8.2.1 Official Multiculturalism

Canada was the first liberal democracy to officially adopt multiculturalism as a national-level public policy. On October 8, 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau declared in a speech to the House of Commons that Canada’s federal government would, from that point on, implement a policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework”. Table 8.4 below highlights the four main objectives and table 8.5 highlights the six programs of implementation of Canada’s policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework.”

Table 8.4 Policy Objectives in the Federal Sphere and Programs of Implementation

Source: House of Commons Canada. (1971, October 8). House of Commons Debates, 28th Parliament, 3rd Session (Vol. 8). https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2803_10/1.

Table 8.5 Program of Implementation

Source: House of Commons Canada. (1971, October 8). House of Commons Debates, 28th Parliament, 3rd Session (Vol. 8). https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2803_10/1.

According to Hugh Donald Forbes, Canada’s policy of “official multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” was intended not only to serve the purpose of minority recognition and minority accommodation; the government also deployed official multiculturalism as part of a “national unity strategy” (Forbes, 2018, p. 34) to counteract mobilization for independence in Québec in the wake of the province’s “Quiet Revolution.” As a result, Québec scholars criticize Canada’s policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” for impinging on a national minority’s rights to self-government. In turn, some of these scholars have developed an alternate model of immigrant integration – interculturalism – which is discussed later in this chapter (see section 8.3 Multiculturalism’s Near and Longer-Term Prospects).

Canada’s federal government reinforced and expanded the country’s commitment to official multiculturalism in 1982 and 1988. In 1982, the Canadian Constitution Act achieved royal assent leading to the enshrinement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 27 of the Charter requires that “The Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians” (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982, S. 27). In 1988, the Mulroney government passed the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988. The Act created the Department of Multiculturalism and the position of Minister of Multiculturalism, renamed Canada’s official multiculturalism policy the “multiculturalism policy of Canada”, and specified federal institutions’ duties and responsibilities in implementing the policy.

The Netherlands is the first and, to date, the only Western European country to adopt a policy of official multiculturalism. Dutch official multiculturalism is commonly viewed as the by-product of the Minority Memorandum (or minderhedennota), a White Paper on immigration and integration published by the Dutch government in 1983. In this document, the government identified 15 polyethnic minority groups present in the Netherlands and promised to ensure the fair and equal legal treatment of members of these minority groups and to lower barriers to minority participation in Dutch society. The Dutch government adopted official multiculturalism following a string of terrorist attacks committed by Moluccan immigrants and in the face of clear evidence of striking socio-economic disparities between the national majority and polyethnic minorities.

The origins of official multiculturalism in Australia can be traced to the release of the Galbally Report (i.e., Report on the Review of Post-Arrival Programs and Services to Migrants) in 1978. The government commissioned the report after ending racial restrictions in immigration, which resulted in an increase in immigration from Southeast Asia. After the Galbally Report was issued, the Australian government established the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs (AIMA) in 1979. The box below highlights the government’s principal objectives in creating the AIMA.

There have been two subsequent iterations of Australia’s official multiculturalism policy, both of which were marked by the release of a national-level policy document. In The National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia (1989), the Australian government declared its duty to protect the rights of immigrants to preserve their cultural identity but also highlighted an immigrant’s obligation to adhere to the rules and values of Australian society. In Multicultural Australia: United in Diversity (2003), the government identified the need to promote “community harmony and social cohesion” (p. 6) post-September 11, 2001 and articulated the importance of official multiculturalism as a means of ensuring both national unity and national security.

Sweden implemented a policy of official multiculturalism partly in response to labour migration and to rights claims by the country’s Finnish-speaking minority. However, according to Karin Borevi (2013), the decision to implement a multiculturalism policy at the national level was also made because “it fitted in well with the national self-image developed in the post-war period of Sweden as a pioneer in human rights issues” (p. 145). Swedish official multiculturalism is rooted in the 1975 Immigrant and Minority Policy. The Policy outlined three main objectives: 1. “[ensuring] that immigrants were provided with conditions equal to those of the native population” (ibid, pp. 143-144); 2. Giving immigrants the choice to determine the degree to which they would retain their culture, on the one hand, and integrate into Swedish society, on the other; and 3. Promoting “partnership [between] … immigrant and minority groups” (ibid; p. 144).