspicuous consumption even among Soviet Jewish émigrés. Everyone was saying
that Canada was somehow impenetrable, inaccessible, and though the rumour was untrue, Soviet Jews from
Odessa in particular wanted to hit Canada because it was the place that wasn’t taking Soviet Jews, so it was
a case of conspicuous consumption even amongst people who had nothing. (laughter)
And so my parents did, they came to Canada, and I grew up with two younger sisters speaking Russian at
home, we went to French immersion schools, immigrant parents were self-selectively anxious to get ahead,
and my father, symétrie oblige, had gone to an English immersion school in Odessa. Significantly, we grew
up swearing in over a dozen languages. (laughter) In Toronto — try me. Having grown up in playing
soccer, the world’s game, but seriously, in Toronto, hailing — and whose parents hailed from all corners of
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the world — I could on any given day muster creative invective against a given soccer referee in almost
any tongue. Russian, Italian, Persian, Polish, Hebrew, Mandarin, Spanish, even Jamaican patois. And in
English and French bien entendu.
So what is a Canadian? I asked that question virtually every day of my childhood in Toronto. Back in the
day, my parents, like most Torontonians, in their groups at least, would insist at least implicitly that the
notion is a wholesale fiction. An artificial construct distinguishing barely — just barely — those north of
the 49th parallel from their American brethren. Brethren who, in the eyes of the outsider, the immigrant,
were negligibly distinct from the Canadian.
So I decided I would ask the experts. As Bernard Crick once said, “Boredom with established truths is the
enemy of free men.” And frankly, I was bored with the answers or lack of answers that I had been getting,
and had been giving to this basic question: “What is a Canadian?” And what is a Canadian in this so-called
borderless world?
So the question is bluntly put. While studying in the UK, I happened on a book of fifty essays
commissioned by David Ben Gurion, then prime minister of Israel, asking fifty sages from around the
Jewish world, both within Israel and in the Jewish diaspora, “qu’est-ce qu’être juif” — what is a Jew, the
question. The book was in French at the time. I read it with much verve, it struck an identity chord with me,
and thought that later on I would translate the project for the Canadian context, so I did, and it eventuated
in a book called What is a Canadian? 43 Thought-Provoking Responses. I won’t belabour the details of the
book, but only to say that the diversity of the responses I got, diversity that I could probably boil down to
about three schools of thought, the diversity was so great that the only coherent conclusion I could come up
with was to say, in short, as I did at the start of my remarks, that the Canadian is nothing more and nothing
less than a citizen of the state called Canada. As Patrick (Wile?) concluded in his famous essay on the
français, [“Est français celui que l’état considère comme tel.”] The Canadian is a fox, to borrow from
Isaiah Berlin’s overused metaphor. She stands for many things, but unlike the hedgehog, a member of an
older nation, a Persian, a Russian, a Hun, Chinese, a Korean, a Jew, she may not be animated by a single
coherent force, motif or logic. In short, the Canadian at this point in history has no essence. I repeat, the
Canadian is, in the only meaningful sense, a citizen of Canada. This Canadian is certain to be a citizen, and
you’ll know this very well, of the physically colossal and not negligibly populous federation occupying the
northern half of North America, consisting today of ten provinces, three territories, and operating under the
democratic, as Preston Manning was so inclined to say, democratic laws and political institutions
established in the constitutions of 1867, and of course in 1982.
And the Canadian — and here I’m getting back to the original point — as a citizen of the Canadian state, is
susceptible to all of the obligations, formal and informal, attendant to this citizenship, and is the beneficiary
of the vast complement of rights and freedoms secured by this citizenship.
So what’s the point here? The Canadian is a political creature. She exists only because the Canadian
political project exists, and will continue to exist only if the Canadian political project moves forward. In
other words, politics and political institutions, the means by which the business of the Canadian state is
conducted, matter existentially to the Canadian, existentially, or to paraphrase Pericles, “the Canadian may
not be interested in politics, but politics is interested existentially in the Canadian.” The Canadian is a
political fact, and the Canadian is a fact only in virtue of the political. This is the only constant — we spoke
about what’s constant in this political borderless world — this is the only constant that matters to the
Canadian as a Canadian, I repeat. The rest, as I have said humbly, is commentary.
A word about responsibilities, or better still obligations — I promised I’d touch on this. Much has been
made in literature about rights, and our famous framework, and bulwark of rights. I have little to add at this
point. But I’ll say without reserve that we are often loathe, we are loathe to discuss responsibilities, either
because we associate responsibilities with a totalitarian state from which my parents hailed, or more likely
in my view, we in the West, because life has become good, where life is good, have become somewhat
lazy. I use the word lazy with intent. La rectitude politique would call this laziness political apathy. I
should qualify this. Europe has just laboured heroically over the course of four-plus decades to create an
historic, magnificently complex union, a federation consisting today of twenty-seven countries and,
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bilingualism smilingualism, twenty-three official languages. Responsibility is hard work, hard and complex
work that often takes time. And in most cases, whereas rights in at least their negative, liberal conception
— responsibility takes work, whereas rights, often in their negative, liberal conception — can often be
asserted without having, as a citizen at least, to bat an eyelid.
What are my responsibilities as a Canadian? Not as a Westerner, not as a North American, not as an
individual or a human being, but as a Canadian? Because politics and political institutions, as I’ve humbly
offered, matter existentially to the Canadian, the first responsibility of the Canadian, again as a Canadian,
must logically be for the defence, the protection, of our political institutions. Nothing else. This defence
comes against all description of threats, potential and actual. Occasional threats to our northern sovereignty
by the Russians notwithstanding, our country has at this time few overt foreign enemies. However, the
unity of the federation, and Pierre Pettigrew will attest to this more eloquently than I, I hope, and can, the
Quebec question in particular remains a highly nuanced and precarious affair, one that will literally bite us
in the backside if we take our eye off the ball.
Other centrifugal forces. Tribal, regional, indeed diasporic, also tug daily at the coherence and unity of the
political federation. The integrity of our institutions, our political institutions is from countless quarters,
today more than yesterday, under constant and growing scrutiny. And, perhaps most importantly, in a time
of general western political apathy, I have called this laziness, our institutions must constantly prove
themselves relevant. The North American, again, the Canadian debate about the relevance of political
institutions finds much resonance in the political debate about the relevance of political institutions and the
constitution in the European Union.
To continue. Where our institutions are thought not to be relevant, or adequate, these institutions must
change. They must adapt to the times, and their relevance must be sold to the public. Here I speak of our
Canadian constitution, the most difficult of documents and institutions, our parliament, our political parties,
the civil service, the judiciary and affiliated institutions, at the federal level especially, but also at other
levels of government, provincial, territorial, municipal. I shall not go into details in these remarks, but
many of these institutions need and will need updating if they are to be relevant — if they are to accord
with the Canadian on the street, which or whom they purport to define. And popular political fatigue —
laziness — with a difficult and complex process of updating, is, dare I say it, not a good enough reason to
stave off what needs to be done.
As I approach my conclusion, and I promise I will conclude, let me just say that the impulse to protect and
adapt our political institutions should, we can all agree, be that much stronger simply because our political
institutions, our federation, works. And it works bloody well. Perhaps not at the highest quality of life in
the world at this point, but bloody well good. So it’s worth defending. Many may not feel Canada in their
blood, and here I get at a painful point, because Canada, simply put, is not a nation. Canada has many
nations. The Quebecois, the Acadiens, the Inuit, numerous aboriginal groups, perhaps Newfoundlanders,
perhaps even the Torontois, I might argue. (laughter) But on the whole, despite the protestations of many,
perhaps most famously Andrew Coin, the people of our country, taken together, quite simply do not yet
form a nation, certainly not in any thick sense. Quite naturally so, and perhaps that’s a good thing, because
the country is young, among the oldest federations and democracies in the world, but not very old at all in
the historical scheme of things. It will take centuries’ pained fermentation until we are in fact a nation, if
that is indeed where we want to go.
But do we? Do we really want to be a nation? Do we need the founding and popular mythologies and
creeds that go with nation-building? Or will some of these so-called unifying ideas — Britishness, antiAmericanism, peacekeeping, goodness, even multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism, or the new
borderlessness of which we speak today — as evidenced by our history, will some of these myths have
refractory effects in different parts of the country at different times? Simply because our country is huge,
the population so diverse, so repulsive to categorical reduction. Said the late journalist Bruce Hutchinson:
“Seeking the Canadian whole, I concluded that it defied logical analysis and lacked any outward
symmetry.” That’s quite beautiful if you think about it.
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For now, I’m talking not about nation-building, but only about state-building, and with this, the obligation
to defend the state and to adapt the state to the times, mainly because our state works and still works bloody
well in practical utilitarian terms. It’d be a great shame to lose it.
Let me close briefly, to ruminate on some possibilities simply beyond the utilitarian service-driven state
which I think many Canadians are all-too content with, and perhaps the excellent or great state or society.
For we are, I would humbly argue, not yet there. In 1963 — and this draws a little bit on my year in
Australia — and I know what I’m talking about because I was at the very centre of Australia in political life
for a year and studied quite a bit of a country that has great similitudes unbeknownst to us, with us — in
1963, the late great Australian public intellectual Donald Horne wrote a polemical pamphlet called “The
Lucky Country.” In it he wrote, “Australia is a lucky country governed by second-rate men who share its
luck.” (laughter) Horne was writing ironically. The lucky country, he said. Australians took his words as a
compliment. So I read this and I said, what a Canadian reaction. Horne was writing his classic in the 1960s,
a time of deep reckoning and transition for Australia as it struggled to come to grips with its Anglo-Saxon
“convict” stock genesis and its Asian geography — issues of new Asian migration and multiculturalism. In
some senses, Horne could well have been writing about Canada. I won’t go into our governments, and
whether they’re first-rate or second-rate, but I’ll say indisputably that we are a bloody lucky country.
Even at this time of apparent global transition and borderlessness, we talk about a borderless world and
here I would return to one of my original two volleys — but Canada, like Australia, is lucky precisely
because we have borders. Our lucky existence is all about borders. Australia is a continental island, and
Canada is a continental peninsula. Notwithstanding our constant border disputes with the United States, and
despite the current security-driven hardening of the American border, both realities which themselves
strongly undermine the premise of borderlessness in the question at hand, Canada is as stable and
productive as it is in large part because of geography. After we split the continental pie with the United
States and united our federation ad mare usque ad mare, we cannot deny that our borders have, for all
practical intents and purposes, insulated us from the most difficult and chaotic world. All the while,
comparatively, states, indeed nations, in the thick, or Isaiah Berlin’s “hedgehog” sense, Russia, Poland,
Germany, states with complex borders and many potential enemies at the gates have known regular
upheaval and tumult on their home soil.
So the Canadian reality, ladies and gentlemen, is not at all borderless, quite the contrary. Despite the
emergence of modern public goods, international commerce, transportation, communication, energy
finance, and most signally, as [?] writes, international policy cooperation amongst the governments, and
despite the advents of modern terrible public bads like epidemics, computer viruses, and religious
terrorism, our geography still makes us bloody lucky, must as it did at the start of the last century. Perhaps
a little less so, but still lucky. So if protecting or improving our political institutions are our primary
responsibility, as I’ve argued, an existential responsibility, then the fact that we remain quite lucky affords
us unusual, and to my mind, quite clear opportunities to build stronger secondary institutions coast to coast
to coast institutions — and this is the brick and the mortar of which I hope Preston Manning was talking —
these secondary institutions, as I’d call them, will doubtless indirectly support the political institutions and
the political unity of our country. They wouldn’t have existential value as such, for Canada, rather, they
would serve to create a stronger common or collective or general consciousness across the entire geography
of our land. Consciousness which, I would argue, is not yet there.
Unlike the task of nation-building, the establishment of these institutions would not necessarily be beholden
to overblown or perverse myths about essential Canadian traits. Rather, they would be grounded in the
fostering of excellence, yes excellence, amongst Canadian citizens in common activity, coast to coast to
coast, amongst Canadians, and in reasonably justifiable pride among Canadians in national achievement.
Again, beyond the purely tribal, diasporic, regional or utilitarian. I speak here in the main about our
country’s national cultural and athletic institutions, if you’ll allow me a final point, or more precisely the
inexplicable dearth of these institutions. If you’ll indulge me, and I’ll close on this hyperparochial note, I’m
a former soccer player, at a reasonably serious level by Canadians standards (laughter). As I speak at this
conference, a Canadian has for the first time in 18 years, if my history is correct, qualified for the final
rounds of the Canadian Tennis Open in Montreal. That’s not a good thing. Eighteen years. We just hosted
the under-twenty World Soccer Championship and went O for three without scoring a goal. In most sports,
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our international performance at the top levels is frankly inadequate, considering our luck, considering our
wealth. I stress the luck and the opportunity to build. Apart from the CFL, a half-American enterprise, we
have no coast to coast to coast elite sports leagues. None. In soccer, we content ourselves with one
professional team in an American league. In baseball, one American-dominated league in an American
league. In basketball, one American-dominated team in an American league. Even in hockey, the putative
national sport, we have no national league, no coast to coast to coast agora in the one sport that is most
commonly loved amongst Canadians. Instead, we seem somewhat content, and I stress content, with rump
representation. Six teams in what is now a mostly American league. Do we not see a problem in this? The
Australians, who today boast more than a half-dozen coast to coast to coast to coast sports leagues, and
perform disproportionately well in elite international sports, once won — this is a fact — zero gold medals
at the 1976 Olympics. These were, not coincidentally, in Montreal. They mustered the national will to
address this problem, indeed, they built on their luck. They would call our state of affairs today, in terms of
institution-building coast to coast to coast heroic amateurism. This is a failure of building, it’s a failure of
vision, and a missed opportunity.
For a lucky country, I’ll close on this, somewhat skeptical note, we are the poorer for it. My father has
today come around to feeling quite Canadian. He and my dear mother, who are sitting here today, have just
returned from a wonderful sojourn in Nova Scotia, uncharted territory for the typical Torontonian
suburbanite, but as I humbly offered at the start, proud Canadians that we may be, those in Farouk’s and
my generation, we have much work ahead of us. Thank you very much.
(applause)
DREW FAGAN:
Pierre Pettigrew doesn’t need any introduction, I think all of you would agree. I will say this about him:
he’s fully a Torontonian now. Many of you may not know, but he lives in downtown Toronto now, and the
evidence for him being an acclimatized Torontonian that I have — I hadn’t seen him in a year or more, till
yesterday — and the first thing he said to me is God, the traffic on the 400 is awful. (laughter) Right?
Right? Cabinet positions since 1996. International trade. Health. Intergovernmental affairs. HRDC, foreign
affairs. Pierre Pettigrew.
PIERRE PETTIGREW:
Well, thank you very much Drew, and indeed, I do feel I have changed nation, from Quebecois to
Torontois (laughter), to take Irvin’s words. And indeed, I already begin to bitch about the traffic, so that
makes me much of a Torontonian. I do want to thank very much the Couchiching Institute and the
organizers of this conference for having invited me again here. Last time I was here I was a minister, and
when you are invited somewhere as a minister, you never quite know if they want the minister or you.
(laughter) So I’m delighted you’ve invited me in my post-political life. It means that you have some
interest in Pettigrew as well, not only the minister.
But I am delighted to be here, and I will be a bit disorganized, because at the end of a process like this, I’ve
been picking up all kinds of things to which I feel I have to react, and as I’m one of the last speakers, I will
use this opportunity to share my view. I am terribly envious of the two young men here, who has spoken
before me. They said both something — a number of very important things that have really brought warmth
and heat to my heart really, basically. I do believe Canada is a country that needs to be reinvented every
generation. And when I see guys like Drew who’s accepted to join the government, Farouk and Irvin, with
their determination and their generation and say we’re ready for the job, you wouldn’t know what it makes
me feel. I just feel absolutely great, I think that Canada will be in fine hands with these nice young men and
women ready to take up the task where we have left it. And I want to thank you for your commitment to
this country, which is a very strange country. (laughter) It is a bizarre, it is a political country, it is not an
economic country. Economically it doesn’t make sense to have created this east-west alliance — the
economic trends were all north-south. So we have, by creating an east-west country, gone against the
economic trends. And it is a political country that was made as an alternative to the other republic to the
south, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job at it.
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Now, I am of the other generation, that is passing on the baton now. Canadians have asked me to pass on
the baton last January (laughter), I just want to make things clear here. I have left politics last January for
reasons of health and fatigue. My electors got sick and tired of me, so. (laughter)
But I’d like to begin — I’d like to open my remarks with one question. When we say, making diversity
work … I want to share with you the one question I have had as a cabinet minister for all of my years there.
I was always obsessed with one question on any important decision we had to make in the cabinet in my
Chretien and Martin years. Is it possible to live together equal but different? And to me there are three
important words there. Together. We have to live together. Equal, and accepting the differences. These are
the three key words in any area of globalization, in any area where populations mix a great deal, that are
absolutely fundamental. I have always been a great admirer of the Canadian mosaic Preston Manning was
referring to earlier. And I do believe that this mosaic is a wonderful concept. I take great pride of this
mosaic because I do believe that the French Canadians have contributed a great deal to imposing that model
in Canada. I think this is the reality is that Canadians could not propose only one identity to the groups that
were coming and arriving in the communities and the immigrants, because we had two official languages.
And from Day One, unlike the other Commonwealth countries, you know, Australia, and New Zealand, our
situation as a bilingual country, as a country with aboriginal communities that have a different role to play,
and then the French and the English, already we started off on a great foot. But this mosaic — two things.
First of all, it’s a lot better than the melting pot of the United States. Even in the United States now, the
melting pot is no longer functioning, because most Latinos [no me gusta?] melting pot. They don’t like the
melting pot, they are asserting themselves, and it’s a very strange turn of events where now, not only the
Latinos but all of the others who wanted to forget the languages as fast as possible are now going back to
school to learn the Italian of their parents or grandparents in some cases, and their language is something
we’ve been doing a very good job here in Canada. So my view is that it is a very interesting thing.
To take again the mosaic example, I would like to — Preston proposed one element of the glue and the
strong values, basically, the law, rule of law, and elements that have to be common to all of us. He’s
absolutely right. If I could complement another idea which I do believe we have to work very hard, like at
Heritage Canada, in the government and in our public society, public discourse, I would like to move from
a mosaic to a kaleidoscope. And some of the things I’ve been hearing in the last few days here in
Couchiching, where I heard that there were a lot more intercommunity marriages than I thought were
taking place. I was impressed by those numbers. And I believe that from the mosaic, we have to move to a
kaleidoscope, where colours mix a bit more, rather than keeping strictly their own brilliance with the
generations.
And I think it is taking place, because diversity — and that is another idea I wanted to share with you — is
a very relative element. I mean, to me, you know, what is your identity? Who are you, and what is
diversity, depends a great deal on your experience. When I was a kid in Quebec City, I was not from
Quebec City, I was from Sillery, a suburb of Quebec City, and when I’m in Sillery, I’m not from Sillery,
I’m from le Parois [St. ?], and that’s because [St. ?] has a very different status from other parois in Sillery.
But of course, when I’m in Montreal, I’m not from Sillery, I’m from Quebec. And when I’m in Toronto,
well, I’m not from Quebec City, I’m from the province of Quebec. And when I’m in London, England,
well, I’m Canadian, okay. The further away you are, the wider your identity becomes. So diversity is —
also, the diversity when I was a kid — there was not a black person in Quebec City when I was young. My
father was a municipal councilor for sixteen years — I remember when the first black family arrived in
Quebec City, my father, a good, small-L liberal too I must say, it runs in the family, but organized a huge
party to welcome the first black family in the neighbourhood. It was a big thing — he wanted to make sure
that all of the neighbours would meet them, and would establish a good personal rapport with them.
I went to Oxford for my studies. On the way back from university the first time, my father was very proud
to show me the first pizzeria in Quebec City, in the mid-seventies. We didn’t have pizzas. We didn’t have
Italians. The Italians stayed in Montreal. So (laughter) diversity is a very relative thing. Now there is
nothing that looks more like us than an Italian. And then the Greeks, and the Portuguese. Now immigrants
will come from Asia, will come from Africa, will come from the Maghreb countries. So diversity is a very
relative concept. I mean, to many of those who have come from either Russia, or Kenya, or other [lay of the
land?], they will say that as a French Canadian, and I mean — yeah, my ancestors were here on my
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mother’s side, the French side, were here in 1638, 1639. I have roots in this country. Yet, very often in
Toronto, I speak with more of an accent than these kids, who speak better English than I do. And
sometimes it’s held against us. I remember that The Globe and Mail loved marking my English when I was
a minister. But they loved marking a lot of things, but that’s fine. (laughter) That’s why the papers are paid
for, it’s not to say nice things about you. But I do believe very much that diversity is a very relative thing,
that it has evolved a great deal in our country, but that we have always sort of resisted it in Canada. I do
believe that now we talk about it as our, as a great asset, but it, gosh it’s been an asset that has been very
long to come, to be seen as an asset. When I was a kid, a lot of people hated the French language on their
Kellogg’s boxes and thought that French language should not be tolerated on the Kellogg’s boxes. So, even
though we’ve been here for a very long time. So this is the sort of process that takes a long time to come.
