“Integration or Colonization? Making Space for Aboriginal Rights in Canadian Multiculturalism”...

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“Integration or Colonization? Making Space for Aboriginal Rights in

Canadian Multiculturalism” David B MacDonald

University of Guelph

In the 2011 federal leadership debates, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lauded

Canada’s multicultural policies, arguing that when it came to the integration of

newcomers, “we’re probably the most successful country in the world in that

regard.” Countering Gilles Duceppe’s fears of ethnic “ghettoes”, Harper averred that

immigration was good for Canada and the economy.1 This rosy perception of

multiculturalism reflects a decades-‐old narrative that Canadian multiculturalism is a

model for the world, something we do better than anyone else, even beating the

Americans and the Europeans.2

In this chapter I propose a critique of Canadian multiculturalism, written from the

perspective of a person of multicultural heritage who has worked with indigenous

peoples in Canada and Aoteraroa New Zealand for over a decade. The critique

focuses on what I see as the primary goal of multiculturalism: the integration of both

racialized minority populations and Aboriginal peoples into the Shognosh

(European settler) mainstream, without questioning the legitimacy of that

mainstream. I begin by attempting to situate multiculturalism as a collection of

polities designed to perpetuate forms of state power rather than to diffuse it

amongst various ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities. Articulated

throughout is how both multiculturalism and English-‐French biculturalism work to

discipline and control Aboriginal peoples by holding them to standards which

poorly reflect their sui generis rights as the original peoples of Turtle Island.

I conclude with a brief discussion of how we might strive towards a society with

properly respects Aboriginal peoples as first peoples, and models and ethic of being

a guest on Aboriginal territory rather than a host to both Aboriginal peoples and

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newcomers. The very success of multiculturalism, I argue throughout is that is has

served to reinforce the unquestioned “host” nature of Canada’s European settler

populations, reinforcing a dominant colonial paradigm that has effectively

marginalized Aboriginal peoples while also integrating newcomers into a society

which is deeply Eurocentric. Throughout this chapter I employ the Anishinaabeg

term Shognosh3 to refer to European settler peoples, and stress the need for a

renewed relationship between Aboriginal, Shognosh and multicultural peoples.

What is Multiculturalism?

Standard definitions of Canadian multiculturalism include institutional descriptions

such as the “management of diversity through formal initiatives in the federal

provincial and municipal domains,”4 or idealized portrayals that focus on the

respect and recognition of “all diverse groups in an organization or society,” while

deploying buzzwords such as inclusive and empowering to describe the results of

the process.5

A more analytically rigorous definition, building on the work of critical scholars of

multiculturalism and race,6 would bear in mind a state’s goals of controlling both the

practices and the image of the state, as well as the state’s continued desire to control

its population and territory. Multiculturalism, while promoting the image of liberal

tolerance towards cultural diversity, is primarily focused on the integration of

diverse peoples into the white European mainstream through educational,

linguistic, and other forms of standardization, promoted through official and

unofficial institutions. It is also designed to maintain the dominant discursive

frameworks of the state by encouraging superficial forms of expression that do not

directly challenge any of the institutions that reinforce state hegemony. It promotes

the normalness of dominant European-‐derived cultures and institutions, while

inhibiting the problematisation of colonialism, racial histories, sexism, and

inequality. Finally, it is designed to enhance the legitimacy of the state and its

culture(s) domestically and internationally though the spread of positive, feel-‐good

images.

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Such a definition echoes Joel Migdal’s “state in society” approach (2001), which

defines the state as “a field of power marked by the use and threat of violence and

shaped by (1) the image of a coherent, controlling organization in a territory, which

is a representation of the people bounded by that territory, and (2) the actual

practices of its multiple parts”.7 Multiculturalism contributes to the image of the

state, and its representation as a coherent, unified, and tolerant society.

Multiculturalism has become so central a part of Canadian identity that it can be

seen as a form of “banal nationalism” where tropes of multicultural tolerance have

become so commonplace that they are often unquestioned. As Billig puts it: “The

metonymic image of banal nationalism is not a flag which is being consciously

waved with fervent passion; it is the flag hanging unnoticed on the public building”.8

A central way in which multiculturalism contributes to the banality of Canadian

nationalism is the normalization of the colonial institutions and colonial practices

that constitute the state.

