Myth of Multiculturalism

The Myth of Multiculturalism Supporting Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

by

Dr. Trent Keough

Evidence of multiculturalism1 can be found in social policies, legislation and
laws responding to discrimination, prejudice and racism. Multiculturalism is also
present when ordinary motivators of patriotic allegiance, i.e. a shared formational
history, common language or religion, singular ethnicity, or an internally/
externally defined enemy, are either misaligned or absent.2 At the core of all
multiculturalism is an awareness of alienation and a corresponding hope for
inclusion. The existence of multicultural policies and supporting law is not
evidence of inclusionary practice or ethical political leadership.

Multiculturalism can exist in principle only. Social policies and legislative
practices can maintain status quo discrimination and institutionalized racism. Faux
multicultural leadership can be identified with public acknowledgement of
historical failures of moral arbiters and political decision-makers without
demanding changes to the socio-political infrastructure. Those inheriting privilege
taken from discrimination often attempt to distance the political system they also
inherit from wrong doing by celebrating the presence of multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism places an ethical imperative upon its leaders to own denied
prejudices informing Canadian national heritage and current social practices.
Effective multicultural leadership challenges ownership of privilege rooted in
heritage entitlements. It normally causes unease and discomfort, and is often
received as a dissident leadership. Multicultural leadership must be capable of
withstanding rejection when challenging systemic discrimination, prejudice and
racism. This leadership runs the risk of attacks upon its positionality and authority.
Leaders engaging in multicultural dialogue are also vigilant not to speak for
‗others.‘ Every appropriation of the other‘s voice is an act of (oppressive)
silencing. Multicultural leaders also exhibit self-reflexivity when identifying biases
and prejudices informing their own cultural ‗voices.‘ The emphasis on individual
humanity (both rejected and affirmed) within multicultural dialogue is a counter-
measure to the dehumanization conjoint with racism.

25 February 2012 Trent Keough copyright by Trent Keough

I: Dimensions of Canadian Multiculturalism

Canada proclaims itself to be the foremost multicultural nation in the world.3
It was a vision of hope for a defined and noble nationhood that made Canada the
first country to ―adopt multiculturalism as an official policy. . . . The 1971
Multiculturalism Policy of Canada also confirmed the rights of Aboriginal peoples
and the status of Canada‘s two official languages.‖ 4 Multiculturalism is also
directly written into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982.5 The
Government of Canada offers the following comment on assurances of
multiculturalism in Canada:

All Canadians are guaranteed equality
before the law and equality of opportunity
regardless of their origins. Canada‘s laws
and policies recognize Canada‘s diversity by
race, cultural heritage, ethnicity, religion,
ancestry and place of origin and guarantee to
all men and women complete freedom of
conscience, of thought, belief, opinion
expression, association and peaceful
assembly. All of these rights, our freedom
and our dignity, are guaranteed through our
Canadian citizenship, our Canadian
Constitution, and our Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. 6

With the passing of the Multiculturalism Act in 1988, Canada became the first
nation of the world to make multiculturalism part of its judicial system. 7 Today, in
2012, Canada‘s Multiculturalism Program resides within the purview of the
Federal Government‘s Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).
―CIC‘s Multiculturalism Program draws its mandate from the Canadian
Multiculturalism Act (1988).‖ 8 On its website CIC defines multiculturalism in this
way:

Canadian multiculturalism is fundamental to
our belief that all citizens are equal.
Multiculturalism ensures that all citizens can
keep their identities, can take pride in their


ancestry and have a sense of belonging.
Acceptance gives Canadians a feeling of
security and self-confidence, making them
more open to, and accepting of, diverse
cultures. The Canadian experience has
shown that multiculturalism encourages
racial and ethnic harmony and cross-cultural
understanding, and discourages
ghettoization, hatred, discrimination and
violence.

Through multiculturalism, Canada
recognizes the potential of all Canadians,
encouraging them to integrate into their
society and take an active part in its social,
cultural, economic and political affairs. 9

Why is Canada such a homeland for multiculturalism? The answer is
twofold. First, Canada is a federation of distinct political ‗others.‘ We have no
unity of singular space and no common, formational history. Canada is comprised
of ten provinces and three territories who participate in a parliamentary democracy
with a constitutional monarchy.10 Canada‘s vast and varied topography and
diversified immigration patterns provide for many communities with distinct
worldviews and unique cultural histories. Some provinces and territories had more
than one hundred and fifty years of non-Aboriginal settlement prior to the British
legislative formation of Canada in 1867. Individual loyalties are commonly tied to
bloodlines linked to ‗colonial‘ places of origin, not the agreed upon nation created
in our confederacy.11 In short, Canada was born with a national identity crisis.
Second, Canada is physically large and remains largely empty of the people
necessary to grow the nation. The Canadian population is built from immigration
and its capacity to attract more of these ‗others.‘

In Canada multiculturalism is part of a strategy to engage immigrants with
the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship. All Canadians are assessed as being
foreigners to this land. This vision also treats Indians as pre-Canadian immigrants
or descendants thereof. Multiculturalism teaches Canadians that there are no
Indigenous peoples belonging to Canada, other than ‗immigrant Aboriginals‘:
―Canada is a country of immigrants; therefore, it is important that Canada be
recognized as a multicultural state. Even some of the very first people in Canada
were immigrants who came across the Bering Strait [sp] from what is present-day


Russia. These first immigrants evolved over time, separated into distinct groups,
and became today‘s Aboriginal peoples‖ (Heritage Community Foundation).
Multiculturalism offers political means to explain how all immigrant Canadians
might work together to live harmoniously.

Multiculturalism has been a formational cause and a constructive effect of
Canada‘s national identity complex. The historical preoccupation with Canadian
identity is very much contemporary, despite the surety of its multicultural
citizenship. In the 1996 ―census approximately one third of Canada‘s 31 million
(plus) population did not choose the category of ‗Canadian‘ when asked to
describe their ethnic origin . . . . [O]nly 5 million identified themselves as solely
Canadian‖ (Hutchins).12 The one time Liberal leader ―Michael Ignatieff states:
―‗The great achievement of Canada, and I think we‘re already there, is that in
Canada you‘re free to choose your belonging.‘‖13 This reasoning could possibly
explain why so many Canadians have fought and died in wars unrecognized by
Canadian parliaments or marked by formal Canadian military engagement. 14
Sadly, it may also explain the ‗Canadian‘ connections linked to acts of
international terrorism. With the exception of some five million, there are 26
million hyphenated-Canadians whose first national loyalties can be assumed to lie
elsewhere.15

Since WWII, and contemporaneous with the birth of a pluralism sponsored
by multiculturalism, Canada has continued to widen its open door to new
immigrants: ―According to recent Canadian immigration information, Canada has
34 ethnic groups with at least one hundred thousand members each and we remain
one of the countries with the highest per capita immigration rate in the world . . . .
Immigration to Canada made up the vast majority of the 1.6 million new
Canadians between 2001 and 2006, [also] giving the country the highest
population growth rate among G8 countries.‖16 The 2006 Canadian Census
identified Canadian persons from 200 distinct ethic groupings. ―The percentage
who reported having more than one ethnic origin rose to 41%, up from 36% a
decade earlier in 1996.‖17 One in five individuals or 19.8% of the Canadian
population is born outside of Canada. 18

Approximately 90% of all immigrants to Canada live in its major cities; the
majority of immigrants settle in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Forty percent
(40%) of all immigrants to Canada live in Toronto. At last count there were
some100 languages spoken in Toronto, including the two official languages,
English and French. In 2007, of the 5.5 million living in Toronto some 53.32%
spoke English and 1.88% French.19 According to Leisure Trade Toronto the top


five spoken languages in Toronto are not English or French but Chinese, Italian,
Tamil, Portuguese and Spanish.20 Toronto is representative of other immigrant
cities in Canada wherein multiculturalism is accused of engendering unilingual and
isolated cultural ghettos:

The Chinese of Markham have little
interaction with the Indians of Brampton, or
the Pakistanis of Mississauga, or the Sri
Lankans of Scarborough, or the Somalis of
Islington," warned [Gurmukh Singh, Canada
correspondent with the Indo-Asian News
Service], adding you can "forget about"
integration with "mainstream white society.‖
[This same message comes from other]
articulate individuals who understand the
immigrant experience and their message to
[their own and others‘] communities is the
same -- it's incumbent upon them to
integrate into Canadian society, to become
part of the "mainstream" and make it better
reflect the true face of Toronto. 21

It would be impossible for any immigrant group to integrate into
‗mainstream white‘ societies of Toronto, Vancouver, or Canada itself for that
matter. No such mainstream is readily identifiable in the politics of
multiculturalism. Other than, of course, appropriation of cultural values associated
with speaking English or French. It is ironic that individuals like Gordon Chong,
Gurmukh Singh, and Neil Bissoondath would call for what constitutes
‗assimilation‘ into a Canadian culture-- one that is impossible to locate in our
multicultural nation. There is clearly a yearning for a commonality of worldview to
displace what has become a defining sense of alienation through cultural sub-
identification within Canada.

