Canada's Multicultural Identity: A Performance You Don't Want to Miss!

Canadians have a lot to be proud of. Just think of Joe, the guy from the famous Molson Canadian commercial, “I Am Canadian.” While this commercial draws on some silly stereotypes, such as that we all live in igloos or ride on dogsleds, there are a few that we know in our hearts to be true. For instance, we do call winter hats ‘toques,’ we certainly pride ourselves on our love of hockey—though this gets harder to do every time the Leafs lose to Boston or Tampa Bay in the playoffs—and, honestly, we do kind of pronounce it ‘aboot.’

Joe also mentions a few aspects of Canadian culture that we claim confidently. In general, we are a country of nice people. It’s pretty cool that we have two national languages. The thing we claim most proudly from Joe’s speech, though, are our beliefs in peacekeeping over policing and diversity over assimilation.

We are so proud of our diversity in Canada that we have made it our identity. Just as the United States associates itself with freedom, or how Australia is the land of surfing and unnaturally large spiders, Canada is linked with multiculturalism. We are not a melting pot, we are a tossed salad of many ingredients, mixed together in happy, delicious harmony and drizzled with a snowy vinaigrette.

As a white Canadian—and as someone who studied in New Hampshire, which would perhaps be the whitest place on Earth if not for the existence of badminton clubs—Canadian multiculturalism feels like how Joe felt: strength, happiness, and pride. I live amongst many cultures and I feel privileged to do so, but I am not the implicated demographic in this diversity. For the 430 thousand immigrants accepted in 2022,1 as well as Canadians of color who have lived here for generations, Canadian multiculturalism might feel a bit different.

People of diverse cultures and backgrounds are the backbone of Canada’s multicultural identity. They are the key to our claim. While our professions of love for diversity sound great, they are not necessarily accompanied by the freedom and equality they promise.

Image courtesy of Sam Garcia and The Hill Times

When living in a nation that is internationally recognized for its embracing of cultural differences, pointing out racism is not comfortable. It is even harder to point it out and be supported, validated, and believed by your community. A study on the denial of racism in Canada found that we have adopted several tactics to refute the existence of racism in our culture. These strategies include downplaying the severity of racist events, individualizing these occurrences to remove blame from Canada as a whole, and insisting that racism only took place in the past.2 Our identification with diversity often leads to the assumption that Canada is immune to racism or that it is a better place for people of color than other countries.

Some of the most prominent examples of this come right from the most powerful Canadians; politicians. For instance, Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said after the unjust killing of George Floyd that racism does not have “systemic, deep roots” in Canada as it does in the United States.3 Similarly, Stockwell Day, a former Alberta cabinet minister, compared racism in Canada to being teased for wearing glasses in childhood.4 Our representatives are making public efforts to pull attention away from racist systems that affect Canadians every day. The fact that we have to deny racism implies that there is something we’re trying to hide.

Recent studies on the impact of racism on Canada’s diverse population reveal that the Great White North is not, in fact, unaffected by racial inequality. The police violence against people of color for which the United States is globally notorious—perhaps this is one of the deep-rooted systems Ford insists we do not have—also exists in Canada. Black Torontonians made up 22.6% of police encounters involving the use of force in 2020 despite composing 10.2% of the population, which makes them 2.2 times overrepresented.5 One Toronto resident who lives in a predominantly ethnic neighborhood and who has had multiple violent experiences with the police noted that “It’s normal to get beat up by cops. … It’s a joke of, ‘How bad did they beat you?’ Guys would joke about which cop it was."6 So much for peacekeeping over policing. The only positive thing about the results of this study is that the Toronto Police Service has admitted to them. We’ll have to wait and see if they do anything about it.

In addition, Indigenous communities are dealing with ongoing crises and injustices such as the drug epidemic, disparities in healthcare access, and unequal allocation of resources from the government.7 To make up for these systemic issues, Canada opted to change the name of Toronto Metropolitan University, because the school's former name, Ryerson University, was tied to Canada’s horrifying history of residential schools. Don’t get me wrong: this is a positive change. However, it does not directly improve the quality of life for Native Canadians today in the way that tangible actions would benefit this population.

The immigrants and refugees that come here are not safe from Canada’s secret racism, either. According to research on the emotional impact of racism on Canadians of color, one’s level of identification with Canada versus their ethnic background may determine their experiences with racial discrimination. This means that feeling more connected to Canada may lessen the impact of racism, but considering their ethnic culture a part of their Canadian identity might invite more prejudice.8 There goes the belief in diversity over assimilation, too. It must be hard for our newcomers to find the perfect balance. For people of color, Canadian multiculturalism might feel like a trap.

It makes sense that racism is not something we would want to expose in a country where multiculturalism plays so large a part in our identity. So, Joe makes a good point about the Canadian value of multiculturalism. If we stop trying to show the world that Canada believes in peacekeeping over policing and diversity over assimilation, the act is up. Our tossed salad metaphor, our police data reports, our changing university names, and every other performative action Canada takes to disguise underlying racist systems will be exposed.

We have to claim diversity to maintain a multicultural identity. That is why we made sure our prime minister issued a six-minute apology to Native Canadians to make up for their historical suffering in residential schools: to make sure everyone knows we are committed to cultural diversity. The Indigenous reservations still don’t have clean drinking water, though.

References

1.Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. “Canada Welcomes Historic

Number of Newcomers in 2022.” Canada.ca, January 3, 2023. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2022/12/canada-welcomes-historic-number-of-newcomers-in-2022.html.

2.Gulliver, Trevor. “Canada the Redeemer and Denials of Racism.” Critical Discourse

Studies 15, no. 1 (August 2, 2017): 68–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2017.1360192.

3.Premier Ford Says Canada Doesn’t Have Same “Systemic, Deep    Roots” of Racism

as U.S. YouTube. Toronto Star, 2020. https://youtu.be/lwF1x0_nT44?si=aKdBU-Hb2EEyMim2.

4.Eagland, Nick. “Stockwell Day Resigns from Telus Board, Law Firm after Racism

Remarks ...” Vancouver Sun , June 3, 2020. https://vancouversun.com/news/stockwell-day-steps-down-from-telus-board-and-law-firm-after-remarks-on-racism-in-canada.

5.“RBDC Findings: Race & Identity Based Data Collection Strategy.” Toronto, ON: Toronto Police Service, 2020.

6.Greene, Carolyn, Marta-Marika Urbanik, and Kanika Samuels-Wortley. 2022. "“It

Stays with You for Life”: The Everyday Nature and Impact of Police Violence in Toronto’s Inner-City" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 17: 10503. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191710503

7.Williams, Monnica T., Anjalika Khanna Roy, Marie-Paule MacIntyre, and Sonya

Faber. "The traumatizing impact of racism in Canadians of colour." Current trauma reports 8, no. 2 (2022): 17-34.

8.Williams et al., 17-34.