The term colonialism is not designed to be inflammatory but reflects the reality of

European settler control of what was once Turtle Island. Canada alongside Australia,

New Zealand, and the United States can best be understood as what Docker has

called a “settler colony,” that is “a colonial society where the indigenous population

was reduced to a small or tiny proportion of the overall population, whose majority

population becomes composed of colonizers / migrants”.9 This view of colonialism

rejects the assertion that once a colony becomes a UN-‐recognized state, it is, by

some sleight of hand, “post-‐colonial”.10 Certainly in Canada, European-‐based culture

has become the norm, with the majority of active and assertive Canadians, in

politics, the economy, education, and the arts coming from European Shognosh

backgrounds.11 Our head of state is also the Queen of Great Britain, our two official

languages are European (none are Aboriginal), as are our political, legal,

bureaucratic, and educational institutions.

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Indeed, Canada, as Resnick has observed, in contradistinction to Americans, “remain

a good deal more European in their sensibilities and will continue to be the more

European part of North America into the foreseeable future’”.12 This Europeanness

is obvious to visitors to our national culture, yet difficult for many Shognosh people

to detect. Colonial multiculturalism promotes a series of tropes or discursive images

laying out what is normal in our society. Discourse theory highlights a dominant or

hegemonic discourse’s ability to oblige consent, to naturalize a certain view of the

“normal and reasonable,” while imposing a limited range of meanings, thereby

shaping what is permissible or not.13

The Limits of Multiculturalism

The debate about how far multiculturalism should go in terms of allowing collective

freedoms to immigrants is worth examining briefly, because this debate generates

certain tropes, which I argue have been used to rhetorically discipline Aboriginal

people. For many critics of multiculturalism, the term is an empty signifier devoid of

content, and critics have questioned multiculturalism’s ability to preserve anything

but the most shallow and stereotypical of cultural attributes.

An early Canadian critic was Howard Brotz (1980), who used the image of the

“Bauchjude” or the “the pickles and onions Jew,” whose only acquaintance with his

culture was whether his “kosher pastrami … has the right amount of garlic in it.”

Brotz concluded that “multi-‐culturalism turns out to be a choice of pizzas, wonton

soup, and kosher ‘style’ pastrami sandwiches to which one can add ethnic radio

programs.” 14 Neil Bissoondath later articulated a similar position, seeing

multiculturalism as a superficial enterprise: “flashy and attractive; it emerges with

verve and gaiety from the bland stereotype of traditional Canada”. He famously

likened multiculturalism to a “Canadian-‐mosaic version of the Jungle Cruise at Walt

Disney World in Florida”.15 Contributions outside Canada offer similar perspectives,

whether we’re looking at Kwame Antony Appiah’s “spectator-‐sport diversity” in his

analysis of US multiculturalism,16 or Slavoj Žižek’s view of multiculturalism as a

process to “quarantine (or at least neutralize and contain)” foreign elements in

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society who are perceived to be “toxic”. Žižek’s pithy observation rings true on this

side of the Atlantic as well: “today’s tolerant liberal multiculturalism is an

experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness–the decaffeinated Other who

dances fascinating dances and has an ecologically sound holistic approach to reality

while features like wife beating remain out of sight.”17

These theorists critique multiculturalism for removing the very attributes which

make immigrants distinctive. The reality was and is that there are clear limits to how

far people can go in a multicultural society in expressing themselves. Stanley Fish

made a clever distinction between “boutique” and “strong” versions of

multiculturalism. Boutique was “the multiculturalism of ethnic restaurants, weekend

festivals, and high profile flirtations with the other,” similar to the “Bauchjude”. Fish

continued that while proponents of such multiculturalism “admire or appreciate or

enjoy or sympathize with or (at the very least) ‘recognize the legitimacy of’ the

traditions of cultures other than their own,” they have strict limits of tolerance, and

“will always stop short of approving other cultures at a point where some value at

their center generates an act that offends against the canons of civilized decency as

they have been either declared or assumed”.18

Other cultures are tolerated and even celebrated until they conflict with the

ingrained value systems of the boutique multiculturalist, be it the fatwah against