Today the ‗Canadian‘ cultural mainstream is truly identified by racial and
cultural diversity. To be ‗other‘ is to be Canadian. Canadian culture exists nowhere
but in idealized visions of harmony, inclusion and democratic participation. The
inadequacy of this kind of nationalism is evident in a frustrated desire for facts
defining how ‗otherness‘ functions as evidence of cultural belonging to/in Canada.
Multicultural nationalism lacks substantial evidence of being more than an
intellectual exercise attempting to mirror the emotional connectivity found in an


authentic patriotism. Canadian immigrants raise millions of dollars each year for
victims of disaster in their originating countries while Canadian Aboriginal
children continue to be raised in squalor and filth. Their Aboriginal cultures are
fast disappearing. If a true Canadian nationalism existed, this would not be the
case.

While Canadian geography is more or less defined, defining the Canadian
cultural mainstream for nationalist purposes is a definite impossibility. Yet, we
must be careful not to confuse the lack of a mainstream culture and nationalist
consciousness with the absence of partisan political control of government and a
dominant cultural ideology. These latter two we definitely have in place. Political
integration into mainstream Canada would mean assimilation into one of either the
French or English speaking cultures. There is no embracing Canadian political
culture other than to start speaking one or both of the national, official languages.
These have their own worldviews driven by linguistics and acculturation. These
cultures have dominated regional and federal policy frameworks since our political
inception.

There is no definitively Canadian political heritage other than that held close
in what are becoming the privileged ghettos of English and French cultures. In
contradiction, however, multiculturalism has advanced too far for a singular or
even dual Canadian cultural identity to ever maintain itself politically. The nation
is currently polarized into acknowledging all cultural difference. Unfortunately, the
Canadian political system has not yet matured sufficiently to be capable of the
transformation necessary to meet the needs of its multicultural population. It may
only be through dissolution of the federal parliament that Canada finds a
governance model stripped of old prejudices and biases limiting current
responsiveness and growth.

If Canada is to survive, coalition governments will become the order of rule.
Creating strong coalition governments within the existing political infrastructure
cannot happen in the short term. Too much of our political infrastructure is built on
premises of majority rule in final decision making. How Canadians define the
authority of government will need to change. If the collapse of the USSR is any
indication, Canadians will need a unifying belief system to escape factionalism and
anarchy. Threats to Canada‘s existing governance structure will increase as Quebec
(7.5 million) steadily inches towards its own sovereignty. Others, too, are growing
in numbers, and do not need a history of localized reform and resistance (e.g.
Quebec‘s Quiet Revolution) to push them into demanding ‗other‘ nation status
within or even outside of Canada as a political and geographic entity.


What is presently missing is opportunity for meaningful engagement in the
political definition and composition of Canada wherein proportional representation
represents the localized interests of the varied Canadian populations. Ethnic groups
are increasing in numbers and are taking advantage of concentrated populations in
the voting processes of both provincial/territorial and federal elections. It is merely
a matter of time before the old triad of Conservative, Liberal, and New Democrat
political parties in Canada cease appealing to the 11 ethnic (ghetto) groups with
populations over one million persons. When hyphenated-Canadians demand the
opportunity to vote along ethnic, not geographical lines or boundaries, the old
political parties, provinces and territories of Canada are doomed to failure and ruin.
How Canadians prepare for this form of democratic representation will determine
if we are truly a multicultural nation, or not.

II: Multiculturalism: Where and What

Multicultural places an ethical imperative upon Canadians to take full
ownership of denied prejudices informing our national heritage. Effective
multicultural leadership challenges political privilege rooted in Anglo-
Francophone heritage entitlements. It unveils prejudicial heritage entitlements
written into the fabric of ‗Canadian‘ political culture. Multicultural leadership
reveals how systemic discrimination and racism inform federal legislation and
Canadian national multicultural policies.

Canadians challenging multiculturalism quickly come to recognize the
sacrosanct status given to it by the seated political establishment, and those who
share in furthering its interests. Vested cultural privilege sustained by the myth of
a multicultural Canadian identity does not welcome criticism, let alone the
uncomfortable probing of openly judgemental historical revisionists. Pro-
multiculturalism is not itself, however, evidence of a vibrant nationalist sentiment
within the populace of Canada. Many Canadians see no connection between
multiculturalism and their national self-definition. Finding and nominating a
common Canadian cultural experience is a national historical challenge (once)
thought to be overcome through multiculturalism. Intolerance for persons
questioning Canadian multiculturalism stems from a conventional belief in
multiculturalism as the single national codifier of a Canadian patriotism. To attack
multiculturalism is therefore to be unpatriotic and treasonable.


Multiculturalism is as much about cultivating and marketing Canada‘s image
to other nations as it is defining Canada‘s national culture from within. The two
are not the same. The external image and the national reality are not identical. The
hypocrisy of multiculturalism is identified by the distance between its idealized
external form and its internal Canadian reality. It is not surprising that Canadians
have varied emotional responses to multiculturalism. There are two visible camps.
Those given to idealism or accepting of cultural privilege guard the externalized
multicultural Canadian identity. Those who live the reality of Canadian
multiculturalism can challenge it as a form of institutionalized oppression. Given
this dichotomy it is not difficult to identify the Canadian identity complex. To be
Canadian is to be self-consciously aware of a national solidarity built upon a
national self-consciousness of otherness within the nation. We are Canadian; we
share nothing but tolerance for difference.

It is perhaps within a dialogue on multiculturalism that Canadians can
further the evolution of a cultural identity that enables equity of citizenship and
inclusion of difference. Can a Canadian cultural identity be drawn from reflection
on living experiences lived in different cultural ways? Ordinary multiculturalism
embodies a worldview by exhibiting polyphony bearing witness to a sharing of
common cultural and linguistic experiences. Canadian multiculturalism fails to
define what it is to be culturally or linguistically Canadian. Our multiculturalism
does serve as a forum wherein Canadians engage in articulating what they perceive
themselves not to be. Perhaps it is (un) easiness with perceived ‗otherness‘ that
informs the real core of a Canadian national identity? We are other than other
nations, and other than our Canadian selves.22 Canadians are not ever, just
themselves. We are hyphenated, attenuated, and regionally defined citizens drawn
from a multitude of cultures.

Antimulticulturalists do share a distinctly ‗Canadian‘ experience. This
experience contradicts the norm of acceptable nationalist response to Canadian
identity. They are the preeminent others within Canada. Perhaps here is the
common Canadian experience that remains undefined. What has yet to be
sufficiently explored as the shared Canadian experience is the experiential
difference between idealized multiculturalism and its ordinary, living practice in
Canada. This is the Canadian ‗otherness‘ that is common to all; it is the defining
Canadian experience of alienation! Here in multicultural otherness lie the defining
parameters of a Canadian cultural mindscape. Within that space of sociological
difference is the common cultural experience shared by all Canadians. For
Canadian multiculturalism to evolve within the socio-political sphere of Canada,
and for it to contribute further to what it means to be Canadian, there needs to be


public evaluation of its historical roots in a biculturalism steeped in racism, bigotry
and oppression.

The value ascribed to recognition of all difference, identifiable otherness, is
the ultimate measure of how effectively multiculturalism can respond to
eliminating the outside circle that it creates within Canada.23 The ongoing polemic
associated with Canadian multiculturalism is indicative of its success as an
embraced ism as well as its unspoken failure as social practice and legislative
policy. In Canada we have not sufficiently paused from celebration of the
politically correct ideal of multiculturalism to examine its real practice and
complex historical origins. Proponents of multiculturalism who call for critical
self-reflexivity when examining the biases and prejudices informing the Canadian
multicultural voice are often the recipients of public indignation, not applause.

If Canada is a true multicultural nation, where is the evidence of its
collective awareness of racism and discrimination informing its socio-political
cultures, including its multiculturalism policies and practices? How have the
historical political and administrative structures serving Canadians been changed
by this self-awareness? The saving lie of wholesale Canadian tolerance is neither
supported by Canadian history nor proven by a current lack of discrimination and
racism throughout the country.24 The (in)appropriate questions should inspire a
self-reflection revealing a certain opportunity for shared embarrassment within the
Canadian public. Power imbalances exist in every culture; it is what one culture
does about imbalance that differentiates it from another. The Canadian denial of
ongoing moral, ethical and legal failures engenders a cultural hypocrisy retarding
national development and cultural advancement. It is not shameful to recognize
that irrespective of one‘s race, creed, gender or class no voice is without privilege
that is inherited, arbitrarily taken, unconsciously assumed and earned by wilful
experience. Consciousness of this vulnerability helps to defuse an anger response
triggered in those feeling accused of owning the political sins and moral failures
ascribed to historical others.

Most Canadians would be unaware, for example, that the Canadian
nationalist voice is built upon a premise of multiculturalism that is conjoint with
formal legislative and civil law denial of: a) significant and coherent differences
between Aboriginal cultures, b) the uniqueness of worldviews held by Aboriginal
subcultures (i.e. tribes within nations), and c) the polyphony of Aboriginal voices
identifying a shared formational experience with the historical governments of
Canada and original Canadian nation builders. No other Canadians have a more
lengthy formal relationship with successive governments of Canada, nor a more


sordid history of being dishonoured by them. Ordinary Canadians are oblivious to
the facts that: a) Aboriginals have been denied the status of human persons in
Canada; b) Aboriginals have been excluded from the enjoining privileges of
ordinary citizenship in Canada; and c) Aboriginals have been refused the historical
recognition of being identified as Canadian charter builders. While these failures
remain denied within Canadian cultural consciousness, they exist as the guilt
ridden political inheritance of all Canadians. All Canadian governments are
complicit in these denials of Aboriginal privilege. Why?