And diversity is something that we now thrive on. But honestly, it has taken a long time.
I’d like to say that I believe that fundamentally, change in the sixties and seventies, I think the imposition
of bilingualism on Canada — this is the way, this is something I think has to be understood — why is
multiculturalism more resisted in Quebec than in the rest of the country, is that it is still perceived in
Quebec as the price Trudeau had to pay to impose bilingualism. So we imposed bilingualism in ‘69, he
proposed multiculturalism in ‘71 to appease the rest of Canadians, particularly those who had joined the
country, and who didn’t like bilingualism, who thought that the French should be treated like any other
community of immigrants who arrived here. And multiculturalism is therefore now seen as a great thing,
but you have to understand that some resistance in Quebec will come from that history. Further, one of the
very few things we have had in Canada is a prime minister with longevity. Trudeau not only sort of shaped
that vision of multiculturalism, but he also created the institutions, first the Department of Multiculturalism,
second, the Charter of Rights, that have imposed that vision for the generations to come. Very few prime
ministers have either the vision or the capacity to build institutions to prolong that vision in the future. I do
believe that we have come at the end of that fifty-year thing which had started with Diefenbaker and
Pearson, but that Trudeau really sort of crystallized very well. Now I do believe that we are at the end of
that, and you kids, if I may say, will have to reinvent Canada again, and I am sure you will do a very good
job at it.
I believe another thing, another element I wanted to bring to your attention, where we are absolutely unique
on this, is that we have integrated the communities in the political life of our country, better than any other
country on the planet. I mean, I am an admirer of the Brazilians, Brazilians dealt very well with diversity,
Switzerland in lots of ways, I mean, but we are among the best countries on the planet. The caucus of
which I was a member for ten years, the Liberal caucus, which is a serious party in Canada, and it has
contributed to some years of governance, but what I mean, it’s not a marginal party, basically. Twenty-five
percent of the members of parliament of the Liberal caucus in which I sat were not born in Canada. I mean,
for a country that has nineteen percent foreign-born citizens, twenty-five percent of the members of
parliament of the government caucus were not born in Canada. Forty percent of the Liberal members of
parliament, either they or their parents were not born in Canada. I mean, there’s no other country on the
planet where forty percent of the members of parliament would not have been born in Canada — in the
country. If you go to France, you’re very lucky in the National Assembly, Assemblée Nationale of six
hundred people, to find one who was born in Morocco or Algeria, even though you have absolutely huge
numbers of people. So we are doing an extraordinary job at giving and sharing power with people who
come from the communities, and I think this is an extraordinary asset that is something that we have
absolutely to use in a very very strong term.
Now listen, I have lots of things — one thing on which I would like to conclude — I’m not sure it’s exactly
on topic, but frankly, I don’t care (laughter) — I don’t have a mike as often as I used to, so (laughter) — I
admired Preston’s discipline this morning. You were so good, Preston. He sticks to his ten minutes, how
does he do it? Anyway. (laughter) The diversity I am represent in Canada, having come from Scottish
background but integrated, assimilated in the French community very early on, is a very strange one, and
I’d like to raise your attention on that element of our diversity, that has contributed completely to shape
Canadians’ attitude to diversity. And that will answer a question that many of you have asked me in the
private conversations we have had. The Quebec question. What can we do on the Quebec question? We see
Mr. Harper now recognizing Quebec as a nation, officially, and giving it a role at the UNESCO and [?].
People are asking themselves all kinds of questions about what can we do about Quebec. It is an
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extraordinarily complex question. And I will explain to you why it is so difficult. If I look at the four most
important elements that have shaped this country in the last fifty years, what were they? I would think that
they were in the mid-sixties, the arrival in Ottawa of Trudeau, Marchand, Pelletier, direct sons of the Quiet
Revolution of Quebec who came to Ottawa to build a modern government to meet the challenge of the new
Quebec Quiet Revolution. These guys came and said Ottawa cannot continue to do things the same way,
and they completely modernized and built a strong government in Ottawa, but that was a direct — it was
the Quiet Revolution of Quebec that has brought that change and imposed it. Bilingualism is another of
those elements, again imposed by Quebec on the Canadian agenda. Multiculturalism, a direct result of it.
Charter of Rights. The Charter of Rights had been discussed in the faculties of law in Quebec for twenty
years, the civilist tradition brought us to talk about the Charter of Rights a great deal — imposed by Pierre
Trudeau on the other Canadians who fundamentally believed in the supremacy of parliament and that the
judges shouldn’t do it. There is a fundamental confrontation there. Now it’s adored, and the Charter is seen
as one of the founding elements, but I mean, you know, there again it’s the Quebec contribution to
Canadian identity. So from all of these elements — free trade with the United States under Brian Mulroney,
that is another element that would not have taken place if Quebec had not with Robert Bourassa as premier,
fundamentally imposed it on — so I look at you poor Canadians and say what can we do? For fifty years
Quebec has run the agenda (laughter) and we’ve shaped this country. What more can we do? And we go
back to Quebec, as a Quebec federalist, and we’re always seen as traitors to our race. And some of them
will even use the word “race” between English and French — it wasn’t between Africans and Asians that
there were races at the time, it was between the French and the English. So what can we do as a federalist
politician, you always lose in Quebec. You always lose, because the journalists, the historians — the pen is
blue. The pen is fundamentally blue, nationalist, and they will always say that we’re victims, and we should
have got more, and all that. But fundamentally, I think the Quebec federalists have done extraordinary jobs
over fifty years at shaping Canada in the way that certainly accommodates the country to Quebec values
and Quebec interests, but also contributed a lot to make Canada an exciting political project that needs to be
reinvented every generation.
So diversity, it is a very relative concept. I think we’ve been thriving on it, but I think honestly that the fifty
years we’ve had from the sixties to today, from bilingualism, multiculturalism, to the Charter of Rights, and
Canada as a political project needs to be reinvented again by this generation. And frankly, I wish you very
well, and if you need advice, come to see Preston and I. Thank you very much.
(applause)
Closing Keynote: Where Do We Go from Here?
August 12, 2007, 1:00 p.m.
JOAN JENKINSON:
Good afternoon. This is the post-lunch challenge, to try to keep you awake.
It’s my very great privilege to introduce the Honourable James Bartleman, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
By now I’m sure you’ve all read his very impressive bio in your program, so what I tried to do was to get
him to divulge some secrets that I could maybe share with you, but he hasn’t gotten this far and so close to
the end of his five-year term to fall for that, so that didn’t work. I do know that he’s a Couchiching veteran,
so I tried to find out whether there was any skinny-dipping activity in the history of his participation here,
but sadly I found nothing. So I failed as my role as the media person to dig up dirt that you’re all so hungry
for. (laughter)
Mr. Bartleman is a very unassuming man. I’ve only known him for a very short time now, and it’s been a
pleasure. He sort of has this quiet, handsome, Graham Greene thing going on, among other things.
(laughter) So he’s held some very interesting positions as ambassador and high commissioner, he’s patron
of a gazillion organizations and he’s had numerous honorary doctorates. My favourite thing, though, is the
Knight of Justice — I’m not sure what it is, but it sounds very cool, and I’d like to know how to get one.
(laughter)
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So in his spare time, he’s written four books, and he’s a passionate advocate for the elimination of racial
discrimination. He works enthusiastically for the improvement of opportunities for aboriginal youth, and
he’s a strong advocate in eliminating the stigma of mental illness, which I’m sure all of these things he’ll
talk to you about, and they’re all very fitting to close our conference. So I’m sure the protocol police are
waiting for me outside, so I’m just, without further ado I’ll hand it over to His Honour, James Bartleman.
(applause)
JAMES BARTLEMAN:
Thank you very much. I’d like to thank Haviva Hosek for phoning me two weeks ago and asking me if I
would be on a panel at one o’clock on Sunday, August 12th, and so I appeared, and here’s your panel.
Where’s Haviva? (laughter) And so, the price of that though, since I’m your one-person panel, is that you
have to listen to me.
I’d like to make a few points. It’s really a pleasure to be here. I’m a member of the Mnjikaning First
Nation, and the Mnjikaning First Nation is the community that you encounter as you drive in here. And this
conference is therefore being held on ancestral lands, and I have very deep roots to this area, and I consider
myself first and foremost a Canadian, and then I don’t find any contradiction in being a very strong
aboriginal Canadian but also, talking about mixed identities, I’m very proud of the fact that my dad, my
grandfather came from Scotland. And so I guess I’m a typical Canadian, or what we want to be. I do not
look upon my Canadian identity as a convenience, and I do not look upon my Canadian identity as being
just one of two institutions — I have a very great love of my country and a great feeling for my roots, both
aboriginal and Scottish.
In terms of roots, a family tree was done which goes right back to 1748, right here in this area. And so,
because, when the British came in, the chief here was a Chief [Nanagushkin?], the Chippewas of Lake
Huron and Lake Simcoe, it was one big group, and that was — he would be about my great-grandfather,
great-great-great going right back since it’s a direct line to him. The name changed to Benson in the late
nineteenth century, but it’s the same family, and I can trace my relationship with hundreds of people that
live in this area in the community out there.
I grew up in Port Carling, and the Muskoka area was the traditional hunting area of the people of the, the
Chippewas of Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. They were divided into three groups when settlement
came up, one group came here to Rama, one group to Georgina Island, one group to Christian Island. But I
visited, from Port Carling with my family, many times, the old Rama Reserve in the 1940s and 1950s, and
at that time Rama was a desperate rural slum. You could tell when you hit the reserve because the paved
road stopped and it resumed at the other side of the reserve, and the people on the reserve did not have
electricity, they were too poor for electricity. It was like going to live in the Third World, in the sense that
there were dead dogs and cats on the side of the road, the grass wasn’t cut, outhouses in the back yard,
broken car bodies lying around and people walking around with an air of despondency. Invisible visible
people.
And despite all of that, the people here were proud Canadians. They had an emotional attachment to
Canada because they had fought for Canada. They didn’t have the vote, but they were looking to what their
children and grandchildren would achieve, what would happen down the road when their rights were
recognized. And in 1960, they got the vote. But the people of this First Nations community on a large scale
in the War of 1812, and as you, with a knowledge of our history I’m sure all of you have, you realize that in
1812 the British army was tied up in Napoleonic conflicts, and if it wasn’t for the native people who
flooded in from these areas and came up from the Ohio valley, we would have been lost to the United
States. And of course that would have been the worst possible thing for the native people, because the
people in the eastern seaboard in the United States, the native people, were rounded up and banished to the
Midwest, Oklahoma and other places, and that would have happened to the native people here. But the
native people played a key role, and people in this reserve were central to that. And in the first and second
World Wars, a very high proportion of the men joined up from this reserve. My great-grandfather was
gassed in Belgium, and he died when he came back to the reserve, lots and lots of people here. All of these
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people did this without the rights of other Canadians, and then the people here gradually pulled themselves
up by their bootstraps, they created an industrial park, a marina, and then the casino, and they are the
largest employer of native people, the casino is, of any First-Nation community in Canada, and the largest
employer of people in general in this area. And so they have emerged as real leaders, both in the region and
in Canada.
And I often used to think, you know, because I was a great fan of the Couchiching conference, listening to
the CBC radio back in the fifties, I wondered what the delegates coming to this conference, because I
would listen to them, Lester Pearson and all these people would come, and they would talk about the great
issues of the day, just like we are — and I often wondered what they thought as they drove through the old
Rama Reserve, as they went by those dead dogs and cats and uncollected garbage and houses without
electricity, and people with no vote, and not allowed to even go buy a bottle of beer — this included the
war veterans — what they thought about those people. I imagine that they didn’t see them to a great extent,
or they said well, some things like the poor are always with us, you know, poor Indians are always with us,
their situation will never change. I wondered whether they averted their eyes when they came through the
reserve.
And even more recently, I was listening to a debate — Michael Ignatieff was one of the speakers, he was
here about ten years ago, when the discussion was on globalization. And I was listening to the CBC. And
he said, “if we’re not careful, we’re going to return to tribalization!” My God, surrounded. (laughter)
Surrounded. Didn’t he realize where he was?
And finally, I’m very happy to be here because this will probably be the last speech that I’ll be giving
before I step down as Lieutenant Governor in several weeks’ time. The issues being discussed here over the
last several days are ones which are important to all of us, to all Canadians and very important to me
personally, because I decided to become a socially activist lieutenant governor when I was nominated and
installed about five-and-a-half years ago. And I have used my platform to advance non-political, nonpartisan social justice causes which came out of my youth. And those reasons are personal. I grew up in
that era when Canadians were racist, as was discussed earlier, but we were also very racist at home and
moralistic abroad, in which we were always telling the Americans what to do, and how terrible they were
treating their black population, we were sending, having Humphries draft the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, but at the same time, native people didn’t have the vote, at the same time, black people
couldn’t get their hair cut in [Dresden?], at the same time Jewish people in Muskoka couldn’t stay in the
lodges, because they were reserved for gentiles, etc. etc.
So I grew up in that era, and in a sense I was, in my family — we were the stranger next door. My mother,
from this First Nation community, married my father when she was fourteen. He was a young white man
from Orillia, a labourer, Grade Four education, he had about a Grade Four — both of them had about Grade
Four educations. They moved from place to place and ended up in the village of Port Carling in the spring
of 1946. They went to Port Carling because there’s a little Indian reserve there, which is affiliated with this
reserve, and my mother had spent a lot of time there in the summer months in the thirties and the late
twenties. Our first home was in a tent on vacant land up by the village dump. We didn’t realize that it was
not really the best place socially to live, but it was a great place for a bunch of kids. My father bought this
old tent. He was making, I think, 40 cents an hour picking rock, working for a trucker. So we had this tent,
and it was a Rousseauian existence. (laughter) We had the first dibs on all the stuff in the dump trucks that
went by. And in those days, it was a time before garage sales, and in Muskoka, as you know, there are a lot
of rich tourists, maybe some of you, who have places up there. And now you can get rid of your junk by
just putting it at the end of your driveway and selling it. In those days, people put it out for the garbage and
it came up to the dump. So my brother and I would always follow the dump truck up and get all these
treasures. And in fact, the Port Carling Dump constituted my first library, because that’s how I learned to
read, because I got all these great comic books that tourist kids were tossing out — a little worn, stains on
them, but they had these captions at the top, or bubbles, and they related — I could relate them to what was
going on — and I learned to read up there. And it was also like having your private zoo, because there were
raccoons and porcupines. Some animals weren’t to everyone’s taste, because there were mice and rats and
things like that, but nevertheless, skunks, and the occasional bear. And it was also a private aviary, because
you had hundreds and hundreds of seagulls and crows, and they were always circling and cawing, and it
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was a real epiphany — not an epiphany, but a real consciousness-raising place to be. And then there was
the smoke coming up from the burning garbage, you know. And then, if you haven’t smelled wet cardboard
and orange crates burning, you haven’t lived. (laughter) And so I loved the village dump in Port Carling.
And as a matter of fact, the people of Port Carling last weekend renamed Island Park in Port Carling after
me. But they had asked me, what would I like named after me, and I said the dump road. (laughter) The
James Bartleman Dump Road. I thought that would be the highest honour that they could give to me. But
they, in their wisdom, they said that they no longer owned that road. The district only owned the Island
Park, and so it’s now the James Bartleman Island Park. But I’m going to put up a little barrier and charge
everyone two dollars’ entrance to it now. (laughter)
We moved that summer, to a summer cottage. My dad decided he really wanted to go north, and live up
near some of my mother’s relatives at the [?] First Nation, but my mother said we’d moved around enough
and the kids had to get an education. And so we moved into a summer cottage for the winter. Much better
to move into a summer cottage for the summer. The snow came in through quarter-inch cracks in the walls,
and just, at night the fire would go out, and at nine o’clock at night the temperature would drop to the same
temperature outside, and the four children, we would all gravitate toward our parents’ bed until it would be
six of us, in the morning, would be there when dawn came, and there would always be a covering of frost
on the top blanket, but we were snug in that bed.
And everybody was poor. We were poor, but everybody seemed to be poor in those days, especially in
Muskoka, in the post-Depression, immediate post-Depression period, so we didn’t care about being poor.
And we moved to an old house, my mother bought it for $275, it came with a, the floor was — the
foundations on one side were so rotten that the house leaned about eight inches, it was about eight inches
higher on one end than the other, but we couldn’t jack it up because the walls would have fallen right over.
So we had this old house, no electricity, coal oil lamps, had an old outhouse that my father constructed
from that “home hardware” of the time which was the village dump, he brought back four doors and two
pieces of plywood. He managed to get three doors together, but he could never figure out how to get the
fourth one on. Put a piece of plywood on the top. Cut a hole in the one that served as the elegant toilet, and
that was where — those were our toilet facilities for about ten years. But it was not as bad as it sounds,
because it was very ecologically friendly. (laughter) You could hear the birds singing. Of course, in the
winter it was like being in Lower Slogobia, snow would be there — you’d have to sit in the snow. And you
were never really lonely, because we had a ghost in the apple tree. Because our neighbours on both sides of
our house committed suicide, and one of them, the spirit was supposed to reside in our house, and actually,
I developed a communication with that ghost, but you’ll have to buy my book to find out more about that.
(laughter) Doug Gibson is clapping his hands.
So we were really at the bottom of the economic scale, but we were also at the bottom of the social scale
and the racial scale, because that’s when we ran up against Ontario of that period. We kids were called, you
know, you dirty half-breeds, why don’t you go home, they’d tell my mother, yell at her, you dirty squaw,
what are you doing here, go back to Rama. Very, very hurtful. Never, never forgot that. That’s where I
developed my passionate hatred of racism. But my mother also developed very severe depression and
suffered enormously, and that’s where I developed my great concern for mental health issues.
But not all bad. What I discovered was that having graduated from the library of the Port Carling Dump, I
went to the library in the Village of Port Carling, and found there a world which was open to me. And the
question was asked, what constitutes resilience among kids, earlier in the week. Some kids from poor
families do well, and some don’t, and some kids from well-off families don’t do well in school, and I think
it’s literacy. That’s my personal conviction. Because, in my case, learning to read was my key to loving
reading, which was the key to doing well in school, and then, big, big lesson for me, was that all these
people who called us racist names became our friends. They accepted us, and then I was encouraged to stay
in school, and then a wealthy American came along and sent me off to finish Grade Thirteen, and go to
university, join the foreign service, serve thirty-five years around the world.
But I never forgot those roots and those concerns and those lessons, those lessons of those early days. And
when I came back to be Lieutenant Governor, I decided that I, as I said, I would adopt socially activist,
social justice causes. And I saw that, in Ontario, that although there’d been great changes in the province,
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although the arrival of people from all over the world had forced society to adopt the laws and the Charter,
etcetera, to deal with racism, that racism remained alive and well in our province. Only, according to the
IPSOS-Reid polls, it was Muslims and Arabs who are now at the top of the hate list. Native Canadians were
second. They kept their respectable position as being discriminated against, and then you followed down.
And I visited many, many schools in the province talking to kids in the multicultural areas of Toronto and
elsewhere, and they were telling me that they were experiencing racism. So it remained alive.
In terms of mental health, in the interim I had gone into a deep tailspin, deep depression, suicidal, all the
rest of it, I was beat up when I was in South Africa, nearly died — you have to buy another one of my
books to read about that. But I was very conscious of mental-health issues, but saw that when I got back
here, that it remained a great taboo subject, and that very few people in prominent positions would even
speak about it. And so I joined that fight, to tackle the issue of stigma.
And I also saw, when I traveled to the North, throughout the province, visiting First Nation communities,
that as you went from south to north, you went from the first to the third world in terms of the native
communities. Rama, now called Mnjikaning, completely changed. It was prosperous, many other
communities in southern Ontario were prosperous, and I think one of the reasons is that the kids from the
First-Nation communities in southern Ontario mostly go to non-Native schools — they go to provincially
run schools where they have the same equal rights and opportunities as non-Native kids. But as you go
farther north, you fall right into the third world. And in about two-thirds of our province, which is reached
only by air or ice roads in the winter, it’s an area out of sight, out of mind, and people would be like I
imagine those delegates to the Couchiching conferences of the thirties and forties, they would see but they
wouldn’t see, or wouldn’t want to be bothered with the uncomfortable fact that we had the third world in
our own country. And the conditions were appalling up there, and as somebody mentioned, you know,
Veronica Lacey, the situation was shameful and all the rest of it, but no one talked too much about what
can be done about it.
I’d like to talk about the situation of native peoples and children if I may, for a little while, and what I have
been doing, because I have some positive things to tell you. Just briefly. There are three groups of native
peoples in Canada: registered Indians, Métis, and Inuit. The registered Indians, 720,000 roughly, fifty
percent on reserve, fifty percent off, 629 First Nation communities. The Métis, about 300,000, Inuit, about
40,000, and the good news is that there is a small but vibrant middle class of doctors, lawyers, teachers,
professional people, have emerged. Someone was saying, when we get a thousand lawyers, Native lawyers,
then you’ll see the change. Well, there’s 1500 Native lawyers right now, and so, and there hasn’t been any
change. There has also been a cultural renaissance. People are proud to be Native now. People look up in
their family trees, try to find great-grampa, who was Cree or something.
