Settler by Emma Battell Lowman

Author:Emma Battell Lowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Published: 2015-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism

Canadian multiculturalism is held up internationally as an example of a successful and progressive strategy for creating a nation state where people of any cultural or racial group can come together and live side by side, peacefully and respectfully. It has also been critiqued for not actually producing equal opportunity or equal treatment for Canadian citizens, as governments and communities have struggled over the best way to pursue the creation of a multicultural, respectful society in practice. For example, Québec’s controversial 2013 Charter of Québec Values, which banned religious symbols and clothing, was heavily criticized for being racially and religiously discriminatory, yet received widespread support among many people on the grounds that it promoted universal, secular human rights. Similar examples could be picked from many other provinces — multiculturalism in this country has not been a smooth or simple path.15

However, the fact remains that, since 1971, Canada has maintained an official policy of multiculturalism, with the Canadian Multiculturalism Act signed into law in 1988. More importantly, Canadians continue to strongly identify multiculturalism as a distinctly Canadian value: Canada is made up of people whose identities originate in many different cultures and religions and individuals should have the right to practice those cultures and religions. While we are aware that in fact many groups are discriminated against at various times — in the present climate, consider the treatment of Muslim communities — the ideal of the multicultural mosaic remains a powerful part of Canadian identity. So, when specific incidents of racism and violence against Indigenous peoples occur, some Canadians react with outrage. Various groups, from the Council of Canadians to the NDP and Green Parties, and any number of ethnic and religious community associations, have made public statements in support of equality for Indigenous peoples, often pointing to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the guarantees of equality for all Canadians.

Yet there is a paradox, exemplified by the presence of an openly racist and race-based piece of legislation. The Indian Act, which has evolved from an amalgam of bits and pieces of colonial-era legislation designed to “gradually civilize” Indigenous people, literally sets the terms for a separate, racialized legal status for “Indians” in Canada. The Indian Act denies Indigenous peoples and communities the power to determine their own membership, continues to link “status” to restrictive lineage rules, withholds the right to self-determination by enforcing band council governments on designated and federally regulated “First Nations” as the only legitimate system of governance, and otherwise gives the federal government enormous authority to micromanage the lives of Indigenous people. There have been repeated attempts to remove or replace the Indian Act, the two most famous instances being the 1969 White Paper and the proposed First Nations Governance Act in 2002. These attempts occurred more than thirty years apart, but both were explicitly designed to end government responsibility to Indigenous peoples — to get Canada out of “the Indian business” — and to assimilate Indigenous peoples into Canadian civil society. The 1969

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