Politics and racial/ethnic relations in Canada

SIGNIFICANCE: Canada is a land of ethnic and cultural diversity. It has also been a land of communities with a conservative tradition. Although the United States broke with Britain and Europe, Canada’s British and French maintained a slow and cautious evolutionary milieu, which included loyalty to their respective British and French homelands.

By the time James Wolfe captured Quebec in 1759, the sixty thousand French Canadians living there had become a distinct community. For 150 years, they had been an outpost of the French Empire and had carried the French flag and Catholic cross within sight of the Rocky Mountains. To ensure the loyalty of the French in Canada, the British Quebec Act of 1775 was passed, granting the French special status to retain their feudal landholding system and establishing church and civil law. The French Canadians were, in essence, a nation. In this way, British and French communities maintained a tradition of respect for authority, continuity, and the rights of collective communities. The role of governmental authority was widely accepted by both communities, and in the case of the French, the role of government was reinforced by the clergy, who administered most educational, health, and social service institutions. The clergy also gave influential advice on how to vote in certain matters, advocated a high birthrate, stressed an agricultural economy to counter the homogenizing effects of industry, and encouraged loyalty to constituted authority.

Most of the events affecting ethnic issues that occurred before World War I concerned the French and Indigenous peoples. The economic development of the northlands was a large factor in ending the nomadic hunting life of Indigenous Canadians. By 1945, poverty and disease on the reserves were so rampant that it was apparent that the system was a reproach to Canadian policy and had to be changed.

French Canadians

The 1885 execution of Louis Riel Jr., separatist leader of the Métis (whose ancestry is both Indigenous and French, and a sense of minority grievance promoted the development of French nationalism. Many French Canadians farmed and worked in the timber trade up to 1890. The coming of hydroelectric power, the wood-pulp industry, and manufacturing plants, combined with a reduction in available workable land, brought French Canadians to the cities. By 1921, Quebec was the most urbanized and industrialized of all Canadian provinces; however, the new enterprises were owned or controlled by English Canadians or US businesspeople. The result of the influx into the cities was not only a “second conquest of Quebec” but also a clash of the old with the new that destroyed the myths by which French Canadians had survived—that the Roman Catholic mission and agriculture were the basis for a virtuous life. Workers soon realized that those traditional values were an obstacle to progress. The clash of old and new came to a head under the regime of Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis, who was in power from 1936 to 1939 and 1944 to his death in 1959. Duplessis was a conservative who retained the enterprise system in Quebec, assisted greatly by British and US businesspeople and investors.

Rise of Ethnic Politics

After the end of World War II, ethnic politics began to dominate Canadian society. Indigenous Canadians received greatly improved health care as a result of the Indian Act of 1959, which provided greater Indigenous influence in decision making. As a result of protests, all Indigenous Canadians were given the franchise to vote in 1960.

In Quebec, the gap between the French and English Canadians widened and opinions crystallized. The industrialization of the province created a desperate need for reforms. Some people felt these reforms could be achieved within the federal system, while others felt that Quebec needed a special status or independence. Some social revolutionaries, inspired by refugees from Algeria and Cuba, resorted to terrorism. Bombings began in 1963 and continued sporadically. French and English Canadians felt such actions were “un-Canadian,” but they illustrated both the social ills of Quebec and the ties of the French intellectuals to the outside world.

In October 1970, with the kidnapping of James Cross, British trade commissioner in Montreal, and Pierre Laporte, minister of labor and immigration, in Quebec, the provincial government called for federal help. The War Measures Act was invoked, and troops moved into Quebec, civil liberties were suspended, and around five hundred people were arrested. Few of those arrested were charged or convicted. Although Cross was released unharmed, Laporte was murdered, and his killers were found and convicted. Although a majority of Canadians and Quebecers approved of the federal action, many civil libertarians believed that the invocation of the War Measures Act and the suspension of civil liberties was too severe a course of action.