But the bad news outweighs the good by far. And I’ll just give you a few social economic indicators across
the board. In terms of prison populations, aboriginal adults represent 2.7 [percent] of the Canadian adult
population, but in 2002, 18% of people in jail. 28% of all incarcerated women are aboriginal. And should
the current trends continue, the aboriginal population in Canada’s correctional institutions could reach the
25% mark in less than ten years. And so, huge numbers are ending up in prison. In terms of health,
according to the health status of Canada’s First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples released by the Health
Consul of Canada in January 2005, you have lower life expectancies among Native people. Higher infant
mortality rates. You have tuberculosis, which still remains endemic in many areas. Diabetes, a terrible
problem where people, poor people are eating macaroni and not able to have proper diets. They are the
poorest of all minority groups. The income of on-reserve First Nations people is half that of the rest of the
country. Education levels are the lowest. 37% of non-reserve First Nations people have finished postsecondary studies, compared with the Canadian average of 58%. Unemployment: 22% across the country
compared to 7%, and that’s including places like Mnjikaning, where the unemployment would probably be
only about 5%. They live, in general, in overcrowded, isolated, and contaminated environments. Their
children are more likely to be born in poverty and to grow up in a one-parent family home.
Abroad, in our SIDA programs, we promote basic goals in terms of health, education, housing, and we’re
always running around saying we’re going to help the poor people of Africa in other ways in those areas.
And yet we have exactly the same thing here. Fifty percent of the fly-in communities in northern Ontario
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have been on boiled-water advisories for decades. People live in overcrowded conditions. In [?] and [?],
and I visit these places regularly, you have people living in packing cases. Packing cases. Old people with
tarpaulins from Canadian Tire for roofs. And this is sixty, seventy degrees below zero in the winter, and we
just don’t want to know about it. And in terms of education, even more distressing. And in terms of mental
health, the Senate report talks about the huge impact residential schools have had on the native community,
and then yesterday we heard from Bob Watts about that, about children torn from their own parents,
effectively orphaning children. Family violence and suicide. One statistic: in southern Ontario, a survey
found that 71% of an urban sample of women and children, and 48% of a reserve sample, had been
assaulted by current or past partners. The suicide rate in general among Native people is two to three times
the national average, and among young people it’s five to six times higher. And in Ontario, the situation in
the north is among the worst. And my focus has been on Ontario. And they, in the north, as I said, you go
from south to north, you go from first to third worlds. And in the north, you find that there are a
tremendous number of shocks occurring. The shock of culture, going from traditional hunting, gathering, to
the modern globalized world in which the culture and the self-esteem of individuals and of the groups is
being destroyed. You have the terrible shock of poverty, of 70% unemployed, people living on welfare,
many people no longer being able to supplement their diet with country food, the suicides being really sort
of a symptom of the problems.
When I first went into [?], as my plane was landing, I saw another plane waiting to take off, and a large
group of people there. It took off, and I asked the chief, I said, what’s going on? He said — I think she was
thirteen, a thirteen-year-old girl had just killed herself, and I said why? He said, well, she had no hope.
Then I went to — in [?] Lake, and I went to [] Lake after these events — three kids, twelve to fourteen,
hanged themselves, one girl on a tree in front of the school as her classmates came. So the grand chief and I
went up, because I normally go up when these situations occur, and talked to the kids, talked to the
families, to just try to bring comfort to them. We went in and talked to the kids in the grade seven and eight
class, there were only about twelve or thirteen of them left, and they had these hoods over their eyes, over
their heads, and they were looking down. They wouldn’t look up, and their eyes were glassy. They were all
in a state of terminal depression. Their friends were dying and they were making suicide pacts among
themselves. They saw no future for themselves. When they looked at television, they saw a world which
was rejecting them. They knew they had no — they were five or six years behind other kids in terms of
education, they had no future, and they just wanted to die.
The shock of lack of equal opportunities — funding levels for Native education are much lower than for
non-Native kids, and yet the costs are much higher. Poor governance. Three levels of government bumping
into each other — Native government, provincial government, federal government. I’m not blaming any
one level, but the result is poor governance. And so we talk in Africa about our aid programs, developing
supporting governance in countries in the third world, but right here we have clashing jurisdictions and all
the rest of it, and it is the kids who suffer.
And so this has led to a great sense of hopelessness on the part of the general population, and it has in some
cases among some native people — that the problems are just too great to be resolved. And so I thought —
you know, I’m not going to replace government, I’m Lieutenant Governor, but I am able to mobilize people
using my office. And so I adopt an approach of “no guilt, no blame, no entitlements, just be practical.”
Mobilize people of good will, and do things to complement what government should be doing or what
government doesn’t want to do. And so I then started by thinking to myself that what I felt was really
important when I was a kid, because what other reference could I have, was reading and education. If you
get people to be able to read and to have a decent education, they can be leaders in their own community,
they can feel self-confident and if they want to leave the community and go and live in Toronto or
somewhere, why not? They’re going to come here anyway, eventually, but why not have people who can
contribute to Canadian society? We need them in any case, because they are a booming group of young
people at a time when the population is aging. And so I began by focusing on just establishing libraries.
Could you believe that in these communities, there were no books in the school libraries? How could you
expect kids to learn to read if they didn’t have any books? Certainly they had no books at home. And so I
made an appeal through the Canada Newswire Service, two hundred community newspapers in Ontario,
and I approached the commissioner of the OPP in, this was 2005, and asked her if they could open up their
play stations as book collection sites — I had no money. And we received 1.2 million books, and we sorted
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them down to 850,000. Then I browbeat the military, and they brought books in on the ice roads to a certain
number of communities, and then a Native airlines brought in, flew in, many more, then I had enough
books to do virtually every First Nations community in Ontario, and 26 of the 28 friendship centres here,
all at no cost to the taxpayer. And then I ran, this year, another book drive, focusing on children’s books.
And this time the Toronto Police Services opened up their detachments, and people — and I focused on
children’s books — we collected 850,000, we distributed 550,000, sent four tractor-trailer loads to
Northern Quebec to the First Nations people. In the last several weeks we sent many loads to the
communities in Nunavut on the barge traffic. We even sent 15, 16,000 books to Grenada, because the
Prime Minister came and asked me if we could help, because of the hurricane there, and so $20-30 million
dollars’ worth of books done with the participation of citizens, tens of thousands of Ontarians became
involved.
And I think that’s one of the reasons, when we’re doing the, Adams was talking about the polls about
attitudes towards aboriginal people, and in Ontario it wasn’t so bad. I think it’s because people have,
despite problems in Ipperwash and elsewhere, people have been sensitized to the needs of the north by the
book campaigns up there. And then I thought back very much to the need for reconciliation and
inclusiveness, related to the themes of diversity we’ve been talking about. And what I had seen as a kid —
that people may call you a name one day, but a year later they may be your best friend — and what are you
going to do? You’re not going to say, well, I’m not going to talk to you again because you were mean to
me. You’ve got to live together. We’re not going to go away.
And so — but one of the great problems with it was this big gulf between Native and non-Native peoples.
And so I spoke to the chiefs, got them onside, spoke to all the school principals in the Native communities,
I wrote them, and then I approached the Ontario Principals Council, Catholic School Board of Toronto,
Toronto District School Board, and we twinned one hundred Native schools in Ontario with 100 nonNative schools. And so the kids can write back and forth to each other, there can be school visits. And then
I did all the same with Nunavut. All the schools in Nunavut are twinned with schools in Toronto, and it’s a
tremendous success, particularly the Nunavut one. Breaking down barriers between diverse groups by using
civil society.
And then I was very concerned at the suicide levels, and so then I ran five pilot mental wellness and
literacy camps for about 350 kids. YMCA, Scouts, and Frontier College ran it for me. I raised the money.
That went so well that I then went out and got all the teachers’ federations in the province — elementary,
secondary, Catholic, Ontario Teachers’ Federation, the Auto Workers, the Power Workers Union, DeBeers,
power companies, and then, most importantly, nine of the universities and four colleges. I made the point
that they’re just cherrypicking the good native students from southern Ontario. Those kids in the north need
to be developed so that they can go to university. And they bought it. And so they are supporting camps,
and right now I am running thirty-six camps for 2500 kids in Northern Ontario. And then I began to come
up with the concept of mentoring. And so I have the University of Toronto, Ottawa, Nippising, Laurentian,
they have each adopted a community — [?], Moose Cree, Fort Albany, [?] Lake — and they have agreed
that they would help those communities in their development, with social worker candidates, teacher
candidates, maybe a whole variety of things, but stay with them and develop them, and help develop their
education and then get their students to come to them.
And then, in the most exciting thing of all, I came up with the concept of a young reader’s program. And
then I went out, and I raised a million dollars from the civil sector, and I have 5,000 kids in this club, all the
kids in those remote communities, from K to grade five, and they receive brand-new books every three
months to keep. And they’ll get those for five years, I have it funded. And plus a magazine for kids. And
you should just see these kids. They love reading. Don’t tell me Native kids aren’t interested in reading. We
parachuted books into Fort Severn this year, because we couldn’t get in any other way. The whole
community was there to watch the parachutes come down. At Kingfisher Lake, I went in with the military
on a nice road, there were I don’t know how many dozens of people waiting there in the dark to receive
these books, just grabbing the boxes and going inside, opening them up, and the kids going and helping
their parents read. I said that it’s a shame that in our country, we have these conditions. That’s why I’m
spending so much time on the issue.
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And so my dream is that we can establish some day in Canada a type of youth corps — maybe it doesn’t
have to be youth — which would go into First-Nations communities throughout the north, maybe this is the
idea for Couch to run with, that they could — maybe not a company of young volunteers, of young
Canadians, but volunteers who would go in and work with the Native communities to help with literacy. I
know that the time has come for it. In Ontario, so many people have said that they would like to go and
volunteer in these communities, and why don’t we do this across the country? And the Native communities
will put in their own resources, because I make them do that — I send five volunteers per camp, or five
people from Frontier College per camp, and I make the band council pay for five of their young people to
work with them from out of their own resources. I make them put in an elder to talk to them. I encourage
them to put in language teachers, because you have to have grounding and pride in your own culture as you
learn to live in the broader Canadian community and the broader globalized community. It has to be a bird
flying with two solid wings in that. And so that is what I’m doing.
So, I don’t know whether, or to what extent, what I have been doing constitutes, provides any lessons that
are applicable to any other strangers next door, or any other marginalized groups. But I have demonstrated
that there is an enormous amount of good will out there in the Canadian population, certainly in the Ontario
population, because that’s where I’ve been working, to tackle social justice causes. And I think it goes
without saying that if you make progress with one marginalized group, that that creates an atmosphere or
an environment in which progress can be made in dealing with other disadvantaged groups. And this is
needed. Because as in this conference, and rightly so, as someone was saying, that you could not name all
the strangers. Even the term stranger, I think we all realize, is not really applicable. It’s not really
marginalized, they’re not really étranger, as madame said, but — you know, we spent about 80% of our
time talking about the problems of immigrants, about 10% about Native people, and about 10% about
Quebec, but Quebec is not a marginalized society. But there are many, many other sectors of society that
need help. There are 2.2 million disabled Canadians, and my successor, I am sure, will start to turn that
situation around in terms of their rights and their visibility, because he’s a handicapped lieutenant governor
who’s going to be coming in. But they need — we need — help. There’s three million mentally ill
Canadians at any one time. And people refuse to talk about the issue. And yet the help is available,
medically, if only they would seek it. And there are untold numbers of homeless people out there, so we’ve
got lots of marginalized groups that require assistance. And governments cannot or will not deal with all of
them. And so I would say, if governments can’t do it, let’s rally civil society, and let’s just do it ourselves.
Thank you very much.
(standing ovation)
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Appendix B: Speakers’ Presentations
This appendix contains the unedited notes and presentations submitted by some of the speakers.
Sophie Body-Gendrot: Is Diversity a Threat to Society?
In numerous societies, safety has become a worthy premium. Amplified media coverage on the tiniest
incidents, an overabundance of information concerning safety risks and the advice of experts in the
growing safety industry in turn create urban insecurity and fuel the demand for more protection. But why
does this endemic “insecurity” of our times — what Z. Bauman calls Unsicherheit and which could also be
translated as unsafety or uncertainty — focuses on life in large cities rather than on other forms of social
anxiety?1 Is city life condemned to be overshadowed by unexpected urban violence and its avoidance?
Issues of safety/unsafety raise deep and complex questions. Can populations be protected, without
jeopardizing liberties? How are European cities doing? What resources cities have to deal with major risks
and threats in current times of global uncertainty? How do they transmit a sense of order to their residents
as well as to the hyper-mobile actors on whom they increasingly depend? Can and should order be coproduced by institutions, private entrepreneurs and citizens? If so, what shape should this co-production
take? These are the questions I have asked myself for the past few years as I was associated with the Urban
Age program of the LSE and with other European networks related to fear of crime and urban disorders. It
meant travelling from one global city to another and in my field of expertise — safety, diversity and public
space — asking the local experts on safety what their riddles and answers were. I would like to share some
of their observations with you. This implies that I am not going to tackle all the issues that this question “is
diversity a threat to security?” entails. I will focus on a comparative approach and on cities. I have
structured my talk along several dimensions. First, after defining the terms diversity, threat and safety, I
will briefly point out that diversity has always been a dimension of urban life and that perceptions of
differences betrayed an ambivalent phenomenon, varying according to time, contexts and countries. Then I
will scrutinize the French disturbances in immigrant neighbourhoods in 2005 as a case study of diversity
interpreted as social threat before defending the idea that urban insecurity is frequently invoked as an
excuse not to live together. Is there a convergence among European governments, making use of diffuse
fears that people have and leading to new order regimes? Are civil societies’ capacities of resistance to such
instrumentalization?
We Believe That We Think with Words But Words Think Through Us
Why is the use of the term diversity so much praised those days? Obvious reasons come to mind which
have to do with different national cultures and histories. In Europe, societies acknowledging ethnic and
racial differences and minority rights should be distinguished from those with universalist perspectives. In
the first type of countries, a cultural trauma or threats have led to question multiculturalism and its
discontent. Take the Netherlands. Respect for cultural diversity was deeply rooted in Dutch society which
could claim success in its race relations. How could just the murder of one person, Theo Van Gogh, by a
radical Muslim, Mohammed Bouyeri have such far reaching consequences for the culture of control of the
country? How could changes in discourses related to immigration, integration and crime change so
radically and so quickly? According to researcher, W. de Haan, the traumatic event was culturally
interpreted as a wound inflicted to the cultural tissue of Dutch society. It shattered its belief in
multiculturalism and the wealth brought by cultural diversity. It allowed all kinds of negative stereotypes
related to Muslims to be openly expressed. Trust, loyalty and identity (belonging) were questioned. The
same development occurred in UK after the July attacks. In France, by contrast, where ethnic and racial
differences are not officially acknowledged, currently, the concept of diversity allows to tackle
1
More can be found in Sophie Body-Gendrot, “Order and Disorder in the Urban Landscape.” To be
published in The Urban Age. Edited by R. Burdett and D. Sudhik, London, Phaedon, 2007 (under press).
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discriminations in the workplace and promote upward mobility for second and third generations. France has
the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe. I will come back to this point later.
What about threats and risks as related to diversity? The key question that we need to bear in mind we think
of diverse and dense cities, it seems to me, is whether people are adaptable enough to get on with their lives
under almost any threat, or whether certain threats deeply unsettle populations I will distinguish two types
of threat. One linked to homegrown terrorism and the other to persistent delinquency in certain areas, both
linked to the perceptions of young males, very visible in the public spaces of immigrant neighbourhoods. In
the first case, it seems to me, people can make sense of bombs and of suicide bombers, they are aware of
what violence can do and why certain targets are chosen, they can handle their fears. The second case is
more complex, it relates to persistent threats felt by residents in low-income and marginalized urban
communities but also to the social threat they themselves represent for mainstream majorities. Such
perceptions vary according to gender, age, social class, the consumption of TV, the place where one lives.
Fear of crime is stronger if this place is filled with drug dealers in the public space, if rumours are
contaminating daily talks, if people feel a loss of social control over their norms and values, do not know
their neighbours, experience fears of downward mobility and feel powerless. As long as people have these
perceptions of unsafety, they become real. Their political impact is strong. They result in “minimum
security societies” as we see them developing in the U.S. (in Canada?) or in some countries of the South.
Such representations lead to lockdown strategies. Fearful people secede and lock themselves in (for
instance in gated communities) while pressuring authorities to lock others out (massively in prisons). J.
Simon calls these trends, “trends of exile and exclusion.” They are only beginning in Europe where
punitive populism is not as strong as in some parts of the United states, namely the South. But they
question our democratic values and the equality in the res publica, namely the organization of a public
conversation open to all and where all have the freedom to express themselves.
The changing role of the state is also an important dimension. While governments claim an increasingly
effective monopoly of “legitimate force” (or is it “legitimate violence”?) to maintain internal order, there is
a general distrust, more pronounced in Europe than anywhere else, of the protective role attributed to the
state. An “ontological” disenchantment with modernity or more simply with institutional efficiency lead
individuals to feel isolated and powerless when confronting larger problems.
Is this a new phenomenon? Throughout the centuries, urban historians in Europe have tracked the specific
links between the notion of urban unsafety and certain places and categories of people who were perceived
as “unmeltable.” Influential authors, such as Thomas Hobbes, Charles de Montesquieu, Alexis de
Tocqueville and Hannah Arendt, have problematized the state as dangerous and its political
instrumentalization of feelings of unsafety.2 Instrumentalization makes it easier to govern people and it
enables the mobilization of law-abiding citizens against specific targets. Consequently, it legitimizes
spontaneous social separatism. When society suffers, Durkheim observed, it needs to find someone to
whom it can link its pain, against whom to revenge for its disappointments; and those naturally selected for
this part are those who are already somewhat disfavored by public opinion. Parias play the part of
scapegoats. And he adds that to fight this evil trend, one wishes that governments should have the strength
to enlighten masses about the error in which they are maintained and rather than looking for allies in the
party of intolerance.
“Riots” in France: A Word Too Much?3
On November 12, 2005, a caption under a picture of burnt cars at Clichy-sous-bois, a locality at the
periphery of Paris, published by the New York Times read: “Disorders in immigrant enclaves in France
remind those of the 1960s in the U.S. or the riots in Los Angeles.” The media using indistinctively blanket
2
3
C. Robin, Fear: History of a Political Idea (Oxford, 2004).
For more, see Sophie Body-Gendrot, “Urban ‘Riots’ in France: Anything new?” To be published in Paul
Ponsaert, ed. Local security policy in theNetherlands and Belgium, Den Haag, Netherlands: Boom
Juridische Utig, 2007 (forthcoming).
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words like disorders, riots, disturbances, unrest, rebellion, confrontation, uprisingand many more make all
events look alike. Words are the fiercest enemies of the real, Conrad said. By using blanket words such as
riots in this case, they blended in the same category phenomena which are in fact distinct from one country,
one city, one month, one year to another. What they have in common is to evoke an unbearable threat to
social order. But then while the Anglo-American media emphasized the ethnicity of the rioters, the (italics)
clash of civilizations, the fury of Muslims of North-African descent, a Jihad-led revolt, the role of (italics)
French-Arabs of (italics) French-Africans and of imams, by contrast the French media focussed on the
structural causes of the events and on the consequences of globalization on post-Fordist, marginalized,
working-class areas.
The reasons why I do not use the term “racial riot” for these crumbly forms of violence are numerous. First,
the actors’ identity. The centrality of race, the singular history of African-Americans deported as slaves, the
denial of their full citizenship with the complacence of national and local authorities along centuries,4 then
the civil rights movement, the efforts launched by institutions in the 1960s to redress the ghettos’ situation
and the impatience with their slow pace are major elements in the understanding of the riots of the 1960s.
Minorities instrumentalized violence to intimidate majorities and the power structure and to force a
redistribution of benefits, power, mobility, etc. The Kerner commission pointing at “two societies, one
black, one white, separate and unequal” in 1968 encapsulates the American dilemma. In the French
problem areas, thirty to fourty different nationalities, some French, others not, live together, frequently in
massive housing projects, along with poor old-stock French families. Was it a racial/ethnic revolt? Not in
the American/British sense. Identities in France emanate from turfs rather than from ethnicity. Identities are
constructed, here and now, and they rarely emanate from skin colour or religion. Less than 20% of Muslim
youth living in banlieues practice their religion, as other youths in France. (Only 7% of Roman Catholics
go to church every week.) What took place was not a Jihad-led mobilization. Al Qaida has little interest in
events of this type located in marginalized areas. Tens of thousands of Muslim students in universities did
not mobilize.5 But unsurprisingly, every time collective problems of urban violence erupt in a country, the
issue of identities, of differences and of unity come forward.
It is complex to distinguish between the specific contexts and the logics which triggered the events and
their structural causes giving an impression of déja vu: they interplay in various degrees, according to
places and timing. It is not every death of a youth which causes civil unrest and it is not every banlieue
which is a springboard for violent reactions. Every locality is differentiated by accumulated/or lack of
social capital. Not all banlieues are poor, and even within banlieues understood as inner cities, there is
diversity. Male youths of Muslim culture — a deceptive word again — are diverse in these areas, some are
college students, some have regular jobs, some are high school students, others are jobless, their attitudes
and age vary.