The affirmation of difference and the recognition of transgression of
immutable individual and group rights are the only means for celebrating a renewal
of human values within our Canadian political heritage. Multiculturalism should
enable us to accomplish this goal. All Canadians have not been and are not
currently equally valued by the political system. Even with rights and privileges
guaranteed by rule of common law, Canadian multicultural policy is built from
legislative practices tied directly to British culture and its imperial values.25 British
cultural imperialism not only discriminates against all Aboriginals, it exhibits an
equally negative valuation of all other cultures, particularly its historical arch rival,
the Catholic French. Canada has an English/French language-bias, and an
English/French cultural conflict, at its historical and political cores.

The story of an idea called
multiculturalism begins in Canada, where
the nation‘s primal divide into Francophone
and Anglophone civilizations [sp] produced
―biculturalism[.]‖ Canada used bicultural
policy to accommodate the ― two solitudes ‖
of its colonial provenance in order to, among
other things, abate the rising power of
Québecitude and Québec‘s independence
movement. When the indigenous ―first
nations‖ (Inuit, Innu, Cree, Iroquois, and
other groups) and immigrants challenged the
implicit assumption that only two cultures
required formal recognition within its
borders, multiculturalism emerged as a more
progressive articulation of the original
policy. (Perovic)


There has been no significant structural change in governance attitude or
political infrastructure since the Province of Canada became the Dominion of
Canada then later the Canadian confederate nation, or since the advent of Canadian
multiculturalism as a formal policy initiative in the 1960s. In Canada, persons,
government departments, and political parties who inherit and enjoy privileges
taken from acts of oppression attempt to create distance from past wrong-doings by
promotion of multiculturalism. For example, a federal government sponsored
website maintained by the Heritage Community Foundation offers the following in
reference to the Canadian government‘s ownership of this duality: ―The Canadian
government is committed to its policy of multiculturalism and is attempting not to
be hypocritical (saying one thing and doing another). The Canadian government is
therefore apologizing and trying to redress racist policies of the past. While the
past cannot be changed, these actions show that the government today is dedicated
to multiculturalism‖ (Heritage Community Foundation).

The Canadian government‘s focus on the idealized present, not the ignoble
past still reflected in current practices, is an indulgent self- distraction depending
on collective denial for its continuance. Permissive denial is fashionable when
political leadership is challenged to identify systemic changes intended to disrupt
an historical pattern of bad and intolerant behaviour. False ignorance of the
historically determined present moment removes both political and social
obligations to implement revisions to the historical systems sustaining current
discriminatory practices. It is no irony that the existence of Canadian multicultural
policies and supporting law do not authenticate inclusionary practice or present
ethical political leadership associated with true multiculturalism. Both are
impossibilities until revision takes place. When a culture‘s social policies and
legislative practices maintain status quo discrimination solidifying institutionalized
racism, multiculturalism is subordinate to other political objectives and is
obviously failing, false.

Faux multicultural is evident in the political expediencies taken from public
condemnation of past discriminatory activities in Canada. From the
disenfranchisement of Indians to the Chinese Head Tax to the internment of
Japanese Canadians, the acts of government requiring national apologies are
ponderous not just by the delay in making the actual apologies themselves but for
the absolute lack of any reflection on current government practices. The Canadian
government consistently fails to hold itself accountable, i.e. by evidence of force of
systemic revision, for wrongdoings. For example, Canada‘s (weak) commitment to
an Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2 June 2008)
did not even raise the spectre of changing the root cause of this suffering, the


political systems addressing the ongoing needs of Treaty Indians. The fall of
apartheid instigated and precipitated a critical review of the principles of
governance in South Africa. In Canada, even after acknowledging multiple
instances of institutional racism, the government does not hold itself accountable
over and above paying financial and symbolic restitution.

After the federal government moved to initiate the Indian Residential
Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission there was no public outcry in
Canada for changes to how the federal government directly manages Treaty
Indians. Mistreatment of Chinese immigrants and Japanese Canadians brought
similar non-responses from the nation. There was no national demand for the
dissolution of the federal government departments responsible for these cruelties.
Why not? No critical self-reflection was undertaken by government; the matter was
indirectly attributed to past racism of government officials, a racism sponsored by
the Canadian public who elected them. Would a politician expecting to be re-
elected tell a nation that it needs to reflect on its racist heritage?

Would tolerant and non-bigoted Canadians appreciate hearing that their
forebears were complicit in racism and benefited economically from discrimination
against Indians? Would the 15 million immigrants who came to Canada in the
years since 1945 have any ownership of this political and cultural lineage, beyond
the boundaries outlined in their rights and obligations in becoming Canadian
citizens?26 One can easily imagine a reasonable defensive: ‗As a Canadian I feel no
responsibility for the Indian Residential Schools. I became a citizen in 2010; I have
no history with this issue. If Canada has that racism in its past, it is not my shared
Canadian past. That racism is no part of mine or my family‘s citizenship in this
country. It never will be.‘ The capacity to choose what parts of being Canadian
validates one‘s sense of being Canadian is at the heart of our current nationalist
identity. Canadian identity does not make the individual subordinate to national
cultural values overriding individual preferences or obligations.

There is little wonder why government apologies for structural
discrimination have caused no change in Canadian culture or its political
infrastructure. There is no advantage to the political machine to excise itself from
this guilty past. Nearly half of the citizens of the nation have no historical ties to
discriminatory activities linked to Canada‘s nation building activities. Neither they
nor their ancestors were Canadian citizens when Indians were neither people,
citizens, nor allowed to vote; they were not here when Chinese coolies linked the
nation from shining sea- to-sea; and, they never knew the Canadian fear of British
Columbia‘s Japanese salmon fishermen and business persons during WWII. These


‗new‘ Canadians own no part of this embarrassing Canadian history; they are in no
way accountable for its political failings or the culture permitting it to occur. This
reasonable denial of historical ownership of discrimination, however, is not an
excusable denial when owning a Canadian passport.

A lack of personal history does not exempt Canadian citizens from
responsibility for addressing existing discrimination, particularly that with deep
national roots. Contemporary Canadian citizens cannot ignore our political
beginnings in cultural imperialism. We cannot deny a contemporary Citizenship
Oath pledging allegiance to ―Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada,
Her Heirs and Successors.‖ Nor can we deny the existence of the contemporary
version of the Indian Act of 1867: Bill C-31, An Act to Amend the Indian Act
(1985). Bill C-31fails to address real cultural differences among First Nations
peoples by classifying them as being Aboriginal. Further, Bill C-31 fails to
recognize the ethno-cultural differences reflected in the Indigenous status of both
Treaty and non-Treaty Indians, and it does not differentiate Indians from
Aboriginal Métis. Métis are original to the country of Canada, but they are not
indigenous to the land Canada now occupies. To use Aboriginal to refer to Indians
and Métis is to deny the privilege of both charter and Indigenous status to Indians,
as the one true ‗original‘ peoples of the lands claimed by British imperialism.

The many contradictions evident in the differences between idealization of
current practice and its daily realities reveal a deeply entrenched hypocrisy
informing Canadian multiculturalism. To perceive the contradictions one must
become knowledgeable of how and why multiculturalism comes to exist in
Canada. Evidence of Canadian multiculturalism27 can be found in our social
policies, legislation and laws responding to discrimination, prejudice and racism.
Canada lacks the ordinary motivators of patriotic allegiance. Canadian politicians
have used multiculturalism to define a cultural consciousness sustaining our
national sense of belonging.28 At the core of Canadian multiculturalism is a muted
awareness of socially sanctioned exclusions and discriminations. There is also the
expectation that Indians can make no claim for special status when respected as but
yet another piece of the Canadian cultural mosaic. This intentional exclusion and
denial of difference is contradictory to multiculturalism.

III: The Contradictions of Failed Multiculturalism


Will multiculturalism provide for the eventual ruin of Canada‘s confederate
democracy? The answer lies in the differences between Canadian multi-
culturalism‘s conception and its practice. Naturally the differences between
multiculturalism‘s ideal leadership and its realities can be stark, and unintended.
Oftentimes political apologists reference so-called unintended outcomes. The
disconnections between an idealized practice, historical application, and current
reality are evident when examining the multicultural vision seeding a Canadian
nationalism denying Aboriginal charter status within the context of charter
privileges taken by English and French Canadians. The historical and present
realities of multiculturalism in Canada are rife with contradiction flowing from the
authority of nation building. ‗Canada,‘ the self-acclaimed preeminent multicultural
nation, is an idealized myth built upon a foundation of economic and cultural
imperialisms. Regardless of its oppressive origins, Canadian nationalist
multiculturalism is verily tangible in law, legislation, and social policies. Cultural
diversity is touted as an identifying characteristic of our many urban communities.
Canadian multiculturalism is also identified with classic dissident activities thought
to provoke political and social decision-makers into making systemic change:

a) Enabling ‗dialogues of dissonance,‘ specifically those owned by
ostracized, marginalized or peripheral ‗others.‘

b) Supporting hurtful disclosures by accepting national ownership of
historical, social wrong doings. Even if the findings reveal a guilty heritage
belonging to the otherwise, personally innocent.

c) Identifying entitlements based on heritage, ethnicity and economic power
structures established for maintaining oppression and inequity.

d) Undertaking historical revisionism that reveals the currency of systemic
prejudice traceable to an ongoing cultural/economic imperialism.

