In 2000 and 2001 the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation sponsored two conferences entitled "Multiculturalism in the New Millennium" which took a fresh look at a policy with a thirty-year history. The first took place September 16-17, 2000, on Parliament Hill, Ottawa; the second February 16-18, 2001, in the Manitoba Provincial Legislative Building, Winnipeg. The essays in this publication are based on the presentations. Oksana Bashuk Hepburn's and Martin Loney's were given in Ottawa, the others in Winnipeg.
There have been some strong attacks on the policy over the years, notably in the 1990s, when several controversial critiques were published. Critics of the policy can be broadly divided into those who reject the concept itself, and those who are concerned with the government's interpretation and implementation (or non-implementation) of the policy.
To the first group belong those who blame the policy for dissolving the glue that has held the country together, for being a vehicle for government vote-buying, and for lowering cultural standards. Neil Bissoondath's Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada (1994), a book that resembles similar attacks on "political correctness" produced by contemporary American authors, became one of the best-known tracts. An article in the present collection examines Bissoondath's arguments in the light of the broader political and cultural views in which they are embedded, notably the author's nostalgic yearning for an assimilative "leading culture".
To the second group of critics belong those that see the policy as properly intentioned, but whose implementation is pro forma, half-hearted and conducted in a tokenish manner. The country is, in other words, not doing enough to allow groups to tell their separate narratives and to obtain recognition as part of the mainstream. Some argue that the original intent of the policy has been reduced in recent years to "managing" race relations in the narrowest sense of helping new immigrants to integrate as quickly as possible. This kind of "management" equates accelerated integration with forgetting or shedding any cultural distinctiveness - precisely the opposite, many argue, of what, multiculturalism was originally supposed to mean. Several papers in the present collection raise the issue of this gap between theory and practice.
Multicultural policy has shifted from supporting strong local cultural communities that celebrate their identity and counteract the process of homogenization to advocating a version of the "melting pot" theory which ancicipates the speedy erasure of all differences. Martin Loney's vision is that of a "colour-blind" society. To a large degree his critique of multicultural policy goes against the grain of other articles in this collection. It argues that the focus on visible minorities cannot be justified by the presence of widespread race-based discrimination, that the government itself has created a burgeoning grievance industry and has legitimated the eclipsing of individual rights by group rights.
The Ukrainian community has, for the most part, maintained that the concept of multiculturalism sprung from Canadian realities. This country was born of a deal made between the Anglos and French to respect each other's rights; it is a country that recognizes the importance of immigrants in founding and developing large parts of the country; and it is a country that is now aware - belatedly, as most would argue - of its duty to recognize and include Native peoples. In short, inescapable realities of history and geography - not some backroom political plot - have dictated the country's official self-identification as a multicultural society within a bilingual framework. The Ukrainian community has further maintained, that to have taken this pioneering step is greatly to Canada's credit.
Ironically, in the international arena Canada continues to garner ever-greater admiration and praise for a policy that has allowed it to avoid the kind of inter-community tensions and violence that continue to erupt elsewhere. The recent riots in the towns of Britain's North, which have provided the world with television images of Asian and white youth battling in the streets, or the clashes in Germany between "guest-workers" and German citizens, are only two examples of events that have now stimulated European scholars and policy-makers to discuss and borrow from what is often described as "the Canadian model." Stella Hryniuk's article in our collection compares the experience of several European countries to that of Canada.
It is sometimes not sufficiently recognized that the Ukrainian community in Canada travelled a long and painful path before their identity and culture was recognized in the 1970s as Canadian. Their now century-long history in this country includes the memory of overcoming discrimination and prejudice in the early decades as "unassimilable" and "undesirable" Eastern Europeans, the banning in 1916 of the Ukrainian-English bilingual schools in the name of "one language for one Canada," their internment during the First World War as "enemy aliens," and the slow, pathfinding struggle for cultural respect and political visibility. Therefore, Canada's implementation of a policy of multiculturalism three decades ago is seen by them as a milestone on a long journey. The policy's declaration was taken by them as an acknowledgement of their existence and of their group rights. As several papers in this collection argue, the struggle for respect and visibility continues. Those who argue against the policy are sometimes unaware of its deeper roots. It is incumbent, therefore, upon Ukrainians to remind critics of the lessons of their own history in Canada, to study the collective memory of the past, including their experience of being discriminated against and marginalized.
Roman Petryshyn, drawing on Will Kymlicka's recent Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995), argues the importance for Ukrainians of a renewed emphasis on group rights. These, he contends, are an extension of the individual rights embedded in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; they recognize essential collective needs and must be protected if minority groups are to participate as equals in the project of building Canada. Advocates of multiculturalism, he urges, should both understand and advance the idea that individual and group rights are interconnected.
Roman Yereniuk's article examines the experience of the bilingual Ukrainian-English schools since their reinstatement in the prairie provinces in the 1970s. Bohdana Bashuk casts a revealing glance at the successes and shortcomings of Ukrainian arts in Canada, suggesting the critical importance of challenging tired and damaging stereotypes. Zoriana Hyworon, herself an example of a role-model that overturns and complicates widely-purveyed stereotypes, draws on personal experience to describe the importance of a multi-faceted cultural education and upbringing in a business career.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn, President of the Professional and Business Federation, whose initiative it was to hold the two conferences on multiculturalism, brings together crucial issues in a paper designed to stimulate further thought and renewed activity within the Ukrainian Canadian community. She considers the Canadian Issues Roundtable of 2000 one of the most important initiatives of the Ukrainian community of the last three decades.
Throughout the hearings of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1964 to 1969, Ukrainian Canadians expressed the view that Canada was and will, in perpetuity, be a polyethnic country - multicultural not bicultural - and, that this fact must be reflected in the federal and provincial government systems and programs. Moreover, by 1986, Ukrainian Canadians insisted that we are a "founding settler people" of Canada who believe strongly both in our individual rights as citizens and in the need for governments to recognize our group rights.1 It is important for Ukrainian Canadians to continue this debate with our governments and to review our position from time-to-time.
During its inception, multiculturalism was a strong movement because it was supported by a coalition of interest groups. Different cultural communities were seeking to enhance individual rights by extending the diversity of group rights. In the 1980s the alliance between established and recent communities, between "visible," "auditory" and other heritage communities, was broken up by government. This was done by programming only for traditional individual rights, and ignoring the group rights dimension of multiculturalism. Antiracism programs enhancing individual rights became the main activity of Heritage Canada, which at the same time eliminated, rather than augmented, programs for Canadian ethnocultural communities. This had the effect of splitting the coalition. Denying the interests of "white" ethnocultural communities, which until then had been special supporters of antiracist programs, transformed the support of those communities from an active into a passive one. Ethnocultural communities that had been active because they had achieved recognition, now became just a part of the disengaged Canadian public on issues of antiracism. For multiculturalism to again become a reform movement, liberal supporters of multiculturalism from the visible and "non-visible" groups of Canada must reestablish their multiculturalist coalition, and must do so by embracing both individual and group rights as the philosophical basis and the purpose of their movement.
Individual and Collective Rights
In the following paper I repeat the viewpoint that multicultural group rights in Canada are an extension of individual fundamental freedoms defined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.2 This is the basis for our position that state support for the development of Ukrainian language and culture in Canada, by recognizing collective needs, is an extension of individual rights. Multiculturalism should mean advancing both individual and group rights, which in turn strengthens Canadian citizenship.
The idea of group rights began growing in Western democracies in the 1960s and is a story of inclusion.3 By group rights we mean the idea that the state must protect minority groups from the effects of majoritarian democracy. In particular, governments and groups need to protect that which is essential to group survival from unilateral control by the majority population. It is within this framework that Ukrainian Canadians still are fighting for multiculturalism to protect our right to be different and to be a cultural group in Canadian society equal to others in opportunity and resources, thereby giving us the ability to survive.
Ukrainian Canadians recognize that Canada as a political community was initially forged, and recently redefined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so as to recognize five categories of peoples: Anglophones, Francophones, Aboriginal Treaty, Non Treaty, and Metis peoples. These charter groups have given Canada a particular rights culture and it is that which makes us uniquely Canadian. That there are charter groups in Canada, however, does not mean that these are the only official cultures. Charter group cultures are simply part of human cultural diversity and should not compromise our ideal that Canadians should treat each other based on what they do and say, not on who they are in status. The state's recognition of English, French and Aboriginal cultures and communities is valuable to the degree that they allow individuals to accomplish goals they could not accomplish alone. We want similar principles to apply for other ethnocultural groups. Groups rights - to language, culture, religion - are valuable to the degree that they enhance the freedom of individuals. Minority groups should be able to protect their cultures and practices against the intrusion of the majority, and do so without denying their individual members' rights of protest and the rights of exit and entrance to the culture. This means that when group rights and individual rights conflict, individual rights should prevail for both charter and non-charter cultures.
Individual rights are at the core of the Canadian value system. The essential purpose of any political community based on rights is to protect equality, of entitlements and responsibilities, on behalf of everyone. Equality does not mean sameness. It does, however, mean the universal application of principles to all Canadian ethnocultures.
As paradoxical as it may appear, having an intense sense of one's own worth is a precondition for recognizing the worth of others. Analogously, universal collective rights draw strength from the passion for a particular people. This view needs to be integrated into a theory of liberalism. The problem is, that as a theory, equality of individual rights alone is simply not enough to deal with group rights. It fails to fully recognize and protect the constituent nation and peoples of Canada. For example, if survival of French language is important to the Quebecois as a people, the same principle must apply to English in Quebec, or to Ukrainian on the prairies. Since no individual's rights are separable from those of another individual, not to recognize another's rights is discriminatory. Otherwise English and French languages are not rights, but privileges for particular (e.g., dominant) groups.
Democratic Ukrainian Canadians defend group-differentiated rights as one case that is part of a general theory. That theory recognizes the importance of people's membership in their own culture, enables meaningful individual choice, and supports the right to choose a self-identity.
Ukrainian Canadians are a pioneer "founding settler people" who, on the one hand, accept that the individual rights of citizenship supercede any group right, but, on the other, do have the political will to exercise autonomous leadership over certain collective rights that we see as absolutely essential to the survival of our people and the distinctiveness we bring to Canadian society. Cultural membership provides us with a context for our individual choices. Ethnocultural freedom can extend citizenship rights when it provides a domain of equality and choice, a source of mutual recognition and trust, and when it accommodates disagreements about conceptions of the "good" in modern society. Group rights on this basis are not only consistent with liberal values, but enhance them.
While being good citizens, who fulfill the rights and responsibility of citizenship, we insist that recognizing only the cultures of charter status of groups (Anglo-Canadian, French Canadian, Aboriginal or Metis) - to the exclusion of others - is a hypocrisy that contravenes the principles of equality at the foundation of our Canadian society.
What do Ukrainian Canadians Want and not Want?
Ukrainian Canadians want to take responsibility at the individual and collective level for their own destiny and want the federal and provincial governments of Canada to remove the barriers governments have created that prevent this from occurring.
A quote from the federal government's official statement demonstrates that the position of multicultural group rights is well understood in Ottawa:
Yet, while on the one hand, the government clearly recognizes and rights of such group rights, on the other hand, that same government has deliberately avoided practicing what it preaches. To the detriment of multiculturalism there are no longer any existing multicultural programs that equip the Ukrainian, or any non-charter ethnocultural Canadian community with the "skills and tools they need to advance their interests."