Salman Rushdie, affirmative action, animal sacrifices, or the picketing of abortion

clinics. The key here is that “the boutique multiculturalist resists the force of culture

he appreciates at precisely the point at which it matters most to its strongly

committed members.” Or to put it another way, “a boutique multiculturalist does not

and cannot take seriously the core values of the cultures he tolerates”.19

Further along the spectrum is the “strong multiculturalist”, who is willing to go

much further in their advocacy of diversity. But such people eventually find

themselves on the horns of a dilemma. If the minority to be tolerated is illiberal or

intolerant, the strong multiculturalist is put in the unenviable position of tolerating

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another’s intolerance. Were such to be the case, their guiding principle would no

longer be tolerance but someone else’s intolerance, or else he or she “condemns the

core intolerance of that culture (recoiling in horror when Khomeini calls for the

death of Rushdie), in which case he is no longer according it respect at the point

where its distinctiveness is most obviously at stake.” Since most people will not

accept the fatwah, the strong multiculturalist reveals himself to be little more than a

“somewhat deeper instance of the shallow category of boutique multiculturalism”.20

Such debates are important for two reasons: first they signal the shallowness of

multicultural policies aimed at integration into the host society. Further, these

critics point out, often with some degree of exasperation, that the inhabitants of the

supposed host society appear to have the legitimacy to dictate the terms of not only

immigration (who gets in) but also the ways in which immigrants will comport

themselves once they have arrived. Second, the boutique nature of multiculturalism

is especially important for understanding the state’s view of Aboriginal peoples.

Shallow recognition of Aboriginal cultures, languages, governance systems, and

spiritual practices parallel a similar shallow recognition of these analogous group

characteristics amongst new immigrants. Perhaps then, it was no coincidence that in

1947, the Canadian Citizenship Act combined its management of Indian Affairs,

immigration, naturalization, and citizenship services together under a new

department: Citizenship and Immigration. Until 1960, Indian Affairs was located

within the DCI.21

Multiculturalism, Biculturalism, and Continued Colonization

In what ways does multiculturalism promote the further colonization of Aboriginal

peoples? If we take Will Kymlicka’s division of minorities in Canada according to

types of group rights, we have three categories: “Self-‐government rights (the

delegation of powers to national minorities, often through some form of federalism);

polyethnic rights (financial support and legal protection for certain practices

associated with particular ethnic or religious groups); and special representation

rights (guaranteed seats for ethnic or national groups within the central institutions

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of the larger state).”22 In this taxonomy, immigrants are “polyethnic”, while both

Aboriginal peoples and Quebecois are “national minorities”. Kymlicka makes the

distinction this way: national minorities are “distinct and potentially self-‐governing

societies incorporated into a larger state” while ethnic groups are “immigrants who

have left their national community to enter another society.”23

Problematically, Quebecqois in this account possesses the same sort of group rights,

including territorial rights as Aboriginal peoples. Neither group morally or

philosophically trumps the other, despite the fact that French Canadians colonized

pre-‐existing First Nations territories. Through a questionable analogue, Quebecqois

are paralleled to European territorial nations such as Slovenians, Basques, or

Catalans in their moral claims to have their sovereignty, nation, and territory

congruent. Such rubber-‐stamping of French Canadian group rights elides the pre-‐

existing Aboriginal control and governance of what is now Quebec, while also

ignoring centuries of treaty making which are still legally enforceable. To place

colonizers and indigenous peoples on the same moral and legal footing is

problematic when one group has clearly dominated the other for centuries and has

a far more tenuous claim to self-‐determination.24

In some respects, both biculturalism and multiculturalism seem progressive and

evolutionary, as both policies sought to move Canada away from being an explicitly

British society. Until 1947, all Canadians were considered to be British subjects,

with British traditions seen as the norm.25 A British colony, our late nineteenth and

early twentieth century immigration laws discriminated against Asians, Africans,

and Latin Americans.26 One might even see Canada during this period as an

ethnocracy, that is, a regime type that “facilitates the expansion, ethnicization and

control of a contested territory and state by a dominant ethnic group.”27 According

to Yiftachel’s work on the subject, such a system is characterized as “a specific

expression of nationalism that exists in contested territories where a dominant

ethnos gains political control and uses the state apparatus to ethnicize the territory

and society in question.”28

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The Disciplinary Limits of Multiculturalism

