For this blog assignment, I would like you to research and summarize one of the state or governing activities, such as The Royal Proclamation 1763, the Indian Act 1876, Immigration Act 1910, or the Multiculturalism Act 1989 – you choose the legislation or policy or commission you find most interesting. Write a blog about your findings and in your conclusion comment on whether or not your findings support Coleman’s argument about the project of white civility.

– Question Two

The Multiculturalism Act, 1988

Taking the two major groups of European settlers into account, former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson established the Royal Commission on Bilingual and Bi-culturalism in 1963, aimed to develop an equal basis for British-Canadians and French Canadians. Shortly after its establishment, Pearson’s successor Pierre Elliot Trudeau announced that Canada would be the world’s instigator to adopt multiculturalism as its official policy in 1971, which finally and officially includes the First Nations into the Canadian culture.

With the enactment of the Multiculturalism Act by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1988, the Canadian government, “affirmed the value and dignity of all Canadian citizens regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation”, through holding the two fundamental principles that “all citizens are equal and have the freedom to preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage”, and that “Multiculturalism promotes the full and equitable participation of individuals and communities of all origins in all aspects of Canadian society” (“Canadian Multiculturalism”).

With the inclusion of First Nations in the Multiculturalism Act, it is clearly acknowledged that they share equal rights like the other European settlers, while their culture and heritage must also be protected. However, criticisms suggested that forcing the official bilingualism on First Nations would do harm on their cultural inheritance, suppressing them into the mainstream Western, English/French-speaking culture (Voyageur 109). Furthermore, though it is officially reckoned that the Indian Act is unconstitutional in British Columbia under the circumstance an “Indian” women’s “Indian” status would no longer be valid when she married a non-Indian man, and that her children would also be invalid for their “Indian” status (Hanson), amendments on the Indian Act and the Multiculturalism Act are yet to be made, and other provinces in Canada may still have yet acknowledged this controversy.

Applying what we have gone through this lesson: Introduction to Nationalism and Daniel Coleman’s summary on White Civility: the Literary Project of English Canada, I have come to realize that not only the First Nations, but also us, who are living under the illusion of multiculturalism. According to Eric Hobsbawn and Benedict Anderson, culture is inherited through ethnic enclaves. Though I could not deny that multicultural media is firmly established within Canada, we are bounded in the Western European environment, encountering media that are dominated by Western Europeans, trying to emerge into the Canadian society through learning English and French, which I found these conditions resembling to what Daniel Coleman has highlighted in his book: “the fictive element of nation building”, and “the necessary forgetfulness required to hold that fiction together”.

Works Cited

“Canadian Multiculturalism: An Inclusive Citizenship” Government of Canada. Government of Canada, n.d. Web. 18 Jul 2016

“Ethnic print media in the multicultural nation of Canada: A case study of the black newspaper in Montreal”. Journalism 7 (3): 343–361.

Hanson, Erin. Bill C-31 and gender discrimination, The Indian Act. First Nations and Indigenous Studies. UBC, 2009. Web. 18 Jul 2016.

“Introduction to Nationalism.” Canadian Literature Guide. University of British Columbia, n.d. Web. 4 July 2016.

Voyageur, Cora J.. “Various Shades of Red: Diversity within Canada’s Indigenous Community” London Journal of Canadian Studies 16: 20000/2001: 109-124. Web. 18 Jul 2016.