Canada's Identity Essay

Canada has grown and matured a lot throughout the past years and has developed a great independent country and nation since she separated from Britain in 1867. For Canada today, she has changed drastically due to what she endured and experienced in the past years. First of all, Canada proved themselves to be autonomous due to their contributions to World War 1 and World War 2 as an independent country. Secondly, Canada has proved themselves to be accepting due to their actions towards the minority groups and creating a just society. Lastly, Canada has proven itself to be dependable due to her role during the cold war as a middle power. Therefore, Canada’s past has shaped her identity as a middle power because she has matured and grown as a

Jocelyn Letourneau’s is a history professor that wrote the essay “Reconstructing the Canadian Identity”. The author argues that if one compares the Harper government's idea of conservatism against Trudeau’s idea of multiculturalism, the reader can infer that multiculturalism is failing and Canada should go back to its monarch roots. By bringing back symbols of monarchy, a new Canadian perspective would form. Letourneau’s essay is structured in a very well and composed matter. His arguments and connections are structured in proper format where his whole essay can be linked and understood easily by the average individual. Although Letourneau’s essay is structured in a proper format, it is without its faults. The essay contains many fallacies that give his arguments a weak perspective on the topic. Also throughout his essay, the author appears to be taking a side within his argument. His bias viewpoint makes himself, and his work uncredible to the reader.

Major government policies and acts were headway into creating Canada’s modern-day identity. The Immigration Act of 1976 changed Canada’s perspective on immigration eligibility, and majorly contributed towards structuring Canada’s polyethnic background and culture. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau grew up in an extremely discriminatory climate, and believed that Canada should inherit collective identity. Trudeau endorsed immigration to built Canada’s diverse ethnic culture, and accentuated third world immigrants to bring change to Canada’s

From the years of 1945-2000, Canada changed and developed as a country. These changes had both negative and positive effects, and were quite controversial. With a global crisis at hand, Canada found itself involved in international conflicts like they’ve never experienced before. Meanwhile, Canada was also dogged with internal issues, which were both political and economic, as it changed society. Canada was faced with problems of immigration, multiculturalism, Quebec separatism, as well as regionalism. This made Canada’s society change drastically. With Canada’s changes came the development of Canada’s national identity. Canadians began to view their country differently, and Canada’s identity took ahold of a new meaning.

The period of 1914 to 1939, Canada’s immigration policy got very unfair. Changes were made to the Immigration Act in 1914 that allowed the rejection of anyone from any race that was deemed

Canada is a nation built on immigration, and as the world becomes an ever increasingly hostile place more and more have chosen to try and make Canada their home. This melting pot of different cultures has created an overall atmosphere of acceptance, and is teaching younger generations a sense of community, empathy, and togetherness. Sharing our space and learning to grow with different ethnicities has perpetuated our status as a friendly, caring, and loyal nation, that many are willing to risk everything for in exchange for becoming a part of it.

The Indigenous people's story have impacted Canada's identity. We were thought to be multicultural, but we are truly not multicultural until we get the Indigenous people's culture back. If we re-teach the Indigenous children their religion then it is possible for Canada to truly be multicultural. Canada's identity has been impacted by the Indigenous

Canada is internationally renowned for its commitment to multiculturalism. In fact, Canada was the first nation to officially adopt a multicultural policy. However, while the Canadian government has developed a broad-based multicultural mandate that includes a national human rights code and increased penalties for hate-motivated crimes, and most Canadians oppose overt forms of discrimination and hate, racism continues to exist in Canadian society, albeit in a subtle fashion.

A country built on immigration, Canada has long had a reputation of being culturally and ethnically diverse. While multiculturalism is meant to be built on equality and appreciation of different cultures, its concept has gained both support and opposition. On one hand, it allows for more assortment and the voices of minorities have a higher chance to be heard. On the other hand, loss of unity and conflicts may occur due to contrasting worldviews of the citizens. All in all, multiculturalism is a controversial policy that has both advantages and disadvantages, but has proven to be a successful strategy in Canada.