Ukrainian Canadians do not seek territorial segregation, political self-government, racial separation, or legislated privileges for themselves. They do, however, seek support to eliminate discrimination, and seek public support in order to assist them - as part of the multicultural rights culture of all Canadians - to achieve their collective goals. These include:
In all these areas, each ethnocultural community can define both what it needs and what it can give in pursuit of its goal. Without the public support for such collective needs, Canadians cannot securely enjoy their rights as individuals. Despite the fact that clauses 3(1) d and 3(1)i of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act declare such policies, in practice virtually nothing is being done in this regard, often making current programming irrelevant for our community. Yet these are the dimensions needed by Ukrainian Canadians to guarantee their survival as a Canadian community and to participate on a more equitable basis in, and with, Aboriginal, Anglophone and Francophone Canadian cultures.5
Being a fully participating citizen of society is a vital precondition for personal esteem, honor and dignity. Minorities cannot act effectively in the world and have responsibility for themselves unless they respect themselves. That cannot happen unless the minorities are honoured by the political system in which they live.
Ukrainian Canadians want to be recognized as a pioneer "founding settler people" of Canada. For their part, charter groups persist in defining Ukrainian Canadians as an immigrant category in order to deny them such a status. This leads to the notion that Ukrainian Canadians are "perpetual immigrants" whose sole purpose is to adapt to the rules of Canadian charter groups which seeks to assimilate immigrants. Our contrary view is that Ukrainian Canadians must be given recognition as an indigenous Canadian people who, being in their sixth generation, have the right, as equals, to participate in building Canada without assimilating our collective identity.
Ukrainian Canadians consider themselves one of the peoples of Canada and seek recognition of their group-differentiated rights in addition to their individual rights (e.g., freedom of speech, freedom of assembly) in order to maintain their cultural identity and participate as a collectivity in Canadian society. Unfortunately, today's policy of multiculturalism does not amount to an endorsement of group rights. It simply seeks to protect and enhance the capacity of as many individuals as possible to secure public recognition of their different cultures.
Without positive measures on behalf of group cultures, talk of treating Ukrainian Canadians as "equal individuals" is a cover for majoritarian bias. It is not enough to say to us that the state should respond with neutrality or benign neglect. That avoids addressing the question of the inevitable connections between the state and culture, a key element of Canadian society.
Ukrainian Canadians seek to advance the cause of cultural freedom in Canada for all citizens and groups. We seek to ensure that there is both equality among Canadian ethnic groups and freedom and equality within our ethnocultural community. In our view Canada and the provinces must develop a consistent and principled approach to minority rights by addressing the collective needs and aspirations of minorities. Instruments created thus far, such as the interpretive clause 27 in the Charter, are insufficient to resolve this issue.6
Ukrainian Canadians continue to feel dissatisfied with progress made in Canada in creating a system for protecting polyethnic rights (by, for example, recognizing them in law and public financing) and, as a consequence, feel that Ukrainian Canadian culture still has not attained full membership in Canadian society. Without group-differentiated rights, the Ukrainian Canadian minority does not have the same ability to live and work in its own language and culture that the members of the majority cultures take for granted. Its children do not have the same chance to develop a Ukrainian Canadian identity as do the children of majoritarian cultures. In particular, Ukrainian Canadians seek equality to rectify unfair disadvantages they have experiences in Canada, and to achieve its historical claims as a Canadian founding pioneer settler people. This is the source of disunity in Canada which we still seek to rectify.
A comprehensive theory of justice in Canada will include both universal rights, assigned to individuals regardless of group membership, and certain group-differentiated rights for minority cultures, negotiated in a way that ensures that the result is legitimate for both majority and minority. At the same time minority rights must co-exist with human rights and be limited by principles of individual liberty, democracy and social justice. In our view, citizenship is not just a legal status defined by a set of rights and responsibilities. It is also an inclusive identity, expressing the feeling of membership of Ukrainian Canadians for a political community called multicultural Canada. Ukrainian Canadians use their social practices, cultural meanings and the Ukrainian language to participate in society. This is so because the context of the individual choices available to us in Canada is the range of options passed down by our culture.
Many people worry that group-differentiated citizenship diminishes Canada's national unity. Since Ukrainian Canadians do not strive for self-government, or wish to isolate their culture, this concern is baseless. Ukrainian Canadians seek inclusion and a common purpose with all Canadians. Our theory holds simply that citizenship, while defining a common legal and political identity, must also allow for social and cultural differences in order to fully include minorities in the body politic.
This is particularly so in the new age of globalization which has created more opportunities for Ukrainian Canadians and other minorities to maintain their distinct identity and group life. On the one hand, through contact with Ukraine and through immigration Ukrainian Canadian culture has experienced new development. On the other hand, the independence of Ukraine has strengthened the resolve of Ukrainian Canadians to be recognized as an established Canadian culture.
Canada's cultural pluralism and diversity will exist in perpetuity. Therefore the path Canada must follow is one of balancing group and individual rights for Ukrainian Canadians and other minorities, in order to secure social peace in Canada over the long run.
1 Building the Future: Ukrainian Canadians in the 21 st Century: A Bluprint for Action (Oct. 1986), 2-4.
2 Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).
3 Michael Ignatieff, The Rights Revolution (Toronto: Anansi, 2000).
4 Canadian Heritage Multiculturalism, "What is Multiculturalism?", http://www.pch.gc.ca/multi/what-multi_e.shtml
5 Will Kymlicka, Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada (Don Mills: Oxford U P, 1998), 57.
6 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Clause 27 reads "This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians."
This brief essay reviews some of the history of multiculturalism, including issues posed in previous conferences. It also offers some thoughts on where Canada, as a nation of immigrants, stands at this time in respect of global population movements and how it is meeting the challenges of what a distinguished Canadian Ukrainian sociologist has called "the social incorporation" of the many peoples, including Ukrainians, who make up our population. The essay concludes with a brief survey of some other societies. It is my contention that our policy of multiculturalism works in Canada as a nation-building and identity-formation strategy, and that it is working pretty well, especially in comparison with what other multi-ethnic societies are doing to meet the challenges that they face.
Long before 1971 the Canadian government had become concerned about relations among ethnocultural communities in our country. The establishment of a Citizenship branch in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship during World War II, and its later move to the Department of the Secretary of State, provided for the origins of a policy and program. In the 1960s the aspirations of cultural communities other than the French and the English - including the Ukrainian community - were heard in the course of the deliberations of the B & B Commission. The first Multiculturalism policy was promulgated in 1971. Although concerns for equality and long-term integration were by no means absent, the early focus of the policy was on cultural retention and culture sharing.
With changes in the composition of the population resulting from the new immigration policy of the late 1960s, as well as Canada's ratification of United Nations Conventions on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and on Human Rights, more attention came to be given to equality issues. Multiculturalism policy in the 1980s reflected an international consensus on fairness and justice for all peoples, a stance which was also included in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and in a new Multiculturalism Act in 1988.
The 1988 Act asserted that multiculturalism was now a permanent and central reality of Canada. The entire society (including the ethno-cultural communities, the government and major institutions) was to be involved in preserving and enhancing the Canadian multicultural heritage "while working to achieve the equality of all Canadians in the economic, social, cultural and political life of Canada."
In the year 2000, Toronto had people from 169 nations speaking over 100 languages. In the past thirty years Canada has become what newspaper columnist Gwynne Dyer has called the "most spectacularly diverse country in the world". About 20 percent of our population is foreign-born (by way of comparison, around 10 per cent of Americans are foreign-born). About 25 percent of the annual immigration to Canada is from East Asia; there are 10 percent from each of the Middle East, Africa and the Carribean, and Latin America; the remaining 20 percent comes from Europe and the United States.
We have "the world in one country," and we pride ourselves on not trying "to impose some new uniform identity on the immigrants." Moreover, we have had a variety of studies that show plainly that immigrants, far from being a burden on Canadian society, not only greatly enrich our society culturally but are necessary for our economic well-being.
Ten years ago, a national conference held at the University of Manitoba discussed the successes and failures of the policy of multiculturalism. By and large it was the failures that were highlighted, but there was agreement that the goal of the policy - the attainment of a tolerant, ethnically diverse but politically stable Canadian state - was clear and within reach. In the thirty years since the announcement of the policy, and despite its critics, it has continued to play a role in shaping Canadian society.
It is instructive at this point to look briefly at how certain other countries are shaping policies in their newly pluralistic societies.
In France the general political consensus is that immigrants must be integrated into French society with the help of government measures. These include programs to end social and labour discrimination, to improve living conditions and to combat racism. However, even sympathetic politicians have portrayed immigrants as a problem or difficulty, while for the ultra-right wing National Front immigrants represent a threat. The contributions of immigrants to French society are not honoured and their cultural practices are derided and confined to the "private domain" so as not to endanger "la culture francaise."
All is not well in Sweden either. Its tolerance and openness to minorities have often been seen as exemplary. In the past there has been generous immigration assistance - language training, housing, social and economic security. Today, however, there is growing xenophobia and right-wing extremism. The reasons seem to be the segregated suburbs (much as in France), growing unemployment among immigrants and their children, and fears of excessive foreign influence.
In Germany until recently, immigrants - even those who had been there for thirty years and more - could not obtain German citizenship. New regulations at least make it easier for German-born children of migrants to become German citizens. Although our newspapers may report only arson attacks against asylum seekers, nevertheless the concept of "German" is slowly beginning to change. The new chair of the Immigration Commission, Rita Sussmuth, has emphasized that besides "integration measures" such as language training and adult education, the German people have to reconsider their own attitudes towards new immigrants: "They think too much of what [they] expect from immigrants and not enough about what immigrants can expect from the German population."
The debate today in Germany about multiculturalism follows two main lines of thought. One resembles what Canada went through until the 1970s: that immigrants and their children, after a fairly brief transitional phase, should conform to a "guiding culture." The second, more cosmopolitan, model sees the development of a pluralistic society like our own, in which immigrants and their children would assume German values and norms while contributing to it their own identities and cultures. The route Germany will take remains to be seen, but more and more it looks like that of Canada in the 80s and 90s.
All three of these societies are engaged in making rapid, even hasty, responses to situation that have been festering over time and which we Canadians have managed to avoid.
I have engaged in some comparisons in order that we may better understand where we are. But what are the implications of Canada's policy of multiculturalism for the Ukrainian community ? Several points should be made:
As a community, Ukrainian Canadians themselves have not been sufficiently concerned with the retention of their Ukrainian heritage, which after all is more than Ukrainian food and dance. In particular, in the defining instance of language retention, the community lags far behind some other ethnocultural groups. And almost one half of Ukrainian Canadians practice a religion other than one of our traditional ones, thereby missing out on a significant aspect of our particular heritage.
We all have multiple identities and loyalties - to our country, to our ethnocultural community, to our religious faith, to our city or town, to a political party, to our profession, and so on. The past history of Ukrainians in Canada has shown that, over time, attachment to the Ukrainian heritage weakens. It had done so by the 1940s, but the community received an infusion of new blood in the form of what has come to be called "the third wave." However, by the 1980s language loss had again occurred. The immigration of Ukrainians in the 1990s is unlikely to provide a great new impetus that will safeguard our heritage, for we are dealing here with a small wave of economic, not political, refugees. Many of us are, indeed, still concerned with what is happening in the now independent Ukraine, although some are increasingly pessimistic about its prospects.
Canada's policy of multiculturalism allows everyone to retain as much of their culture and their cultural heritage as they choose. If Ukrainian Canadians really want to maintain their heritage they must wean themselves from reliance on government. The community itself must make the effort to retain its cultural heritage. It must work hard, it must raise money, it must arouse the necessary interest and concern. Ukrainian Canadians have much to be proud of.
Canada's multiculturalism and other policies have ensured that we enjoy equal rights and opportunities. The rest is up to us.
