Abstract
Multiculturalism is linked to Canada and Will Kymlicka, interculturalism to Gérard Bouchard, Quebec and the ‘Commission on Reasonable Accommodation’. Both thinkers, although diverging in their approach, foster a liberal democratic approach linked to Human Rights. Tariq Modood contextualizes multiculturalism within Islamic minorities in the United Kingdom. Christian Joppke discusses multiculturalism in the context of Europe. Last but not the least, the Canadian Doug Saunders presents the situation of migrants in slums and suburbs and suggests to put together economic well-being and multiculturalism. By comparing these different perspectives, and with an emphasis on Francophones, the chapter underscores the fact that, until now, thinkers did not consider sufficiently the impact of economic integration and educational credentials on the dynamics of recognition within the knowledge-based society.
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Notes
- 1.
From the outset, our discussion is linked to the accommodation of immigrants. It is true that refugees and other migrants whose status is uncertain in the receiving state are also concerned by a politics of diversity. However, they are not provided with the same opportunities as those following regular bureaucratic channels. Furthermore, they often do not choose to leave their country or to settle in another country. They often dream of going back. Hence, multiculturalism might only apply in part to them. This is not always underscored by researchers. See Steven Vertovec, “Toward post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity”, UNESCO 2010, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 83–95.
- 2.
Victor Hugo argued in 1849 that “A day will come when we shall see … the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas”. “Ideas of European Unity before 1945”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_European_unity_before_1945
- 3.
This is linked to the legitimation of geo-symbolic displacements. This is why Yann Martel describes Canada as “the greatest hotel on earth” (Tina Loo, “Hotel Canada”, Canada’s History. (http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine/Columnists/August-2011/Hotel-Canada, browsed on January 29, 2017). In Imagining Canada: An Outsider’s Hope for a Global Future, Pico Iyer compares Canada to a hotel : “For her grateful immigrants fleeing Nazi Europe and first arriving in Canada, it seems like a luxury hotel, an oasis of ease and abundance; and a hotel, I think, is not such a terrible way of thinking about society” (24). See Patrick Imbert, Comparer le Canada et les Amériques: des racines aux réseaux transculturels, Quebec, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2014.
- 4.
See Ahmadou Kourouma, Les soleils des indépendances, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1968. In this book, Kourouma develops a gloomy perspective on the numerous failures of independent countries in Africa.
- 5.
See an excerpt of the Preamble:
WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada provides that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination and that everyone has the freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association and guarantees those rights and freedoms equally to male and female persons;
AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada recognizes the importance of preserving and enhancing the multicultural heritage of Canadians;
AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada recognizes rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada;
AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada and the Official Languages Act provide that English and French are the official languages of Canada and neither abrogates nor derogates from any rights or privileges acquired or enjoyed with respect to any other language;
AND WHEREAS the Citizenship Act provides that all Canadians, whether by birth or by choice, enjoy equal status, are entitled to the same rights, powers and privileges and are subject to the same obligations, duties and liabilities;
AND WHEREAS the Canadian Human Rights Act provides that every individual should have an equal opportunity with other individuals to make the life that the individual is able and wishes to have, consistent with the duties and obligations of that individual as a member of society, and, in order to secure that opportunity, establishes the Canadian Human Rights Commission to redress any proscribed discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin or colour.
- 6.
We disagree with Meer and Modood as mentioned by Clara Sarmento: “…where multiculturalism may be illiberal and relativistic, interculturalism is more likely to lead to criticism of illiberal cultural practices….” Clara Sarmento with Sara Brusaca and Silvia Sousa (eds.), In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars, 2012, p. XIV. As we will see in this article, Modood favors a restricted interculturalism. For him, the individual shall not leave the minority group, difference and Islamic values dominate and hybridity is not acceptable.
- 7.
We translate: “Catholicism […] proposes a vision of the world defined by an influential […] and very conservative clergy which perceives religious (or other types of) otherness as a possible contamination that needs to be blocked, or at least controlled […]. French school […] must be homogenous; this, however, encourages an orientation based on an atavistic logic and feeds, through its arguments, the politics of exclusion.”
- 8.
Joan Delaney, “Political correctness gone too far?”, The Epoch Times, December 22–28, 2006.
- 9.
Many studies deal with multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. See Steven Vertovec, “Super-diversity and its implications”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 30, 6, November 2007, p. 1024–1054.
- 10.
For Modood, it is the Christian religions in the United Kingdom.
- 11.
Our translation: “Multiculturalism is an out-dated political approach. After many years of multicultural strategies in many European countries –not all of them, as we are forced to recognize –, we have to conclude that multiculturalism is an insufficient concept […] something did not work and communities live separate and parallel lives”.
- 12.
Usually, interculturalism refers to non-legally codified prescriptions aiming at establishing ethnic pluralism through norms reaffirming cultural practices and values of the majority or of a privileged group.
- 13.
Our translation: “encourage the formation of a common culture from and beyond cultural diversity but without hindering this diversity.”
- 14.
In 2012 Gérard Bouchard published a book entitled Interculturalisme: un point de vue québécois in which he summarizes his point of view on the Commission.
- 15.
We have to remember that francophones are a majority in Quebec but a minority in Canada, which is a federal state.
- 16.
We translate: “Interculturalism tries to reconcile ethno-cultural diversity with the continuation of the francophone core population and the preservation of social relationships.”
- 17.
For a more detailed discussion, see: “De Bouchard-Taylor à l’Unesco: ambivalences interculturelles et clarifications transculturelles” (with Afef Benessaieh) in Canadian Studies: The State of the Art/Études canadiennes: questions de recherche (Klaus-Dieter Ertler, Stewart Gill, Susan Hodgett, Patrick James eds.), Canadiana 10, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 2011, p. 393–413.
- 18.
“Laïcité: la CAQ ‘erre gravement’, selon Gérard Bouchard”, La Presse, April 5, 2019. We translate: “CAQ errs gravely.”
- 19.
The Economist, May 5, 2018, p. 30, “Sikhs in semis”: “Sikhs already play an outsize part in Canadian trucking. NAPTA, which is based in California but seeks to represent Sikhs truckers in both America and Canada, was formed this year.”
- 20.
Our translation: “I want to forget, forget everything about this country where one can make people disappear by snapping fingers. I cling even more to this language that I chose, to the promise it represents: French language, my love, my refuge, my salvation” (Flavia Garcia, Partir ou mourir un peu plus loin, Montréal, Mémoire d’encrier, 2016).
- 21.
Consider the fact that the Show SLAV by Robert Lepage and performed in Montreal in July 2018 was canceled because not enough characters were Black. The protest could also be considered as censuring art under the disguise of not appropriating a dominated culture. See Margaret Wente, “Should white people sing black slave songs?”, The Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 7, 2018, p. 011.
- 22.
The recent book by Luciara Nardon (Working in a Multicultural World, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2017) hints at these questions and provides answers to employers on how to deal with diversity. However, the author does not explore all the complexities of the links between multiculturalism and economy.
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Imbert, P. (2020). Francophones, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism in Canada, Quebec and Europe. In: Mielusel, R., Pruteanu, S. (eds) Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_3
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