The torched cars or phone booths which attracted the television crews were frequently limited to one or two
streets (as in Toulouse). In no locality did the events last more than four nights. Youths were stimulated by
the potential attention they could get when setting cars on fire, something very easy to do. Their pride was
involved, they had fun, they were not controlled, they were in competition with other youths. Most of all,
they wanted to become visible. “We are perfectly aware that there won’t be one camera left when all
becomes quiet again. We won’t exist anymore,” a young man explained to a journalist at Aulnay-sousbois.6 After the riots in Watts, in 1965, a young Black told the sociologist Lewis Coser that they had “won.”
But “the houses are ruined, the streets are spread with dead Blacks, the food and clothes stores are
destroyed and you need rescue,” Coser objected. “We won because we forced the whole world to pay
attention to us,” the young man replied. The police chief came here for the first time, and also the mayor
4
See I. Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in the
20th Century, New York, W.W. Norton, 2005.
5
See Body-Gendrot, “Police, Youth and Violence in France" in T. Tyler, ed., Legitimacy and Criminal
Justice: A Comparative Perspectives, New York, Russell Sage, 2007, forthcoming. Also, O. Roy,
“Intifada des banlieues ou émeutes de jeunes déclassés?”, Esprit, Dec. 2005, 26-30.
6
Quoted in Le Parisien, November 5, 2005.
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who until now had never left City Hall.”7 In the French case, the media acted as a magnifying glass for
isolated incidents, rewarding negative heroes, making sense out of the acts but after a while, denouncing
them for their excess.
In the French case, the disorders were not riots as defined by E. Hobsbawn: they were not a prelude to
negotiation, they did not lead to further social integration via their transformations into conflicts. What is
striking is that these youths asked nothing. They probably were aware that there were no structures, no
social proposal elaborated to engage in a dialogue with them. The nature, the contagion of the events and
their questioning of the state mark a major difference with those of the U.S. Researchers need thus to adopt
a “cautious ignorance” when analyzing events of this type and to make sense out of a multiplicity of
discourses and interpretations.8
That in 60% of the “problem banlieues,” there were no disturbances, that mayors, religious leaders, public
housing managers and parents calmed down the tensions with a lot of savoir faire due to the ordinary
violence that prevails in their localities is frequently overlooked. The mayors’ reluctance to resort to
curfews, for instance, and the restraint with which most of them as well as policemen, educators and other
social actors acted after a national emergency law was passed is a proof in point.
Civil unrest in deprived areas is a symptom of the disconnection of a distant central state and its elites from
the populations who are the most difficult to reach, who are the most unable to form coalitions with
political allies, a phenomenon well explained in Protest is not enough in the case of contesting racial
minorities in American cities.9
In France as in UK, urban unrest involves usually second or third generations who expect an equal
treatment. In Milan or in Barcelona, outbursts involve newcomers. But in UK in 2001 as in former East
Germany landers, the far right was one of the contenders against immigrants, which is not the case in the
French banlieues where the police were targeted as oppressive and unfair when they force the youths to be
at the right place at the right time. The multiple problems usually de-constructed by researchers
(unemployment, social integration, identity, citizenship, disempowerment, disenfranchisement, etc.)
leading to urban violence have in common to happen on restricted, segregated spaces, articulating multidimensional issues.
France is not the only country to blame for its difficulties in dealing with “visible minorities” (the very
word minority has no official recognition in France). The Netherlands, Belgium, UK experience similar
problems with some of their Muslim populations but at least local experimentations occur and can be
successful. In France, a strongly centralized country, with the largest number of civil servants (30% of the
working population) and the largest Muslim population in Europe, it appears that empowering civil society
in the solution of its problems is not a chosen option.
New “Order” Regimes in Europe
That the French state gave the impression that it dealt with an emergency crisis in November 2005 and not
with long lasting problems comes from the non-issue of the banlieues during the (very long) Presidential
campaign. Yet, this silence does not mean that the state apparatus did not take seriously what had happened
at the urban periphery and the presence of French of immigrant background in the government as well as
the visibility given to antidiscrimination bodies are signals of this awareness. Actually, the new order
regime which is aligning France on other European countries implies that no government can tolerate
lasting disorders. Disorders are a proof of institutional weakness which would be sanctioned by elections.
7
L. Coser, Les fonctions du conflit social, Paris, PUF, 1982, p.35.
The discourse, according to which the contenders wanted revenge against the Interior Minister who had
previously challenged their honor by calling them racaille (scums) seems to be an a posteriori
rationalization.
9
R. Browning, D. Marshall, W. Tabb, Protest Is Not Enough, Berkeley, Calif U. Press, 1984.
8
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Disorders, crime and terrorism are perceived as urban threats of our time. Consequently three strategies are
usually developed which converge in Europe. The first one secures space without mentioning threats
coming from specific groups. For instance, security measures displayed at airports or railway stations
where very diverse people intersect are applied to everyone. Policemen are required to patrol no go areas
for order maintenance.
The second strategy gives legitimacy to identification, surveillance and repression of individuals and
groups perceived as threats. In Europe, unlike the US (and Canada?), the threats are perceived as internal
and frequently linked to some disenfranchised second or third generation males. Some countries like France
prefer to act on risks without saying it via the savoir faire of intelligence services and specialized judges,
but others like the UK regularly warn the public about active plots from radical Muslim groups and
publicize the security measures that they take. Although security wins over civil liberties in the polls, this
strategy is always dangerous for a democracy. Targeting Others as is done in the U.S. appeals to a punitive
populism leaving the targeted very vulnerable against discriminations. Security measures frequently cause
more fear that they intend to thwart.
In an era of hyperactivity and ambiguity, security should be perceived as a thick public good, not reductible
to the activity of the state and this is the third strategy.
Norbert Elias has argued that a “civilizing process” has put an end to the masses’ tendency to seek justice
for themselves, and that urban safety has subsequently been delegated to professionals and specialized
institutions like the police and justice.10 It should be clear, however, that policing should be carried out by
consent as Sir Robert Peel advocated in 1829: “The primary objectives of an efficient police are the
prevention of crime and the preservation of public tranquillity.” He added that the police are the public and
the public are the police. To use Jane Jacobs’s more contemporary phrasing, citizens can indeed be the eyes
and ears of the street The public peace on our streets is primarily kept by an intricate, almost unconscious
network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, cooperating with community
policemen, she said. In London, for example, teams of six policemen patrol 630 wards across the city “on
their feet.” Their task is to get closer to the community, find out what residents want and simply be there.
Such an approach reconciles basic police work and specialized counterterrorism. It remains complex indeed
to extract information from terrorist networks. A small group of 10 people may accumulate 860 different
identities, 2,500 SIM cards, etc. It is only by cooperating with Muslim communities and especially with
women and the youth that information might begin to trickle upwards. Local law enforcers have to display
an “entrenched realism,” talk to moderate as well as to radical community and religious leaders, use
cameras and other technical resources, and rely on their know-how. Both intelligent counterterrorism and
ward policing display an excellent knowledge of cities and of their social environments. In a sense, the
British police is far ahead of other institutions in the co-production of solutions.
The issue, then, is one of communication supported by constructive partnerships. This is not an easy task.
Major cities need to win over bureaucratic habits of distrust in order to protect their populations and their
assets without jeopardizing citizens’ civil liberties. It is in the mayors’ interest to strengthen trust and thus
safety, emphasizing consensus and commonalities, and to stimulate people to stay rather than leave their
cities. It follows that more secure yet diverse populations can then bond and make links with various parts
of the city and beyond.
Safe Cities, Resilient Cities
Against a background of crime, fear of crime and indeterminate dangers, the continuous concentration of
diverse people in dense cities sends a clear message of resilience, and trust in their institutions’ efficacy and
in their own civic capacities. Historical accounts offer examples of individuals and groups resisting,
10
N. Elias, The Civilizing Process, Oxford, 1978.
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refusing to succumb to moral panic and acting in positive ways to perceived dangers in times of risk and
uncertainty.
Many people living in cities refuse to dramatize risks. 60 per cent or more Americans have done nothing to
change their modes of living or their mobility after 9/11. The same numbers are found in surveys of
Londoners and Madrelinos.
In marginalized and diverse areas plagued by delinquency, crime and disorders, can architects and planners
contribute to creating a sense of security in disadvantaged areas? Do they have a preventative role, perhaps
comparable to that of community-based organizations, in improving the quality of their environments and
the safety of the people inhabiting them? Is the civic participation of all, residents, employees, users of
space to be advocated?
An obvious lack of equality for all in the city is visible in the distribution of services. These inequalities
characterize the issue of safety. However, the range of people who are humbly trying to get along well with
one another in their neighbourhoods, despite the Babel tower that globalization produces, is very visible.
The advice offered by some public-housing residents, as well as the information circulating on web logs,
reveals the tactics deployed to avoid danger linked to empty space, parking lots, public transport, certain
times of the day and night. In poorer immigrant neighbourhoods, numerous residents manage risk
themselves.
The destruction of public housing buildings is one possible solution. It intends to yield space for different
groups and to promote “social mixing.” This solution is controversial and always causes pain to the former
tenants. However renewed public space can help a city find its own order and life. It is important to
create mixed used buildings, such as courts or malls as well as plazas, parks and gardens for those who
work, relax and live there. Residents should be proud of their public spaces, which contribute to their
feeling of collective belonging.
An example from the South in Mexico City, is offered by Chapultepec Park. Partly financed by the millionplus residents each giving one peso, the intervention is based on the utopian vision of parks as a means to
coalesce a great variety of visitors at the same time and in the same space. The designers aimed for a social
cohesion transcending class divisions, and relied on the universal needs for peace, entertainment and
recreation within cities. Every weekend, 17,000 users mix and mingle in the park without fear. Microcontrol systems are at work: security guards make sure the processes that organize movement smoothly are
respected. They act invisibly. They interpret situations, make sense of them. They represent, in summary,
an alternative to CCTV cameras and high-end surveillance technologies.
With all the precautions owed to the difference in political regime and social history, Shanghai and other
large Chinese cities reveal that new neighbourhoods, though often built on the space of which the old
populations have been brutally deprived, are not only made of buildings but also of a whole complex of
public services and spaces where citizenship can express itself.
An intriguing example comes from Johannesburg, the South African city most affected by crime. The
legacy of a brutal apartheid regime and fear of crime instrumentalized to justify spatially separate urban
forms make the poor very vulnerable.
The question of the state as a vehicle for producing the maintenance of public tranquillity and safety is then
set. Two conceptions of the state usually prevail. On the one hand, in France for instance, the role of the
state in its sovereign role is to produce forms of trust and abstract solidarity between strangers via its hold
on public space. This conception of security is social in the sense that the security of any individual
depends in some important ways upon the security of others. The other conception leaves the state out,
because it is perceived as infringing on citizens’ freedoms and it emphasizes self-help and privatization as
virtues. But in this case too little state is a catastrophe. Despite a strong constitution, the “right to life,” the
right to stay alive is not respected and the poor are killed by neglect. The state is then held accountable by
the courts to protect its citizens from violence Struggles occur here over rights because institutions are
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unable to secure them. There is no doubt in my mind that when the state is weak, the language of rights
must be strong.
In Conclusion
Cities have resources to confront threats coming from diversity. It takes time, patience, imagination, skills
and resources to bring areas back to life and make diverse people live together, but it does happen.
Inclusive, unexpected spaces send out powerful message. Each “solution” for change reveals a mixture of
various imaginations, voices, expertise, trust and political will. Specific demands from a population can
lead to better governance and to partnerships between city residents and public and private agents — bus
drivers, street cleaners, car park attendants, caretakers, street-level bureaucrats — who already contribute to
a sense of safety by their very presence. Trust between citizens and these more or less visible alchemists
give each user (resident, user, commuter, investor) the sense of belonging to a shared urban space, which
can become synonymous with the absence of threat.
One may feel safe within a crowd when demonstrating on large avenues of Mexico City, Bogotá or Rio de
Janeiro, as diverse as that city may be, and despite high homicide rates. This lesson is drawn from the
various megalopolises I observed. The question that comes to mind concerns the exceptional character of
urban innovations. How often can large-scale or small-scale experiments be launched with success? And
why? And should they be duplicated? How can trust and consent to change be expected in times of high
uncertainty? As in the above quotation by Durkheim, governments should have the strength to enlighten
masses about the error in which they are maintained and rather than looking for allies in the party of
intolerance, they should organize forums where people can talk about fears, racism and xenophobia.
Yet civic mobilization does not occur overnight — it takes time and effort to build trust and commitment.
Only more inclusive cities can eradicate both lethal threats and various forms of urban fear which are
continuously instrumentalized by the media and self-serving politicians. Social order and disorder are
deeply intertwined. What needs to be examined is the emergence of stable/unstable city spaces in the
context of urban change and global flux of immigration. Police maps and spatial representations of crime
hotspots need to be contextualized with the links and boundaries between diverse groups of people
(differentiated by income, ethnicity, gender, age, culture, status and lifestyles) in the city and the built
structures. Only then does the complex urban landscape of safety/unsafety emerge in a way that goes
further than the separation between law-abiding citizens at one end and criminals at the other.
Reforms happen, they happen in cycles, their effects wane, and then political will, control and commitment
are needed again.
Farouk Shamas Jiwa: Notes for “What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without
Borders?”
Introduction
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.
My presentation takes inspiration from two warmly reinforcing aspects of my life
• My experience as a “young,” transnational immigrant to Canada
• My work as a Global Youth Fellow with the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, through which I
have been investigating, at a preliminary level, the relevancy of concepts such as multiculturalism,
diversity, and the pluralism of identity for Canadian foreign policy.
The major points I am trying to stimulate debate on today are the following:
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• First, Multiculturalism and diversity have important implications for Foreign Policy, and vice versa. This
presents possible opportunities as well as challenges.
• Second, the multiple identities and affiliations people have reason to value (which I will refer to as the
pluralism of identity) may or may not offer something for foreign policy, and vice versa.
• Finally, I will suggest some possible avenues for how could deal with the complexities that arise on these
issues.
I should note that what I say today are my own views and thus do not reflect the views of the Government
of Canada (the Department of Canadian Heritage), where I am formally employed, nor of the Walter and
Duncan Gordon Foundation.
Personal
Let me begin with a story. Those who know me, know that I like to share stories. I think in some respects
this might also speak to the point raised yesterday morning’s session on the opportunities of understanding
between Aboriginal peoples and immigrants to this country.
Last Spring my partner and I travelled to the geographic centre of Canada, Baker Lake, which is in
Nunavut. In the short time we spent there, we came in touch with some of the real challenges the
community in Baker Lake is facing: I remember being struck profoundly and personally by a connection I
had with the people there, the land, situation of the community, the feel of the community.
On the flight back down South, I was trying to make sense of this connection: it was clear to me that a big
part of this connection was because of my own background, my own identity and diversity.
• I was born, and grew up, in Africa (Tanzania, Kenya Zambia) to parents of Indian descent (one parent
who was born in India, the other a third-generation “Indo-East African”)
• I am a Muslim
• I have lived and studied abroad (Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, etc.)
• I have travelled extensively (Uganda, Malawi, France, South Africa, Zimbabwe, India, and Sweden)
• In Canada, I have lived in Alberta, Québec, and Ontario, and have visited many other parts: (British
Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick, and Nunavut)
It was also in this vein of examination that I chose to examine for my Fellowship, at a preliminary level,
what if anything multiculturalism, diversity and the pluralism of identity means for our foreign policy.
Background
First, by way of some background, multiculturalism/ diversity in Canada, it seems to me, has been used to
justify and/or inform some Canadian foreign policy roles. Some examples include:
• Sharing our expertise on managing multi/diversity with others
• Sharing expertise in federalism
• Consultations with Diaspora groups on post-conflict reconstruction and security issues (e.g. Haiti and
Muslims)
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• Strengthening trade relations and capturing markets (diaspora/Team Canada missions)
• Representation on international institutions (e.g. La Francophonie, Quebec at UNESCO, involvement of
Aboriginal peoples Summit of the Americas)
To further understand the underlying motivations of these issues and gauge the opportunities and
challenges associated with them, I interviewed leaders in journalism, academia, politics and government,
civil society, and so forth, in Canada, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.
Today I will focus on my Canadian interviews.
Findings and Themes: Multiculturalism and Diversity
Generally speaking, many informants agreed that multiculturalism and diversity were and are important for
Canadian foreign policy.
Why? Many people believed that this was true because FP is a means of defining and expressing what and
who we are as a country and what are our national interests and values.
At the same time, however, some were not sure if there always was a direct relationship between
multi/diversity and foreign policy, but there nevertheless there is some sort of relationship between the two,
at least indirectly that is. Quebec and the Iraq war, our involvement in Haiti and the Ukraine as a result of
these groups in Canada.
In terms of some of the opportunities that multiculturalism and diversity offered for Canadian foreign
policy.
First, many people said that that in many respects we are already taking advantage of some one these
opportunities. e.g. The role of Quebec at UNESCO, etc. consultations with diaspora groups etc
In fact, the diaspora or Canada and their transnational networks were seen as an advantage in other ways as
well:
The use of members of diaspora groups/transnational networks by tapping into the assets that diasporas
bring: linguistic skills, knowledge of culture/country, religion, business contacts, etc.
In terms of the potential challenges that multiculturalism and diversity presented for FP, there are three
interrelated ones:
• First, with the increase in bringing in people of diverse backgrounds, there is a perception that some of
these multicultural groups will engage in illegitimate activities such as terrorism in Canada and/or be
involved with this overseas. In some respects, some people spoke to the challenge of integration and
ghettoization
• Second, some felt that there was a risk that Canada’s FP positions, as a result of lobbying or not, may
instigate or exacerbate tension/conflict in Canada among communities.
• E.g. The strong stance the current government took vis-à-vis the Israel-Lebanon situation last year (see
as a result of the Jewish lobby)
• Third, a feeling existed that that the lobbying efforts of diaspora groups’ were actually derailing
Canada’s FP interests (note that I said interests, not values). Furthermore, that our politicians often
leveraged political advantage by acting on the appeals to diaspora groups.
Findings and Themes: Pluralism of Identity
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In asking people what they thought multiple identities and affiliations could potentially offer for FP, some
interesting points came up as well.
In terms of some of the opportunities, people noted the following:
First, some said that they liked the idea because it implied a FP seen through a “hospitality of difference”
within Canada and outside of Canada. That is, as an international expression of our diversity that united us
with the diversity inherent in the world.
Specifically, one person said: this was an idea that has the potential to take us into a universe that goes
beyond seeing Canada as a rich, North American country of European stock, and which brought us into the
realm of human rights.
In terms of the potential challenges associated with the pluralism of identity and FP, the following were
mentioned:
1. It makes thinking about FP a hell of a lot more complicated. For instance, we have to think about not
only a persons or a community’s ethnic or religious background, we in fact have to think about how FP
would affect people or communities based on gender, sexuality, and so forth.
2. In a stream of multiple identities and affiliations, how do you find the ones that unite us as Canadians and
could inform our FP.
3. Interestingly enough, it was when I asked about the pluralism of identity that the idea of dual citizenship
came up. That is, thinking of things in terms of a pluralism of identity in this case legitimates one identity
over another.
• How therefore do you know when a Canadian chooses to be a Canadian when she or he lives in Hong
Kong or Lebanon? (There is a loyalty issue/”Casual Canadians”)
• And what happens when someone who holds dual citizenship gets embroiled in difficulty or gets in
trouble in the country of their other citizenship?
How do we try and make sense of all of this?:
We have looked at the multi and diversities, and pluralism of identity, their opportunities and challenges,
what how do we make sense of these?
Specifically on the issues of multi and diversity:
Multi and Diversity:
1. Interesting to note: One of DFAIT’s reponses to the link between the Muslim community and FP:
Muslim Working Group (done in good faith, no pun intended)
• Brings up the question of the understanding of the complexities, dynamics, and diversity within the
Muslim community? Would my voice as a Muslim from Kenya have the same consideration as a
Mulsim from Syria?
• To what degree does this policy response actually create the potential for exacerbating stigmatization
and discrimination, make a community feel they are under the microscope in Canada?
• Are we looking in the right direction with this institutional response? Are there other things broadly
speaking that would ingrain a sense of understanding cross-culturally, across religions, the space of
dialogue.
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2. Who gets access to lobby the government? Who represents who in the name of Haitian community? and
why is this important?
• Because much as we know depends on who has the time and wherewithal to be involved, that is who
can care about FP?
On the issue of the Pluralism of Identity:
It does make it complicated. But perhaps it does enable us to continue to be sensitive to these differences in
FP. E.g. one of the biggest lessons on the conduct of war, for instance, the experience and effects of war is
dramatically different for men and women, and children … with of course, women and children
disproportionately affected.
Second, when we are developing FP and our engagement in different countries, can we take the challenges
of multiculturalism and diversity at face value — black/white.Sunni/Shia. Not entirely, I think. E.g. in
South Africa, the divisions were not only between black and white. One equally big challenge is that at the
same time South Africans are wanting to reassert their African identity, a lot of South Africans are
xenophobic against other Africans (CLASS).