Canada's embrace of multiculturalism stems from the commonsense recognition that the country is more than an uneasy coexistence of those of British and French ancestry. The policy was announced by Pierre Trudeau in October 1971, an attempt to address the fallout from the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.
From the outset the program was beset by allegations of patronage and confusion over quite what the official emphasis on the importance of ethnicity meant for Canadian identity. The program direction shifted with the change in the composition of new immigrant populations. Previous generations of immigrants had sought to claim their place in Canada through sacrifice and hard work often with the recognition that the real beneficiaries would be the children. Those who claimed to speak for the new immigrants, often with generous financial support from Canadian Heritage, demanded something rather different: an equal share of the country's wealth and employment opportunities on arrival. Any evidence that new immigrants were underrepresented in the professions, upper management or the public service was immediately hailed as evidence of pervasive discrimination. Within government multiculturalism increasingly meant a focus on the supposed needs of visible minority Canadians. Any review of recent annual reports on the multicultural program will indicate the extent to which this is now de facto a program largely concerned with the supposed pandemic of racism and discrimination faced by visible minorities in Canada. The reports outline a growing range of separate provision intended to ameliorate the marginalisation of so-called people of colour.
Official multiculturalism increasingly disparaged the notion that there was some common Canadian identity, highlighted by the remark of former minister Sheila Finestone in 1995 on W-5 that Canada had no single identity and "Canada has no national culture." UBC professor, Charles Ungerleider, one of the many academics to have secured generous Canadian Heritage patronage, made the same point in a more academic form:
The debunking of Canadian identity perhaps reached its nadir with the announcement by the recently elected head of the Assembly of First Nations "I am not a Canadian."8 The Canadian taxpayers who entirely fund Mr. Coon Come's operation might reasonably ask why?
In this polyethnic utopia there seems little room for an old fashioned Canuck. The continued emphasis on the enduring claims of ethnicity is of course redolent of the views of Quebec separatists for whom ethnicity is indeed destiny.
It might be supposed that the avalanche of legislation and policy initiatives directed to alleviating the plight of visible minorities was driven by overwhelming evidence of hardship and exclusion. It was not. Successive legislative initiatives imposed ever more onerous reporting duties on employers and required the continual monitoring of the ethnic and gender make-up of the workforce but far from being driven by convincing data Canada's preferential hirers are deaf to any critical review.
The problems faced by Canada's Aboriginal peoples are widely recognised, rooted in history and entrenched by successive government policies which have failed to provide economic opportunity and fostered a corrosive culture of welfare dependency. Visible minorities like other ethnic groups experienced significant historical discrimination, but the contemporary situation is one in which by any historical or international standard Canada is a model of tolerance.
Visible minorities are alleged to be underrepresented in a range of occupations, a function apparently of the systemic discrimination evidenced by a range of studies from Justice Rosalie Abella's 1984 Commission on Equality in Employment to today. Abella produced no empirical evidence of widespread race-based discrimination. One of the commission's researchers, Monica Townson, noted that lack of any agreed definition of "visible minority and other relevant data prevents any assessment of the social indicators of discrimination."9 Abella simply asserted what she knew to be true: her fellow Canadians were bigots.10
Subsequent analysis of 1986 census data by Monica Boyd, a supporter of preferential hiring, failed to find evidence to support such claims.11 You will no doubt be familiar with the widely reported double-disadvantage of so-called women of colour. The National Action Committee on the Status of Women, an organisation whose success is largely due to Canadian Heritage funding, has widely popularised this claim which simultaneously embraces two untruths. If NAC was correct visible minority women should experience a significant earnings penalty. In fact when Canadian-born women are compared in 1985 (one year after Abella reported) visible minority women earned 13 percent more than their counterparts even accounting for such factors as CMAs, education, age, hours worked etc. they still enjoyed a slight advantage. There was little difference between visible minority men born in Canada and their counterparts. (A recent analysis of census data by University of Winnipeg economists Hum and Simpson showed no evidence of an earnings penalty for the native born.)
Not surprisingly preferential hirers quickly turned to other figures in which the earnings of groups overwhelmingly comprised of recent immigrants were compared with groups overwhelmingly comprised of the Canadian born and the results attributed to discrimination.
What is striking is the rapid growth of an industry that owes its legitimacy to its professed concern to address discrimination increasingly relying on overt discrimination to achieve its goals. In Canada today discrimination is not only legal it is officially sanctioned, so long, that is, as the victims are white and male. What is also notable is the way in which the goal posts keep moving, today what is demanded by racial advocates and promised by the Canadian government is not equal opportunity but quota-based preference, recent preferential policies announced by the Canadian government are illustrative.
Visible minorities comprise some 12 percent of the Canadian population; many are fluent in neither English nor French, some lack citizenship. The proportion of those in the workforce whose characteristics match those of federal employees may be around 8 percent. The government has committed to recruiting 20 percent of new public servants from this group, in effect promising to reject better-qualified white applicants. The government has also committed to providing the less than 6 percent of civil servants who fall in this group with 20 percent of all executive level promotions. White males in the public service already face a range of barriers with training and promotion policies intended to favour women and Aboriginals.
The ethnic makeup in the upper levels of the public service reflects historic recruitment patterns. In 1980 only 4 percent of the Canadian labour force were members of a visible minority. The central factor driving supposed underrepresentation of visible minorities has been their rapid increase in the broader labour force. Contrary to the claims of preferential hirers, hiring on merit will not produce a public service that mirrors the wider population. Even if the labour force characteristics of new immigrants were identical to those of the broader population, and they are not, the most that merit-based hiring could achieve is equal representation in new recruitment.
It is worth noting that the 20 percent target is a base, it is never possible to employ too many designated group members only too few. Women are twice as likely to secure an undergraduate degree as their male counterparts but this invites no call for special programs for boys. At the doctoral level visible minorities are represented at twice their proportion in the wider student population. Scarcely evidence of systemic barriers.
If the evidence of contemporary discrimination is weak then we are forced to the conclusion that we have erected a costly and divisive array of institutional and legislative provisions that lack justification. What has been created is a growing constituency whose institutional rationale leads to both the further production of meretricious statistics legitimating their current mandate and purporting to justify further expansion in resources and an ever more invasive legislative mandate. In other words for those in the preferential hiring and the official multiculturalism industry the search for ever more evidence of discrimination is endemic, justifying current programs and apparently supporting yet more punitive measures and, of course, more career opportunities in the industry. One of the more regrettable consequences of this is the creation of a picture of Canada that is both inaccurate and divisive. There are thousands of people employed in the preferential hiring industry and in the human rights field, there is no parallel group whose job definition might encourage the search for good news. If female graduates earn more than their male competitors two years after graduation it is absent from any feminist discourse. Claims that Canada's educational provision is systemically racist appear unaffected by the fact that some 50 percent of students at U of T are members of a visible minority.
There are a number of central fallacies that drive the employment equity agenda. One is that any non-proportional representation of any ethnic group or gender is prima facie evidence of discrimination. The reality is that for a range of historic, cultural and other reasons ethnic groups do not equally distribute themselves in different occupations. The American writer Thomas Sowell observed on the remarkable success of preferential hirers in promoting the counter view, in spite of overwhelming evidence of diversity: "That what exists widely across the planet is regarded as an anomaly, while what exists nowhere is regarded as a norm, is a tribute to the effectiveness of sheer reiteration in establishing a vision - and of the difficulties of dispelling a prevailing vision by facts." Any review of Canadian census data not only indicates striking ethnic occupational concentration it also fails to afford support to the view that discrimination is the driving force. Some 8 percent of Canadians of Dutch origin are in agriculture compared to close to zero for those of Jewish, Chinese, Portuguese and Greek origin. 19 percent of Jewish Canadians report self-employment but only 5 percent of those of Portuguese origin and 4 percent of those of black origins. Disproportionate Jewish self- employment is sometimes suggested to be a response to the demonstrable discrimination faced by Jews in earlier decades, when for example in the 1930s McGill required Jewish candidates to score higher than 700 in their matriculation exams compared to a more modest 630 for other entrants, but there is no evidence of a similar strategy by those alleged to face contemporary discrimination.
Hiring on merit, assuming equal qualification and equal interest, could only result in proportionate representation among new recruits. In fact as I have suggested there are pronounced differences in occupational distribution. In 1990 when visible minorities constituted 10.5 percent of university graduates the proportions ranged from a high of 20.5 percent in Math and Physical Sciences and 21.1 percent in Engineering to 4.1 percent in Education. Reference to such data and to the historic structure of the labour market provides not only clearer insight into market outcomes it also cautions against the rancorous and inflammatory charges that the under representation of visible minorities in areas such as primary and secondary teaching reflects systemic discrimination.
Let me be clear, the argument I am making is not that labour market discrimination is unknown, many years ago I wrote a book on Southern Africa where labour market discrimination had been turned into an art form. Anyone familiar with the history of Canada could readily identify discrimination against a wide range of ethnic groups not simply those now defined as visible minorities. The argument I am making is rather that the contemporary labour market is not characterised by widespread race-based discrimination.
Under the leadership and financial sponsorship of the Canadian government, and more particularly Canadian Heritage, we have created a burgeoning grievance industry, which has done considerable damage to the emergence of a colour-blind concept of citizenship, and legitimated policies that override individual rights in favour of supposed group rights. It is time to call a halt to this costly folly.
7 "Strategic Evaluation of Multicultural Programs, Final Report Canadian Heritage," Brighton Research Report (1996) 5.
8 Barry Cooper and David Bercuson, "Coon Come to your senses," Ottawa Citizen, 27 July 2000.
9 M. Townson, "The Socio-Economic Costs and Benefits of Affirmative Action," in Research Studies of the Commission on Equality in Employment (Ottawa: Supply and Services, 1985) 349.
10 See R. Abella, "Report of the Commission on Equality in Employment," (Ottawa: Supply and Services, 1985).
11 M. Boyd, "Gender Visible Minority an Immigrant Earnings Inequality: Reassessing an Employment Equity Premise," in V. Satzewich, ed., Deconstructing a Nation: Immigration, Multiculturalism and Racism in 90's Canada (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1991).
The policy of multiculturalism, proclaimed in October 1971, articulated the view that Canada's multicultural nature is "a permanent and central reality - not a transient one or something outside the mainstream."12 Seventeen years later the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 reaffirmed the fact that "the diversity of Canadians as regards to race, national or ethnic origin, colour and religion" was a "fundamental characteristic of Canadian society."
The Ukrainian community has examined the issues raised by the policy on several occasions.13 In 1991, at a conference marking the twentieth anniversary of the policy's proclamation and the centennial of Ukrainian immigration to Canada, Professor Manoly Lupul confidently announced: "The fact of Canada's multiculturalism is incontrovertible." But he went on to say, "What is negotiable is our understanding of the term and of the place it should have in our public philosophy and the extent, therefore, to which it should influence public policy."14
Although the policy has been widely accepted, particularly among non-English and non-French Canadians, its definition and scope have been contested issues. So, for example, several speakers at the 1991 conference decried the fact that multiculturalism was not being broadly viewed as a public philosophy. Lupul argued the "at its most meaningful level, multiculturalism was really a social philosophy like biculturalism, feminism, or the black civil rights movement, whose central tenet was equality, and whose ultimate goal was a greater sharing of power and opportunity in all social areas, in the workplace, education, the media, the civil service, and of course in politics, law, and government."15 A second commentator expressed fears that multiculturalism was becoming a "subdued, emasculated and comparatively minor force in Canadian society." The "genuinely radical social vision" that gave birth to the policy constituted "a threat to the hierarchical status quo in Canada" and was the reason why the policy was being "subtly transformed and its radical potential neutralized."16
Opponents have indeed challenged the broadness of the policy's scope, affecting as it does all areas of life. Supporters, on the other hand, have complained of the failure to "communicate the growth in the policy to the Canadian public."17 In the 1980s and 1990s there was a struggle between those who viewed the policy more narrowly - in terms of managing race relations - and those who saw it in terms of cultural retention.
