In opening the debate on same-sex marriage legislation, Paul Martin declared: “This bill protects minority rights.”
He then went on to define Canada as “a nation of minorities,” stating that “when we as a nation protect minority rights, we are protecting our multicultural heritage.”
This formulation about Canada illuminates the thinking of the Liberal party, and those outside who make multiculturalism into a doctrinal issue in Canadian politics.
This pleasing phrase—“a nation of minorities”—on examination is insulting. It suggests there is an incoherence arising from the collision of competing minority interests at the heart of multicultural Canada.
But then, such a view has served the interests of the Liberal party, since it offers itself as being most competent in negotiating differences among minorities and providing the multicultural mosaic of the country.
Canada is not alone in being a country of immigrants. Not unlike Australia or the United States, the earlier settlers on Canadian soil, irrespective of their ethnic differences, laid the foundation of a country based on certain shared cultural values pertaining to matters of faith (Christianity) and politics (representative democracy) that distinguish western civilization from others.
This history of Canada as a western liberal-democratic society is not demeaning to the values of immigrants who have come from all four corners of the world. On the contrary, it is only because of such a history that Canada has been able to absorb in relative peace and generosity immigrants from diverse backgrounds.
The core values of faith, family, defence of freedom and democracy are not limited to a particular minority group. They belong to the country and are shared by a majority of Canadians despite their ethnic differences.
Diminution of the core values that built Canada, however—values that were shared, enriched and defended with blood and sweat through wars, economic recessions and social unrest—puts the country adrift and heightens concerns about its future.
Multiculturalism as a Liberal doctrine has served the party well in electoral politics. But the unintended consequences have been to diminish the foundational values of the country—slowly stripping them of their meaning and place in the nation’s life.
In this context, describing Canada as “a nation of minorities” advances the process of fragmenting the country and diluting its core values. A “nation of minorities” cannot have any core value, since any value would be limited to a minority group and not necessarily shared by others.
Moreover, in a “nation of minorities” it follows that any or all values need to be acknowledged and respected equally as they belong to some minority group. These values must also be protected, despite any unease they produce among an assembled majority of minorities, on the basis of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A country thus conceived will be predictably less of a home while increasingly representing a hotel, where the noisiest guests can squeeze from management staff the most of whatever is readily available on the service menu, at the expense of others.
As a rule, ideas in the realm of public policy should be weighed not only in terms of what benefit or good they point to, but also in terms of what unintended consequences might follow in adopting them in practice.
The inherent paradox of multiculturalism is its fragmenting effect when there is a weakening, or a lack of binding force, of commonly shared core values among a people constituting a nation.
The latest Liberal formulation of Canada being a “nation of minorities” may only imperil the sense of our country being greater than the sum of its parts.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
- Israel: Decades-old conflict not about to cease - Saturday November 24, 2012 at 1:56 pm
- The better man lost the U.S. election - Saturday November 10, 2012 at 9:16 am
- The puzzle in U.S. presidential elections - Saturday November 3, 2012 at 8:43 am