Third, when it comes to the issues of Dual citizenship: There are indeed some deep technical, diplomatic,
and legal issues involved when “attachments” or “identities” conflict. E.g. There have been incidences
when dual citizen Canadians travel and enter their other country of citizenship and when they get into
trouble, or worse tortured or killed, leaves us with some real challenges.
BUT WE SHOULD NOT lose sight of the economic and global opportunities that dual citizenship offers.
We should not get lost in a debate about our where our loyalties lie. E.g. Lebanon — I think we need to ask
ourselves if we would we have reacted the same way to Canadian in Western Europe as opposed to
Lebanon? etc.
Finally, let us not lose sight of the fact that our multiple identities connect us to the world beyond our
border, a world that is in Canada today. What this suggests that through our connections internationally we
come to appreciate, I would hope, how the opportunities and challenges that people outside our borders
face are similar to ours, and vice versa, as well as our commonalities with others: E.g. how a woman in
Canada may be able to understand and fight for the equality of women overseas. And, similarly, how a
Mulsim woman from elsewhere can be a lawyer and fight for the rights of woman in Canada.
So what, if anything are some practical things we can start to think about:
Opening doors –
What I mean by this is that if there is a perception that some groups have access to decision-makers more
than others, and that there is an inequality in this, then it implies that government must have structures in
place to ensure that all voices get heard. And I mean that this should be available not only in times of
developing our international policy agenda, but when those decisions and input is needed on a day to day
basis.
In other words, as Tariq Ramadan said, there needs to be a duty of consistency in terms of access
Second, Structural Issues: here I a talking about getting those diverse voices in the government, so
recruitment etc., but also a dialogue between those make decisions on our foreign policy and those who
work on immigration issues: That is, what are the real challenges/sentiments the multicultural communities
in Canada are facing, on the ground so that we do not end up with ad hoc solutions to problems and
understand those people and communities that seem to be in the orbit of FP. Without a question, in our
quest for equality, it means enabling those who come to Canada to be in a position to take part in the
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foreign policy debates on an equal footing. And this means, that at the very least, they need jobs, they need
opportunities to get involved, they need to be built into networks.
Third, I think an argument can be made for Education:
Schools: If we can agree that our schools are the promoters and arbiters of our values, they are also the
seats of learning about our neighbours, our solitudes. So this means not only giving an accurate picture
about Canada’s histories (conquest, colonialization, as Bob Watts pointed out) but also seeing the diversity
of Canada reflected in those histories. I would also add in being cognizant of the international dimension of
our education and moving beyond the Western, as Marie McAndrew pointed out.
Fourth, Civic and Global Engagement: I mean sports fields, I mean investing in our communities in our
neighbourhoods and across Canada so that we can engage with each other, getting communities connected
with technology, and to invest in the power of individuals to make connections with the world outside of
them. That is what creates loyalty. That is what creates the Canadian identity, by giving people the reasons
to value being a Canadian amongst the many identity variables that we have.
Definitions
“Foreign policy” is taken to mean the actions, roles and expression of a country beyond its borders.
“Multiculturalism” refers to societies that are non-homogenous as a result of active immigration policies;
For example, Canada is a “multicultural” society because of active immigration from non-traditional
sources of immigrants since the 1960’s.
“Diversity” on the other hand describes societies that are non-homogenous as a result of active immigration
policies but also more generally is a term that recognizes other key pillars that make that society nonhomogenous (e.g. in Canada, our French/Quebec, British/ English, and First Nations/Aboriginal/Metis
history).
Finally, “pluralism” refers to the many factors that make up an individual’s and/or collectivity’s identity
beyond just race, colour, ethnicity etc. (e.g. pluralism = race, colour, ethnicity, religion + gender, political
inclination, profession etc.)
For the sake of completeness, I define one other term: “identity”, which is intimately tied to the concepts
above. “Identity” is taken to mean the facets of an individual and/or collectivity’s being that s/he (or the
collectivity) has reason to value, whether this is colour, race, culture, language, gender, etc.
Marie McAndrew: Reasonable Accommodation: Foundations, Guidelines and Issues
Origins and Foundations of the Concept of Reasonable Accommodation
• Following the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, several judgements:
Bhinder (1985), O’Malley (1985), Renaud (1992), initially related to work relations, then to service
delivery (Meiroin, 1999; Multani, 2004).
• A core concept: indirect discrimination; “even in the absence of the intent to discriminate, a rule or
practice that appears neutral and that is applied equally to everyone, but that excludes or disadvantages
certain categories of persons disproportionately, may constitute an infringement on the right to equality.”
• In such cases, it is incumbent upon the management either to modify the rule or practice in question or, if
it can be demonstrated that it is central and necessary to pursuing the organization’s or institution’s
mandate, to correct its discriminatory effects.
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• Reasonable accommodation is therefore an exception granted to a person or a group of persons upon
whom a universal rule would have a discriminatory effect, on grounds prohibited by the Charter, and
infringe upon the exercise of their fundamental rights.
• It implies the search for compromise, on both sides, as well as a negotiation “in good faith” by the
institution at stake.
• Its realm of application extends therefore well beyond the question of ethnocultural or religious diversity
— it touches upon all sub-groups protected against discrimination by the Charter.
• Conversely, given the requirement to proove discrimination and infringement on fundamental rights, the
obligation of reasonable accommodation is clearly more limited than the relevance of accommodating
diversity for the sake of « corporate interest » (for instance, to ensure a better efficiency of services).
• In this regard, the distinction between fundamental rights (ex.: religion) and economic and social rights
(ex.: culture) is central, since they don’t require the same level of active promotion by the State.
• The main limit which can be invoked by the management to justify the denial of certain requests, in the
case that a rule or practice has a discriminatory effect, is that of undue hardship, that is, when the
suggested solution challenges the very capabilities of the business or the institution to carry out its
mandates.
• Ex.: financial costs; organisational factors; magnitude of risk; etc.
• The compatibility of accommodation with the respect of fundamental rights guaranteed by the
Canadian charter must also be insured. In other words, one discriminatory practice cannot be
remedied by another (“two wrongs don’t make a right”).
• However, many legal grey zones surround the concept of “reasonability” as applied to services and
especially those who have an active role in promoting common values and citizenship, such as education:
• The concept of « undue hardship » refers to the functionality of an accommodation, whereas the debate
surrounding many reasonable accommodations has to do with their compatibility with the institutions’
mandates.
• During the negotiation of an accommodation in a School or childcare services, two parties are
negotiating on behalf of the interests of a third party (the child): complex legal guidelines which are
absent in employment or other services.
• The respective power of society and the parents to define the values to which future citizens should be
exposed.
• Age of access to the “moral majority.”
• Nature and limits of parental authority.
• Beyond the concept of undue hardship, the management can also consider criteria listed by the Supreme
Court in the case of laws in order to evaluate the legitimacy of a limitation to rights, on behalf of the
collective interest (Hoakes test, 1986) :
• The urgent and justified nature of the situation.
• The connection between this limit and the pursued common good.
• The propotionality of the limitation of rights with the urgency of the situation it aims to correct.
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Guidelines Put Forward in Quebec Official Documents: A Plethora of Documents
1990 Let’s build Quebec together. Policy statement on immigration and integration.
1993 La gestion des conflits de normes par les organisations dans le contexte pluraliste de la société
québécoise. Brief from the Conseil des relations interculturelles. (no english title)
1995 Religious Pluralism in Quebec : a Social and Ethical Challenge. Brief from the Commission des
droits de la personne.
1997 Cultural and religious diversity : a Study of the Stakes of Women. Brief from the Conseil du Statut
de la femme.
1997 Un Québec pour tous ses citoyens. Brief from the Conseil des relations interculturelles. (no english
title)
1998 A School for the Future. Policy Statement on Educational Integration and Intercultural Education.
2003 Religious Rites and Symbols in the Schools. Brief to the Minister of Education, Recreation and
Sports, from the Comité sur les affaires religieuses.
2004 Laicity and Religious Diversity. Brief from the Conseil des Relations interculturelles.
2005 Reflections on the Scope and Limits of the Duty of Reasonable Accommodation in the Field of
Religion. Commission des Droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, Me Pierre Bosset,
research director.
2006 Secular Schools in Quebec: a Necessary Change in Institutional Culture. Brief to the Minister of
Education, Recreation and Sports, from the Comité sur les affaires religieuses.
Two Main Characteristics
• The near-exclusive link between reasonable accommodation and integration of newcomers (or
participation of cultural communities).
• With the exception of “legal” organizations, the adoption of a wider perspective, where reasonable
accommodation and adaptation to diversity to promote integration are either undistinguished or
approached on a continuum.
Consensual Guidelines
• Fundamental democratic values (gender equality; childrens’ rights; non-discrimination …) [all]
• Other rights guaranteed by the Charters [CDP, 1995, MELS, 1998, CAR, 2003] (safety; freedom of
choice for individuals; access to services).
• Linguistic choices of Quebec [MCCI, 1990; CRI, 1997]
• The laws’ binding norms [CDP, 1995; MELS, 1998]
• The functionality of institutions [all]
• The impact on integration and participation
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• No permanent parallel services [MCCI, 1990]
• Better to accommodate than to exclude [CSF, 1997]
• The negociation of an accommodation as a practice of citizenship and an opportunity for civic
education [CAR, 2003]
• The distinction between the secularism of institutions and that of clienteles, particularly captive clienteles
[CRI, 2004; CDP, 2005; CAR, 2006]
Legal and Practical Issues to Be Further Explored
Legal Issues
• What is the impact of the « individualistic » interpretation of the concept of religious freedom by the
courts on the capacity of institutions to keep to an accomodation accepted by the « organised »
community and/or a large majority of users? (ex.: the CSDM’s « jewel » versus the Multani ruling)
• Is it possible to distinguish the political instrumentalisation of cultural practices, from genuine religious
requirements, especially in the context of Point 1?
• Can one distinguish the legitimacy of accomodations:
• According to their segregative (parallel services or activites) or integrative (adaptation of common
activities) impact?
• According to their positive (adding diversity to the institution and its norms and practices) or
subtractive (diminishing diversity to which one user (exemption) or all users (censorship) are exposed)
character?
• To which extent would a definition of reasonability that respects the complexity of the role of
schooling in a democratic society be upheld?
Practical Issues
• Given the complexity of the issues surrounding reasonable accommodation, and the fact that many
clarification and instrumentation needs of managers and professionnals are not currently met, what would
be the best training strategy to put forward?
• Assuming that the conditions that require and legitimize an accommodation or an adjustment are fully
mastered by all, would managers and professionnals within public or private institutions be able to resist
the daily « anthropological » pressures of diversity?
• How could they be helped to resist that which is unacceptable?
• Would the necessary means for supporting the change of unacceptable practices among some clients
belonging to religious minorities be available?
• How can we better work with and support organisations representing religious minorities, in order that
they contribute to the development of identity moderation and an aptitude for compromise among some
of their members?
• Understanding the role of religion in a modern and democratic society?
• Understanding the difficulties experienced by their children, caught between two value systems?
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Some Ambiguities of the Current Public Debate and How to Correct Them
• Distinguish adjustments (voluntary accommodation of diversity in order to promote « integration », as
defined by government policies) from reasonable accommodation (partial correction of an infringement
on fundamental rights or equality, mandated by law, whether or not it appears to promote « integration »
in the short term).
• Further separate the issue of reasonable accommodation from that of integration of newcomers: changing
religions, or attenuating the intensity of one’s religious fervor, is in no ways an indicator of integration in
any democratic society. Contrary to adjustment (culture, language), accommodation is therefore not an
exemption « while waiting for them to integrate ».
• Distinguish fundamental values from majority or consensual values: in democratic societies, fundamental
values are defined by the Charters or the Constitutions, precisely to be protected from changing public
opinions.
• Better understand the relationship between diversity and fundamental values (ie. not to oppose them).
Reasonable accommodation calls into play a conflict between two fundamental values or two rights, of
equal importance (no order of priority in the Charter), for which a balance must be found.
• Promote the use of an inclusive and « win-win » language. Reasonable accommodation is not about us
(the majority) « granting or refusing them (the minorities) a priviledge », but is about us (the collectivity
of citizens) agreeing both about the need for better recognition of diversity and the limits to its expression
that renders it compatible with other fundamental values.
• Refuse to let the tree hide the forest: the few very real excessive religious accommodations reported in
the media should not make us forget that, on the whole, institutions are far from being fully adapted to
the presence of people of different origins, not to mention here their mere representation and
participation.
Ratna Omidvar: Remarks at the Couchiching 2007 Conference
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you about institutions and diversity. Let me start by
talking about the institution that I work for — The Maytree Foundation, which is a relatively small
foundation trying to make some big changes. As a private foundation we have our own endowment and
invest a significant part of our resources in helping Canadians and Canadian government understand and
work better with migration.
We do this for a sound business reason. We know that the prosperity of our nation and that of urban regions
is closely tied to the prosperity of all the many immigrants who flock to our urban centres. We therefore see
our engagement in migration and its attendant issues as a wise investment of private money for public
good.
We have developed a particular way of approaching conversations that deal with issues of diversity,
multiculturalism etc. We are always practical, we focus on the lived reality of people’s lives, and we don’t
spend hours looking into a crystal ball arguing the strengths or weaknesses of the multiculturalism model.
Rather we deal with its practical expression and focus on finding tangible and doable solutions that have
reach. This is because we know that in centres like Toronto and Vancouver Diversity simply IS.
In this discussion about institutional responses to diversity, let me start by giving you three examples from
the corporate, public and not for profit world.
Markham, Ontario is home to one of the most ethnically diverse communities in Canada with over 53% of
the population being derived from immigrant communities. A local bank noting the typical height of
residents in this community made the very wise business decision to lower the height of the bank counters.
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In another case, the Royal Bank of Canada decided to stop asking potential job applicants for place of
education in the first screening process. This resulted in applicants from a myriad of educational
institutions world wide progressing to the next screening phase. Each of these measures has in subtle ways
changed the operating behaviour of the two banks in question.
The Boy Scouts of Canada, a venerable institution on the other hand has been rather late in waking up to
the fact that the world changed while they were sleeping and or scouting (girls were only permitted to join
in 1994). Once a powerful global movement, its membership today is in decline and the institution has
begun to realize that if it does not adapt itself to appeal to youth of many cultures and many interests it will
become less and less relevant. Its motto now is “Be Prepared For Diversity”.
One of my favourite institutions is The Toronto Public Library. It is also the most aggressive in reaching
out to a diverse base, because as it says, if it does not do so, it runs the risk of becoming obsolescent. The
library has extended the traditional concept of a library as a place to read and borrow books to a place
where a multilingual audience can access interpreters, prepare for citizenship classes, receive help with
employment and so forth. It is no wonder then that the Toronto Public Library enjoys the largest circulation
of all libraries in North America and records more public visits than any other public library system in
North America.
Each of these institutions is motivated by a common factor — the need to capture a customer base, the need
to stay relevant in a changing world. Each has enjoyed different degrees of success.
The question of institutional responses to a growingly diverse constituency is an important one because
institutions are the best mirrors of society, its beliefs and values, reflecting back to us who has voice and
power, who is included, whose needs are taken into account, and who matters. Institutions are important
because they express our ideas of social order and cooperation, making and enforcing rules and policies
governing our behaviour.
However as society changes and evolves, so do institutions. Think for example of marriage as an institution
and the changes it has gone through in the last two decades — or family, for that matter. At a certain time,
some institutions may appear to be unchanging, but they are in fact a snapshot of our values and
behaviours.
Institutions, particularly public institutions charged with ensuring and safeguarding public good are
especially important in this discussion because they are the living expression of our commonly held values.
The laws of our land, the constitution and the charter are possibly the best and highest example. Whether
we as individuals like it or not, or whether certain institutions with their own expressions of encoded
behaviour and values like it or not, we must all bend to this highest expression of our public will.
Discrimination against women, gays and lesbians, racial minorities has not stopped because of the charter,
but it has become much more difficult for institutions to openly practice such behaviors. Some of our more
important charter challenges have served to clarify the interpretation of the charter in law.
At a more practical level, our hospitals, schools, libraries, universities are places where we live out many of
these values and attached behaviors, and thus they become central in the discussion on social cohesion, a
discussion which has become so much more important today given the many divides — rich/poor —
urban/rural — minority/mainstream — eastern/western — national/transnational that we face. They define
us, give us purpose, motivate us to action and reflect our collective choices (either good or bad). They have
therefore a special responsibility to reflect the people and the thinking of the times.
This question of institutions and their response to diversity is also significant because it allows us to focus
on ourselves as a society. In too many discussions, too much attention is paid to the deficits in minority
communities, how we need to “fix” them and help them adapt, what services they need, how they should
change to fit our way of doing things — and not enough attention is paid to the deficits in our society, in
ourselves and in our institutions, that it is not just a one way street that will take us to nirvana, but a two
way street.
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But there are limits to the two way street. If there is one type of institution that occupies centre stage in the
life of many Canadians, it is religion. Religion is all the more important because the reach of its value base
extends far beyond its organized practice. Many religious institutions have their own sets of laws and rules
of conduct which may bring them into direct conflict with the laws of the land or our constitution. Religion
I think does not adapt well to — as Will Kymlicka described, the “culture of rights.” And
“Fundamentalism” has found some expression in all of the major religions. I would be one of the first to
say, that when religion and the law come in conflict, our law must be supreme. An important reason that
newcomers — our diverse population — choose Canada is that it is a free and prosperous country. We need
our shared institutions to reflect this.
Evaluating Shared Institutions
How well are our shared institutions doing? Based on the data, apparently remarkably well in excluding
many Canadians, women, aboriginals, visible minorities and immigrants.
Let me frame my comments within a factual base
• In 2001, immigrants comprised 18% of Canada’s population. The vast majority choose to live in
Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. Calgary is enjoying newfound popularity as well.
• By 2017, 22 per cent of Canada’s population will be foreign-born, a level not seen since 1911-31.
• 2017, visible minorities will form anywhere from 19- 23% of our population and will constitute
majorities in the Toronto and Vancouver regions.
• Unlike other nations, our diversity is and will continue to be truly global. The US is a story of two
cultures — Blacks and Latinos; in Germany it is mostly Turks; in France it is mostly Arabs from the
Magreb. Canada’s population is the most heterogeneous and truly multicultural.
• Immigration will continue to be primarily a tale of three cities. In Toronto, South Asians alone will cross
the 1-million mark, the biggest concentration of a visible minority group in any Canadian city. This
would also make Toronto the biggest Western centre of that diaspora outside the Indian subcontinent. In
Vancouver, Chinese will be the biggest visible minority (591,000), while in Montreal it will be blacks
(200,000).
• By 2017, for every 100 people who look like me and who are leaving the workforce, another 145 of me
will be ready to take their place. For every 100 of people who look like, let’s say Michael Adams leaving
the work force, only 75 will be available to enter the workforce
• In addition, Canada’s aboriginal population is the only group enjoying a growth in birth rate. The number
of young aboriginals in cities like Winnipeg is growing.
Aside from these demographic factors, we need to be aware of generational and intergenerational
distinctions. Frank Graves of Ekos Research predicts a radical paradigm shift between the under 40s and
the over 40s. Young Canada he finds is “unremittingly more diverse, more cosmopolitan and more
internationalist — the new breed is colour blind, more anti war, less paranoid about terrorism and not
terribly ideological. Its ethnic diversity imbues it with a different conception of the nation state, one less
tied to the traditional French-English, two founding-nations concept of Canada.”
Political Institutions
Now that we know what the lay of the land is, let’s see how well our institutions have done in responding
to diversity. Let’s start with our political institutions. When we look at the machinery of our parties and
elected officials, we seem to have a “stop and lurch” kind of scenario.
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• “The representation of women in the House of Commons has reached a plateau with only 64 (of 308
spots) women sitting as Members of Parliaments. The figures are not much different for provincial and
local governments — hovering around the 20% mark. With all the noise that our political leaders tend to
make about the participation of women in electoral life, the results are very discouraging. In 2006 federal
election the highest proportion of women is found in the New Democratic Party, where women constitute
36 per cent of the nominated candidates. Thirty one per cent of Bloc Québécois candidates are women.
Despite Martin’s past enthusiasm, only 26 per cent of the Liberal candidates are women. Among
Conservatives, just 11 per cent of the candidates are women.”11
• In the most recent 2006 general election, 24 visible-minority candidates were elected to the 308-seat
House of Commons. The overwhelming majority of these suburban representatives are of South Asian
descent.”12 In the City of Toronto, the last election left us with 4 of 43 city councilors who were
minorities, down from 6.
• Voter turn out is low — at the federal level it hovers around 60%. At other levels it can be lower. A look
at selected communities13 from across the country tells us that only 31.7% voted at the municipal level in
elections held between 2000 and 2002.