The policy's critics have tried to marginalize it by viewing it as strictly aimed at "ethnic minorities" with little to do with mainstream Canada. Some have claimed that it was conceived simply as a ploy to "calm the insecurities" of ethnic minorities, or to win the "ethnic vote."
Neil Bissoondath has mounted perhaps the most controversial attack in his Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism (1994).18 The book is a virtual compendium of complaints levelled against the policy. Some of them are quite ridiculous (such as the charge that it was somehow responsible for the rise of the Reform party), but some are serious and require answering. I want to look briefly at three charges: political opportunism, balkanization and trivilialization, and to indicate some important undercurrents in the author's arguments.
(1) The first charge is that the policy was a "slush fund", a cynical instrument to attract "ethnic" votes. (40, 43) Bissoondath appears to agree with the view that the policy was devised to obscure Quebec's claims, "to give the impression we are all ethnics and do not have to worry about special status for Quebec." (40, 62) What is important in the construction of this argument is that no role is allowed for the non-English and non-French as agents of political change. They are merely pawns in the real political game of Anglo-French rivalry. Their own desires count for little and are incapable of shaping the social and political landscape. Multiculturalism is therefore portrayed as just another move by English Canada to "disarm" French Canada. This is how he puts it: "In 1971, with his government sliding steadily into unpopularity (thanks in large part to a policy of bilingualism that had been badly explained and insensitively implemented) Pierre Trudeau initiated a federal policy that would change the face of the nation forever, the official policy of multiculturalism ..."(39) No acknowledgement is made of the role non-English and non-French populations played in the settlement and cultural development on the prairies. Bissoondath appears quite unaware, for example, of the long struggle Ukrainians have waged for cultural rights and recognition. For example, bilingual English-Ukrainian public schools were closed down in the prairie provinces in 1916 and the struggle to restore them was only won in the seventies. Ukrainians produced a rich literary and theatrical legacy in the first half of the twentieth century which is still a largely unexplored contribution to Canadian culture. And their political lobbying has been continual: Senator Paul Yuzyk's argued that there was a "third force" in Canadian politics; Ukrainians intervened into the Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s; community and students lobbied for multiculturalism in the 1960s and 1970s. In short, Bissoondath's analysis refuses to consider that Ukrainians, like other groups, might have actively shaped their own lives and the Canadian polity. He does not see multiculturalism as the demand of a community built over four of five generations, in which each generation has stood on the shoulders and built on the achievements of the preceding one in establishing a presence in Canada. He hears not a voice capable of speaking its own mind, but an "ethnic" voice created by Trudeau.
(2) The second charge is that the policy is a recipe for balkanization, that it threatens social cohesion and encourages division. The policy is held responsible for eradicating the old centre, by evoking uncertainty as to what and who is a Canadian, for diminishing all sense of Canadian values and creating a "sense of drift and powerlessness that grips so many."(77) At the end of the book he even lays blame for the growth of the Reform Party on this "sense of drift" created by multiculturalism.
The fear of balkanization, is, of course, an old one. In making it, Bissoondath unconsciously echoes early twentieth-century empire builders, who, like him, privileged the digestible immigrant, the one who was ready to leave behind the old language and culture. Bissoondath wants the simple rules of assimilation to be clearly laid out, so that everyone can learn the common culture and immediately find acceptance. However, when it comes to describing this common culture and its central values, he is at a loss, and falls back on two matrices - British and French cultural history.
The British and French have, in his view, a "shared history, shared visions, shared attitudes ... The right arm may not resemble the left arm, but they belong together on the same body, serving its interests and their own." (194) Notice the organicist metaphor. A healthy Canadian body must have two arms. The possibility of more limbs is excluded: an individual with more than two would be a monstrosity.
He yearns for the reestablishment of a British matrix to which all can assimilate, so that all can have a history, values, an identity. In reality, of course, there is no such simple matrix. There never was, in fact. By contrast, and in answer to what Bissoondath is saying, I would like to repeat Lord Tweedsmuir's comments to Ukrainian Canadians when he visited Fraserwood, Manitoba on 21 September 1936. He instinctively understood them, probably precisely because he was Scottish:
Ironically, Britain itself in now in a postcolonial condition, with the voices of Scottish, Irish and Welsh activists clamouring for recognition alongside those of others. Political devolution and intensified efforts by a number of groups to maintain their languages and assert their identities are now realities of British life. Bissoondath is silent about this Britain. Reading his views on a British cultural matrix, I wondered what he would think of someone like myself, who was born and educated in England, teaches Slavic Studies in Canada and carries two passports - United Kingdom and Canadian. Am I an "acceptable" cultural "Brit"? Or an "indigestible" Ukrainian "ethnic"? No doubt, anyone who participates in maintaining a Ukrainian community in Canada, would be viewed by him as part of the second category.
Ukrainians have a long experience with the ugly side of the imperial mind, with the prejudices and discrimination that frequently lie behind calls to assimilate. In Canada they were called "strangers within our gates" and "foreign aliens," and portrayed in English Canadian literature as defective natures.20 This is one lesson that a familiarity with the century-long Ukrainian literature written in Canada could teach Mr. Bissoondath. It is an experience that deserves to be much more widely known and moer thoroughly absorbed.
(3) The third charge is the one he spends most time on - hyphenated identity.
He denounces the idea and attempts to ridicule it by describing his own background: he is a Trinidadian, Indian, British, Canadian living in Quebec. How can he possibly be labelled? The first point to be made is that we all have complex social identities. We are shaped by the groups with whom we are in contact; our identities are a reflection of our membership in various constituencies; we absorb a variety of influences and live lives that are full of cultural hybridity. He is also right that identities are not static, but in constant flux: cultures adapt, change, reinvent themselves. But the fact is that a rich individuality and an identification with a particular group are entirely compatible. One can absorb influences, see other cultures as worthy of study for their own sake, and still belong to one's own. Lord Tweedsmuir had no problem understanding that.
Bissoondath does, and he sees hyphenated identity as a self-imposed, stifling ghetto. At the beginning of his book he describes his experience as a student in the cafeteria of York University. He was dismayed by the fact that the Ukrainian students sat at a separate table: "they sat at segregated tables ... while I sought a place at tables that would accommodate a greater variety." (25) We have heard this complaint before: you can sit at our table but you have to speak English. The idea that any group should want to be with their own so that they could speak their own language or discuss issues of importance to themselves (the way we are doing here) distresses him.
His argument can be interpreted as an attack on self-identification in the name of a putative universality. I view the university as a place where one is free to explore different worlds, where student can move from table to table, course to course, culture to culture, learning to understand both differences and commonalities. After gaining an understanding of the values of different cultures they can negotiate between them and learn from them. Before this can occur, however, they need to sit at a "table" in order to learn a particular discourse, they need to gain a voice, a public presence.
Underlying the defence of multiculturalism is what Henry Louis Gates has called a "homely truth": There is no tolerance without respect - and no respect without knowledge. Before you can respect a people, you have to learn something about them.
And there's the rub. Bissoondath appears to have made up his mind that there is nothing to learn from hyphenated cultures. He wants them to disappear from his view: education in these other cultures must be done in the home. In his view, it is strictly the role of "the parents and family" to provide a "knowledge of [the] familial past and [the] ancestral language." (213) Notice how knowledge of a culture is reduced here to knowledge merely of a "familial past." He continues: "It seems to me possible to instruct and individual child in his or her cultural heritage without erecting ghetto walls by engaging in communal endeavour." (213) In other words, he wants this instruction cut off from any social practice. What can this be but an admonition to "speak and act white" in public?
There are even more disturbing subtexts to what Bissoondath is saying about hybridity. He argues that non-English and non-French cultures in Canada can only be vulgar and distorted versions of the real thing. Hyphenated identities are, in his view, necessarily phoney and inauthentic. Those who claim them are only playing a role, engaging in identity politics. They will never know anything about the real cultures they trumpet, because they are only absorbing the kitsch versions, the song and dance routines. He writes: "None of the cultures that make up our 'mosaic' seems to have produced history worthy of exploration or philosophy worthy of consideration." (88) Anyone who complacently thinks compacently that Ukrainians have gained a measure of respect in Canada should contemplate that statement.
Bissoondath ridicules the "simplification of culture" and mocks the superficial world of multicultural pavilions and ethnic stereotypes, which encourage trivial, junk culture. (82-83) In answer to this, it should be stated that, of course, Winnipeg's "Folklorama" and Toronto's "Caravan" are billboard displays, showcasings of cultures. Nonetheless, the popular, the kitschy has a right to exist. We see them on television all night, every night. However, Bissoondath does not seem to be aware that there are also highbrow and scholarly expressions of these cultures. To take the Ukrainian example, he could have turned to the five volume Encyclopedia of Ukraine published in Canada to learn about Ukrainian culture; he might have looked at one of the over 150 titles published by Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and so on. These are the intellectual equivalents of ... inquiring at the Ukrainian table. Ukrainians are tapping into a long stream of cultural production that enriches them. This stream flows not only in Ukraine, but also in Canada, which now has more than a century of Ukrainian history, literature, art, architecture, etc. to look back upon - some of it of high quality and only now being discovered in an independent Ukraine.
Bissoondath, however, goes further than this. He suggests that some cultures are intrinsically unworthy. They are not simply impoverished and inadequate reflections of full cultures that exist elsewhere, they have something ugly to hide (a xenophobic, violent past, for instance); or they are poisoned by an evil "ethnic" nationalism (which is "unWestern"), and not animated by an acceptable "civil" nationalism (which is "Western"). These, again, are old arguments that has been made throughout the ages by colonialists, who are continually amazed at the refusal of natives or immigrants to immediately forget their past. All cultural imperialisms falls back on the "civilizing crusade" argument, and they all stereotype the "colonial" as rural, backward, morally deficient, technologically unsophisticated, comic, or brutal. The only problem is that the line between civilized and uncivilized, West and East, gets drawn according to where a particular individual stands. Here is John R. Commons writing in 1903-4:
You will oberve that somehow France here gets into the list of Protestant, Teutonic races. That, however, is the point: these lines have little to do with reality; they merely indicate the political and cultural prejudices of the person making them. Drawing the line between civilization and its lack is a game one can play from any spot on the globe. Mahatma Ghandi made a sardonic joke once: when asked what he thought of American civilization, he replied, that it would be a good idea.
Bissoondath's perspective is that of someone shedding a past that has disillusioned them and a postcolonial present of which they are ashamed. To understand his core beliefs, it is helpful to examine his fiction. His writings, like some of V.S. Naipaul's, are concerned with escaping pettiness, nationalism, provincialism, and isolation. He sees Canada gratefully as a place that allows him to negate this heritage and make himself anew. In his novel, A Casual Brutality: A Novel (1988) the narrator takes leave of Casquemada the way Naipaul took leave of the sordid realities of Trinidad, and India. Here is a passage from the novel:
One crucial point here is the loss of language and cultural understanding. India is quite foreign to him. Its language and codes incomprehensible. There is nothing of value he can identify with. But there is also the theme of degeneracy. He describes one character, Sagar, as having "the face of an Australian aborigine, but shy, sly, with the fatal naivety of the deeply subjugated." This character displays
It is a picture of abject cultural impoverishment.
