Enforcing or Creating The Canadian Identity

This is an interesting piece from yesterday's National Post on Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's plans to support or create or develop or defend "the Canadian Identity" which is an interesting turn coming from a Conservative government and party which has spent an inordinate amount of energy to date defining Canada, echoing their unmentioned pal and silent partner Jacques Parizeau, as "not a real country":

These are of a piece with efforts to fortify what the Conservatives would call The Canadian Identity. It is, Mr. Kenney makes clear, a vision for a country that stands up for its pluralism, but also for its core liberal traditions of tolerance, democracy and secularism. "We can't afford to be complacent about the challenge of integration," he says. "We want to avoid the kind of ethnic enclaves or parallel communities that exist in some European countries. So far, we've been pretty successful at that, but I think it's going to require greater effort in the future to make sure that we have an approach to pluralism and immigration that leads to social cohesion rather than fracturing."

So, does the same rejection of parallel communities extend to western separatism or Quebec's nationhood? It really needs to if a Canadian identity is to be brought to the forefront of the national mindset. But maybe that is where they are going given recent comments by PM Harper that criticizes libertarians and classic liberals with their inevitably isolationist and individualistic tendencies not to mention the political botch he has made by pandering to the regionalistas... at the same time he has abandoned his economic principles. Given that, a project based on reinventing the conservative position in Canada should be a welcome thing. As long as it is based on real tradition and history as opposed to the ideological mumbojumbo of recent years, it might even have a chance.

Comments

Seanie - March 29, 2009 11:25 AM

As a Liberal and one of Trudeauist tenancies, I am almost embarrassed to say that the cons in a way have it sort of kind of right with their desires to change the Canadian Identity i.e. remodeling the policies of multiculturalism.

The original plan if you want to call it that was to have a diverse country where we all lived as one but maintained the connection to each of our ancestor's traditions or at least the culture. This worked well for UK folk who moved here, because our ancestors have been doing this for ages. It did not work well for people from countries/regions of the world where inclusion, an affinity for cultural wars and strong family or national ties that were in fact stronger than ones ties to the nation where they are currently citizens exist.

This is why we have enclaves of people that spend every single day living their lives, working, playing and making babies, never once speaking English, French, having any connection to persons outside of their enclave or really taking part in the Canadian experience at all. In fact, in some of these enclaves, taking part in activities outside of their personal ethnic ones is shunned. This is completely the opposite of what was intended.

No-one wants a grey, bland, melting pot of people where the "old world" is considered dirty and to be avoided, but people should if they wish to become citizens, be strongly encouraged to be part of Canadian society and enclaves discouraged. A requirement to speak one official language to a certain level is a start.