• Neighbourhoods in Toronto with high numbers of immigrants are much less likely than other
neighbourhoods to vote in both municipal and provincial elections. The voice of newcomers and
minorities — and therefore the voice of Toronto — is muted in the critical realm of [government]
decision-making.14
In order to reinvigorate our political institutions with new voices, new blood, new ideas and new levels of
participation we need to consider new ways of doing business. Three ideas are:
1) Proportional representation for all its merits and demerits, would have a positive impact on enabling a
diversity of opinion and representation to emerge. This fall Ontarians will get to vote on whether the want a
mixed member proportional system. If this system is adopted, we would be able to clearly see who is on the
list and who isn’t — in other words, how well our parties are doing in including Canada’s diversity.
2) Changing the eligibility criteria for who votes in local elections would have the same impact . Extending
the municipal franchise to landed immigrants would bring another 263,000 voters in Toronto into the tent.
It would enable us to get their civic attachment earlier. It would also make local government more
accountable to residents that are directly affected by municipal services such as garbage pick up and
policing.
3) We need to encourage a range of minority communities to take a more active part in electoral politics.
For example standing for election or working in a campaign. We at Maytree are so concerned about the
absence of new faces and voices that we have recently launched a “School for Civics” where we hope to
train a new generation of activists on how to run for public office and get elected.
11
12
13
14
“Once more, few women, fewer minorities” By John Gray, CBC.ca Reality Check Team January 03,
2006 http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/realitycheck/women_minorities.html
Seeking Inclusion: South Asian Political Representation in Suburban Canada Electoral Insight –
December 2006
www.elections.ca/eca/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=146&lang=e&frmPageSize=&textonly=false
These numbers are presented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Quality of Life in
Canadian Communities: Dynamic Societies and Social Change. Theme Report 2. Annex 8a. It presents
the voter turn out of Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Windsor, London,
Sudbury, Waterloo, Hamilton, Halton, Peel, York, Toronto, Niagara, Kingston, Ottawa, CMQ, and
Halifax.
Municipal Franchise and Social Inclusion in Toronto: Policy and Practice — Available at:
www.inclusivecities.ca
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Public Institutions
I have proposed some ideas for improving our political institutions — let’s move on to our public
institutions.
Let’s consider our agencies board and commissions. These organizations have an enormous impact on the
everyday life of Canadians as they help to run essential services at all levels. But how representative are
they of Canada’s diversity? The answer is they are not. Often appointments are made through the networks
of existing board members — and these networks don’t include Canada’s new citizens.
In the spirit of practical tangible solutions, the Foundation launched an initiative two years ago to “green”
public agencies, boards and commissions with a candidate source list of qualified prescreened minority
candidates for appointments in our regions agencies, boards and commissions. We act as match makers, as
head hunters, as capacity builders. We have made over 100 of appointments to various agencies, boards and
commissions — for example to provincial agencies such as the LCBO the Ontario Science Centre, to
Seneca College; to municipal agencies such as the Board of Health or the Library and to community
agencies such as Dixon Hall. These appointments are important because the work of such agencies
permeates almost every aspect of our daily life. We have also gathered and published a set of promising
practices that enable agencies boards and commissions leverage to diversity without falling victim,
accidentally or deliberately to tokenism. This is a small effort gaining in prominence — our effort to help
institutions get beyond their own circles to new people and new ways of thinking. In one way we are
extending the notions of the old boys club to create a new boys and girls club by extending and bridging
existing networks with new networks and creating new social capital.
Now lets turn to our public schools — arguably our most important public institutions. Public Schools are
particularly significant in knitting together a cohesive society by transmitting values and behaviors, both to
the children and to their parents at home. The current debate in Ontario, which is going to heighten in the
October elections, about the extension of public funding to religious schools, from this perspective cannot
be a good thing. There are those we would argue for an end to the Catholic School board as an alternative
… even if it is politically somewhat undoable. At this point 53,000 students are enrolled in Ontario
religious schools and if all these schools opted for a share of public financing it could cost us close to $ 400
— 500 million a year — money that would be taken from the public school system. Two options: Extend
funding to all religious schools or revoke funding to Catholic Schools. There is a third option — let
sleeping dogs lie.
As for universities and colleges — these more than any other institutions, represent the greatest attraction to
a diverse first or second generation population. There is no doubt that access to these institutions is not an
issue for certain communities — the campuses at McMaster, University of Toronto and Ryerson have many
South Asian, Chinese and Iranian students.
However, colleges and universities still have a long way to go to making themselves relevant to the
academic learning needs of a first generation immigrants — who do not necessarily need a full course of
studies or another full degree, but some of this and some of that to prepare them for entry into the work
force and here I am not talking about continuing education programs. To give you one example, the Faculty
of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto has developed an excellent program with a high success rate
(close to 93%) of enabling foreign trained pharmacists to gain their pharmacy license and practice in a
demand occupation. This is good. But the price tag for individuals is high at roughly $ 13,500 for one year
of training. Provincial governments need to help universities and colleges to go the next 100 miles by
helping newcomers access Ontario student loans. Right now, OSAP is only available to full-time students
in degree or diploma programs. Many of these bridging programs — while incredibly helpful in getting
skilled newcomers in work commensurate with their training just don’t qualify.
Private Sector Institutions
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The private sector, like the public sector is large and complex. But let’s consider how some of the larger
companies are doing. In the private sector according to the Spencer Stuart Canadian Board Index 2005,
women occupy 12.4% of board seats on Canada’s largest 100 publicly held companies. Only 44% of these
boards have at least one minority director.15
Going a little deeper, a recent Catalyst survey found that visible minority employees of Canada’s top
employers are less engaged, feels less valued and do not believe that they have the same opportunities for
career progress as their counterparts. They are also more likely than their white colleagues to feel that who
you know, is more important than what you know. In other words — the old boys club is alive and well,
and some visible minorities feel left out. But action on this front is possible too. One practical example is
the Toronto City Summit Alliance is considering launching a Leadership Network that would mix and
mingle leaders from immigrant and ethnic communities with the Old Boys Club.
New Institutions
I also want to allude to new institutions that we have created as a response to demands created by diversity.
In the past three decades, there has been a significant increase in the creation of organizations, primarily not
for profit, serving the many settlement needs of newcomer communities. It has been through these
settlement organizations — many of which are ethnic specific that government has provided services to
newcomers. Although they are often under funded, because of the services they provide, these institutions
have gained legitimacy and a fair amount of political clout. I am not disputing their legitimacy or the need
for the services they provide to many newcomers. There is however one unhealthy unintended outcome —
we have created a silo industry, and by expecting these institutions to do the heavy lifting of settlement and
integration, we let the rest of society off the hook. If we build diversity and the diversity lens into all our
public institutions, then we will not need separate institutions serving diverse communities.
Fresh Institutional Behaviour
Finally, I want to close with some lessons from the new technological tools that are springing up around us
almost in a daily fashion.
Who could have thought of the power of the web 20 years ago, or the power of You Tube or My Space
today. Remember what I said about the generational divide? Some of the chief characteristics of these new
methods of communication, taken up by so many of our young people, can tell us something about how our
institutions should adapt for tomorrows diverse generation.
Let me tell you a bit about two of these new technologies.
First Wikipedia. This is an online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to. You can find information on
virtually any subject — it isn’t peer reviewed or edited. Instead, anyone can create an account and edit the
material. It is written collaboratively, it is edited by anyone — and as far as I can tell, surprisingly accurate.
Second Facebook. Facebook is a website that allows people to create a profile of themselves that shares
their interests, their photos and their websites. It allows people to join networks based on geographic
location, and groups based on interest. They can create event invitations, and everyone invited can see the
RSVPSs. Facebook’s uses will only grow, now that it has become a platform for which anyone can create
applications.
What do these new tools tell us about what young people want? And what does this mean for institutions?
Characteristics of New Tools
15
As cited on abcGTA website, from: Spencer Stuart. (2005). Canadian Board Index 2005.
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• Flexible — can mean more than one thing to more than one person (for some, Facebook is a way to catch
up with old friends, for others a way to share pictures, for others still a way to meet new people since you
can search for “friends” on networks by criteria)
• Quick — provide information instantly –e.g.: Wikipedia –anyone can update this encyclopedia right
away, making it timely
• Adaptable — new institutions change to adapt to society — e.g.: Facebook is now a platform where
techies can create new uses for it — like sharing videos, drawing, horoscopes
• Transparent — it’s not that people don’t care about privacy, but thanks to the internet there is a new
sense that information and institutions should be open to everyone who wants to know e.g.: Facebook —
people use their first and last names, their contact information, and post pictures of themselves, although
some do make restrictions about who can see this information
• Vertical not hierarchical — question the expert — e.g.: wiki allows everyone to add material)
• Imperfect — there is some acceptance of imperfection, because accepted that people will be critical of
information presented (e.g.: Wikipedia –encourages visitors to be critical of information presented)
• Representative and open — Anyone can join
Conclusion
So in closing, I wonder how well the institution that we are all a guest of today, Couch, as it is
affectionately known, measures up to these indicators.
Is it flexible? Is it quick? Is it adaptable, or transparent, is it vertical or is it governance heavy, does it
tolerate imperfection? Does it see immigrants and minorities as an asset to invest in or a problem to
manage? Does it want to engage with issues of diversity with energy and vision, or does it do so slowly and
reluctantly?
I guess my bias is clear — I think institutions should be eager to change, at the very least to follow the
letter of the law of the land, and at the very most to hopefully fully embrace its sprit. For Couch I wish the
latter.
Thank you very much.
Irvin Studin: What Does Citizenship Mean in a World without Borders?
I want to thank the board of directors of the Couchiching Institute and the organizers of this great
conference for inviting me to participate this year. Indeed, I hope that, after hearing what I have to say, they
still invite me back in future years … I should also say at the outset that it is an honour for me to share the
stage with my fellow panelists — Pierre Pettigrew in particular — a distinguished public servant and, by
dint of the difficult political period in which he served, a warrior of many years for our country. Drew I had
the pleasure of meeting not too long ago in Ottawa and Farouk and I crossed paths at the Privy Council
Office several years ago … But he, like I, has many miles to go before he sleeps … For our generation has
great responsibilities and much work to do … I will try to touch on some of these responsibilities in my
remarks …
Let me start my formal remarks by sounding a slightly iconoclastic or dissident note, as is my wont, and
just to make things a little interesting — to stir a little … Two things: first, I disagree with the premise of
the discussion — to wit, that our world — or that Canada’s world — is somehow borderless and that our
identities are somehow singularly ambiguous or complex as a result … And second, and this in way of
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propelling forward the discussion on our rights and responsibilities — in particular, our responsibilities —
in this turbulent, fascinating world, that a Canadian is … nothing more, nothing less, than a citizen of a
state called Canada … All of our rights and responsibilities as Canadians — originate in this basic reality
… The rest is commentary … (Asked what is the central lesson of the Torah — the old Testament — the
rabbi answers: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The rest is commentary …)
A brief digression, if you’ll allow me … But not as long as my father’s famous digressions, which are truly
tangents on tangents on tangents …, until the entire original premise of his point — if not the entertainment
value of the intervention — is lost in the proverbial ether …
I am the first born — the first son — of détente Jews from the former Soviet Union … My parents hail
originally from the historic port city of Odessa. Odessa, as many of you will know, is today part of the
Ukraine (Yushchenko country, not Yanukovitch), but it was originally founded by Catherine the Great as a
key strategic post in Imperial Russia in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish wars … We speak today of
borderlessness and fluid identities: well, Odessa, like most port cities, was hyper-cosmopolitan — far
moreso back then than in the present during the Soviet period — and its geist-its spirit — hyper-borderless
… In the 19th century, the city was Russia’s biggest port — home not only to Russians, but also to
Ukrainians, Cossacks, Tatars, Moldovans, Greeks, Turks, Poles, and, of course, Jews. I could go on …
After Warsaw, Odessa was the most important city in Eastern European diaspora Jewry … A real
intellectual nerve centre … Isaac Babel, Noam Biyalik, Zev Jabotinsky, Leon Trotsky: they were all Jews
who hailed from Odessa … And these Jews played massive roles in some of the major political movements
of the last century and a half — not only in Russia, but in Europe, and over time, the world. I speak here of
anarchism, communism, Zionism, nationalism … But the basic point is that Odessa, at least in its 19th
century heyday, much like other major cities of the day — Berlin, Paris, Shanghai, London, that eternal city
of exiles — was a microcosm of sorts for the universe … There was general bonhomie among the ethnic
groups. Assimilation, as the famous Australian public intellectual Donald Horne once wrote, was done in
bed … Proof of this cosmopolitan, indeed “borderless” bonhomie: when the anti-Jewish pogroms came —
and come they inevitably did, in 1821, 1850, 1871, 1881 (most notoriously, after the assassination of Tsar
Alex II), 1905, and 1906 — the damage in Odessa, for all the Jews that lived there, sometimes in excess of
30% of the total population — was often small by comparison with the damage sustained in other cities …
Many people died and were injured in these pogroms, but the scale of death in Odessa — if I may be so
technical — was often mitigated by the cosmopolitan character of the city …
By the 1970s, tensions between the Soviet Union and the West had eased — temporarily, of course. My
parents were able to emigrate on the back of a creative, highly moralistic amendment — the Jackson-Vanik
amendment — passed by the US Congress and signed into law by Gerald Ford in 1975. Jackson-Vannik
essentially required that the USSR, in exchange for “most favoured (trading) nation” status with the US,
allow for emigration for some of its citizens to the West. The legislation had the Jews in mind. And so my
parents left. One long train ride — a long, at once borderless and border-heavy, train ride — out of the
USSR, through Czechoslovakia (still in the Soviet orbit), then through Vienna and finally to Roma, Italia,
where they stayed a year. And where I was born … Si, sono nato a Roma … In 1976 …
Why Canada? Why did my parents decide to emigrate to Canada? They had other options: the US, first and
foremost, but also Israel and Australia. Why Canada? A narcissistic rendering of the history would say that
Canada was the best country of the four — the most stable, the most beautiful, its population the most kind,
generous and indeed cosmopolitan (or multicultural, as they had just begun to say in those days …) The
truth is my parents, like most of the détente Jews, knew precious little about Canada … Ask your average
man in Asia today — in Japan, in China, in Korea, in India — what they know about Canada, and you will
likely find similar ignorance … Believe me: I’ve tried it … And yet our country and our people remain
among the most liked in the world: go figure … I will return to this issue a little later …
The truth of the matter is that my parents came to Canada because everyone in their circle — in Odessa —
was saying that Canada was impenetrable, impregnable, inaccessible: that Canada was not taking Jews
from the USSR … So it was a case of what Thorsten Veblen once called ‘conspicuous consumption’: the
rumour, untrue though it was, made my parents and others that much more determined — hungrier — to
get to Canada …
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And so they did. And I grew up, with two younger sisters, in Toronto. We spoke Russian at home, went to
French immersion schools (immigrant parents were, self-selectively, anxious to get ahead; and my father,
symmetry oblige, had gone to an English-immersion school in Odessa) and, significantly, swearing in over
a dozen languages … Try me: having grown up playing soccer — the world’s game — seriously, arm-inarm with teammates whose parents hailed from every corner of the world, I could muster creative invective
against a given soccer referee in almost any tongue: Russian, Italian, Persian, Polish, Hebrew, Mandarin,
Spanish …, even Jamaican patois … And in English and French, bien entendu … I was a Russian-Jewish
Canadian, my best friends variously of Polish and Iranian heritage …
So what is a Canadian? I asked that question virtually every day of my childhood in Toronto. Back in the
day, my parents, like most Torontonians, would insist — at least implicitly — that the notion is a wholesale
fiction — an artificial construct distinguishing, barely, those north of the 49th parallel from their American
brethren — brethren who, in the eyes of the outsider — the immigrant — were negligibly distinct from the
Canadians … All of my friends called themselves “Italian,” “Portuguese,” “Russian” or just plain “Jewish.”
In extremis — if pressed — they might offer “Italo-Canadian,” or “Portuguese-Canadian,” but Italian or
Portuguese always first … Always … That I myself was born in Roma and they themselves had in many
cases never stepped foot in Italy was an irony that never dawned on my playmates … It is an irony that has
never been lost on me … The Canadian of the 1970s, 80s and 90s was sufficiently nebulous and
insufficiently prestigious an identity as to capture the imagination of a young Torontonian looking for a
tribe! (Parethetically — globalization-schmobalization — let me suggest that in the Toronto of today, with
its myriad and growing ethnic enclaves, not all that much has changed in this regard …)
To be original, in my teens I started calling myself “Canadian” tout court … full stop … What are you?
people would ask. Canadian, I would reply. No really, what are you? Where are you from? Where are your
parents from?
Truth be told, however much I declared that I was Canadian, I had little understanding of what this actually
meant. So my defences against these typical lines of questioning were slim indeed … And my friends were
unpersuaded … I could not be Canadian … A Canadian was a French Canadian or, more readily, someone
of Anglosaxon progeny whose parents spoke without ethnic accent …, in a “Canadian” idiom …
So I decided I would ask the experts … As Bernard Crick once said: “Boredom with established truths is
the enemy of free men … “ And frankly, I was bored with the answers — or lack of answers — I had been
getting — and giving — to this basic question: What is a Canadian? The question is bluntly put … And
what, pray tell, is a Canadian in today’s world — this so-called borderless, inconstant world of which we
speak; this world in which identity is apparently so fluid and fleeting?
While studying in the UK I happened on a book of short essays commissioned in 1958 by David BenGurion, first prime minister of the State of Israel. Ben-Gurion had posed the question “What is a Jew?” to
50 Jewish sages — great thinkers within Israel and among the Jewish diaspora — in order to inform Israeli
policy in respect of mixed marriages — in short, whether the offspring of a marriage between a Jewish man
and a non-Jewish woman could legitimately be deemed Jewish. Anyone who knows anything about
Judaism and Jewish communitarian dynamics knows very well that mixed marriages are a vexed question
indeed! The replies to Ben-Gurion included the who’s who of the global Jewish intelligentsia of his day:
among others, the brilliant Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin, Felix Frankfurter, the great American jurist,
and the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menahem Mendel Schneersohn.
I determined that, when the time and opportunity came, I would pull a Ben-Gurion, but for the Canadian
context. I asked the question — What is a Canadian? — of 50 great Canadian thinkers (I called them
“sages”), literally from all walks of Canadian thinking life — the civil service, politics, academia,
literature, journalism, business, the arts; of thinkers from both official language groups, and from all the
regions of the country, as well as from the Canadian diaspora; of Canadians de souche, Aboriginals,
immigrants and even self-styled ‘exiles’; yes, there are some of these as well … I ended up with 42
responses — 43 including my own — and together they formed the 2006 book What is a Canadian? Fortythree Thought-Provoking Responses (Douglas Gibson Books, McClelland & Stewart, 2006) … I got many
no’s as well: distinguished people who did not quite know how to answer the question, did not have time,
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or did not think the question terribly interesting. Claude Ryan, the great former editor of Le Devoir and
former boss of my fellow panelist Monsieur Pettigrew, said «oui, avec grand enthousiasme», but sadly
passed away shortly thereafter, before yielding a response. The inimitable John Kenneth Galbraith said no,
he was too busy writing, at the age of 97 …, and then expired not too long afterward … And an inordinate
number of Québécois — to my chagrin — said no: not that they were not interested in the question, but
that, sotto voce, their answer might get them into hot water back on their home turf … Quel dommage!
What did my sages say? Because I wanted unvitiated, frank analysis — to the extent of the possible — and
because I wanted highly quotable material, I had asked all of my sages to start their short responses with
the words “A Canadian is … “ Not a Canadian could or should or might be …, as is the escapist Canadian
wont … A Canadian is … To make a long story short, the answers boiled down to three basic types or
categories: I call these categories the idiosyncratic school, the sociopolitical school and the rejectionist
school … In the idiosyncratic school of thought, the Canadian is defined by certain distinctive, often
primordial, essential character traits, a particular personality-type or peculiar values. We know this school
well. According to this line of thinking, the Canadian is variously law-abiding, liberal and enlightened. And
lucky, lest we forget. The Canadian is also famously tolerant, polite and generous; also diplomatic. In the
late Pierre Berton’s view, a Canadian is — even if Asians and Odessites are altogether unaware —
apparently famous for being able to make love in a canoe without tipping it. A Canadian is, to take the less
auspicious view, a historical amnesiac (or historically ignorant), parochial, pathologically deferential,
complacent, too comfortable with mediocrity, all too easily racist (despite apparent good intentions) and, as
Thomas Homer-Dixon, one of my sages, suggests, prone to Schadenfreude. Apparent or claimed value
differences with the American, as sages like William Watson, George Elliott Clarke and Paul Heinbecker
note, are often central to this line of argument. Of course, I might counter, and here I do: none of these
traits, good or bad, exists invariably in each and every person we may wish to call ‘Canadian’. Indeed, such
traits may not even be and indeed are often not more true for the Canadian than for, say, the Italian, Greek
or any other Westerner, for that matter; although the chances are quite good that, between the Italian and
the Canadian, the Italian would sooner tip a canoe when love-making if the Canadian lover in question was
a Yukoner …
According to the socio-political school of thought — my second school — the Canadian may be identified
with certain key public policies, societal principles or values — such as multiculturalism, universal health
care, peacekeeping, and the Charter — which are thought or perceived to underpin a certain civic essence,
if you will. Indeed, medicare and the Charter have been described as — and here I quote Rex Murphy —
“the tectonic plates of the modern idea of Canada.” I would again counter — and I do — that most public
policies and principles — aside from those enshrined in the Constitution — are made to be amended,
rescinded or even ignored, often in very short order, depending on the political imperatives of the day. It is
therefore difficult to proclaim that a Canadian is categorically a creature of certain policies — particularly
when such policies clash. And given that most of the said “tectonic plates” of ‘Canadiana’ do not predate
the 1960s, the Canadian of the socio-political school must be seen as very embryonic indeed … Or perhaps
transitory … Or evolutionary … Or, as skeptics like Mark Kingwell or Roy MacGregor or my papa might
say, ‘imaginary’ or ‘invented’ — or at least so contingent in nature as to have her essence constantly
overstated by nationalists or overly keen commentators.