Bissoondath is entitled to his own views; he is free to describe his ancestors as he sees fit. But when he grafts the same structures of thought and feeling onto Canada, he deserves a response. There is here a challenge and a warning to Ukrainians (and, of course, to Jews, Icelanders, Poles, and all groups that wish to maintain their identities and stay in touch with their cultural traditions). The message is that unless you want others to construct your biography, you must write your own text. And that is precisely what multiculturalism allows and encourages you to do.
Bissoondath is wrong, in my view, in suggesting that the policy of multiculturalism is collapsing pluralism into hostile solitudes. On the contrary, it deserves to be celebrated for recognizing that the Canadian reality can have a variety of cultural expressions. The policy is an appropriate response to this country's demography and history. It gives voice to smaller, often underrepresented groups, and allows them to play a role in shaping the Canadian identity.
12 Greg Gauld, "Multiculturalism: The Real Thing?" in Canada's Ukrainians: Negotiating an Identity, edited by Lubomyr Luciuk and Stella Hryniuk (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 11.
13 A symposium organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Centennial Commission held in Toronto on 30 November 1991 led to the publication of Multiculturalism and Ukrainian Canadian: Identity, Homeland Ties, and the Community's Future, edited by Stella Hryniuk and Lubomyr Luciuk, Polyphony Volume 13 (1993). A conference in Winnipeg led to the publication of 20 Years of Multiculturalism: Successes and Failures, edited by Stella Hryniuk (Winnipeg: St. John's College Press, 1992). The same year, the centennial of Ukrainian emigration to Canada, saw the publication of Canada's Ukrainians: Negotiating an Identity, and Orest Martynowych's Ukrainian Canadians (Edmonton: CIUS, 1991). Ukrainian, however, have discussed kindred issues for over a century, as a glance at the corpus of literature they have produced over the years confirms. See, for example, the new anthology of Ukrainian poetry, prose and drama written in Canada: Khrestonamiia z ukrainskoi literatury v Kanadi, edited by Yar Slavutych and Myroslav Shkandrij (Edmonton: Slovo, 2000).
14 Manoly R. Lupul in Multiculturalism and Ukrainian Canadians, 8.
16 Kas Mazurek, "Defusing a Radical Social Policy: The Undermining of Multiculturalism," in Multiculturalism and Ukrainian Canadians, 19-20.
18 Bissoondath's views sometimes recall those of Richard Bernstein book dealing with the United States, Dictatorship of Virtue: How the Battle Over Multiculturalism Is Reshaping Our Schools, Our Country, Our Lives (1994), particularly in the charge that multiculturalism was leading to a splintering of the national culture and an intensification of conflicts. Parts of his argument were later echoed by in Suwanda Sugunasiri's How to kick multiculturalism in its teeth: towards a better tomorrow with critical compassion (Toronto: Village Pub. House, 1999). Page references in brackets are to Bissoondath's Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada (Penguin Books, 1994).
19 Quoted in Bohdan S. Kordan and Lubomyr Y. Luciuk, eds. A Delicate and Difficult Balance: Documents in the History of Ukrainians in Canada, 1899-1962 (Kingston: The Limestone Press, 1986), 64.
20 For examples, see: Frances Swyripa, Ukrainian Canadians: a survey of their portrayal in English-language works (Edmonton: For CIUS by University of Alberta Press, 1978), and Orest Thomas Martynowych, Ukrainians in Canada: the formative period, 1891-1924 (Edmonton: CIUS, 1991).
21 John R. Commons from "Racial Composition of the American People," Chautauqua (1903-4), quoted in James S. Woodsworth, Strangers within our gates or Coming Canadians (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 164.
22 Bissoondath, A Casual Brutality, 127.
I know about multiculturalism from the perspective of someone who has lived it, lived with it, been a part of it, worked in it, and witnessed Ukrainian-Canadian culture-making under it. I sang, I danced, I travelled doing these things as a young person, and later I produced/directed Ukrainian-Canadian entertainment events across the country. And I have been involved in the world of Ukrainian music for over twenty years as host of a Ukrainian-language radio program in Winnipeg. I have observed over the years how Ukrainian-Canadians produce culture - particularly in the area of performing arts - and it is my observations on this subject that I would like to share with you today.
Of all the great achievements of our community - in education, higher academia, organizational life, etc. - none of these is as obvious, none is such a calling card, and most associated with the community by other Canadians, as the performing arts ... specifically, Ukrainian dance and music. These forms of expression have been a part of our society since we first began to organize around churches and other institutions of our own making with the first waves of Ukrainian immigration. Prosvitas (enlightenment societies) flourished then without a multicultural policy, as did publishing houses, Ridni Shkoly (native language schools), as did theatre groups, choirs, and dance groups. Ukrainians had to entertain themselves, and give expression to their talents ... and they needed to remember what they had left behind in Europe. This, of course, is true for all nationalities that have immigrated to, and organized in this country. But for a handful, like Ukrainians, the making of culture had an added imperative: the practice of culture was profoundly linked to survival. It was therefore very important, even critical, to pass certain things on to the next generation, to teach children the language, traditions, rituals, and to nourish folk art. And we did this, with very few exceptions, primarily for ourselves - within our own community.
With the implementaion of the policy of multiculturalism, those Canadians who were other than French or English were recognized as being equally part of Canadian society, which was now defined as diverse in its unity, a cultural mosaic. This was a golden time for "ethnic" (non-English and non-French) Canadians who were concerned with the making/remaking of their heritage cultures. I suggest to you (although I have not made an empirical study of this) that under the policy of multiculturalism, and the funding that was made available for various cultural/heritage projects, the performing arts in our community flourished as never before. Ukrainian-Canadian culture found new impetus, came out of the church basements and Prosvita halls, and discovered audiences outside the community. These, it was hoped, would now develop an understanding of our cultural difference, an appreciation of us as equal Canadians, with something to share in the field of performing arts. This, again, was an experience shared by other hyphenated Canadians.
Heritage festivals sprang up across this country, and are, for the most part, still operating today. Such events as "Folklorama" in Winnipeg and "Caravan" in Toronto appeared, with Ukrainians making a strong contribution.
Ukrainian-Canadian music and dance ensembles were, quite frankly, unequalled in quality and quantity. Dance schools and ensembles, semi-professional dance companies (who now rival the RWB and National Ballet), and trained choreographers developed a completely professional approach to the art form.
As for music, the sheer output of recorded Ukrainian-Canadian music, for instance, was such that to this day, no other nationality has come close in volume. For example, in multicultural broadcasting, which, like every other broadcasting, is regulated in its Canadian content, Ukrainian radio programs are the only ones that can offer 100 percent Canadian content on an hourly basis. Only 30 percent is required, and all other ethnic broadcasts are hard-pressed to reach this figure.
However, something is not quite right. We dance and we sing. We want to measure our success in these endeavors, but, in doing so, obstacles arise, because to measure our success is to see what is reflected back at us by the rest of Canadian society. And what is reflected back is iconographic, stereotypical, easily and comfortingly recognizable. I believe that those who criticize the policy of multiculturalism as stereotyping the different nationalities within the mosaic are correct with reference to the performing arts.
Culturally, the Ukrainian-Canadian icons are: the hopak, colourful costumes, polkas, perogies (not varenyky), and the proverbial pysanka. Now, each of these things in themselves have value for us from an aesthetic, ritualistic, historical, and folk-cultural point of view. But they are viewed by others, at best, as beautiful, but mostly as colorful and folksy.
Let me tell you a few stories from recent personal experience.
Ukraine's president Leonid Kuchma came to Canada on a state visit. As a part of this visit he spent a day in Winnipeg, where, at the day's end he was fêted at a banquet, which both Ukrainian and Canadian state dignitaries attended. During a break in the evening's ceremonies, as I stood at the back of the room at the press tables, I overheard a local CBC television reporter talk with her cameraman about using, in that night's news broadcast the shots he had taken earlier of the "little old ladies making perogies for that night's dinner."
I was at my massage, with a new masseuse, who asked me about my name. I told her it was Ukrainian. Her first comment was, "I guess you do all that neat dancing, huh?"
When the Shumka Dance Ensemble was in Winnipeg a few years back with their production of "Prometheus" - a daringly contemporary piece of choreography - I overheard one woman turn to her friend and say, "That's not Ukrainian dancing".
And just a few weeks back, at one of the schools in Winnipeg with a Ukrainian-English bilingual program, the children were preparing the artwork you can see in the Legislature Building in the Pool of the Black Star exhibition. One child drew flowers of fantastical design, to be rebuked by her teacher, who told her this was not Ukrainian and that she should draw sunflowers.
A journalist is allowed to forget the fact that he is covering a state visit and focus on the perogies. As a Ukrainian-Canadian, I am expected to dance the hopak twice on Sundays, and if I dance anything other than the hopak, it is unUkrainian. And if it ain't sunflowers, it ain't Ukrainian. This is what is being reflected back at us. In the field of performing arts, this is now the understanding and expectation of what constitutes Ukrainian-Canadian entertainment.
Now, some might say that Ukrainian-Canadian music and dance does not need to be anything more than that, because in its spectacular, colourful, folk-traditional, and musically-clapable/danceable form, it is a very marketable commodity that puts a lot of bums in the seat, and makes us money for the next show. Discussion rarely, if ever, goes beyond this.
It seems to me, that because our performing arts are considered folksy and quaint, they are not reflected in the cultural/entertainment institutions of clout in this country. Of course, there are exceptions: Shumka, for one - which is said to be one of the top three box office draws in this country, and is paid attention to by the media. However, it survives on its own financial resources and is almost always referred to as a group of "volunteer" dancers. Technically equal to the RWB, drawing audiences equal to the National Ballet, it remains always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
We are not recognized as equal talents; the funding is never equal. Yes, our culture - Ukrainian-Canadian culture - is recognized, but I do not see it as being part of mainstream Canadian culture. I do not see our cultural best getting the kind of recognition and opportunities they deserve. I do not see them on MuchMusic, or MuchMore Music, CBC Television, or nominated - not even in the world music category - for a Juno (although, as mentioned, we are prolific in our recording output), or getting the kind of funding the Canada Council is able to grant.
Why not? Does this perhaps mean, then, that multiculturalism as a policy has not succeded in its fundamental principle, of recognizing us as equal Canadians, promoting a vision of diversity within unity? Does it mean, that the policy of multiculturalism has served to give us added impetus to create, but still keeps us in a box. From my perspective, from the point of view of cultural production, I would answer yes to both questions.
Someone once told me, that being a Ukrainian-Canadian is like being a ward of the state. Multiculturalism is a safe program, wherein Ukrainian-Canadians, and, for that matter, other hyphenated Canadians, remain in the place assigned to them. So far, with little exception, that is what I have seen in the performing arts in this community. We are still in our place, in the box, singing and dancing.
And now we have a new twist. As you recall, I spoke of the imperative to maintaining the Ukrainian language and culture in this country. Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union for over seventy years: the language and culture were Russified, suppressed, or trivialized by the Soviet regime. Today, Ukraine is an independent state, a country with a contemporary, urban, European cultural self-image. How do our Ukrainian-Canadian icons fit into such a reality? How does being a Ukrainian fit with being a Ukrainian-Canadian?
If one talks to Ukrainian-Canadian performers, they will tell you that, as much as they love to practice or create their art, to tell the story of their heritage in whatever form they choose, they so often hit a glass ceiling - particularly those who dare to make their living from their craft.
