Unity in diversity, the Canadian way

"Unity in diversity, the Canadian way"

Notes for an address by the
Honourable Stéphane Dion
President of the Privy Council and
Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs,

to the South Asia Council
of the
Canadian Asian Studies Association

Montreal, Quebec

June 10, 1999

South Asia: eight countries.
Afghanistan: two official languages (Pashto and Dari) and three major ethnic groups (Pashtuns, 38%; Tajiks, 25%; Hazaras, 19%).
Bangladesh: 83% Muslim, 16% Hindu.
Bhutan: 59% Bhote, 20% Ngalops, 25% Nepalese.
India: 25 states, 7 territories, three major ethnic groups, six main religions, 18 official languages.
Maldives: Indians, Sinhalese, Arabs.
Nepal: one official language, Nepali, but some dozen other languages are also used.
Pakistan: Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Baluchis.
Sri Lanka: Sinhalese, 74%; Tamils, 18%.

I am not surprised that federalism and multiculturalism, as means to achieve the peaceful cohabitation of different populations within a single state, is of great interest to South Asia specialists such as yourselves.

The cohabitation of different populations within a single country may well be the main issue of the next century, not only in South Asia but elsewhere in the world as well. A 1997 Carnegie Corporation report states that since the end of the Cold War, the number of conflicts within states has greatly exceeded the number of conflicts between states. In addition, a study published by the United States Institute of Peace Press has identified 233 ethnic or religious minorities that are calling for improvements to their legal and political rights, many of which are in South Asia.

According to Professor Daniel Elazar, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, there are some 3,000 human groups in the world who are conscious of a collective identity. And yet, there are not even 200 states in the UN. To each people its own state, a slogan reiterated once again by Lucien Bouchard on June 5 ("[sovereignty] responds to a need of almost all peoples on earth") [Translation], is an impractical idea that would fragment the planet. As former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has stated: "Yet if every ethnic, religious or linguistic group claimed statehood, there would be no limit to fragmentation, and peace, security and economic well-being for all would become ever more difficult to achieve."

In other words, we need to invent Canadas throughout the world. They will be different from ours, to be sure, but they will pursue the same ideal: mutual assistance of different populations within a single state, which see their living together as the development of a more complete citizenship, closer to universal values. As Indira Gandhi once said, Canada is the proof that "diversity not only enriches but can be a strength." Our country, Canada, is largely seen throughout the world as a model of openness and tolerance, and is admired for its capacity to unite different populations.

It is easy to imagine the world's reaction if Canada were to break up. It would be said that this defunct federation had died from an overdose of decentralization and tolerance -- in short, from an overdose of democracy. Don't be as tolerant, as decentralized, as open as Canada has been, or else your minority or your minorities will turn against you, jeopardize the unity of your country, and perhaps destroy it: that's what would be said.

The very reason I entered active politics is that I want to hear the opposite. I want to hear people say, throughout the world: We can be confident in our minorities, and allow them to flourish in their own way, because in that way they will strengthen our country, just as Quebec strengthens Canada.

The Canadian unity debate is universal in scope. If a country as fortunate as Canada fails to maintain its unity, Canadians will have sent a very bad message to the rest of the world at the beginning of the new millennium.
I am going to describe the Canadian method for cohabitation of different populations, as I see it, and will leave you to determine which elements of it can be transposed to the extremely varied contexts of South Asia, and which cannot. I will also explain why, in my opinion, the solution to our unity problem lies in further developing this Canadian method, rather than abandoning it.

1. The Canadian way to encourage cultures to live together

The Canadian system is based first and foremost on individual rights. Only flesh-and-blood people exist in a tangible way, only they are capable of feelings, freedom, happiness. That being said, individuals maintain or develop affinities on the basis of sharing common traits. Some of those affinities relate to language, culture and religion, and are expressed as collective identities.
The Canadian ideal consists of seeing these differences between groups of citizens not as a problem, but instead as a strength, which, rather than separating citizens, allows them to pursue together the plural quest for what is just and good. The promotion of collective identities or affinities in Canada does not mean the negation of individual rights. It is meant to help Canadian citizens to develop and flourish. It in no way weakens the feeling of a common Canadian identity. On the contrary, Canadians' acceptance of their plural identities nourishes within them a genuine love for their country.
In this sense, Canadian multiculturalism is not a series of closed ghettos, and it must not become one. It expresses the conviction that human beings are better served by cultural exchanges than by cultural assimilation or separation. Canada was the first country in the world to adopt a multiculturalism policy and continues to play a leading role in this regard, for which it received high praise from UNESCO in 1996.