The government of Canada decided that the country could be a mosaic of cultures where people from different countries could keep their nationalities and still be called canadian therefore allowing an influx of different cultures. The royal commission came up with the idea of "cultural pluralism" and encouraged the government to reflect this in their policies. Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the prime minster in 1917 accepted this policy called the multiculturalism policy. In 1988, the governement of Canada also imposed the "Multiculturalism Act" . The factors influencing these two policies/acts were quite similiar to one another. In mid-1960s, the troubled English-French realtions in Canada desperately needed a solution. They preferred the idea of a cultural mosaic. After establishing this policy racism reduced significantly as every ethnic group was to be treated the same way, allowing canada to be a cultural hub. In the context of theory so far everything seems to be working smoothly but the real question that we need to ask ourself is whether multiculturalism is working in our society or not ? Do we feel comfortable living amogst all the different kinds of people and are content with our lifestyle? Take education for an example. A university in North America called Stanford had a program in which the curriculum was designed

While the rest of Canada employs the concept of multiculturalism, Quebec emphasizes on another theory: interculturalism, or the notion of support in cross-cultural dialogue and challenging self-segregation tendencies within cultures. In the province, the word multiculturalism announces pejorative meanings. This was due, in part, to the fact that “a federal commission which was charged several years ago with the task of developing policies for Canada, based on its bicultural and bilingual character emerged with a recommendation that Canada think of itself as a multicultural and bilingual country.3”. Francophones, on the other hand, felt that this concept placed them at the same level as minority ethnic groups, thus erasing their thoughts of being seen as one of the country's founding nations.

It can be argued that since Canada is a diverse country it doesn’t have one identity. Although, this might be true that it’s diverse Canada accepts that as it’s identity. Canada is a cultural pluralist country which means it encourages collectives to promote their own unique cultural identity. The source might disagree with this saying that even if Canada accepts the multiculturalism it doesn’t really contribute to the promotion of it, or that Canada doesn’t have one set of beliefs and values to look up to. Firstly, Canada has a policy called reasonable accommodation which requires Canadian

Canada is routinely defined as the exemplar multicultural society with the most diverse cities in the world such as Vancouver, Toronto and Quebec. The concepts of integrity and complexity are being shaped in Canadian society because of its co-existence of different cultures. Indeed, multiculturalism has been a keystone of Canadian policy for over 40 years with the aim of pursuing Canadian unity (Flegel 2002). Accordingly, Canada is generally estimated a country where people are all equal and where they can share fundamental values based upon freedom. Diversity is sustained and promoted by governmental policy, however, there are still racist interactions, which are destructive to minorities integration, especially recent ethnic groups’ arrival (Banting & Kymlicka 2010). This paper will examine challenges that multiculturalism has brought society and residents of Canada.

Canadian identity and history is grounded in the culture and the traditions of the Aboriginal peoples. Popularly known as being the first inhabitants of Canada, Aboriginals strive to enrich the country’s cultural mosaic through their existence and thus are an integral part of this nation. Although Aboriginals are deemed as an important part of the Canadian social fabric today, history (past and present) documents a contrasting image to this ideology where it is coloured by the economic, social, and physical hardships of Aboriginal societies in Canada. Scarred by the social and racial injustices of the past, Aboriginal education is a major continuing issue with regards to minority education in Canada. According to J. P. White and Dan Beavon (2009), “Aboriginal educational attainment lags significantly behind the Canadian population” (p. 3). Between 1981 and

When Canada first became a country, the immigration policies were very discriminatory. Specific races were wanted or unwanted, even though an attempt was being made to fill the west with settlers. Aboriginals were actually being pushed onto reserves and children into residential schools in an attempt to assimilate their ways of life into the mainstream Canadian culture. Chinese peoples who worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway had to pay a fairly large head tax to enter Canada which was meant to discourage them from moving here (http://mapleleafweb.com). The dislike of these people was not attempted to be hidden, in fact, Canada’s prime minister at one point said, “He has no British instincts or British feelings or aspirations, and therefore ought not to have a vote.” (CBC Archives), showing that anyone who did not fully accept and support the British culture would either not be treated as a true Canadian or would not be accepted into Canada. Canada’s policies have changed significantly, and the people who have immigrated to it shaped it into the place that exists now, a culturally diverse