Multiculturalism or no multiculturalism, I think that as a community, we can do a lot better in promoting and supporting Ukrainian-Canadian performing arts and artists. We should give them a stronger base upon which to stand and compete. To begin with, I think we could organize a round table to discuss cultural issues alone, to try and answer some of the questions of cultural production that I have mentioned, to determine how to get beyond the iconography and break through the glass ceiling.
As a part of this, I think that the arts funding bodies available to us - the Shevchenko Foundation specifically - could stand a revamping of its funding approach, which in this day of costly production values is inadequate.
This paper is a series of observations on how multiculturalism has influenced public education over the past thirty years (1971 - 2001) and how this has impacted the Ukrainian Canadian community. The observations will be somewhat personal and reflect my experiences working in the Ukrainian Canadian community as well as in the Winnipeg School Division no. 1 in Manitoba as a school trustee.
Multiculturalism, at its inception in 1971, had as its goal "that Canada would be a tolerant, ethnically diverse, pluralistic and politically stable society. The means of attaining this goal were to be generated from various sectors and spheres of Canadian society, including the social, educational, economic and political ones. Thus the challenge of multiculturalism was to give Canadians a greater respect for all its citizens, and to allow society to better mirror the reality of all citizens, by recognizing their various, cultural, racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds.
Multiculturalism has progressed in thirty years through several phases. In the first phase, much attention was placed on the protection of the cultural and linguistic rights of all Canadians. This phase emphasized the values of all ethno-cultural minorities in Canada and tried to place value on cultural and linguistic retention, cultural programming and cultural sharing between communities. To achieve this, much emphasis was placed on the concept of community development and the enhancement of the resources of each ethno-cultural community. The second phase placed more emphasis on issues of fairness and justice, particularly in dealing with minorities and matters of immigration. Here the emphasis was placed more on visible minorities, the elimination of racial discrimination, civil and political rights, and issues of equality. The focus now was on nurturing attitudes, creating an environment for the acceptance of racial and cultural diversity and providing real equality and real opportunities for all Canadians. The third and last phase heightened the issue of equality and called for positive measures in various sectors of society, including employment equity. Here the accent was placed on providing a level playing field for all in society and recognizing that all peoples are part of the Canadian mainstream.
Public education has been strongly impacted by Canada's policy of multiculturalism over the past thirty years. In fact, all three phases of the evolution of multiculturalism are evident in public education today. If multiculturalism was to become an important force in shaping the character of future Canadians, many believed that it had to be done to a large extent by schooling and education. Consequently, education accepted the challenge of multiculturalism and adapted schooling to reflect the "New Canadian Policy". Here are a few examples of how education has been modified over the past thirty years:
These are but a few examples of how public education has been influenced due to the impact of multiculturalism.
The Ukrainian Canadian community, which has been a part of Canada for 110 years (1891-2001), has been influenced by Canada's multiculturalism. As an "old ethnic community", it greeted the advent of multiculturalism at a time when the community's future was challenged by many issues. Of significance is the fact that multiculturalism provided the Ukrainian Canadian community with a major challenge to rethink and reevaluate its future direction, especially in the areas of the arts, culture, education and maintaining language skills.
In public education, the major challenge for the Ukrainian Canadian community was the loss of language fluency as indicated by the Canadian census reports and by indicators in the community: the "Ridni Shkoly" (native language schools), which were usually held on Saturday mornings, and core Ukrainian programs were not producing the level of fluency deemed appropriate to maintain the Ukrainian language. As a result, influenced by multiculturalism and to some degree by the "French immersion movement" across Canada, Ukrainian Canadians began to petition provincial governments and school boards for English-Ukrainian bilingual programs - half a day in English and half a day in Ukrainian. It is interesting that these programs had existed in the 1904-1916 period in the Canadian prairies but were quickly curtailed and cancelled because of political pressures. These requests, due to strong political and community lobbying and influenced by the "new climate" of multiculturalism, were approved quickly by the three prairie legislatures and soon the programs were initiated in Alberta (beginning in 1974-75), later in Manitoba (1979-80), and still later in Saskatchewan (1981-82). Today some 2100 students on the prairies are studying in the English-Ukrainian bilingual schools in 11 school divisions and 23 schools, from kindergarten level to grade 12, with a greater concentration in the early and middle school programs. In the 25-year history of the Alberta program (currently in 4 school divisions and 12 schools with 1066 pupils for 2000-2001), the 20-year history of the Manitoba program (currently in 6 school divisions and 10 schools with 840 pupils for 2000-2001), and the Saskatchewan program (currently 1 school division and one school with 185 pupils), the educational progress has been significant. Altogether approximately 10,000 pupils in the three prairie provinces have been enrolled in the program since its inception.
In the Ukrainian Canadian community the English-Ukrainian bilingual program became a major success due to the influence of multiculturalism and its "concept of community development," one that involved the active support of parents and the community. The program quickly created new community organizations - English-Ukrainian bilingual parent councils at each school and umbrella provincial parents organizations: the Alberta Parents for Ukrainian Education and Manitoba Parents for Ukrainian Education (MPUE). These "new" community organizations sought out and brought out the generation of young parents (aged between 25-40), who became involved in language education in multiculturalism (when at this time many of the traditional Ukrainian Canadian organization had average ages of between 55 and 70). The commitment of these parental groups has been an important new force in the Ukrainian Canadian "hromada" (it should be pointed out that many are third and fourth generation Ukrainian Canadians, while on occasion they are from a mixed marriage or sometimes not even from a Ukrainian background).
In Manitoba, one of the challenges of MPUE and its school parent councils has been to offer assistance for the success of the English-Ukrainian bilingual program (EUBP) with recruitment initiatives, resources, cultural outreach and lobbying. Just like hockey had its "hockey moms and dads," the bilingual program now also has its "Ukrainian bilingual moms and dads." This organized force in all three prairie provinces has played a most important role as the promoter of a very unique Canadian multicultural linguistic program.
In Manitoba, MPUE soon expanded its work and, in order to assist the EUBP it created a publishing house called Dzvin (the purpose of which was to develop and publish new pedagogical materials and readers, in consultation with the Ukrainian Language Consultant of the Department of Education), established a foundation called Osvita (the purpose of which was to guarantee funding for the parental recruitment drives, outreach activities and lobbying activities). Dzvin published an initial series of twenty-one readers for the program, which have also been widely disseminated across North America. The Osvita Foundation has an annual fundraising banquet honouring prominent Ukrainian community leaders (fifteen have taken place so far) and has also received a number of bequests. It now boasts a capital fund of over a million dollars with the interest generated funding MPUE and the bilingual program.
With this very good start, the program and MPUE in Manitoba became an example to other ethnocultural communities. In the spirit of multicultural cooperation, the "English-Ukrainian bilingual experience" shared its success and knowledge with two other communities and assisted them with the creation of the English-German bilingual program (1981-2) and the English-Hebrew bilingual program (1982-83), which also have strong parental component organizations. A major successful outgrowth of this relationship has been an annual exchange between students in the three programs. This project is referred to as "Project HUG" and entails a one-day language- and culture-sharing exchange between students at a selected grade level. This project has now been in existence for over a decade. Finally, it should be pointed out that the three bilingual programs and their parent committees were instrumental in the creation of the Manitoba Association for Bilingual Education (MABE) and Manitoba Association for the Promotion of Ancestral Languages (MAPAL) which play a leadership role in the provincial languages umbrella consortium.
The English-Ukrainian bilingual programs are all funded by their provinces and school divisions. They are dependent on significant numbers of students at all class levels. Each school division defines these numbers differently. Generally 20-25 students are needed at the various class levels. Appropriate numbers are especially necessary for the entry years - Kindergarten and Grade I. The numbers taper off somewhat at the higher grades and a number of split classes are sometimes instituted. All of this exists within the public school systems in western Canada as part and parcel of the Canadian educational system. The contribution and assistance of the English-Ukrainian bilingual parent committees is important however, for they support many of the cultural outreach activities for the students as well as additional resources for the schools and teachers. Thus these parent committees do much fundraising to support the various activities.
The provincial councils, APUE and MPUE, which coordinate the bilingual programs in each province, have received significant funding from both the federal and provincial offices of multiculturalism to support these initiatives. In the beginning this was considered especially important by the government funders as a major exercise in "community development." Over the past decade this support has started to decline and today the two provincial umbrellas receive only small grants for the support of their initiatives. This parallels the slow decline of the concept of "community development" in the areas of cultural and linguistic programming by the policies of multiculturalism in Canada.
Today, however, there are a series of challenges for English-Ukrainian bilingual education within the public schooling system in Canada as part of multiculturalism. First, the gains made in this area took much effort and many resources, and played an important role in "community development" in the Ukrainian Canadian community. This could all be lost over the next decade. The community must be vigilant that these achievements do not disappear and that multiculturalism continues to support in part these initiatives.
Second, the parents involved in the bilingual schools and in the provincial umbrellas must continue to be proactive and creative in their work. The same proactive work that initiated the program must now be channeled to new endeavours. One of the interesting new directions for the bilingual program could be the harnessing of resources to improve fluency by establishing "living" contacts with students in Ukraine (through pen pals, e-mailing, school exchanges and student visitations). Ten years ago this was not possible.
Third, the bilingual program must continue to work in partnership, to build new, exciting approaches and initiatives in education. The forging of a partnership with the aboriginal community (for whom language retention is also an important issue) or with the visible minorities (for example in the area of the arts) could be initiated. Additional funding probably would be available. The sharing we see in the Manitoba model of "Project HUG" could easily be replicated and expanded in new models.
Overall, the English-Ukrainian bilingual program in public schools probably serves as one of the best examples within the Ukrainian Canadian community of taking advantage of Canada's multiculturalism policy and implementing a dynamic linguistic and cultural community initiative.
I have to admit that I was somewhat intrigued when Evhan Uzwyshyn invited me to take part in this panel. I have been out of the loop of "organizational multiculturalism" for at least 10 years after spending two years as the national co-chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Centennial Commission. My focus since that time has been on growing a technology-based business in a global market.
As I mulled this apparent gap between what I do (or used to do) in my personal life and my professional and business life, I came to the realization that there is a link and relationship between the two that is very deep and fundamental. Furthermore, my Ukrainian roots and my long term involvement in the politics and the infrastructure of the multicultural community in Canada have indeed influenced by business strategies and, in doing so, have given me a number of strategic business assets.
On the one hand, my personal roles have been as an immigrant immersed in the Ukrainian community, as an active member, volunteer, executive and chair of numerous Ukrainian organizations and as a parent of two sons who are now taking active and leadership roles in the community organizations which have been very important to me and my family. This background has given me the a number of business assets, including:
My professional life has centered on technology. For the past 35 years, I have been fortunate in having the opportunity to be part of the Information Society transformation:
As an entrepreneur, my focus has been:
From this background, I would like to explore the relationship between the two themes in this conference's deliberations: Multiculturalism and transformative forces in the new millennium.
This word has become so overused that it rolls off the tongue effortlessly, without much thought of cause and consequence. Globalization requires a global perspective on trends, influence, infrastructures and market players, recognizing that a hiccup in Hong Kong can trigger an immediate ripple in New York, London and Frankfurt.
I would like to share with you some tangible examples of globalization that required me to take action in the past 9 months. Bidding on a multiyear, multimillion contract with a leading health plan in California, our company, with our US partners, was selected as one of two finalists. Although we are recognized by the client as having the superior technology, product and total solution, our competitor had just been bought out by a company which is owned by Vivendi, the French conglomerate that recently bought Seagrams. Immediately, our business strategy had to recognize the change in market dynamics and adopt a nimble repositioning that recognized the potential impact of the acquisition and differentiated our solution before the now lumbering giant could get to the starting gate.