The quest for a better autonomy for Aboriginal peoples must not mean that the individuals that make up those peoples have fewer rights than other Canadian citizens. They too are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But this status of autonomy must enable these Aboriginal populations to deal with the specificity they have inherited from their history and the political status that was imposed on them.

The notion of founding peoples would be unacceptable if it meant that Canadians of British or French origin ought to have more rights than other Canadians. But it draws its meaning from the fact that Canada has the good fortune to have two official languages that are also international languages, windows on the world. With regard to the more fragile situation of French, Canada has inherited from its history the good fortune, the privilege and the duty to promote French and French-language cultures in Quebec, in Canada as a whole and throughout the world, and to make this heritage accessible to Canadians of all origins.

The notion of distinct society, or a society with a unique character, cannot give Quebecers more rights or privileges than other Canadians. Possible constitutional recognition of this notion could not give the Government of Quebec more powers than the other provincial governments, without it being known in advance what those powers would be. This notion means that the Canadian federation must be flexible enough to address the varied needs of its federated components, including the unique character of Quebec society.

That unique character is easy to identify: Quebec is the only province where Francophones and Anglophones alike can be described both as a majority and as a minority. Francophones are the majority in Quebec, but are a minority in Canada and a very small minority in North America. Quebec Anglophones are certainly part of the majority in North America and Canada, but in Quebec, where they live and work, they are a minority. The pursuit of the harmonious cohabitation between Francophones and Anglophones in Quebec is taking place in the unique context of Quebec society. It is incumbent on governments and the courts to take that unique character into account. And that is just what the Supreme Court of Canada does, according to one of its former chief justices, the late Brian Dickson. For all practical purposes, potential constitutional recognition of Quebec's specificity would merely formalize existing practice.

The Canadian federation, and in particular, the division of constitutional powers between the federal and provincial governments, are not organized on the basis of collective identities, defined in terms of peoples or nations. Rather, it is individual rights that still and always are paramount: the objective, as set out in the Constitution, is that the federation ensure that all citizens, to the greatest possible extent, have access to public services of comparable and optimal quality. But that quality is achieved in different ways, depending on the different contexts of each province. It is important that each province have the means to pursue that quest for quality, and this is the basis for the extensive redistribution mechanisms to benefit the less wealthy provinces.

The provinces have equality of status. There is only one status for provinces in Canada, not two or three -- either you are a province, or you are not. In law, they all have the same constitutional responsibilities. In practice, however, some provinces, particularly the province of Quebec, have used the potential afforded them by Canada's Constitution much more than other provinces have. A number of federal government policies encourage this flexibility. For example, the recent job training agreements allowed the provinces to choose either extensive autonomy or co-management of programs with the federal government. The Government of Newfoundland chose co-management, while the Government of Quebec chose autonomy. The flexibility of Canadian federalism thus allows for a de facto asymmetry that is quite pronounced in comparison with what is generally found in other federations.

We can see that the provinces' equality of status is not to be confused with uniformity. It is perfectly in keeping with the plural quest for high-quality public service.

This is the Canadian way of seeking unity in diversity. It is based on the primacy of individual rights. But it does not establish these rights in the abstract; it takes into account the diverse realities of which individuals are a part. Our multiculturalism, our bilingualism and our federalism all give tangible expression to the way individual rights mesh with collective realities.

2. The Canadian method and the challenge of separatism

There are those who say that the existence of a separatist movement in Quebec is proof that Canadian federalism doesn't work. I say that's inaccurate: Canada is undeniably a country that works in comparison with others, in the sense that it provides its citizens with one of the best qualities of life in the world. That quality of life stems in large part from a spirit of tolerance, openness and mutual trust between different populations that is hard to find elsewhere. Canada can and must be improved, but we shall do so even more effectively once we have resolutely decided to stay together.

To improve Canada, we need to build on its diversity and to see it as a strength. But we cannot build on its diversity while denying its most fundamental dimension: the inalienable difference which makes each individual, each person, a unique human being. To renounce the primacy of individual rights, to organize the country primarily along the lines of collective representations of identity as defined by public authorities, which they would refer to as peoples, nations or what have you, to submerge individuals into these collective entities, is not building unity in diversity. It is proposing an artificial uniformity within each of those collective constructions.

There are those who claim that Quebecers, Quebec Francophones, at least, look uniformly to their provincial government, whereas Canadians in the other provinces look to the federal government. And so the Canadian federation should be reorganized in accordance with those supposed preferences: centralize Canada outside Quebec and hand over to the Quebec government a large number of the responsibilities currently assumed by the federal government.