That these are proven activities for undercutting discrimination, racism and
prejudice is not coincidental to Canadian nationalist multiculturalism. Sadly, the
co-opted multicultural dialogue of Canada continues to be vigorous and robust.

Debate assessing the effectiveness of multiculturalism in Canada often hides
from the most revealing of questions: Why multiculturalism and not another
formational nationalism? The answer to why authentic multiculturalism comes to
exist as a national legend, not a Canadian reality, is found in the historical, political
definition of Canada. Multiculturalism is the nationalist binding celebrated in the


Canadian antithesis to the cultural melting pot: the Cultural Mosaic.29 It is
inextricably tied to historical efforts directed at establishing a national
consciousness. The public naming of disempowered ‗others‘ while denying their
empowering difference is central to Canada‘s historical political formation. So
while the Chart of Rights and Freedoms secures Aboriginal Rights by law, it does
not privilege Aboriginal status by making it equal to those of the English or
French.

Canada claims to be a nation formed by cultural diversity but there are only
two heritage ‗others‘ considered in the history of Canadian nation building: charter
English and charter French. The ongoing denial of Aboriginal charter status is
contrary to all theoretical elements of the Government of Canada‘s multicultural
policy, but not its legislative practices. This dual impulse can be traced in
legislative legacy to the Royal Proclamation of 176330 wherein Aboriginal rights
were first acknowledged so that they might later be extinguished.31 Today, these
contradictory impulses manifest themselves as structured discrimination and
institutionalized prejudice against ‗Indians‘ in the political infrastructure, social
support systems, and cultural fabric of Canada‘s cultural mosaic. Multiculturalism
has been used to build a Canadian identity denying the authenticity of Aboriginal
charter ‗otherness.‘ This same multiculturalism is used to maintain political and
economic oppression flowing from a political infrastructure based on a racial
superiority identified with colonization.

Aboriginals will not be able to engage as (regional or territorial) Canadians
so long as they remain excluded from the ideology defining Canadian nationalism
as merely ‗heritage‘ multiculturalism. The extent of Aboriginal disengagement
with ‗Canada,‘ the nation, is visible in the Government of Canada‘s:

1) ongoing financial support for Aboriginal welfare cultures

2) encouraging emotional dependency by celebrating Aboriginal victim
status well past times necessary for healing or actions enabling
appropriate accountability, legal reprisal or financial restitution

3) promotion of illiteracy by placing restrictions on Aboriginal mobility in
educational funding formulas targeting reserve status

4) failure to privilege Indigenous peoples as charter Canadians by focussing
on legal obligations outlined in Treaties


5) defining ‗Aboriginals‘ to include Métis as an autochthonic people of
Canada

6) simplification of cultural complexity by utilization of ‗Indian‘ and
‗Métis‘ for diverse peoples with little or no commonality of cultures or
evidence of singular nationhood

7) maintenance of government departments and agencies associated with
documented cases of murder, sexual abuse, physical torture, acts of
emotional depravity, and psychological abuse of Aboriginal peoples and
their children

8) celebration of failures within Aboriginal communities to affirm historical
stereotypes of dependency, violence, and dissolution

9) advancing incompetence and promoting corruption by continually
enabling family ‗mafias‘ to control Band funds

10) spot-lighting ‗apple‘ Indian role models who serve as social critics of
Indians while promoting assimilation

11) maintenance of the ‗Indian Industry‘ supporting the jobs and pensions
of thousands of non-Aboriginal employees, who are (or have been)
predominately French, within the federal bureaucratic machine.32

Such statements about the Government of Canada reflect poorly on all Canadians,
past and current. But does the government intentionally seek to do these harms to
Aboriginal peoples and their cultures? Sadly, government‘s complicity in criminal
activities has been validated; acceptance of social responsibility for these crimes is
not often welcomed as it presupposes accountability in the present can happen. The
sad truth of government‘s activities can lead to a dialogue that disintegrates into
celebration of national guilt, racist comments couched in promises of telling the
truth, claims of post-colonial academics inflicting intellectual terrorism upon the
nation, or draw the sad familiar nod to our unearthing the old skeleton, the national
identity/guilt crisis within yet another self-depreciating context.

The excess in anticipated defensive response is not unreasonable or
unexpected. Canadians truly want to believe that we have a healthy national self-
image built from an honourable history defined by ethical politics and moral


political leadership. It is the ‗saving lie‘ informing all of our nationalist fervour.
On 1 July 2009, Canada Day, Prime Minster Stephen Harper said to Canadians:
―‗We celebrate the most peaceful, prosperous and enduring democracy the world
has ever known . . . . We must never forget that our country, our way of life, did
not happen by accident. We are a product of diverse peoples committed to
common values, a country that cherishes freedom, democracy and justice, a
country proud of our past and confident in our future[.]‘‖33

Without question, Canadians want to own a mature, vibrant national
conscious, one that is admired by the world. But there is also much darkness in
Canadian political history. There is little in Harper‘s words that couldn‘t be
transposed to any ‗democratic‘ nation of the world. The Prime Minister is
celebrating an ideal form of democracy; he is not acknowledging the reality of our
Canadian democracy. Like other politicians and all Canadians, Prime Minister
Harper cannot know ‗what‘ Canadian culture is, even though Canada can be
located on a map. This lack of certainty leads to the celebration of Canadian
nationalism as an idealized multiculturalism: ―Citizenship, Immigration and
Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney celebrated Canadian Multiculturalism
Day and reflected on how Canada‘s cultural communities have contributed to the
country‘s rich and diverse heritage. ‗Since Confederation, more than 15 million
immigrants have arrived in Canada and our multicultural model of unity-in-
diversity, which gives our country such strength, has taken shape[.]‖34

In the stylized world of multiculturalism, emphasis on the theorized
strengths of plurality is often matched with denial of the historical reality
undercutting it. When waxing patriotic about the 2006 opening of a Chinese
Cultural Centre in Calgary Andrew Mah writes: ―That, to me, is the Canadian
identity. Not stone monuments or a venerable historical catalogue of events. It‘s
the people who come here with open hearts, embracing their new home, all the
while bringing with them values and traditions from their diverse homelands. It‘s a
nation that takes the best part of these and makes them its own. We have the luck,
the great fortune, to have not only a history, but a history of histories: embodied in
the pride and ancestry of the people who live here.‖35

A truth of Canadian multiculturalism is the seeming denial of any national
history that recognizes the privileges taken by charter Canadians. Canada‘s history
has never been written as a ‗history of histories.‘ Denial of multiple histories is a
Canadian political convention. True Canadian history cannot exist until a
significant historical revisionism takes place. We have legislation and policy in our
democracy from which no national pride can be taken. We condemn the effects


devolving from government practice and action but never address the root cause of
embarrassing failures. Mah‘s overtly simple view of Canada as a cultural cannibal
taking the best from other nations is a Canadian denial of the ugliness that exists in
other cultures, and our own historical, national charter. The ugliness of Canada is
this: Canadian multiculturalism is an ideal form imprisoned within a national heart
of darkness.36

To appreciate the stark failure of multiculturalism in Canada one must
understand the relationship between the federal government‘s definition and
control of Aboriginal peoples and how Canadian citizenship has evolved in the
socio-political landscape of our now mosaic nationalism. By achieving this insight
we can reflect on why the Indian Act (1876) is an unacknowledged corruption at
the core of Canadian multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has done little to engage
or include Aboriginal peoples of Canada. At its most mercenary extreme, Canadian
multiculturalism is a political maneuvering used by the (‗white,‘ British heritage)
political establishment to maintain decision-making power. The historical and
ongoing exclusion of Aboriginal peoples stems from a racial superiority complex
identifiable in British colonial governance activities central to the formation of
Canada. A legacy of imperial legislation and discriminatory historical practice
informing current policies dooms the federal government‘s ability to address racial
prejudice through multicultural policies and practices.