Postwar Immigration

Besides the plight of Indigenous Canadians and the rise of the separatist movement in Quebec, large-scale immigration after World War II challenged Canada’s social structure. Traditionally, immigration had been limited to British and American nationals, except in the mid-1920s, when central and eastern Europeans were recruited to farm the vast Canadian prairies and work in extractive industries. As the demand for labor eased, antiforeign sentiment increased, and Canada closed its doors to non-British and American immigrants. After 1945, Canada again needed laborers, and immigration restrictions were loosened. First, displaced people arrived from war-torn Europe. Then, in the 1950s, Canada experienced its greatest influx of immigrants. The majority were from Europe, with a sizable number from southern Europe, particularly Italy, Greece, and Portugal. This change in immigration patterns started a new phase in the character of Canadian society. Those of British and Irish descent dropped to 43.8 percent, and those of French heritage to 30 percent of the nation’s population. Those of other descent rose to 26.4 percent—a social change that stimulated the rise of nationalism in Quebec.

The Establishment of Multiculturalism

In 1965, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was set up to examine the strained relations between Canada’s two charter groups, the French and the English. The commission was besieged by organized ethnic communities demanding that their ethnocultural heritages be accorded equal status in the nation-building process. The politicians, aware that one-third of all Canadians were neither British nor French in origin, acknowledged this third force in Canadian society. In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau established the official policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework in 1971. The purpose of this policy was to encourage members of all ethnic groups in Canada to maintain and share their languages and cultural heritages with other Canadians. The goal was to build personal and collective confidence among all ethnic groups and thus promote tolerance of diversity and positive intergroup attitudes.

The Multiculturalism Act was passed in 1988. This legislation expanded the policy of multiculturalism from an attempt to meet the needs of mainly European immigrants and their descendants through cultural programs and activities and language and heritage education to an effort to combat prejudice and discrimination and promote the full and equal participation of ethnic minorities in all aspects of Canadian society, including mainstream economic, political, and cultural life.

Concerns of Multicultural Canada

Canada is a country of cultural and ethnic diversity. On the 2021 census, individuals reported over 450 ethnic or cultural origins. The most commonly reported ethnic origin was Canadian, followed by English, Irish, Scottish, and French. To better measure the origin of Canada's peoples, the government added fifteen new ethnic origin options to the 2016 census, and the 2021 census included an additional option to write in an ethnic or cultural origin.

According to the Employment Equity Act, visible minorities are "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." Those officially designated as visible minorities by the Canadian government are South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Arab, Latin American, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean, and Japanese. In 1981, only 4.7 percent of Canadians identified as a visible minority. This number increased over time, reaching about 13 percent in 2000, 19 percent in 2011, and 26.5 percent by 2021. The largest groups of visible minorities included Chinese, Black, and South Asian citizens.

Indigenous Canadians, which include First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, have experienced many years of prejudice and discrimination that marginalized their communities and decreased populations. In 1991, 4 percent of Canada’s population of more than 29 million claimed Indigenous ancestry, double the 1981 figure. In 2011, 4.3 percent of Canada’s population reported Indigenous ancestry. Between 2016 and 2021, the Indigenous Canadian population increased by 9.7 percent, making up 5 percent of the country's total population.

Concerns about the future of race and ethnic relations in Canada in the early twenty-first century included the strained relations between the French and English Canadians, the poor treatment of Indigenous peoples, and the increased prejudice against visible minorities. In addition, ethnic diversity—and the possibility of conflict—was increasing in Canada. Groups with very different, sometimes opposing, cultural and religious practices were expected to get along; however, under the policy of multiculturalism, they were also encouraged to maintain their unique cultural background while sharing the Canadian experience. Some experts worry that Canadians may view multiculturalism as a luxury they cannot afford. On the other hand, it may be that embracing multiculturalism is the only way Canada can survive.

Bibliography

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