But such a simplistic vision of things is not borne out by opinion polls. Quebecers are not uniformly lined up behind their provincial government any more than other Canadians are the centralizers they are made out to be. For example, an EKOS poll in November 1997 indicated that better cooperation between governments is the preferred solution of 51% of Quebecers and 60% of Canadians outside Quebec, compared with decentralization to the provinces, favoured by 38% of Quebecers and 22% of Canadians outside Quebec, and centralization toward the federal government, the choice of 8% of Quebecers and 18% of Canadians outside Quebec.

Canadians throughout the country prefer better cooperation between the two orders of government rather than radical centralization or decentralization. Decentralization has more support in Quebec than it does elsewhere, but even in Quebec, the most popular choice is that of better cooperation between governments.

Another false solution, akin to the previous one, is what I call internal separatism. This consists of giving the separatists part of the powers they are calling for, in the hope that they will get to the point where they lose their appetite for separation. For Canada, which is already a very decentralized federation, this would mean gradually handing over almost all public responsibilities to the Government of Quebec. By doing so, it would be hoped that the vast majority of Quebecers would be satisfied with this extensive autonomy, and that the hardline separatists would be marginalised.

In my opinion, it would be a mistake to pursue such a strategy. Every new concession made to appease the separatists would lead Quebecers to withdraw ever further into their territory, to define themselves by an exclusive "us", to see other Canadians increasingly only from afar, and to reject the Canadian government and common Canadian institutions as a threat to their nation, a foreign body. The division of powers between the two orders of government is not a bargaining chip that can be used to allay separatism.

Internal separatism is a strategy doomed to failure. It cannot make a country work in unity. What the separatists want is not piecemeal powers, yesterday job training, tomorrow an enhanced role at UNESCO. What they hope for is for Quebec to be a separate country. They want to cease being Canadian. Lucien Bouchard said so yet again as recently as June 5: "A people must conduct itself as a people and manage its own affairs within its own state." (Translation)

The separatist leaders' ideology of exclusive nationalism consists of presenting our Canadian dimension as something foreign to ourselves as Francophone Quebecers. Something foreign and unnecessary, and worse: something harmful and threatening. That's why the separatist leaders don't want to ask a clear question on secession: they know that their exclusive nationalism is rejected by a clear majority of Quebecers. The main obstacle to their project is that the vast majority of Quebecers feel that they are Canadians too. This is confirmed by all the opinion polls: something like 80% of Quebecers feel that they have a Canadian identity in addition to their Quebec identity. Quebec nationalism is generally open to the Canadian dimension and the Quebec dimension alike.

Quebecers in general see themselves as a people, but they also see themselves as belonging to the Canadian people, and they don't have a problem acknowledging the existence of more than one people in Quebec. Many remain attached to the French-Canadian people. They appreciate these different identities and make them their own, and are wary of exclusive conceptions of the nation.

Quebecers clearly feel that the reason we have a federation is not so that we can withdraw farther away from one another. It is so we can pursue common objectives together, through the diversity of our experiences and institutions and the plurality of our identities.

Conclusion

Georges-Étienne Cartier believed that Canada should be a political nationality, where different populations can work together in all confidence for the common good, without having to fear the melting pot of uniformity. That was an innovative idea at the time. Assimilation was actively promoted throughout the Western world in the 19th century by those with a liberal spirit, for example through one-size-fits-all mandatory schooling. They saw it as a precondition for ensuring equality of opportunity among individuals.

Assimilation has existed and still exists in Canada, but on the whole it has failed. Francophones and Anglophones had to learn first to tolerate one another, then to better respect one another, and then to extend one another a helping hand. This difficult learning process, including its darker pages, made them better disposed to welcome new citizens from every corner of the globe.

Canada is still a political nationality. The ideal pursued by our country, through its federative form, its democratic institutions, its charters of rights, its bilingualism and its multiculturalism, is to enable all its citizens to flourish in freedom, taking into account the context in which they are evolving, and respecting their collective loyalties, including the unique character of Quebec society.

I am not saying that Canada has managed to achieve this ideal. I am saying that the pursuit of this ideal holds the key to strengthening our unity. I also believe that this ideal is universal in scope, and that the pursuit of this ideal may help countries that, in contexts more difficult than our own, in South Asia and elsewhere, need to achieve harmony among their populations, and to seek, in some way, their own Canada.

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