A reflection of the duality of Canadian politics is that federal politicians, like
former Minister of Indian Affairs, Jane Stewart, actually acknowledge these facts
but never embrace owning institutional prejudice within their departments or
advocate for wholesale changes to eliminate systemic racism in government:

‗Sadly, our history with respect to the
treatment of Aboriginal people is not
something in which we can take pride.
Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority
led to a suppression of Aboriginal culture
and values. As a country, we are burdened
by past actions that resulted in weakening
the identity of Aboriginal peoples,
suppressing their languages and cultures,
and outlawing spiritual practices. We must
recognize the impact of these actions on the
once self-sustaining nations that were
disaggregated, disrupted, limited or even


destroyed by the dispossession of traditional
territory, by the relocation of Aboriginal
people, and by some provisions of the
Indian Act.‘ 37 (1998)

Stewart‘s willingness to separate ‗some nasty provisions‘ of the Indian Act from
the whole is indicative of government‘s forced apology and its holding to historical
prejudices. Despite its own recognized abuses of Aboriginal peoples, to this day
the Canadian government continues to advocate that its multiculturalism policy is
an antidote to racism, prejudice, and discrimination. This opinion is contradicted
by Aboriginal leaders like former National Chief, Assembly of First Nations, Phil
Fontaine: ―‗As far as Aboriginal people are concerned, racism in Canadian society
continues to share our lives institutionally, systematically and individually. The
Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba, the Donald Marshall Inquiry in Nova
Scotia, the Cawsey Report in Alberta and the Royal Commission of Aboriginal
People all agree.‘‖38

Certainly not every Canadian views multiculturalism as a veneer covering
institutionalized racism traceable to a colonial past. But critics of multiculturalism
often share a prejudicial notion that cultures can be weighted in value making one
group of human beings more preferable, valuable, than another. For example,
American Victor Davis Hanson posts this comment on the ―Doctor Bulldog &
Ronin: Conservative News, Views and Analysis of Events‖ website:
―[M]ulticulturalism insisted that Western culture was the culprit for global
inequality and the cosmic unhappiness of the individual. We all are to embrace
distinct and different cultures, none of them inferior to any other, all meriting equal
consideration and worth. No one dare suggest a foreign practice inferior, another
country less successful than our own—especially given our supposed history of
assorted sins.‖ 39

Barbara Kay, a columnist for the equally conservative Canadian National Post,
offers a typical example of insisting on cultural superiority in contradiction to
racial equality:

The underside of multiculturalism is its
ideological root in West-bashing. Sometime
around 1960, it was determined by a few
French intellectuals (whose unintelligible
gibberish other intellectuals pretended to
understand) that the greatest criminals


against humanity in the history of the world
weren‘t the Nazi and Communist murderers
of 100 million people. Rather, it was
European colonialists, who imposed their
cultural values on their captive audience.

Multiculturalism is idealistic in theory, but
its real effect has been the entrenchment in
our intellectual and cultural elites of an
unhealthy obsession with a largely phantom
racism amongst heritage Canadians that no
amount of penance or cultural self-
effacement can ever transcend. 40

Kay‘s words reveal the conventional defensive posturing which occurs when the
privilege of (‗White‘) entitlement gets challenged. She writes from the position of
assumed privilege: ―In its ideological insistence on the equal value of all cultures
other than ours (ours being the sole inferior one), multiculturalism‘s main
‗accomplishment‘ has been to instill self-loathing in heritage Canadians, a sense of
responsibility-free entitlement in identity groups, and the suffocation of critical
diversity in the public form‖ (Kay). Who are these heritage Canadians Kay writes
of?

Any depiction of structural racism as a ‗phantom racism‘ is classic evidence
of denial within the empowered status quo. John Porter‘s seminal work Vertical
Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (1965) demonstrated
that heritage Canadians, those originating from the French and British elites, have
privileged positions not shared by other ethnic groups, least of all Aboriginals.41
Frank G. Vallee writes: “Since 1965 several studies have shown that the picture
sketched by Porter has been modified only slightly, [i.e.] there has been some
lessening of the economic gap between ethnic groups, and people of French origin
are better represented in the political and bureaucratic spheres. The economic elite,
still dominated by those of British origin, has changed very little.‖42 His opinion is
shared by many others, including the late CBC journalist Larry Zolf : ―Canada is a
vertical mosaic. The top rungs of the mosaic are filled by the Anglo Saxons and
French Canadians. The bottom rungs of the mosaic are filled by Canada's ethnic
groups. Multiculturalism does little to provide a level playing field.‖43

Since its legislative inception Canada has been defined in terms of
contributions and battles between charter French and charter British. These two


immigrant groups populated the Province of Canada (1841-1867)44 prior to the first
British North America Act of 1867.45

The Act of Union (1840), passed July 23,
1840, by the British parliament and
proclaimed by the Crown on February 10,
1841, merged the two colonies by abolishing
the legislatures of Upper and Lower Canada
and replacing them with a single legislative
assembly. While this new legislature
maintained equal representation for both of
the former colonies, the democratic nature
of Lower Canada's elections was
fundamentally flawed. Despite the
francophone majority in Lower Canada,
most of the power was concentrated on the
anglophone minority, who exploited the lack
of a secret ballot to intimidate the
electorate.46

The truth of multiculturalism in Canada is irrevocably tied to legislative acts
attempting to preserve its British political linage and the maintenance of traditional
power (imbalances) structures within the country. The Durham Report of 1839,
with its recommendations leading to the union of the Upper and Lower colonies
into the Dominion of Canada, endeavoured to address the French challenge to
English sovereignty through an assimilation strategy:

Durham recommended that Upper and
Lower Canada be united into one province,
which would give British Canadians a slight
advantage in population. He also encouraged
immigration to Canada from Britain, to
overwhelm the existing numbers of French
Canadians and hopefully assimilate them
into British culture. The freedoms granted to
the French Canadians under the Royal
Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of
1774 should also be rescinded; according to
Lord Durham this would eliminate the
possibility of future rebellions. The French


Canadians did not necessarily have to give
up their religion and language entirely, but it
could not be protected at the expense of
what Durham considered a more progressive
British culture. 47

Durham, of course, was wrong and the assimilation of French culture has not
been achieved. French cultural resistance became so entrenched in Canadian
politics that it truly defined the national consciousness until the 1960s. The
English/French duality continued to dominate the national identity crisis until
politicians struck upon the notion of multiculturalism. As envisioned by the 15th
Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968-1979; 1980-1984), multi-
culturalism was advanced to disengage Canada, and international gaze, from the
growing intensity of the French separatist movement: ―Many in Quebec protested
that multiculturalism was designed to undermine Quebec nationalism. Ottawa, they
charged, would use multiculturalism to thwart Quebec's aspirations by equating it
with ‗other‘ ethnic groups in Canada. Others feared that multiculturalism would
erode the rich British heritage of English-speaking Canada.‖ 48

Each of the two ‗others‘ feared both what multiculturalism would bring to it,
and what advantages it could give to the other or more threateningly ‗the others.‘
Regardless of the original political fears, the threat of Quebec rebellion remains
ever at play in Canadian politics. In 1980 and again in 1995 Quebec held
referendums seeking electoral support to separate from Canada; in 1995 ―the
motion to decide whether Quebec should secede from Canada was defeated by a
very narrow margin of: 50.58% "No" to 49.42% "Yes‖[.]‖ 49 With a mere 1.16% of
the population standing against Quebec sovereignty it will/could only be a matter
of time before French Separatists/Nationalists take Quebec from the Canadian
union. Very close to the majority of Quebec citizens do not see multiculturalism as
a means to celebrate their Canadian inclusion.

Until the 1960s, English and French Canada were (and to a large extent
remain) two cultural solitudes fundamentally disinterested in any national dialogue
suggesting other ethnic claims on ownership of Canada‘s geography, contribution
to an identifying cultural identity, shared rights to national belonging, or inclusive
definitions of cultural nationhood. It remained that way until the findings of the
1963 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.50

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and
Biculturalism held hearings across Canada.


The commissioners heard about more than
just English and French relations. Ethnic
spokespersons everywhere argued that the
old policy of assimilation was both unjust
and a failure. . . . . To the surprise of many,
the Commission seemed to agree. In
Volume IV of its Report, the Commission
presented the government with sweeping
recommendations which would both
acknowledge the value of cultural pluralism
to Canadian identity and encourage
Canadian institutions to reflect this
pluralism in their policies and programs.
When the policy was announced, it was one
of multiculturalism within a bilingual
framework.51

In truth, the rush of immigrants after WWII saw previous leaders grappling with
citizenship demands from the growing numbers of non-English and non- French.
These immigrants, once settled to comfort, turned to politics and wanted
engagement opportunities. The increasing numbers of immigrants disenfranchised
from the conventional political power bases, and the lack of overt protection for
civil rights in a country denying its own racism and bigotry, was brought to the
forefront of Canadian politics by the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and
Biculturalism.

Another politically sanctioned yet disempowering ‗otherness‘ was
formalized with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism
and Biculturalism: the ‗pluralist Canadian.‘ Euphemistically referred to as the
‗hyphenated-Canadian‘ this otherness reveals the incapacity of multiculturalism to
provide cohesion to the Canadian populace outside of making platitudinous
gestures to motherhood statements valuing democratic principles.

Multiculturalism has led to higher rates of
naturalization than ever before. With no
pressure to assimilate and give up their
culture, immigrants freely choose their new
citizenship because they want to be
Canadians. As Canadians, they share the
basic values of democracy with all other


Canadians who came before them. At the
same time, Canadians are free to choose for
themselves, without penalty, whether they
want to identify with their specific group or
not. Their individual rights are fully
protected and they need not fear group
pressures.52

Very early, Canadians recognized the threats such a diluted nationalism could
bring. Early critics of multiculturalism, Larry Zolf and Laura Sabia, identify a
structured disenfranchisement:

I remember [,Zolf writes,] when Pierre
Trudeau introduced multiculturalism in the
1970s. I wrote two pieces in Maclean's
magazine and did a CBC program
condemning multiculturalism. I argued that
multiculturalism made me, the son of an
immigrant, inferior to Anglo Saxons and the
French Canadians. Multiculturalism was
putting me into a ghetto and was defining
me as a Jew rather than as a proud and fully
committed Canadian. I said I preferred a
Canadian melting pot to multiculturalism. 53

'I was born [, says Sabina,] and bred in this
amazing land. I've always considered myself
a Canadian, nothing more, nothing less,
even though my parents were immigrants
from Italy. How come we have all acquired
a hyphen? We have allowed ourselves to
become divided along the line of ethnic
origins, under the pretext of the "Great
Mosaic[.]" A dastardly deed has been
perpetuated upon Canadians by politicians
whose motto is "divide and rule"... I am a
Canadian first and foremost. Don't
hyphenate me.'54


For the hyphenated-Canadian, Neil Bissoondath writes, ―[o]ne's sense of belonging
to the larger Canadian landscape is tempered by a loyalty to a different cultural or
racial heritage.‖55 The confusion caused by this division of national loyalty
became a way for entrenched political parties to use ‗cultural recognition‘ as a
distraction to undermine true political engagement within Canada. 56 Multi-
culturalism became a way to include growing numbers of ‗others‘ without
changing the existing hegemony within a traditionalist English/French federalist
political infrastructure.