Over breakfast in Singapore, I learned that one of our client in the UK had just been given a global international mandate in a Fortune 50 company that offered us a strategic edge. Within one day and several e-mails, I could take initiatives in Canada, Australia and the UK to exploit that advantage.
To be a player in the global market no longer requires size or deep pockets. What it does require is a view of the world beyond Canada and North America.
We Ukrainians have always known that there is a world outside our immediate Ukrainian or even English-speaking environment. We have straddled communities and continents, moving freely and with ease between languages and cultures as well as organizational and political realities. We know, and respect, from our earliest years, the nuances, the differences and the commonalities between cultures and countries.
Applying that background and perspective to our world, to understand local market conditions, economics trends, local issues, local barriers and opportunities gives us an edge over unilingual, unicultural, North American-centric competitors.
Perhaps the most significant trend that is changing the economics and dynamics of the global economy is the internet. While the technology of the internet is important, the content and new modes of communication are the real transformative opportunities.
Consider this:
The number of internet users in Asia is expected to increase 422% by the end of 2005.
However, while technology grabs the collective attention of the media and financial markets, the bigger opportunity, in my humble opinion, is in content: technology that enables the creation, communication and interpretation of information, enhances and adds value to content resource.
Multilingual and multiculturally sensitive content offers a strategic opportunity to those who view the world outside the boundaries of our country and continent. To exploit this opportunity, one needs to invest in technology that can support product development and delivery in the major growth markets, Europe and Asia Pacific. Understanding the nuances and the complexities of the global technology market and its hunger for content is key. Viewing the global dynamics from a multicultural and multilingual perspective provides an opportunity to gain advantage over those who continue to see the US as predominant in terms of technology and English as technology's universal language. Those of you who follow the wireless market, need only consider the relative downturn in Motorola's market and the increasing growth in market share of Nokia, a Finnish company that has transformed its local market into the highest penetration of cell phone users in the world, and in doing so, has leaped past its largest competitors.
As the explosive growth in internet users outside the US continues, reaching out to the general consumer population, will these Asian and European consumers all be English speaking, just like the technologically savvy early internet community. Most North American websites assume that to be the case. A few have online translators. Those of us who move between languages and cultures, know that literal translation from one language to another, will simply not cut it.
From my experience, anticipating this global content market in 1990 and developing over that time a technology platform, multilingual versioning capability and a product currently available in ten languages, with Asian language versions scheduled for 2001 has provide my company with a competitive differentiation that has secured business with some of the leading global Fortune 100 companies - just in time for the internet explosion in Western Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.
As immigrants or children of immigrants we were brought up to know that we simply had to strive to be better than the best. That focus on achievement, hard work and excellence is the foundation on which to build "world class products" that will rise above the competition. A small size and limited resources are a barrier to creativity and innovation, but the first requirement is global vision (the kind that drove our pioneers to this new land), a sometimes "fuzzy" sense of wanting to build a new reality, and the grit, determination and drive to succeed.
My first international business experience was a rude awakening to how "Americans" are perceived in a European business setting. In the seventeen years since, I have drawn on my personal background rooted in the immigrant experience to:
In closing, I would suggest that you picture yourself as the pioneers of the new millennium, preparing for a journey that will transform your lives and the generations that will follow - much like the waves of Ukrainian immigrants that replanted their roots in Canadian soil from late 1890's to 1900's, in the 1920's, 1940's and 1970's and now once again. To make their vision a reality, they needed to acquire the tools, skills, social and economic support systems and language of the new land. They need to risk and invest. They needed to keep their focus on the future while they built the foundation for growth. And so do you as you dream your dreams in a world that changes daily.
Canadian Issues Roundtable; Moving Forward was an initial step in a national consultation process organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation. It addressed two issues Canadian Diversity: The Future, and Canada-Ukraine Relations: Strategies that work.
The Roundtable aimed to examine the policy and program implications of the two issues in order to assess what has worked in practice; identify the present gap between intent and reality; and put forward proposals for further considerations.
It brought together some 110 interested and knowledgeable Canadians from across Canada: members of the Federation, other community groups, practitioners in the NGO communities, academia, government and business interests. The Patron of the UCPBF The Rt. Hon. Ramon J. Hnatyshyn opened the proceedings.
The methodology was designed to solicit maximum participation. Each issue was assigned three hours. The first hour was devoted to opening positions by expert panelists in a plenary setting. The second, to further discussions in four Roundtables where the panelists acted as Chairs and a knowledgeable individual was provided as the rapporteur. The final hour was in plenary again: the rapporteurs de-briefed on each Roundtable discussion; a question and answer period followed. The rapporteurs submitted summaries of discussions in writing to be used, among other sources, in putting this paper together.
The UCPBF wishes to thank all participants, panelists and rapporteurs who participated in the Ottawa Canadian Issues Roundtable.
Issues 1: Canada-Ukraine Relations: Strategies that work
Eugene Czolij, President UCC
Jim Temerty, Chairman & CEO Northland Power
Olexandr Horin, Embassy of Ukraine
Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Editor Globe and Mail
Wendy Gilmour, Deputy Director, Eastern Europe, Foreign Affairs
Peter Daniel, Vice President, CIDA
Chair Bill Teron, Chairman and CEO Teron International
Rapporteurs: Andrea Chalmers, Ken Hepburn, Yaroslav Bara
Issues 2: Canadian Diversity: Making it work
Adrian Boyko, UCC Vice President
Dr. Martin Loney
Sen. Reynell Andreychuk
Chair Dr. Yarema Kelebay, Professor, McGill University
Rapporteurs: Margaret Kopala, Marika Graham, Nikolaj Bilaniuk Organization: Olya Henry, Peter Sorokan, Teresa Luhovy, Iris Bradley
This document will be used as policy input for the consideration of the government of Canada.
ISSUE 1: CANADA-UKRAINE RELATIONS: STRATEGIES THAT WORK
The bonds between Canada and Ukraine continue to provide sound underpinnings for a robust relationship between the two nations. Despite the fact that in the ten years that have passed since independence that relationship has fallen short of the initial exuberant expectations on both sides, much has been accomplished. There is a quiet dedication to building upon past successes and moving forward to achieve new results of strategic and economic importance. Ukraine is a work-in-progress and a long term perspective is required.
In Ukraine, there have been many positive changes over the decade; some observers claim that the current government has the potential to be the most reformist since independence. Consequently, it deserves Canada's continued and strong support. This climate and the improving economic indicators stress that the time has never been better for investment in Ukraine - political, social or economic.
The Canadian Ukrainian community has worked diligently over the period to foster a climate that ensured significant contribution from Canada to Ukraine's emergence as a democratic and economically strong nation. It is proud of its contribution, and it is cognizant of Canada's exceptional support. At the same time there is a critical need to avoid complacency and to continually adapt to the new reality that is today's Ukraine and today's global political and economic situation. The reciprocal importance of the Canada-Ukraine relationship merits emphasis. It enables Canada to have influence in Central and Eastern Europe, well beyond that normally associated with its stature.
An accurate image of Ukraine is important to extending the constituency in Canada that is both committed to Ukraine's future and supportive of a foreign policy that honours Canada's special relationship with it. Informed and objective media coverage is critical to a public understanding of Ukraine's realities and its enormous importance to world order and security. Unfortunately, media coverage has often been considered lacking and renewed efforts are needed to ensure that there is no lack of interest in, or support for, Ukraine due to inaccurate information.
The way ahead is a creative blend of the old and new. Not surprisingly, many of the same core issues continue to dominate the needs landscape. Yet, the experience of the past ten years is evident in the ideas that were put forward in the discussions.
The way ahead is in the hands of Ukraine. There is almost universal consensus that Ukraine's future lies in its own hands and that assistance from other countries, such as Canada, must first and foremost conform to Ukraine's own priorities. Secondly, in any initiative, other than government-to-government, Ukrainian partners are essential. Particular importance should be attached to strengthening Ukrainian institutions to foster sustainability.
This having been said, it is nevertheless important for Canada to communicate its own perception of crucial changes that are required. Changes that would, for example, increase Ukraine-Canada trade, facilitate investment and, in general, improve its relationships with the rest of the world. A friend would do no less. Top among the areas requiring priority attention are the democratization of the political process; the development of a legal framework for business; and, the development of a professional public service. To the degree that these are agreed upon priorities, they should be concentration for the programs and initiatives of the government of Canada. This does not turn a blind eye to crucial international concerns such as corruption, but it situates action in these key areas as necessary conditions to resolve a myriad of other problems.
A newer dimension to the Canadian perspective on priorities for Ukraine centered on independent policy formulation, education and the use of new technology, particularly the Internet, to bring the world to Ukraine's door and visa versa. Given Canada's strengths in these fields, this could be a strong unifying theme across agreed upon priorities.
The way ahead is not only in Ukraine, but also in Canada. Here, there is a need to improve Canadians' understanding of Ukraine and to marshal community resources efficiently and effectively. In particular to utilize the linguistic and substantive expertise of Ukrainian Canadians in policy and program activities.
Today, it is essential that every Canadian Ukrainian who is committed to the goal of strong relationships with Ukraine, understands the current cultural and political realities of this new nation. Every member of the community needs to become a knowledgeable spokesperson who can shape public opinion. This represents a quantum change in the level at which the community, collectively and individually, tackles the issues of this decade. The results can be transformational.
Within the Ukrainian Canadian community there are numerous organizations and interests. This provides a richness and variety that is admirable, but it also presents a challenge for the community to ensure a high level of collaboration and coordination in matters of public policy and technical assistance to Ukraine.
The way ahead requires the continued commitment of the Government of Canada. There is great support for the government's ongoing efforts to fine-tune its foreign policy and technical assistance programs vis-a-vis Ukraine. The government focus on citizen engagement must be taken very seriously and the community must undertake its role with balance, and a sensitivity to the full range of factors that must be considered by government policy. At his point in time, the Senate policy review, the work of the Intergovernmental Economic Commission and the CIDA review of its "lessons learned" all present key opportunities for input.
It is understood that Canada's technical assistance will inevitably be linked to certain Canadian objectives and values. While this is fully understandable, the blending of these with the priority needs of Ukraine must be done with care and sensitivity. The Government of Canada has done much; it will inevitably be called upon to do more.
The way ahead requires greater involvement of Canadian business. The time has never been better to revisit business-to-business relationships.
The last decade has been marked by a few notable successes for Canadian business in Ukraine. However, momentum and energy have dissipated owing to the well know difficulties presented by the slow pace of reform in Ukraine. The current positive indicators signal that it is time for a renewed effort by the Canadian private sector to enter the Ukrainian market.
A decade of frustrations have left some business people understandably reluctant to renew the charge. Consequently, it is vital that a new generation of Canadian entrepreneurs be engaged and encouraged to build new partnerships in Ukraine.
Among the objectives of the Canadian Issues Roundtable was
The Federation, an important part of the Canadian Ukrainian community, and a particularly vigorous member of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress, seeks to share the results of this Roundtable with all its sister organizations and to work within the community for the development of a shared agenda.
To this end, the Proposed Action Plan Elements contain a draft set of policy principles and possible initiatives that are derived from both the preparatory work done last year and the Issues Roundtable 2000. The National executive invites membership comment on this draft.
On the Anniversary of Ukraine's Independence, Canada might wish to consider
After ten years of technical assistance to Ukraine, much of it dedicated to the issues surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, consideration should be given to
Despite the difficulties encountered in this sector, renew the effort in trade and investment starting with the Intergovernmental Economic Commission in the early months of 2001. Develop a joint strategy identifying sectors, priorities and providing a plan for renewed economic efforts with a timetable.