A final school of thought is the rejectionist school. Exponents of this school speak of varying degrees of
alienation from what they may perceive as a ‘majoritarian’ conception (or indeed, the state’s conception) of
the Canadian. In short, they do not see themselves in the Canadian, as they currently see her being defined.
Guy Laforest and Christian Dufour — two such rejectionists — are apparently “exiles” within Canada, and
thus outside of the Canadian ‘mainstream’, as they see it being conceived. The grievances of these
particular Québécois — more Canadien than Canadian, if you will — appear first and foremost to be
political or constitutional in nature, with particular emphases placed on the absence of a Québec signature
on the Constitution Act of 1982, and on the failures of the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 and the
Charlottetown Accord in 1992. Louis Balthazar offers that these grievances actually predate Meech and
Charlottetown, and have roots in an alleged or perceived violation of the original political bargain that
shaped Canada: to wit, the idea of a recognized and distinct French-majority Québec, sovereign within its
spheres of responsibilities under the federal model.
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Were my sample different, I would no doubt have found elements of rejectionism — although perhaps not
of the same intensity — in some other parts of Canada — perhaps Newfoundland and Alberta, or among
certain Aboriginals …
So what, then, after all this enlightened introspection — indeed, by some of our best minds — is a
Canadian? Given the great diversity of responses to my question, it seems the only coherent way to answer
is to suggest, as I did at the start of my remarks, that the Canadian is nothing more (and nothing less) than a
citizen of the state called Canada. (As Patrick Weil concluded in his famous essay on the French, «est
français celui que l’État considère comme tel».) The Canadian is a fox, to borrow from Isaiah Berlin’s
overused metaphor: she stands for many things, but unlike the hedgehog — a member of an older nation —
a Persian, a Russian, a Han-Chinese, a Korean, a Jew — she may not be animated by a single, or coherent,
force, motif or logic. In short, the Canadian, at this point in history, has no essence. I repeat: the Canadian
is, in the only meaningful sense, a citizen of Canada. This Canadian is certain to be a citizen of the
physically colossal and not negligibly populous federation occupying the northern half of North America,
consisting, today, of ten provinces and three territories, and operating under the democratic laws and
political institutions established in the Constitutions of 1867, and also of 1982. And the Canadian, as a
citizen of the Canadian state, is susceptible to all of the obligations, formal and informal, attendant to this
citizenship, and is the beneficiary of the vast complement of rights and freedoms secured by this
citizenship.
So the Canadian is a political creature; she exists only because the Canadian political project exists, and
will continue to exist only if the political project moves forward. In other words, politics and political
institutions — the means by which the business of the Canadian state is conducted — matter existentially to
the Canadian. Or to paraphrase Pericles: the Canadian may not be interested in politics, but politics is
necessarily interested in the Canadian! The Canadian is a political fact, and the Canadian is a fact only in
virtue of the political. This is the only constant that matters to the Canadian (as a Canadian), and to us as
Canadians … The rest, as I have said, is commentary …
A word about responsibilities — or better still, obligations. Much has been made in the literature and in the
public sphere about our country’s fantastic bulwark of rights and freedoms … I have little to add at this
time. But I will say without reserve that we are often loathe to discuss responsibilities — either because we
associate responsibilities with the totalitarian state or, more likely, on my view, because we in the West —
because life is good — have become somewhat lazy … I use the word lazy with intent; la rectitude
politique would call this laziness political apathy … (I should qualify this: Europe has just laboured
heroically over the course of four-plus decades to create an historic, magnificently complex union
consisting today of 27 countries and — bilingualism-schmilingualism — 23 official languages.)
Responsibility is hard work, in most cases, whereas rights — at least in their negative, liberal conception —
can often be asserted without having, as a citizen, to bat an eyelid …
What are my responsibilities as a Canadian? Not as a human being, not as a Westerner, not as a North
American — but as a Canadian … Because politics and political institutions, as I have offered, matter
existentially to the Canadian, the first responsibility of the Canadian — again, as a Canadian — must
logically be for the defence — the protection — of our political institutions. This defence comes against all
description of threats, potential and actual: occasional threats to our northern sovereignty by the Russians
notwithstanding, our country has, at this time, few overt foreign enemies. However, the unity of the
federation — the Quebec question, in particular — remains a highly nuanced and precarious affair — one
that will bite us in the backside if we take our eye off the ball … Other centrifugal forces — tribal and
regional — also tug daily at the coherence and unity of the federation … The integrity of our institutions is,
from countless quarters, under constant and growing scrutiny. And, perhaps most importantly, in a time of
general Western political apathy (I have called it laziness), our institutions must constantly prove
themselves relevant. (The North American — especially Canadian — debate about the relevance of
political institutions finds much resonance in the present debate surrounding the constitution and political
institutions of the nascent European Union.)
To continue — where our institutions are thought not to be relevant, or adequate, these institutions must
change — they must adapt to the times. And their relevance must be sold to the public … Here I speak of
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our Canadian Constitution, our Parliament, our political parties, the civil service, the judiciary and affiliated
institutions — at the federal level especially, but also at other levels of government — provincial,
territorial, local or municipal … I shall not go into details in these remarks, but many of these institutions
need and will need updating if they are indeed to be relevant — if they are to accord with the Canadian on
the street whom they purport to define. And popular or political fatigue — laziness — with the difficult and
complex process of such updating is — dare I say it — not a good enough reason to stave off what needs to
be done.
As I approach my conclusion, let me just say that the impulse to protect and adapt our political institutions
should — we will all agree — be that much stronger because our country, for the most part, actually works
quite well. Our standard of living is perhaps not the highest in the world, but it is bloody good — among
the highest in the world. Our officially bilingual, bi-juridical, multiethnic society is peaceable and
productive. In short, Canada is well worth defending — in pure, rational terms. Many may not feel Canada
in their blood — and here I am getting at a painful point — because Canada, simply put, is not a nation …
Canada has many nations: the Québécois, the Acadiens, the Inuit, numerous Aboriginal groups,
Newfoundlanders … Perhaps even the Torontois, some might argue! But in the whole, despite the
protestations of Andrew Coyne, the people of our country — taken together — do not yet form a nation.
Certainly not in any ‘thick’ sense … Quite naturally so, because the country is young: among the oldest
federations and democracies in the world, but not very old at all in the historical scheme of things … It will
take centuries’ more pained fermentation until we are in fact a nation …
If that is indeed where we want to go … But do we? Do we really want to be a nation? Do we need the
founding and popular mythologies or creeds that go with nation-building? Or will some of these “unifying”
ideas — Britishness, anti-Americanism, peacekeeping, goodness, even multiculturalism or
cosmopolitanism … — as evidenced by our history, have refractory effects in different parts of the country
…, simply because our country is huge, and the population so diverse, so repulsive to categorical reduction
… Said the late journalist Bruce Hutchison: “seeking the Canadian whole, I concluded that it defied logical
analysis and lacked any outward symmetry.”
For now, I am not talking about nation-building, but only about state-building — and with this, the
obligation to defend the state, and to adapt the state to the times — mainly because our state works — and
still works bloody well — in practical, utilitarian terms … It would be a great shame to lose it …
In closing, allow me to briefly ruminate on possibilities — opportunities — for moving our state and our
society beyond the purely utilitarian …, and perhaps to the excellent or great …, for we are, I would
humbly argue, not yet there … In 1963, the late great Australian public intellectual Donald Horne wrote a
polemical pamphlet called The Lucky Country. “Australia,” wrote Horne, “is a lucky country governed by
second-rate men who share its luck.” Horne was writing ironically: Australians understood his words as a
compliment! What a Canadian reaction!
Horne wrote his classic in the 1960s — a time of deep reckoning and transition for Australia, as it struggled
to come to grips with its Anglosaxon (“convict stock”) genesis and its Asian geography. Opening of the
Australian economy and relaxation of national attitudes in respect of non-white immigration and
multiculturalism were very much part of this national debate.
In some sense, Horne could well have been writing about today’s Canada. Without attempting to rate our
government or governments, ours is also, indisputably, a very lucky country. Even at this at a time of
apparent global transition, as suggested by our topic of discussion. We talk about a borderless world — and
here I return to one of my two original volleys — but Canada, like Australia, is lucky precisely because we
have borders. Our lucky existence is all about borders. Australia is a continental island, and Canada is a
continental peninsula … Notwithstanding our constant border disputes with the United States — and
despite the current security-driven ‘hardening’ of the American border — both realities which themselves
strongly undermine the premise of borderlessless in the question at hand — Canada is as stable and
productive as it is in large part because of geography. After we split the continental pie in the nineteenth
century and effectively called a truce with our neighbours to the south, and after we extended our
federation a mare usque ad mare — usque ad mare, we cannot deny that our borders have, for all practical
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intents and purposes, insulated us from a most difficult and chaotic world. All the while, states — indeed
nations in the ‘thick’ or ‘hedgehog’ sense — Russia, Poland, Germany — with complex borders and many
potential enemies at the gates have known regular upheaval and tumult on their home soil … So the
Canadian reality, ladies and gentleman, is not at all borderless: quite the contrary. Despite the emergence of
modern public goods — transportation, communication, energy, finance, and most signally, as Bagwati
writes, international policy cooperation among governments — and despite the advent of modern public
bads like epidemics, computer viruses and religious terrorism, our geography still makes us bloody lucky,
much as it did at the start of the last century … Perhaps a little less so today, but still lucky …
If protecting and improving our political institutions is our primary — indeed, as I have argued, our
existential — responsibility as Canadians, then the fact that we remain quite lucky affords us unusual and
— to my mind — clear opportunities to build stronger secondary institutions — coast-to-coast-to-coast
institutions. These secondary institutions, as I call them, would doubtless indirectly support the political
institutions and the political unity of our country, but they would have no existential value as such for the
Canadian or for Canada. Rather, would serve to create a stronger common or collective or general
consciousness across the entire geography of our vast land. Unlike the task of nation-building, the
establishment of these institutions would not necessarily be beholden to overblown or perverse myths about
“essential” Canadian traits … Rather, these institutions could be grounded in the fostering of excellence —
yes, excellence — among Canadian citizens, in common activity — coast-to-coast-to-coast — among
Canadians, and in reasonably justifiable pride among Canadians in national achievement — again, beyond
the purely tribal, regional or utilitarian … I speak here in the main about our country’s national cultural and
athletic institutions — or, more precisely, the inexplicable dearth thereof … If you will indulge me, I shall
close briefly, in way of illustration, on the parochial note of Canadian sport and sporting institutions: as I
speak at this conference, a Canadian has, for the first time in 18 years, if my history is correct, qualified for
the final rounds of the Canadian Open in Montréal. We just hosted the Under-20 world soccer
championship, and Canada went 0-3 without scoring a single goal. In most sports, our international
performance at the top levels is, frankly, inadequate, considering our luck and our wealth. Apart from the
CFL — a half-American enterprise — we have no coast-to-coast elite sports leagues. None. In soccer, we
content ourselves with one professional team in an American league. In baseball, one American-dominated
team in an American league. In basketball, one American-dominated team in an American league. Even in
hockey, the national sport, we have no national league — no coast-to-coast-to-coast agora in the one sport
that is most commonly loved among Canadians. Instead we seem somewhat content with rump
representation: six teams in what is now a mostly American league. Do we not see a problem in this? The
Australians, who today boast more than a half dozen coast-to-coast sports leagues and perform
disproportionately well in elite international sport, once won zero gold medals — of all places, at the 1976
Montréal Olympics. They mustered the national will — the chutzpah — to address this problem. They
would call our state of affairs in Canada, in this regard, “heroic amateurism.” The same problem exists for
Canadian arts and culture. This is a failure of building, of vision … And a missed opportunity. For a lucky
country, we as Canadians are the poorer for it …
My father has today come around to feeling quite Canadian: he and my mother have just returned from a
wonderful sojourn in Nova Scotia — unchartered territory for the typical Toronto suburbanite. But as I
humbly offered at the start, those in my generation and that of my friend Farouk, proud Canadians though
we may be, have much work ahead of us …
Thank you.
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Appendix C: Speaker and Moderator Biographies
Michael Adams
President and Co-founder of Environics Research Group Ltd. and author
Michael Adams is the president of the Environics group of research and communications consulting
companies, which he co-founded in 1970 and which today employ more than 200 professionals in offices
located in seven cities in Canada and the United States.
In addition to numerous articles, frequent commentary in the broadcast media and presentations at
conferences, seminars and annual meetings in North America, Europe and Asia, Adams is also the author
of four Canadian best sellers: Sex in the Snow: Canadian Social Values at the End of the Millennium
(published in 1997), Better Happy Than Rich? Canadians, Money and the Meaning of Life (2000) and Fire
and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values (2003) and American Backlash:
The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States (2005). All four books were published by Penguin.
Fire and Ice won the prestigious 2003/04 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy and
was selected in the fall of 2005 by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the 100 most important books
ever published in the country.
His most recent book, Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism, was published in
the fall of 2007, and focuses on the promise and challenge of Canadian multiculturalism.
Michael Adams holds an Honours B.A. in political science from Queen’s University (1969) and a M.A. in
sociology from the University of Toronto (1970) and was named as one of the 100 most influential people
in Canadian communications according to Marketing Magazine’s Power List 2005.
Outside the field of research consulting, Adams has a variety of other interests including partnership in the
Robert Craig Winery in Napa Valley, California, which has been rated by Wine Spectator as one of the top
25 wineries in California.
Joan Andrew
Deputy Minister, Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration
Joan Andrew joined the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration as Deputy Minister on September 12,
2005. Prior to that she worked at the Ministry of Environment for four years, most recently as the Assistant
Deputy Minister of Policy. Before that Andrew worked at the Cabinet Office, where she was involved with
government restructuring and quality service initiatives. Andrew previously held a number of senior
management positions within the ministries of training, colleges and universities, and education and
training.
Andrew began her employment with the Ontario government in 1988 with the Ontario Women’s
Directorate, after having worked for 15 years for the federal government on training and employment
issues. She spent one year on exchange working for the Manpower Services Commission of Great Britain.
Joan Andrew is a graduate of Glendon College, York University.
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James Bartleman
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
The Honourable James Karl Bartleman was sworn in as the 27th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario on March
7, 2002, and served until September 5, 2007. He is the province’s 41st vice-regal representative since John
Graves Simcoe arrived in Upper Canada in 1792.
His Honour identified three key priorities for his mandate: to eliminate the stigma of mental illness, to fight
racism and discrimination, and to encourage aboriginal young people. In 2004 he launched the first
Lieutenant Governor’s Book Drive, which collected 1.2 million used books for First Nations schools and
Native Friendship Centres throughout Ontario. To further encourage literacy and bridge building, in 2005
he launched a Twinning Program for Native and non-Native schools in Ontario and Nunavut, and
established literacy summer camps in five northern First Nations communities as a pilot project. In 2006 he
extended his literacy summer camps program to 28 fly-in communities and secured funding for five years,
and he also launched Club Amick, a reading club for Native children in Ontario’s North. In the winter of
2007, he completed a second book drive, collecting 900,000 books for aboriginal children in Ontario,
northern Quebec and Nunavut.
Upon his installation as Lieutenant Governor, Bartleman became Chancellor and a member of the Order of
Ontario. He was promoted to Knight of Justice in the Order of St. John in 2002 and received a National
Aboriginal Achievement Award for public service in 1999. His Honour received the Dr. Hugh Lefave
Award (2003) and the Courage to Come Back Award (2004) for his efforts to reduce the stigma of mental
illness. In 2004 he also received the Phi Delta Kappa Educator of the Year Award and the DAREarts
Cultural Award in recognition of the Lieutenant Governor’s Book Program, and was named a Paul Harris
Fellow by Rotary International District 7090. Bartleman serves as Visitor to the University of Western
Ontario and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Western Ontario, York University,
Laurentian University, Queen’s University, the University of Windsor, Ryerson University, McGill
University and Nipissing University. He is Honorary Patron of about 80 organizations.
Bartleman is the author of four books — Out of Muskoka (2002), On Six Continents (2004), Rollercoaster:
My Hectic Years as Jean Chrétien’s Diplomatic Advisor 1994–1998 (2005) and Raisin Wine: A Boyhood in
a Different Muskoka (2007). Royalties for these books are either donated to charitable foundations or
donated in support of literacy initiatives.
Bartleman had a distinguished career of more than 35 years in the Canadian foreign service. He was
Canada’s ambassador to the European Union from 2000 to 2002 and served as high commissioner to
Australia in 1999–2000 and to South Africa in 1998–1999. From 1994 to 1998, Bartleman was foreign
policy advisor to the prime minister and assistant secretary for foreign and defence policy in the Privy
Council Office. He was ambassador to the North Atlantic Council of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization from 1990 to 1994, ambassador to Israel and high commissioner to Cyprus from 1986 to
1990, and ambassador to Cuba from 1981 to 1983. Bartleman opened Canada’s first diplomatic mission in
the newly independent People’s Republic of Bangladesh in 1972 and served in senior positions in the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade from 1967.
Born on December 24, 1939, in Orillia, Ontario, James Bartleman grew up in the Muskoka town of Port
Carling and is a member of the Mnjikaning First Nation. He earned a B.A. (Hons) in History from
University of Western Ontario in 1963. On a posting to Brussels, he met Marie-Jeanne Rosillon. The
couple married in 1975 and have three children: Anne-Pascale, Laurent and Alain.
Sophie Body-Gendrot
Professor, Université Sorbonne, and Founder and Director of the Centre of Urban Studies
in the Anglophone World
Sophie Body-Gendrot is a professor at the Université Sorbonne-Paris IV. She is the founder and director of
the Centre of Urban Studies in the Anglophone World, established 1994.
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She is a researcher at Cesdip/Scientific Research National Group (in France’s Ministry of Justice) as well
as an expert for the international program Urban Age at the London School of Economics and Political
Science. She is also a current member of the European Group of research into Norms, the International
Consortium on School Violence and the National Commission of Ethics on Security.
Body-Gendrot holds current positions on numerous Academic Committees, including the Milton
Eisenhower Foundation and the French American Foundation. She is also a member of the editorial boards
of a number of journals.
She holds a Ph.D. in political science as well as a B.A. and M.A. in English and American studies from the
Université Sorbonne. She is also Chevalier (Dame) in the Order of Academic Palms.
Marie Clements
Artistic Director/Producer, urban ink productions, and playwright in residence, National
Arts Centre
Marie Clements is the artistic director and producer of urban ink productions, where she has directed and
produced numerous works including hours of water (2004), Hunted (2003), Rare Earth Arias (2002) and
Burning Vision (2002). She co-directed the CBC Radio Drama hours of water and co-produced a four-part
radio documentary for CBC’s Outfront titled “Women in Fish” series.
Clements has taught and facilitated at a variety of workshops and was the artistic director and editor of the
publications Women In Fish/Gulf Islander, Rituals of Rock, Anthology of Poems and No Supper Tonight.
Drew Fagan
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Planning, Department of Foreign Affairs
and International Trade
Drew Fagan is the assistant deputy minister for Strategic Policy and Planning at the Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade. He was appointed to this position in July 2006, and is responsible for
policy planning, public diplomacy, consultations with the provinces and territories on international policy
and the department’s economics function.
Previously, Fagan was director general of the Economic Policy Bureau at DFAIT, which has responsibility
for Canada’s participation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the G8
and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit processes, and for developing country policy, including
international assistance and the Bretton Woods institutions.
Fagan joined the Canadian government in November 2004, after spending 20 years at The Globe and Mail,
Canada’s leading newspaper. He held many of the newspaper’s senior positions, including parliamentary
bureau chief in Ottawa, editorial page editor and columnist, foreign editor and associate editor of Report on
Business, which is Canada’s primary source for business news.
He travelled widely as a correspondent for the newspaper. While based in Washington from 1993 to 1997,
Fagan was responsible for the newspaper’s coverage of Mexico and the implementation of the North
American Free Trade Agreement.
Drew Fagan holds a B.Com. from Queen’s University and an M.A. from the University of Western
Ontario.
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Chrystia Freeland
U.S. Managing Editor, Financial Times
Chrystia Freeland is the U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times. She leads the editorial development
of the paper’s American edition and of U.S. news on FT.com.
Previously, Freeland served as deputy editor in London. Other notable positions Freeland has held at the
Financial Times include editor of FT Electronic Services, editor of the Financial Times Weekend edition,
editor of FT.com, United Kingdom news editor, Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent.
