Although Canada is recognized for its embracing policy and as the first country in the world to adopt multiculturalism, the creation of Multiculturalism Act was not inevitable. The Multiculturalism Act became an official policy of Canada during a highly significant period in the history of Canada due to the presence of Canada’s ethnic diversity, the search for economic development, and the political leadership of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The country has been cited for its successful integration of different cultures and ability to manage the cultural diversity using a federal law (Gagnon, Raska, Van Dyk, & Schwinghamer, 2015). In this study, the factors that contributed to the 1988’s passing of the Multiculturalism Act are investigated.
Secondly, the challenges the government faced during and after the 1980s economic recession and their seeking for more economic development pushed the establishment of the Multiculturalism policy. In the 1980s, Canada entered the recession with unemployment rates at 35-year lows, doubling its unemployment rate to 12%, with interest rates and inflation higher than in the US (Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2015). It took seven years to restore the pre-recessionary number of full-time jobs. The data shows that Canada’s economy was severely damaged in the 1980s, as it suffered the lowest unemployment rates in three decades and the closing of factories in the mining and manufacturing industry. Since recovery of the economy was hard and slow, it was crucial for the Canadian government to find external forces to ease and accelerate the process. As such, the state was desperate to establish a friendly environment for skilled immigrants and, hence, passed the Multiculturalism Act. Economic globalization during the 1980’s also contributed to the creation of the multiculturalism act. Typically, business elites in Canada abandoned their conventional attraction to high tariffs. Consequently, they began to advocate for free trade. Later, Brian Mulroney’s government “negotiated the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., which came into effect in 1989” (Azzi, 2015). The arrangement increased Canada’s trade with the US, promoted integration, and encouraged interdependence of the two countries. Moreover, Canada expanded its economic sphere and became increasing connected and dependent on other countries. The economic globalization allowed Canada to interact with nations that had different culture, ethnicity, and language. Such cultural and ethnic diversity sparked the need to develop a multicultural law to promote Canada’s interaction with other countries and boost trade. Canada’s need for increased economic cooperation with foreign countries also pushed the government towards the creation of a multiculturalism policy. In the 1950s, the US made heavy direct investments of approximately $3.4 billion in Canada (Bellan, 2015). By 1980s, however, relatively fewer gas, oil, mining, and manufacturing industries were foreign-controlled. Since 1992, the inbound and foreign direct investment in Canada has outpaced the G8 countries. It also continues to grow annually. For example, the “total foreign direct investment in Canada stood at $551-billion in 2008, $592-billion in 2010, and $634-billion in 2012” (Bellan, 2015). The information shows that foreign investment before the Multicultural Act’s enactment was dominated by US-based companies, but Canadian firms began to dominate foreign investments after the passing of the act. Therefore, the search for increased trading cooperation led the country to embrace foreign cultures pass a multicultural act to boost international trade.
Last but not least, the former Prime Minister Trudeau’s political leadership and positive attitude towards multiculturalism formed a conclusive factor to the creation of the policy. Thus, he was recognized as the “father of multiculturalism” (Nadeau, 2005, p. 206.). Trudeau helped to negotiate the constitutional independence of Canada from Britain’s parliament and establish a “Canadian Constitution with an entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms” that protected multiculturalism (Whitaker, 2015). Additionally, he introduced the 1969’s “Official Languages Act,” which made Canada formally bilingual (Whitaker, 2015). The interest in the policies of bilingualism emerged from the activities “of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism” (Lepage & Corbeil, 2013). The Commission made sixteen recommendations, which ranged from endorsing basic guarantees of legal equality to enriching all levels of education with the inclusion of the languages and cultures of non-French and non-English Canadians (Wood & Gilbert, 2005). As a result of the Commission’s work, bilingualism’s rate in the country increased “from 12.2% in 1961 to 13.4% in 1971” (Lepage & Corbeil, 2013). Nonetheless, ethnic groups, other than the British and the French, felt left out by the Commission because their cultures were not recognized. As such, pressure intensified and Trudeau was forced to draft the Multiculturalism Act to embrace such minority ethnic groups. Paperny (2015) presented a bar chart depicting immigrants as average percentages of the population in each party’s riding: Liberals: 24.81%; NDP: 15.60%; Conservative: 12.89%; Bloc: 4.35%. The data demonstrated that the idea of multiculturalism was an extension of the equality and federalist philosophy of the Liberal Party, which was supported by many immigrants. Thus, Trudeau realized that the push for the Multiculturalism Act could help the Liberal Party to win more support among ethnic minority groups during federal elections (Library and Archives Canada, 2014). In a statement to the House of Commons, Trudeau explained that although Canada has “two official languages, there is no official culture, nor does any ethnic group take precedence over any other” (Sugars, 2004, p. 117). Trudeau, therefore, informed Canadians that the government would introduce a Multiculturalism policy because establishing different cultural measures for the various ethnic groups in Canada would fail to unite the nation.
In conclusion, the Multiculturalism Act was an outcome of the combination of the right time, the right environment, and by the right person. The Multiculturalism Act became an official policy of Canada during a very significant period in the history of Canada due to the presence of Canada’s ethnic diversity, the search for economic development and the political leadership of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. However, no matter how the Act was created in the first place, its idea of embracing and tolerating other people’s cultures was deeply rooted in Canadians’ hearts, and continues to shape their social lives.
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