A Canadian anomaly? The social construction of multicultural national identity

Whereas, in recent years, many Western immigrant-receiving societies experienced a "retreat" from multiculturalism (arguably less in practice than in dominant discourses), in Canada, support for multiculturalism merely "dipped" in the early 1990s and reached unprecedented heights in the subsequent years. As a normative principle and popular representation of national identity, multiculturalism became dominant not only among academics but also in government discourses and the Canadian media. Indeed, as Rainer Bauböck has put it: ‘No other Western country has gone as far as Canada in adopting multiculturalism not only as a policy towards minorities but also as a basic feature of shared identity’ (2005: 93). How can we explain this comparative strength of Canadian multiculturalism? And has it been sustained in the new century?

This paper unpacks the dominant discourse of multiculturalism in the 1990s: What does “multiculturalism” mean? Who is included in the multicultural Canadian "we", who is excluded? By doing so, the paper dissects this discourse’s constitutive segments. The empirical analysis identifies three types of discourses -- English-Canadian nationalism, pluralist multi-national federalism, and liberal immigrant multiculturalism – that respond to, reinforce and contradict each other mutually. Within this polyphony of voices, a vaguely defined multicultural pan-Canadian identity gains political influence as the by-product of a shared opposition to Quebec’s allegedly “ethnically nationalist” separatism. While the multicultural transformation of pan-Canadian "national" identity was indeed dominant until the early years of the new century, it is best viewed as a fragile compromise between otherwise highly conflicting views of what it means to be Canadian. In the past couple of years, however, as the balance of powers has shifted, the pro-multiculturalism coalition is weakened, and it looks as if Canada is joining -- albeit as a latecomer -- the widespread trend of countries that are re-nationalizing their approach to immigrant inclusion.