The departments and agencies involved with Ukraine should actively seek out Canadians of Ukrainian descent, with meritorious expertise and language skills, to become involved in the full range of the Canada-Ukraine initiatives. Cultural and linguistic know-how is critical to successful results.
ISSUE 2: CANADIAN DIVERSITY; MAKING IT WORK
Multiculturalism is a uniquely Canadian success story which has, in recent years, suffered from an image problem. It is one of the few government policies devoted to examining what and who we are as Canadians. And, importantly, the one that has brought Canada recognition as a leader among tolerant societies of the world.
Canada is a work-in-progress. Multiculturalism is the means by which Canada can move forward into the next stage of evolution: the search for the uniquely Canadian culture. This a complex task; not easy to explain, understand or buy into. Perhaps because of its complexity, multiculturalism has been taken over by other, perhaps more obvious claims.
After some thirty years of multiculturalism there is need to go back to first principles. From its initial focus of unity-through-diversity, the notion that all ethnic cultures on Canadian soil are Canadian; that we need to know and be ourselves before we can be Canadian, the policy has shifted, apparently to serve equity programs and fighting racial discrimination. This has led to duplication among government programs which have established equity programs in their own right. As a result several departments and agencies seek taxpayers money to go after the same clientele: the practice is repeated in provincial jurisdictions; and reflected throughout the social structure in employment recruitment, the arts, media of the country to name a few. This duplicationis an area for the Auditor General's consideration.
Significantly, with the re-direction of funding came the re-direction of emphasis. As a result Canadian multiculturalism is in disfavour. This has a negative effect on Canadians that identify with it and is particularly true in Western Canada. The message is clear: the government is not in tune with our needs; we are persona non grata to our government. In turn, this disaffection may have been reflected during the elections.
The discussions at the Roundtable affirmed that racism is bad and needs to be addressed, but emphasized that multiculturalism is central to the definition of Canada. To ensure the accommodation of both the government needs to separate out programs aimed at racial equity from programs devoted to multiculturalism. Both are important but different. Despite the review of the Multicultural Program several years ago, its three new objectives social justice, identity and belonging, and civic participation, while expressing inclusivity miss the mark in practice.
For example, the Roundtable on Canadian Issues, a forum discussing the future of Canadian diversity with a focus on all three objectives was denied funding at the very last moment. The reason given: a decision to shift funds from Canadian diversity and multiculturalism to a world conference on fighting racism. Attempts to discuss this at a higher levels were ignored.
Understandably, visible minorities are keen on government programs devoted to their integration and access to position of influence and power. The Task Force on Visible Minorities findings intends to expand access to executive ranks of the federal government. And there are benefits from the Multicultural Program's shift from cultural enhancement to racial equality. But this is not an appropriate way for Canada to treat its people: taking from one to give to the other.
Desire to be represented at the top of government and other Canadian institutions is not unique to visible minorities. Historically, in Canada the early cheap-labour minorities, predominantly Ukrainians, were faced with their own set of discriminations and unequal treatment parallel to much of the hardship experienced by the blacks of the US, for example, and have strived and continue to work for equal participation in Canada's society.
Thus it has not gone unnoticed that without multiculturalism, the non Anglo-Saxon and French Europeans, are not included in the government's attempts to balance formally opportunities of the minorities with the majorities. This is particularly true for the males of the non-founding European people in Canada: they are not accommodated in any government policy; not in the founding peoples reality nor in the redress of the equity programs. They do not fit the "stacked profile" at all.
Thus after 125 years of settlement in this country, for example, Canadian Ukrainians have had only one deputy-minister in Ottawa and a handful, at best, of appointments at the one level down, putting a sharp point on the need for equal access of many meritorious minorities to the top echelons of Canada's bureaucracy and other institutions of power.
All of us need to be accommodated within Canada before we can start building, in common, a new Canadian entity. To that end multiculturalism needs to be re-defined and re-instated as an important government priority which serves all Canadians. It is much easier to accommodate special needs of some groups some of the time in Canada if there is fundamental understanding that all Canadians are special in some ways and may need such special consideration at some point in time. Multiculturalism is the policy of accommodation: it is needed to make as diverse a country as Canada work.
Language retention and enhancement of cultural diversity are also a key issue to Canadians. Some, like the founding peoples have enshrined their unique position in official bilingualism. Their numbers are such that they need not fear, at least in the near term, a threat to their cultural identity. The other established cultures, those who have been in Canada for over a hundred years, like the Ukrainians who consider themselves a founding people of the West, wish to have similar status and continue to strive for recognition on their needs. To them, heritage language retention, cultural enhancement, the reflection of their names, histories, successes, even abuses in Canada's mosaic, are paramount in defining themselves as Canadians. Take away who they are and in so doing Canada will have erased a people as fundamental to this country's history as the first or the founding peoples.
This need for language retention and distinct cultural enhancement applies to many Canadians. The ongoing revival of the Aboriginal peoples' interest in all aspects of their cultures underscores the need and value of language retention to the self-esteem of any individual. Language, of course, is at the heart of Quebec's fight for distinctiveness. And goes further: the Liberal Task Force on the French language retention in the West devoted nearly $200 million not too long ago to the preservation of the French language in areas with small French populations.
Concerning funding, it is clear that government funding represents commitment, identifies priorities, and as such, its importance goes beyond money. Furthermore, grants for cultural retention have played a valuable role; much of the familiarity of Canadians with their neighbours would not have happened without them. This is considered to be a very important dimension to nurturing Canada's ability to be tolerant. Additionally, it is a money maker for Canadian cultural festivals and a tourist attraction for Canada as a whole. Beyond grants, Canada's multiculturalism needs to be reflected in government policies and undertakings throughout the system. This means there should be funding provided throughout the government's policy and programs to ensure that Canada develops an appropriate multicultural patina not just to its human resource composition but to its way of thinking as well.
All of us need to be accommodated within Canada before we can start building, in common, a new Canadian identity which goes beyond the practicalities of health care and the pension plan. To that end multiculturalism needs to be re-asserted as an key government priority in its own right. It is the policy of accommodation of all Canadians and it is needed to make a diverse country like Canada work. It is fundamental to national unity be it in Quebec or in Western Canada.
Currently, Canada is in a stable economic and political position. It is a good time to put in place solid mechanisms of social co-existence; a good time to re-direct government policy to reflect the needs of Canadians who have felt somewhat excluded. Such Canadians, including the Westerners need to feel central to Canada for their disillusionment to disappear. A renewed multiculturalism can play a part. Good times are also opportune for looking into the future and considering what is to come next in Canada's social and cultural evolution.
The participants of the Roundtable, and others, have put forward ideas on how to move forward on some of these issues, summarized here for further consideration.
Before any action can be taken in repositioning multiculturalism as one of the central building blocks of Canada's society, some hard questions need to be answered as guidelines to the next phase of Canada's multiculturalism:
The discussion can be summarized under several key points. Discrimination
Principles guiding Canadian multiculturalism or diversity should state that it
Furthermore, multiculturalism programs need to be run by people sensitive to all Canadian and its policy aims. Furthermore, the funding needs to reflect the Canadian population base it is meant to serve.
Canada is a work in progress seeking to define itself. The job is not yet done. Multiculturalism, which encompasses all Canadians, provides an appropriate fromework to continue this task. If multiculturalism were to become passé or discredited, a new concept like "diversity" needs to be found, but the principle that we all come together in Canada from different cultures to forge a new one must stay. Multiculturalism reflects Canada's reality. If it did not exist, it would have to be reinvented.
Much work is required to ensure multiculturalism is fair in its delivery and effective in results. As a start, funding should be reviewed to ensure that it
Some thirty years after its pronouncement Canada's multiculturalism needs to be reassessed. In the first place, it needs to be separated from the fight against racism; both are valid but separate issues. The philosophy, principles and policies of multiculturalism need to be actioned in programs and budgets that have government-wide application and impact, and reflect appropriately the multicultural nature of Canada's society. To ensure that multiculturalism becomes well entrenched, the government may wish to consider creating an office of a Multicultural Ombudsman.
Multiculturalism is the lead-in to the next step in Canada's evolution: the formation of a uniquely Canadian culture. But first, Canada needs to recognize and accommodate the cultures of all its composite groups; a challenge worthy of the "number one" country in the world. Canada needs to go forward in this challenge and develop a "multicultural sovereign state model" to serve the entire globe. Most countries are now multicultural. Global peace and security depend on the successful functioning of such states. Canada, the first to officially endorse and espouse this vision, should strive to b the world's success model should strive to be the world's success model.
Evhan Uzwyshyn is the immediate past president of the Ukrainian Professional and Business Club of Winnipeg Inc. and has recently retired from the Manitoba Department of Education.
Myroslav Shkandrij is a Professor in the Department of German and Slavic Studies at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of Modernists, Marxists and the Nation: The Ukrainian Literary Discussion of the 1920s (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1993), and Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire From Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001). He has also edited two books on Ukrainian writing in Canada.
W. Roman Petryshyn is the Director of the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre (URDC) at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta. He is the author of a number of articles on future planning for the Ukrainian Canadian community and the editor of the collection Social Trends: Changing Realities (1980). Since its creation in 1987, URDC and its partners at the college have carried out a variety of multicultural projects in Canada, as well as business management, agriculture, nursing and English education projects in Ukraine.
Stella Hryniuk is International Lliaison Officer at the University of Manitoba. She is the author of Peasants with Promise: Ukrainians in southeastern Galicia, 1880-1900 (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1991) and coeditor of several books on multiculturalism and Ukrainians in Canada, among them Canada's Ukrainians: Negotiating an Identity (University of Toronto Press, 1991) and Twenty Years of Multiculturalism: Successes and Failures (Winnipeg: St. John's College, 1992).
Martin Loney has taught at universities in the United Kingdom and Canada and is currently a member of the Ottawa Citizen editorial board. He is the author of The Pursuit of Division: Race, Gender and Preferential Hiring in Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998), coeditor of Community work and the state: towards a radical practice (Boston: Routledge and K. Paul, 1982) and The State or the market: politics and welfare in contemporary Britain: a reader (London; Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications in association with The Open University, 1987).
Bohdana Bashuk is a freelance radio and television broadcaster. She has been host of WTN's Open for Discussion for eight seasons. The program has received national recognition for its coverage of human rights issues and, as host, Bohdana Bashuk was honoured in 1999 with a Celebration of Women's Achievement Award by the Mount Sinai Domestic Violence Awareness Committee. Since 1979 Bohdana has produced and hosted a daily Ukrainian-language radio show for CKJS in Winnipeg. She has been involved in film projects as a voice-over narrator, and has produced, directed, and hosted stage shows in Manitoba and across the country.
Roman Yereniuk is a lecturer at the University of Manitoba and co-author of Monuments to Faith: Ukrainian Churches in Manitoba (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1990). He has written extensively on the Ukrainian religious tradition and Eastern Christianity. For the last ten years, he has been a school trustee in Winnipeg's School Division no. 1. Previously he was involved with Manitoba Parents for Ukrainian Education and the Ralph Brown English-Ukrainian Bilingual Program. Recently, he has been a consultant on public education to the public school boards of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano Frankivsk in Ukraine.
Zorianna Hyworon has been national co-chair of the Ukrainian Canadian Centennial Commission, and currently works as a corporate strategist.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn has been National President of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation. She has worked in the senior ranks of the federal government and in national and international consulting, and has established Ukraine Canada Relations Inc., a consulting firm brokering interests between Canada and Ukraine. Currently she is editor of Nasha doroha.