The framework for multiculturalism laid by the Royal Commission in 1963
was essential to opening the immigration floodgates defining the present
demography of Canada and with it our notion of the Cultural Mosaic took later
legislative form. But this Canadian Mosaic did not include Aboriginals, then, or
now. Just six years after the Commission, in a 1969 White Paper (a policy proposal
document), the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien (later Prime Minister from
1993-2003), put forward the most aggressive assimilation strategy since the Indian
Act of 1876.57 The federal government ―proposed the abolition of the Indian Act,
the rejection of land claims, and the assimilation of First Nations people into the
Canadian population with the status of other ethnic minorities rather than [as] a
distinct group.‖ 58 The languages of the heritage groups were protected, yet
multiculturalism was being used to unseat/destroy the definitive ‗otherness‘ given
to Aboriginals by Treaties. Clearly, the Government of Canada viewed Indians as
being outside the ‗otherness‘ ascribed to non-English or French immigrants as it
attempted to make Indians equivalent to them.

What has never been embraced by the Canadian public is this: ―rather than
[as] a distinct group‖ meant not with a heritage or charter group status.59 Due to
Aboriginal backlash, as evinced by the 1970 Citizens Plus (better known as the
Red Paper) counter, the Trudeau government rescinded the White Paper in 1971
(Helin 100) and reluctantly moved away from its overt position on assimilation in
1973. The White Paper exists as evidence that the formal political denial of the
legitimacy of Aboriginal charter ‗otherness‘ was coterminous with the government
sanctioned birth of the Canadian cultural mosaic. This fact remains unchanged to
this day even with the existence of revised or new land claims settlements with
non-Treaty Indians and Inuit. The Canadian Constitution has not been renewed to
identify Indians and Inuit as heritage partners in the Canadian Confederation.

The rise of a Canadian multicultural nationalism, i.e., the Canadian Mosaic,
while set in counterpoint to French separatism, maintained a traditional denial of
Aboriginal heritage claims to forming a Canadian identity, but also provided


Trudeau era politicians/nationalists opportunity to differentiate Canada from the
USA.60 Much of Canadian nationalist fervour has been historically directed at
telling ourselves that we are not ‗American.‘ As counterpoint to the national myth
of the American cultural melting pot, the Canadian Mosaic was heralded as the
more democratic of nationalisms, and decisively home-spun Canadian. You
surrendered noting of your original ethnic identity by becoming Canadian. Finally,
we had the ability to create our own national myth; and, it spelled the end of our
historical Canadian identity complex. Or so we thought.

With political selfishness at its historical core, i.e. that is the preservation of
traditional political parties and provincial power bases, it is not surprising that
multiculturalism has not advanced Canadian identity beyond the aspirations of
national self-hood forged in the Canada Act of 1982.61 There are clear indicators
that we have regressed into an absolutely nonviable Canadian national identity, one
signalling decentralized partisanship and eventual dissolution. Canadian
multiculturalism has spawned a national identity found only on a passport of
convenience. This weakness is but one of the four gifts of Canadian
multiculturalism to the (our) nation:

a) Factionalism: creating and enabling ghettos claiming empowerment in
what is structured cultural alienation, and political suppression.62

2) Idealization: misplacing tolerance and appreciation for diversity as
nationalist sentiments sufficient to create political and cultural uniqueness in
the world.

3) Mythologizing: privileging the unequal ‗other‘ with words unsupported
by systemic change so as to maintain institutionalized racism and inequality.

4) Disintegration: multiculturalism is the forefather of emergent micro-
nationalisms wherein affluent political groupings (e.g. Quebec, Western
Canada, specifically Alberta and British Columbia) can rationalize and
command increased degrees of political and economic separation within the
Canadian Confederation.

Aboriginal peoples rank ninth (1,172,790) of the 11 ghetto groups with
growing presence in the Canadian political scene. 63 One can be mislead by their
sheer numbers and the statistics associated with them. In truth, many Aboriginal
populations of Canada are diminishing and some will exist as small, invisible
minorities into the future. Yet we accept the falsehood of growth of ‗Indigenous‘


peoples in Canada. Why? There is a huge difference between definition of
Indigenous peoples and Aboriginal peoples in Canada. According to the
Government of Canada, Aboriginal populations are the fastest growing in Canada,
specifically in the western provinces. From 1996-2006 Aboriginal populations
increased by 45%; the non-Aboriginal population grew only by 8%. But
―Aboriginal languages, many of which are unique to Canada, are spoken by less
than one percent of the population, and are mostly in decline.‖ 64 This loss of
language sustaining culture is the result of the federal government‘s historical and
ongoing assimilation strategies. A reasonable forecast would predict that
immigrant Chinese have better chances of representing their languages in future
parliaments of Canada than present or future Aboriginals of Canada. The reasoning
for the prediction is complex but the underlining cause is straightforward: Because
of Canadian legislation and law, ‗true‘ Aboriginal Canadians have not been (are
not) as free to practice their cultures and languages as other immigrants and
residents in Canadians.

Institutionalized Aboriginal inequality can be traced to the very definition of
‗Aboriginals‘ in Canada. When referencing Aboriginal peoples in Canada we are
speaking of three broad groupings representing more than 700 unique
communities. 65 These Aboriginals can be identified as First Nation or First
Nations (698,025) 66 which include all North American Indians in Canada, but not
three other Aboriginal groups of Canada, the Inuit, Métis, and the Metis who are
non-Métis. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC;
formerly Indian and Northern Affairs Canada; ), one of 34 federal government
departments providing services and programs to Aboriginals, defines Indian, Inuit
and Métis as ‗Aboriginals‘ for official government purposes. AANDC‘s definition
of ‗original peoples‘ as Aboriginals is very problematic. The crux of the problem
resides in a rather simple question. Are these peoples ‗original‘ to political
agreements forming Canada or are they original to the lands (and are therefore
Indigenous to) forming the nation of Canada? The distinctions have great
consequences impacting both Canadian history and future re-definitions of
Canadian nationhood and charter status.

The first contradiction in definition of Canadian Aboriginals comes with the
government identification of the Inuit. The northern, arctic Inuit (50,485) signed no
historical Treaties with Canada and are therefore excluded from the Indian Act of
1876, and its subsequent amendments. The same is true for many First Nations in
British Columbia. The Inuit have also been called Eskimo despite the cultural
differences between some Inuit and ‗Eskimo‘ peoples.67 While the term Inuit is
promoted as an acceptable cultural label for those once pejoratively identified as


‗Eskimo,‘ Inuit is also being used by government officials to reference Innu, who
are not Inuit. The Inuit peoples‘ traditional lands were expropriated after 1870
when the Northwest Territories were formed.68 The Inuit began land claim
negotiations in 1970s. In 1999 they were given ‗ownership‘ of the federal Territory
they named Nunavut69 (Our Land). This newest federal territory was defined in the
Nunavut Lands Claims Settlement Act 1999. The territory is the largest of any other
or province of Canada; it‘s about the size of Western Europe.

AANDC/INAC officially references all First Nation peoples as Indians and
divides them into two categories.70 The sub-grouping defines them as either Treaty
or Status Indian or Non-Treaty, non-Status ―Indian.‖ 71 The lack of specified
cultural recognition as it relates to tribes, clans and bands is first perceived as a
matter of efficacy and expediency; you cannot be Treaty without one or the other
affiliations of tribe, clan or band. The problem, however, is the lack of recognition
for cultural differences and uniqueness within the Indian populations. Indians
more readily conform to cultural stereotyping when presented as a homogenous
grouping of uncivilized savages belonging to primitive or welfare cultures
traceable to colonial Treaties.

The Indian Act (1867), outside of recognizing Treaty signatories for
assignment of reservations and entitlement to federal benefits, is indicative of how
deep racial profiling inculcates the legislative and bureaucratic systems. The use of
‗First Nations‘ by Indian leaders is set as a counter measure to an Indian Status that
denies their cultural differences and rich diversity as not one but many peoples
with rightful heritage status. 72 For AANDC/INAC, there are only two kinds of
‗Indians‘ to be considered, Status and non-Status, regardless of there being more
than 600 registered Bands and Councils. Why has there been denial of the
‗otherness‘ representing diversity within the First Nations communities? The
answer lies in the complexity of how ‗otherness‘ is used to isolate, and exclude
from the inner circle. The inverse is also true, of course. ‗Otherness‘ can be a mark
of political and aesthetic distinction wherein the conventional position of
powerlessness is inverted to a place of empowered privilege. For example, Kay‘s
heritage Canadians are ‗other‘ than immigrant Canadians; and, identically, Zolf‘s
Jewish-Canadians are lesser than heritage English/ French Canadians. ‗Indian‘ has
functioned similarly.