Freeland worked for two years at The Globe and Mail as Deputy Editor. She began her career working as a
stringer in Ukraine, writing for the Financial Times, the Washington Post and The Economist.
Freeland’s expertise lies in the history and culture of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. She
received a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard University and earned a Master of Studies degree
from St. Anthony’s College at Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.
In September 2006, Freeland launched View from the Top, her weekly CEO video interview series. The
videos are streamed on FT.com and print highlights are published in the newspaper. Freeland writes a
weekly column for the Saturday edition of the Financial Times. Her column, titled “The A-Train,” is a
social observation of the American upper-middle class, with a personal twist and a serious core.
Freeland is the author of Sale of a Century: The Inside Story of the Second Russian Revolution (2000),
which details Russia’s journey from communism to capitalism. Her profile of Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
which appeared in the FT Magazine, won Best Energy Submission at the Business Journalist of the Year
Awards in 2004.
Freeland sits on the advisory board of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and
is a board member of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. She has been honoured
as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
A Canadian citizen, Freeland currently lives in New York City with her husband and her two daughters.
Alden Habacon
Manager, Diversity Initiatives for the English Television Network, Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation
Alden E. Habacon is the manager of Diversity Initiatives for the English Television Network of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Reporting to the executive director of network programming for CBC
Television, he designs and manages the implementation of initiatives that support CBC’s commitment to
accurately reflect Canada’s diversity — both on the air and behind the scenes.
Habacon’s work contributes to program and talent development initiatives, community outreach and
partnerships across the country. He also works closely with CBC’s partnerships, communications and
human resource departments, and CBC Radio, CBC.ca and CBC Newsworld. His ongoing web projects
include CBC’s Citizenship Website (cbc.ca/citizenship) and the CBC Aboriginal Website
(cbc.ca/aboriginal). He also manages the Technical Workplace Opportunity program for British Columbia.
Habacon is also very active in the community outside of his work at CBC.
Habacon is the founder of an online magazine, Schema (www.schemamag.ca), whose mandate is to reflect
the experience and sensibility of Canada’s most culturally diverse mainstream population.
A well-known cultural thinker, Habacon regularly speaks and consults on cultural diversity,
multiculturalism, youth and Asian Canadian identity. He has worked with numerous government agencies,
such as the Canada Council for the Arts and Department of Canadian Heritage, and various cultural
organizations on new media and diversity initiatives. He currently sits on the board of the Contemporary
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Art Society of Vancouver (CASv). Habacon was a guest speaker in Kuala Lumpur at the 2007 Seminar on
Cultural Diversity and Broadcasting co-hosted by the Asia-Pacific Institute of Broadcaster Development
(AIBD) and the Canadian High Commission in Malaysia, which included a three-day workshop in Manila,
Philippines at ABS-CBN.
Lawrence Hill
Author
Lawrence Hill’s novels and non-fiction have been published to critical acclaim and have captured the
interest and allegiance of readers.
His sixth book, The Book of Negroes, a novel, was published in January 2007 and his seventh book, The
Deserter’s Tale (written with Joshua Key) was released in 2007 in Canada, the United States, Australia and
India and in six European countries.
Hill is the son of a black father and a white mother who came to Canada hoping to escape the enduring
racism of their native United States. Growing up in the predominantly white suburb of Don Mills, Ontario,
in the 1960s, Hill was greatly influenced by his parents’ work in the human rights movement. Much of his
writing touches on issues of identity and belonging.
Formerly a reporter with The Globe and Mail and parliamentary correspondent for the Winnipeg Free
Press, Hill speaks French and Spanish. He has lived and worked across Canada, in Baltimore and in Spain
and France. As a volunteer with Canadian Crossroads International, he has travekled to the West African
countries Niger, Cameroon and Mali. He has a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City
and an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Hill, who often speaks at conferences, universities, schools and book clubs, lives in Burlington, Ontario,
with his wife and five children.
Farouk Shamas Jiwa
Global Youth Fellow, Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation
Since 2003, Farouk Shamas Jiwa has been working as a policy analyst with several federal agencies and
departments including the Canadian International Development Agency, the Department of Finance, the
Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office. Before joining the Department of Canadian
Heritage as senior policy officer in May 2007, he was with the Democratic Institutions and Conflict
Division in CIDA’s Policy Branch.
Jiwa has also done an internship with the African Medical and Research Foundation in Kenya and has
volunteered with several organizations in Canada and overseas. He is a mentor with Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto and a member of the board of World
Inter-Action Mondiale, and is active with the executive committee of the Harvard Club of Ottawa.
Jiwa has a B.Sc. in anatomy and cell biology from McGill University, a M.Phil. in international
development from the University of Cambridge and a M.Sc. in population and international health from
Harvard University. He was born in Tanzania and has spent over half his life in Africa. He speaks speaks
English, French and Kiswahili, with a life experience that spans 13 countries.
In 2006, Jiwa was one of the inaugural recipients of the Global Youth Fellowship award by one of
Canada’s most respected philanthropic organizations, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation. The
Fellowship award is reserved for Canada’s “best and brightest” young and emerging leaders “who
demonstrate the potential to enhance Canada’s role on the world stage.” Jiwa has conducted a preliminary
investigation into Canada’s use of multiculturalism in informing foreign policy and whether the pluralism
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of identity offers more. The title of his research is “Halved By Our Horizon? Journeys into the Pluralism of
Identity: Implications for Canadian Foreign Policy.”
Will Kymlicka
Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Queen’s
University
Will Kymlicka holds the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University and is a
visiting professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest. He
is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. From
2004 to 2006, he was the president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.
Kymlicka is the author of five books: Liberalism, Community and Culture (1989), Contemporary Political
Philosophy (1990; 2002), Multicultural Citizenship (1995), which was awarded the Macpherson Prize by
the Canadian Political Science Association and the Bunche Award by the American Political Science
Association; Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (1998) and Politics in the
Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, Citizenship (2001) and Multicultural Odysseys (2007). He is
also the editor of Justice in Political Philosophy (1992) and The Rights of Minority Cultures (1995) and coeditor of Ethnicity and Group Rights (1997), Citizenship in Diverse Societies (2000), Alternative
Conceptions of Civil Society (2001), Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported? (2001), Language Rights and
Political Theory (2003), Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa (2004), Multiculturalism in Asia (2005) and
Multiculturalism and the Welfare State (2006). His works have been translated into 30 languages.
Kymlicka received his B.A. in philosophy and politics from Queen’s University in 1984 and his D.Phil. in
philosophy from Oxford University in 1987.
Veronica Lacey
President and Chief Executive Officer of The Learning Partnership and Director and ViceChair of the Canadian Council on Learning
Veronica Lacey is steadfast in her belief that equal access to public education is the foundation of
democracy and the key to prosperous and fulfilling lives for all Canadians. She has been an innovator
throughout her career, pioneering new programs to meet the changing needs of students and opening up the
education system to the community through a wide range of partnerships.
As a teacher, principal and superintendent and as the director of education for the North York Board of
Education and Ontario Deputy Minister of Education and Training, Lacey has always championed public
education. With a double M.A. in comparative literature and educational administration from the
University of Toronto, she was a senior fellow at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the
University of Toronto in the area of public policy and international studies.
Lacey served as co-chair of the Conference Board of Canada’s National Council on Education and as a
Director of Pro Bono Law Ontario. She is currently a director and vice-chair of the Canadian Council on
Learning, a board member of the Canadian College of Naturopaths and a member of the Postsecondary
Education Advisory Committee on First Generation Students.
Lacey joined The Learning Partnership as president and chief executive officer in 2000. Under her
leadership, The Learning Partnership has grown from a Toronto-based organization with fewer than 10
employees and 11 programs to extend across Canada with more than 60 staff providing 17 programs
reaching hundreds of thousands of students and educators on a yearly basis. The mission of The Learning
Partnership is to champion a strong public education system in Canada through innovative programs,
credible research, policy initiatives and public engagement of Canadians.
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Kate Lines
Chief Superintendent, Ontario Provincial Police
Chief Superintendent Kate Lines has been a member of the Ontario Provincial Police for 30 years. She
holds a B.A. degree in sociology in conjunction with the Crime and Deviance Specialist Program from the
University of Toronto. She has also received general and advanced certificates in police studies and a
diploma in police management studies from the University of Western Ontario. She is currently the
Investigation Support Bureau Commander responsible for the Behavioural Sciences, Electronic Crime,
Technical Support and Forensic Identification and Photographic Services Sections.
Lines is also the co-executive lead for the OPP’s current Diversity Strategy, and over the last three years
has been involved in the research, development and delivery of this mission critical initiative.
Lines was voted Canadian Police Leader of the Year in 2004. She is also the recipient of the Officer Order
of Merit Medal, Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and the Ontario Provincial Police Exemplary Service
Medal.
Audrey Macklin
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Audrey Macklin has been a professor of law at University of Toronto since 2001. She previously taught at
Dalhousie Law School. From 1994 to 1996, Macklin adjudicated refugee claims in her capacity as a
member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. In 1999, she participated in a government-appointed
fact-finding mission to Sudan to investigate the role of a Canadian oil company in exacerbating violations
of human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Sudan.
Macklin’s scholarship addresses immigration, citizenship and refugee law, gender, multiculturalism and
human rights. She has published extensively in journals and books on these topics.
Marie McAndrew
Professor, Department of Education and Administration of Education Studies, Université
de Montréal
Marie McAndrew is a professor in the Department of Education and Administration of Education Studies at
the Université de Montréal. Her doctorate is in comparative education and educational foundations. She
specializes in the education of minorities and intercultural education. She has worked extensively in
research and policy development and evaluation in this field. From 1989 to 1991, as an advisor to the
deputy minister’s cabinet of the Quebec Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l’Immigration, she
has been closely associated to the development and dissemination of the policy statement on immigration
and integration Let’s Build Quebec Together.
From 1996 to 2002, McAndrew was the director of Immigration and Metropolis, the Inter-university
Research Centre of Montreal on Immigration, Integration and Urban Dynamics, one of four centres created
in 1996 by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Citizenship and
Immigration Canada in their joint initiative to foster the development of research and policy related to
immigration.
From 1993 to 2004, McAndrew also co-ordinated the Research Group on Ethnicity and Adaptation to
Pluralism in Education (Groupe de recherche sur l’ethnicité et l’adaptation au pluralisme en éducation —
GREAPE). This was an interdisciplinary research team that worked in partnership with the Ministère de
l’Éducation (MEQ), the Ministère des Relations avec les citoyens et de l’Immigration as well as a number
of Montreal school boards. Her book Immigration et diversité à l’école : le cas québécois dans une
perspective comparative (Immigration and Diversity in School : The Québécois Case in a Comparative
Perspective) won the Donner Prize 2001 awarded to the best book on Canadian public policy.
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Since 2003, she has held the chair for ethnic relations and in 2006, she was awarded a SSHRC Canada
Senior Research Chair. In this framework, she leads an important research program on the role of education
in the maintenance and the transformation of ethnic relations, which comprises three main components:
culture, socialization, curriculum; academic performance and educational mobility; and policies and
practices from a comparative perspective.
Zarqa Nawaz
Fundamentalist Films and creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie
Zarqa Nawaz is the driving force behind Fundamentalist Films and the creator of Little Mosque on the
Prairie, which debuted to large audiences and tremendous acclaim in 2007.
Nawaz, born in Liverpool and raised in Toronto, had a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto when she
realized that medical schools had screening committees to keep people like her out of the healthcare
system. Unfazed, she switched career plans and received a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Journalism from
Ryerson in 1992. Nawaz worked as a freelance writer/broadcaster with CBC Radio, and in various
capacities with CBC Newsworld, CTV’s Canada AM and CBC’s The National. She was an associate
producer with a number of CBC radio programs including Morningside, and her radio documentary The
Changing Rituals of Death won first prize in the Radio Long Documentary category and the Chairman’s
Award in Radio Production at the Ontario Telefest Awards.
Bored with journalism, Nawaz took a summer film workshop at the Ontario College for Art and made BBQ
Muslims, a short film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1996. Her next short film,
Death Threat, also premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1998. Other short film credits
include Fred’s Burqa and Random Check. In 2005, Nawaz’s documentary entitled Me and the Mosque, a
co-production with the National Film Board and the CBC, was broadcast on CBC’s Rough Cuts. She has
recently finished a feature-length screenplay entitled Real Terrorists Don’t Belly.
Ratna Omidvar
Executive Director, The Maytree Foundation, Director, the Toronto City Summit Alliance
Ratna Omidvar is the executive director of The Maytree Foundation, a private charitable foundation
dedicated to reducing poverty and inequality and to building strong civic communities in Canada. Maytree
supports the development of alternative social policy perspectives, and accelerating the settlement of
refugees and immigrants in large urban centres. Maytree provides grants to leaders and leading
organizations and invests in the capacity of individuals to lead change.
Currently, Omidvar serves as a director of Toronto City Summit Alliance. After its recommendation, the
Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council eas established in 2003 to improve access to employment
for immigrants in the region. Omidvar acted as its first executive director.
In 2003 Ontario’s premier-designate Dalton McGuinty appointed Omidvar as a member of his Transition
Advisory Board. In 2004 Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed her to his External Advisory Committee on
Cities and Communities. She currently serves as a board member of Tamarack: An Institute for Community
Engagement. In 1995, Omidvar received the YWCA Women of Distinction award. She was granted the
honorary title of Fellow of Centennial College in 2003 and in 2006 she was awarded an honorary diploma
in community work from George Brown College. In 2006, she was appointed to the Order of Ontario.
Pierre Pettigrew
Executive Advisor, International, Deloitte & Touche LLP, and former Minister of Foreign
Affairs
The Honourable Pierre Pettigrew has had a long and distinguished career in both public and private sectors.
He has led a number of senior departments in 10 years as a minister in successive governments of Canada.
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He served as director of the NATO Assembly political committee, executive assistant to Quebec Liberal
leader Claude Ryan, foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the Privy Council Office
and as vice-president of Samson Belair Deloitte & Touche International for 10 years.
Prior to his election to Parliament as member for the constituency of Papineau (Montreal) in 1996, Prime
Minister Jean Chrétien appointed Pettigrew as minister of International Cooperation and minister
responsible for the Francophonie. He was then promoted to the department of Human Resources
Development and was responsible for more than half the budget of Canada, where he negotiated with the
provinces and implemented the national child benefit, now a $10 billion program.
In 1999, Pettigrew became Minister for International Trade, chaired the ministerial meeting of the Free
Trade Agreement of the Americas and chaired the working group on implementation at the World Trade
Organization ministerial conference. He later chaired the working group on Singapore issues at the WTO
ministerial conferences.
In 2003, he was appointed minister of health, minister of intergovernmental affairs and minister responsible
for official languages. He was also the senior minister for Quebec in the government of Canada. Pettigrew
also served as minister of foreign affairs from 2004 to 2006.
Tariq Ramadan
Professor of Islamic Studies and Senior Research Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford
Tariq Ramadan is a professor of Islamic studies and is senior research fellow at St. Antony’s College in
Oxford Univeristy, Doshisha University (Kyoto) and at the Lokahi Foundation (London). He is a visiting
professor (in charge of the chair, Identity and Citizenship) at Erasmus University (Netherlands).
Through his writings and lectures Ramadan has contributed substantially to the debate on the issues of
Muslims in the West and Islamic revival in the Muslim world. He is active both at the academic and
grassroots levels, lecturing extensively throughout the world on social injustice and dialogue between
civilizations.
Ramadan is currently president of the European think tank European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels.
His last book was The Messenger: The Meaning of the Life of Muhammad (2007).
Haroon Siddiqui
Editorial Page Editor Emeritus, Toronto Star
Haroon Siddiqui writes a twice-weekly column that explores post-modern Canada’s role in the global
village. He attempts a cosmopolitan perspective on Canadian issues and a Canadian perspective on global
issues. At the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, he is a member of the senior management team
that grapples with strategy in the rapidly changing media landscape.
He has led centrist Canadian public opinion on some of the profound issues of the age: opposing the war on
Iraq and supporting the need to protect human rights in the age of terrorism, advocating international
interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, and calling for the recognition of such post–Cold War states as
Ukraine and Macedonia.
Siddiqui has covered such historic events as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American hostage
crisis in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war, and travelled to 35 countries. He has interviewed or covered, among
others, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Hussein of Jordan, Ayatollah Khomeini, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi
and others.
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He is the immediate past president of PEN Canada and remains chair of International PEN’s Writers-inExile Network.
Last year, Siddiqui visited Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia on the invitation of Canadian Foreign Affairs
to speak about why the world needs more Canada.
Besides his journalistic writings, Siddiqui has written Being Muslim, a book written for Muslims and nonMuslims alike; edited An English Anthology of Modern Urdu Poetry (1988); assisted in Christopher
Ondaatje’s Sindh Revisited (1996), following the footsteps of Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton; and
contributed to Canada and September 11 (2002) and Drawing Fire: The State of Political Cartooning
(1998), a colloquium of North America’s top cartoonists and editors at the American Press Institute.
Janice Gross Stein
Director, Munk Centre for International Studies, and Belzberg Professor of Conflict
Management, University of Toronto
Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political
Science and the Director of the Munk Centre for International Studies in the University of Toronto. She is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada.
Her most recent publications include Networks of Knowledge: Innovation in International Learning (2000),
The Cult of Efficiency (2001) and Street Protests and Fantasy Parks (2001). She is a contributor to Canada
by Picasso (2006) and the co-author of The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (2007).
Stein was the Massey lecturer in 2001 and a Trudeau fellow. She was awarded the Molson Prize by the
Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate. She is an honorary
foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2006, Stein was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Alberta and the
University of Cape Breton.
Irvin Studin
Author
Irvin Studin is the editor of What Is a Canadian? 43 Thought-Provoking Responses (2006). He spent
several years as a policy strategist and senior policy analyst for the prime minister in the Privy Council
Office. He has also worked as a senior policy advisor in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
in Canberra, Australia. He has advised on issues as diverse as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, national
security, foreign policy, democratic governance and transportation policy.
Studin holds degrees from the Schulich School of Business at York University, the London School of
Economics and Political Science and the University of Oxford, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.
In 2000, he was listed by MacLean’s magazine as one of 100 Young Canadians to Watch.
Studin has been an all-Canadian university athlete and has dabbled in professional soccer in several
countries. He and his wife, Alla, a school teacher, divide most of their time between Toronto and Ottawa
and recently celebrated the birth of their first child, Noah.
Bob Watts
Interim Executive Director, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Bob Watts was recently named the interim executive director of Canada’s first Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, which will examine and make recommendations with respect to the Indian residential schools
and their legacy.
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Most recently, Watts served as the Chief of Staff to the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations
Phil Fontaine, and was a member of the team that negotiated the Indian Residential Schools Settlement
Agreement, the largest class action settlement in Canada’s history.
A former assistant deputy minister for the government of Canada, Watts is a graduate of the John F.
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a fellow at the Harvard Law School, where he
researched and lectured on the role culture plays in conflict. Watts is also a Fellow at the European Institute
for Community Based Conflict Resolution. He was a senior associate with the Consensus Building Institute
and a governor of the Ridgewood Foundation for Community-Based Conflict Resolution, and has worked
as a practitioner and trainer in both negotiations and conflict resolution.
Watts has taught, debated and lectured at a number of universities in Canada. He is married, has three
daughters and four grandsons. Watts is from the Mohawk and Ojibway Nations and resides at Six Nations
Reserve.
Milton Wong
Chair, HSBC Investments Canada Limited
Milton Wong founded M.K. Wong & Associates Ltd. in 1980 to provide investment counselling service to
pension plans, foundations, mutual funds and individuals. HSBC acquired MKW in 1996 and he is
currently (non-executive) chair of HSBC Investments Canada Limited managing over $5 billion in assets.
HSBC Investments Canada Limited is a member of the HSBC Asset Management Group.
Wong has been awarded the Civic Award from the City of Vancouver, the Distinguished Leadership
Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Simon Fraser University. He is also the recipient of
the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia, the Honour Roll distinction from MacLean’s
magazine, the Ernst & Young Lifetime Achievement Award for 2002 and the Ernst & Young Socially
Responsible Entrepreneur of the Year award in 1994.
These awards reflect his support of major institutions and events in Vancouver, including Science World,
the UBC Portfolio Management Program, the SFU Global Asset Wealth Management MBA Program, the
4th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention (1997), the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival, the
BC Cancer Foundation and the Laurier Institution.
Wong is the chancellor emeritus for Simon Fraser University. He is a board member of Alcan Inc., Seaspan
Corporation and the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation and the International
Institute for Sustainable Development.
Nora Young
Broadcaster and Producer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Nora Young is a writer and broadcaster, who pursues her passion for technology, culture and armchair
sociology on public radio, on television, in print and online.
Young was founding host and a producer of CBC Radio’s Definitely Not the Opera, where she commented
frequently on technology and popular culture. More recently, she has created miniseries and documentaries
for CBC Radio. She is technology columnist for CBC Radio and CBC Newsworld, and a frequent
contributor to the Toronto Star.
Young’s current focus is the relationship between mainstream media and social media, which she explores
as an avid podcaster (foursevens.com/thesniffer) and a lazy blogger (crispermachine.blogspot.com). She
hosts the CBC Radio series Spark!
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