Spooking the Multiculturalist Borg

There are four major articles on homosexual marriage on the Globe and Mail's website today. There may be more on the printed version. Three of them have Stephen Harper's name in the title. The fourth one is by Roy McGregor, who writes from the Texas Lounge in Calgary. If you believe McGregor, there is some sort of civil war going in Alberta between the cities and the rural communities. It's very clever.

Much of the hoopla started with the Conservative ads about homosexual marriage directed at ethnic Canadians. I saw the Conservative Party ads before they hit light. A friend called me and asked me if I could check some of the translations from the English to other languages, to make sure that the translators had not missed the spirit of the original English wording.

There was and is nothing offensive about the ads. They ask a very simple question as to where the line should be drawn. Most people I have talked to, and I do confess to have Liberal friends, would acknowledge that there is nothing offensive in the question. One of them, not understanding the language in the ad, wondered if the ad was a Liberal or a Conservative ad on account of the "neutrality" of the Harper and Martin portraits.

A couple of liberals did object to the part in the ads that says that Paul Martin is "imposing same-sex marriage." This is a debatable issue, to be sure. They pointed out that Martin has called for a free vote, which is only partially true. Cabinet members are required to vote for the bill. So, it is "free" for some and compulsory for others (Confused?). If we look at what the majority of Canadians want, however, the imposition statement is not the objectionable point that Liberals would make it out to be.

Pundits have said, including some Conservative "nervous nellies," that the ads are going to split the party. Split the party, split the party, split the party!!! If I had a dime for every time that someone in the Globe and Mail or in the Toronto Star said those words, I would be brunching at a fancy hotel this weekend. Flogging "split" has become the standard attack on the Conservatives, considering that in reality Liberals and New Democrats are experiencing some rifts of their own. The Liberals, especially --and they are the Government and it is their bill-- have more faultlines on this than any other party. The Bloc not so much, but it is the Bloc!

The Globe's Reinhart seems prototypical of the angst that Liberals are experiencing at the possibility that significant portions of traditional ethnic communities in the country are willing to turn their backs on the Liberal Party over homosexual marriage. Reinhart paints it as a Conservative "tactic," culled in secrecy. The inference is that the Conservatives don't really care about minorities and they are using them for dirty political purposes. Elsewhere in the Globe, the editors tell us that the whole thing does not matter to ethnic Canadians (What planet are they on?).

Stephen Harper has become the object of attack because he is driving a wedge between Liberals and those they consider to be family members. So Reinhart sets out to expose the clever "tactic." To undermine it, Reinhart interviews half a dozen urbane, ethnic Canadians in order to make the point that the Conservatives are overestimating their possible gains because these ethnic communities are not monolithic, that there are generational gaps as well as issues of assimilation that divide them. Suddenly the presence of difference of opinion and variety of viewpoint acquires the mark of a virtue.

One of Reinhart interviewee's says: "There's a huge gap in the [Chinese] community. First of all there's the gap between the young and the old. But there's also a gap between the early immigrants and the late immigrants." The generational gap argument is easy to follow and to accept, especially when you are a Liberal. Society "evolves," they claim, and the old foggies from the Old Country always lag behind the times, don't get with the program, and eventually are left behind when it comes to hip things. They're old!

The other category is more problematic for liberals. It exposes the farcical policy and the claims that have been made in the name of multiculturalism for decades. From the Heritage Department we learn that multiculturalism "ensures that all citizens can keep their identities, can take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging. Acceptance gives Canadians a feeling of security and self-confidence, making them more open to, and accepting of, diverse cultures." Yet, what Reinhart finds is what most of us would find when we have our eyes open, and what multiculturalism Canada would not care to admit in the open (although it does in a veiled fashion). Immigrants get assimilated, and the ones that have been here for a while lose their identity, and eventually embrace the "values" of urban Canada (that's where the majority of them go. Not that there is anything wrong with city folk. I am compelled to say that I have several friends who live in cities, and they are all fine people [For a view of how the G&M apocalyptically paints the rift between city and country in Alberta, go here]).

But our federal programs are nothing if not Orwellian. On the same page quoted from Multiculturalism Canada, and just a few lines later, we read this: "Through multiculturalism, Canada recognizes the potential of all Canadians, encouraging them to integrate into their society and take an active part in its social, cultural, economic and political affairs." At the same time that multiculturalism enables immigrants (and refugees) to keep their identity, it enables them to integrate into Canadian society. Really! Who has really been using ethnic minorities in this country to advance their electoral position? Who tells them that they can have all kinds of money to celebrate and keep their heritage and identity while stating (and knowing) that they will be assimilated?

The bottom line is that immigrants do integrate. The realization that comes with it is what we have known all along. Multiculturalism, independently of having become a sacred cow, is all about the natural party of Canada buying votes from the ethnic communities. The lie may not be fully exposed (Neil Bissoondath can keep trying), but the rift is showing and the Grits are worried.

There is an almost natural affinity between conservatives and ethnic minorities in Canada. To one who looks, it has long been there. Ethnic minorities are traditional in many ways. And now that the Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP have gone perhaps too far in their projects of social engineering of the Canadian polity, immigrants may more readily recognize the affinity. And this is surely what worries Liberals.

Given that "resistance is futile," old immigrants and more recent immigrants will have to make up their minds about what kind of society they want their grandchildren and their children to be assimilated into.