More pernicious than discrimination against non-heritage Canadians is the
fact that denial of Indian ‗otherness‘ in Canadian multiculturalism originates from
historical practice targeting physical destruction (assimilation) of First Nations‘
cultures and (Treaties anticipated genocide) peoples. There has been, and still


exists, a palpable fear of formal recognition for Indian charter presence in
Canadian nation building. Historical knowledge of the validity of this charter
presence is evident in the very colonial legal system used in attempting to
annihilate and assimilate Indian peoples in Canada. The Canadian Indian Register
(1951) 73was first a business ledger identifying those Status Indians entitled to
Treaty benefits. On no occasion has the Indian Register been used to promote or
protect Indians; its historical purpose was to enable Indian Agents and government
officials the ability to track individuals for enfranchisement purposes, measure the
effectiveness of elimination of bands/tribes and clans by reduction of membership,
and weigh the overall effectiveness of assimilation practices. Like the word
‗Indian,‘ ‗Aboriginal‘ also carries a high degree of denied socio-political
complexity in Canada.

"Aboriginal peoples" is a collective name
for the original peoples of North America
and their descendants. The Canadian
constitution recognizes three groups of
Aboriginal people: Indians (commonly
referred to as First Nations), Métis and Inuit.
These are three distinct peoples with unique
histories, languages, cultural practices and
spiritual beliefs. More than one million
people in Canada identify themselves as an
Aboriginal person, according to the 2006
Census. AANDC/INAC74

But, there are in fact more than three distinct peoples as the word ‗Indian‘ denies
sociological and heritage differences. Like Indians, not all Métis75 come from the
same heritage or share customary beliefs. Most Canadians, including its politicians
and bureaucrats writing legislation, would not be able to identify ―Metis‖ culture
due to the label‘s lack of definitive status.76 Moreover, use of the phrasing ‗original
peoples‘ is coming under increasing opposition.

Métis are the fastest growing of the three Aboriginal groupings (389,785)
identified by AANDC/INAC. 77 There is a strengthening disagreement as to the
prominence of French ancestry in the definition Métis culture: ―The Métis peoples
of Canada are descended of marriages of Cree, Ojibway, Algonquin, Saulteaux,
Menominee, Mi'kmaq, Maliseet, and other First Nations to Europeans, mainly
French.‖78 The Métis of Canada have neither Federal Treaty nor Federal


Territorial status. The Province of Alberta79 is the only location in Canada where
there are reserved provincial lands with dedicated financial resources for Metis
Settlements. And in Alberta, by evidence not just taken from the Queen‘s Printer,
there is no imposition of French culture origins on ―Metis‖ as the French spelling
of Métis is eschewed in the formal government legislation recognizing them. 80
From this distinction it is clear that the Government of Alberta references a distinct
Metis group as opposed to the federal government of Canada‘s use of French
‗Métis‖ to cover all those with a ‗Metis‘ heritage. The federal government does not
have a Métis Registry; it does not issue Status Identity Cards to Métis; INAC does
not even attempt to define Métis status yet references them as a distinct and
originating people. This challenge of cultural definition has been left to the
Canadian legal system. Various Métis organizations throughout Canada use the
definition of a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling ( 2003)81 to proof
Métis/Metis status: a) self-identification (with no quantification of bloodlines), b)
affiliation with a Métis community (community identifiers not defined), and c)
acceptance by the Métis community as being Métis (does not anticipate shunning).

While one often sees reference to the Metis Nation of Alberta or the Métis
Nation of Labrador, the Government of Canada does not recognize either as a
heritage group, nor does it appear to understand that they are not one nation. Much
like the INAC use of Indian, Métis is a catch all label for a rich cultural diversity.
There is belief that Bill C31 of 1985 anticipates the loss of Treaty Status for the
majority of Canada‘s Indians and the ultimate elimination of reservations. In time,
through intermarriage of Treaty with non-Treaty Indians, Métis, Metis, or others, it
is possible for Indians to lose Treaty Status but nevertheless legitimately claim to
be Métis or Metis. Of course, this activity is not supported by either the Métis
Nation of Labrador (who claim no singularly French origins) and the Metis Nation
of Alberta (some of whom do possess Red River ancestry) who purport to be
distinct in cultures from Indians and Inuit.

On Friday . . . [June 30, 2009] the Alberta
Court of Appeals issued a very interesting
ruling regarding Alberta's Metis
Settlement[s] Act: Cunningham v. Alberta
(Aboriginal Affairs and Northern
Development), 2009 ABCA 239. Under the
statute as it stood, most people who were
registered Indians or Inuk could not become
members of a Metis settlement and those
members who became registered Indians or


Inuk82 would lose their settlement
membership. The case arose out of local
politics in the Peavine [Metis] Settlement,
but the implications seem much broader.
The effect of the decision, should it stand, is
to remove any statutory bar to Indians and
Inuk to be members of a Metis settlement
due to their Indian/Inuk status alone and the
exception to that bar of specific council by-
laws or General Council policy. In other
words, the Province can no longer explicitly
deny Metis settlement membership based on
an individual's Indian/Inuk status, nor can an
individual settlement council, on a whim,
remove or instate members based on their
Indian/Inuk status. The court rejected both a
s. 25 Charter argument and a request to
delay the effect of the act. (James Muir) 83

As Métis use the legal and legislative systems to gain increased access to
federal Aboriginal funding, seek land claims settlements in courts, and exercise
land use rights previously held exclusive by Indians, whether Status or not, there is
increased anxiety over ongoing federal financial obligations unanticipated in the
Indian Act. 84 Moreover, the thought of non-Status Indians and Treaty Indians
becoming Alberta Metis, in a place where the historical cry has been ‗Indians are
Albertans, too!‘, is indicative of disagreement between federal and provincial
jurisdictions over funding obligations to Metis/Métis and Status, Non-Status
Indians in Alberta. There is growing resentment between Indians and Métis in
Canada as Indians see Métis threatening exclusive Treaty rights by accessing
federal dollars once used exclusively for their ‗Aboriginal‘ peoples. The strength
of the Métis lobby as well as its numbers is increasing with time and they will
eventually outnumber Status Indians into the near future.

The impact of the growth of Metis numbers, within the existing definition of
Métis, might not as drastically impact Indians as indicated. Not all current ‗metis‘
are themselves Métis. Métis were first identified as the offspring and culture
produced by unions between French culture Catholics and plains Cree in Manitoba.
Their cultures and languages melded and developed unique and distinguishing
attributes from either of their progenitors. They were and are the Red River Métis.
Independent of Cree nation leadership, though certainly not without Cree aid and


shared sympathies as the Frog Lake Massacre suggests,85 Red River Métis engaged
in armed conflict against the Dominion Government of Canada86 first in what was
to become Manitoba and later Saskatchewan. These are known as the Red River
(1869-1870) and North West (1885) Rebellions.87 Under the leadership of Louis
Riel88 the Red River Métis fought for land ownership rights and rights afforded by
ordinary citizenship, including freedom to use language and Catholic religious
expression in education. These Métis had a recognized historical status, as a group
distinct from French, English and Cree, prior to the Rebellions and the legislative
formation of Canada itself.89 They engaged in what was a war for civil rights,
albeit a conflict relegated to the status of rebellion only, against the governing
forces of the time to protect their rights of citizenship, and belonging to the land.

It was in part due to the recognition of the Red River Métis as a people that
the word métis was used as a slur and a derogatory for identification of ‗half-
breeds‘ without the identifying French/Cree cultural origins of the Red River
Métis. Today, some would prefer that métis, without the capitalization, apply to
those not drawing lineage from the Red River Métis. Yet, by definition of the
Canadian government these ‗métis‘ are also Métis; those who trace their bloodlines
or cultures to the French/Cree originating Red River Métis. The federal
government‘s use of the term Métis may simply be a recognition of historical fact
(one with unintended consequences due to lack of insight) and a heritage gesture to
Quebec French in acknowledging that their ancestry is evident in the Métis.

Utilizing the same government logic, however, the Métis could never claim
the indigenous status of Indians or take any greater hold on contributions to
founding Canada than the militarily beaten and twice sold French citizens of the
former British colonies founding Canada.90 Canada‘s wars against the French,
Indians, and Métis were won by the British establishment and those victories were
inherited by their varied descendants who established the ruling English culture of
Canada. Yet, a former Federal Minister of Indian Affairs, Jane Stewart, in
announcing ―Gathering Strength - Canada‘s Aboriginal Action Plan,‖ (7 January
1998) claimed that the Métis existed as a people prior to the arrival of Europeans in
North America. The factual inaccuracy is predicated on the underlining assumption
that Métis are merely half-breed Indians, not a culturally distinct group of people:
―The ancestors of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples lived on this continent
long before explorers from other continents first came to North America.‖91
Perhaps the comment is just a gratuitous nod to Métis peoples‘ cultural origins
predating the political formalization of Canada; a sloppy, historically inaccurate
comment at best, but one rife with Canadian contradiction. Minister Stewart‘s
comments also reveal the muddled, ‗half-breed‘ thinking at work when


AANDC/government speaks of Métis status. For the Métis to have residency
status prior to the arrival of European explorers they would be Indigenous half-
breeds, of Indian cultural contexts alone, and therefore are irrevocably original.
Before the arrival of European French, and others, there was no Métis/Metis
ancestry as Métis/Metis are by self-identification not Indians. Metis/Métis have no
ancestry in North America prior to the arrival of persons from other continents as
they did not exist as a people or culture, let alone nation, prior to those arrivals.

Is it possible that the federal government actually sees the Red River Métis
as a charter group influencing the formation of Canada but is denying this heritage
status by including non-heritage Metis in the same grouping? Regardless of
Stewart‘s intended purposes, Aboriginal status flowing from the use of Métis
designation is not without further contemporary legal and intellectual challenge.
There is perhaps implicit Federal Government recognition of the Métis as a
culturally diverse ethnic group without any connection to formational, and charter
French heritage. In preaching its bilingual multiculturalism government has to
deny the privilege commanded by charter status as it demands the rewriting of
Canadian history. Further, recognition of charter status itself proves to be a barrier
to the supposed equality shared by ethnic groups within Canada. Consideration of
charter status also draws attention to how the political infrastructure of Canada
evolved while perpetuating this denial through discrimination and prejudice.
Failure to publically recognize massive differences within the Métis grouping
maintains an historical segregation based on promoting the simplicity or
uniformity of Aboriginal cultures, and supports one dimensional views of these
‗others.‘

Representing all Métis as one cultural grouping is not unlike the federal use
of ‗Indian‘ to describe all North American Indians in Canada, other than the Inuit.
Why hasn‘t the government privileged the Red River Métis (who would qualify as
a nation using the United Nations‘ definition) as a Canadian charter group different
from other Metis? The manoeuvring has to be strategic as it contradicts historical
fact and reasonable interpretation. For example, one can see evidence of cultural
uniqueness amongst Labrador Métis92 who originate from unions between
Europeans and Inuit peoples. But Labrador Métis (whose cultural lineage likely
predates the birth of the very first Red River Métis by at least one hundred years),
now also references a bloodline tied to Innu, not Inuit ancestors, some of whom are
either the cultural offspring of Newfoundland and Labrador Naskapi and Innu93
and Newfoundland English/French cultures or Quebec French/English and Innu,
non-Innu cultures of Quebec.94 Labrador Metis came to use Métis for political
expediency, only. Métis also references urban Ontario and rural British Columbia


Métis with or without French linage, contemporary French and English Red River
Métis, and the Metis living on Kikino, Buffalo Lake and Fishing Lake Metis
Settlements in Alberta. The latter grouping can take their origins from Blood, Cree
or Dene tribes (and others) mixed with English, French, Ukrainian, Italian,
Lebanese, and other resident and non-resident Alberta cultures, plus the Red River
Métis. According to affiliation with the various settlements, these are Alberta
Metis not necessarily the federally recognized Métis. Or are they?

Perhaps a focus on Métis difference is merely the effect of a rhetorical
argument focussing on grammatical error, or an appropriation of a French
Canadian word into English Canadian language? The latter seems plausible, but it
hardly explains the complexity evident in historical and contemporary cultural
differences. Cynics of wholesale Métis Aboriginal status legitimately ask: How are
mixed blood lines and cultures of contemporary ‗Métis any different than other
mixed, community-based (or not) unions in a nation where mixed cultural
marriages are rising?95 ―The 2006 Census recorded a 33% rise since 2001 in the
number of mixed unions (marriage or common-law) involving a visible minority
person with either a non-visible minority person or a person of a different visible
minority. This was more than five times the increase of 6% for all couples.‖96
When asking the question in the context of Métis Aboriginal status and the special
rights, privileges and services given to Aboriginals in Canada we can anticipate
that Canadians will force a clearer definition of Métis as the financial obligations
of taxpayers increases with growth in Métis numbers.

Not surprisingly, for many Canadians Métis has come to represent those
persons with documented North American Indian and ‗other‘ bloodlines. There is
resentment in Canada that Métis have wholesale Aboriginal status without a
limiting definition of culture. While the Red River Métis seem to have solidified a
once denied place in the charter formation of Canada, i.e. by their presence in the
Red River and the North West Rebellions, there is little to suggest that the
Labrador Métis, for example, are any more or less a charter group than the
offspring produced by union of First Nations and the Chinese who built the
Canadian National Railway. Ancestors of these current (mythical?) Chinese/
Aboriginal Métis were instrumental in joining Canada ‗From Sea to Sea.‘ The
Labrador Métis became Canadian citizens, by default, when Newfoundland joined
Confederation in 1949. We‘ll also note that the official title of the province didn‘t
include Labrador until 2001.97 So, perhaps the Labrador Métis were rightfully a
nation unto themselves prior to that time. Are Labrador Métis born before 1949
pre- Canada ‗original people‘? And, if so, are they not then ‗indigenous‘ relative to
Canadian history and its geography? These are not playful conundrums but serious


inquiries influencing historical revisionism of charter history in Canada. Our social
welfare system will inevitably pay for what lawyers must invariably decide: What
are the Aboriginal rights of non-Treaty Aboriginal peoples?

There is a crisis emerging over the cultural authenticity of self-identification
of Métis, outside of Alberta. For those without racial prejudices, it identifies a
cultural belonging; but, not one warranting access to taxpayer dollars once funding
only Treaty obligations. For others, the term still references half-bred socially
dependent communities unable and unwilling to take responsibility for their own
community and individual dependencies. Most Canadians are oblivious as to the
cultural sophistication and diversity of Métis peoples. When defined by Federal
Government policy and action, Métis have no uniquely identifying languages (i.e.
Michif) 98 and no cultural practices that would make them a single grouping. Like
the failure to differentiate between Indians as belonging to clans, tribes or nations,
the acknowledgement of the Métis in Canada does not give them accurate
distinction or establish them as diverse communities. The effect is to consciously
devalue cultural richness by ignoring its complexity. Moreover, it is clear that the
Canadian public will demand a clearer definition of Métis as Aboriginals into the
future. Métis, therefore, are Aboriginal but are certainly not any more distinct, i.e.
meaningful to Canadian history, than other cultures in the Canadian mosaic.

The placement and naming of Aboriginals within the Canadian confederacy
has been at best awkward, contradictory and discriminatory. Pre-Confederation
legislators and their British counterparts did not see Aboriginals as being worthy of
the rights of citizenship prior to the formation of Canada, or afterwards. This
exclusion was made on the basis that Indians were not considered as persons. The
Indian Act stipulated ―the definition of ‗person‘ which was in the statute until 1951
as: "an individual other than an Indian." 99 Until 1947 all citizens of Canada,
except non-enfranchised Indians,100 ―were defined as British subjects‖ (cf. Dewing
and Leman) including the French of Canada.101 There was no legal status of being
Canadian until the passing of the Canadian Citizenship Act 1946 in 1947. In 1947
enfranchised Indians became, by default, Canadian Citizens but were held as wards
of the federal government nevertheless: ―In June 1956, Section 9 of the Citizenship
Act was amended to grant formal citizenship to Status Indians and Inuit,
retroactively as of January 1947.‖102 No Indians, despite their being made
Canadian Citizens in 1947 and again in 1956, could exercise the right to vote in
federal elections until 1960; changes made to the Indian Act in 1927 made it a
punishable crime for an Indian to seek or retain legal counsel or have legal
representation in court.103


Indians would wait until the passing of Bill C31 (1985), an amendment to
the Indian Act, to see their enfranchisement status addressed once again. Bill C31
returned some one hundred thousand persons back to their Indian Status. It did not,
however, herald the cessation of so-called Indian emancipation, i.e. assimilation
policies. Bill C31 is widely known as the ‗Abocide Bill.‘ Aboriginal leaders claim
that its application anticipates the elimination of Treaty, Indian Status. Harry W.
Daniels says that Bill C31 will ―accelerate the extermination policies—the
integration of Canada‘s Indian population into mainstream society—that have
always been at the heart of the federal Indian Act regime.‖104 Daniels is identifying
a form of systemic racism built into federal government policy and bureaucratic
systems, specifically those used for naming Status Indians. Herein we see evidence
that ‗otherness‘ has far-reaching implications for Status Indians into the future.

To suggest that the Indian Act and its amendment Bill C31 is without
negative intention is to ignore multiple historical examples of the backward,
uninformed, and racially biased political thinking guiding INAC, both historically
and currently. Much of this failing is traceable to the Indian Act itself.

The Indian Act seems out of step with
the bulk of Canadian law. It singles out a
segment of society -- largely on the basis of
race -- removes much of their land and
property from the commercial mainstream
and gives the Minister of [then INAC], and
other government officials, a degree of
discretion that is not only intrusive but
frequently offensive. The Act has been
roundly criticized on all sides: many want it
abolished because it violates normative
standards of equality, and these critics tend
to be non-Aboriginal; others want First
Nations to be able to make their own
decisions as self-governing polities and see
the Act as inhibiting that freedom. Even
within its provisions, others see unfair
treatment as between, for example, Indians
who live on reserve and those who reside
elsewhere. In short, this is a statute of which
few speak well. (Henderson‘s Annotated
Indian Act) 105


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