Mainstream accounts of multiculturalism are wont to praise it for its integrative

power, while tacitly acknowledging that a boutique rather than strong

multiculturalism is preferred. Such accounts seem designed to reassure dominant

Shognosh that newcomers will not threaten their society and will indeed play by the

rules. Integration for Kymlicka can mean many things, such as: “economic

integration into the labour market; political integration into the electoral process

and other forms of political participation; social integration into the networks and

spaces of civil society, from informal networks of friends and neighbours to

membership in more formal organizations.”29 In evaluating these different forms of

integration, Kymlicka promotes multiculturalism for its high naturalization rates

(84 percent in 2001); high rates of intermarriage, and high proportion of “foreign-‐

born legislators.”30

Regarding political participation, Kymlicka notes that ethnic minorities have not

formed ethnically based parties but have become members of Shognosh pan-‐

Canadian ones. In this measure of integration, “those of French or English ancestry”

stand out as the ones not playing the game properly, by creating such parties as the

“The Parti/Bloc Quebecois … and the Confederation of Regions Party …”31 Similarly,

Aboriginal peoples and “francophone Québécois” have fallen behind: “on measures

such as pride in Canada, a sense of belonging in the country and trust in other

Canadians.” These groups, rather than new immigrants “on average feel less

integrated into the pan-‐Canadian community.”32

Kymlicka is a strong advocate for multicultural policies, on the premise that they

work to integrate immigrants into mainstream society, and he is wont to dismiss the

view that multiculturalism leads to ethnic ghettoization: “The idea that

multiculturalism could enable immigrant groups to form and sustain their own

societal cultures reflects, I believe, a failure to recognize what is actually involved in

such a project. To maintain a separate societal culture in a modern state is an

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immensely ambitious and arduous project.”33 In other words, those who fear

multiculturalism underestimate its coercive power. With Banting, Kymlicka drew out

similar themes more recently, observing that “the Canadian record on integration is

relatively strong”, and that: “In comparison with other western nations … the

integrative power of Canadian society for newcomers should not be under-‐

estimated”.34

Academic participants at a recent forum at the University of Toronto similarly

promoted the desirability of integration. A typical view was that of Randall Hansen,

who put it that “Multicultural policy must lead to integration and the state should be

prepared to fund this.” John Dirks, responsible for summing up the forum, observed

that “Integration into Canadian society and recognition of the foundation of values

and history established over 300 years was considered very important”.35 Once

more, it is instructive that multiculturalism, at least the colonial variety, is designed

to promote Shognosh values and history from three centuries ago to the present.

Nothing however was discussed about history before this time.

Aboriginal Peoples and Multiculturalism

The origins of boutique multiculturalism arguably stem from the same liberal

traditions that produced attempts to unilaterally dissolve the treaties – creating a

sort of boutique Aboriginality, or as Žižek might put it -‐ decaffeinated Indians. The

history of Canadian multiculturalism is reasonably well known. During the 1960s,

widespread demographic changes presaged demands for a broader less rigidly

British national identity. In 1969, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and

Biculturalism recommended the integration rather than the assimilation of non-‐

British ethnic groups. 36 In the same year as boutique multiculturalism was

promoted, Pierre Trudeau, in his White Paper laid out a vision where Aboriginal

people would be “made” the same as every other Canadian. Trudeau, with Indian

Affairs Minister Jean Chretien, sought to end the existence of Aboriginal people as a

“race apart”. Trudeau went so far as to suggest that reserves were akin to “ghettoes,”

and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Aboriginal “ancestral rights” in a modern

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western country. Treaties were presented as antiquated and Trudeau opined that

Aboriginal peoples “should become Canadians as all other Canadians”.37

The White Paper provoked strong reactions within Aboriginal communities, who

rose up and derailed the initiative, refusing to accept the legitimacy of the

government to abrogate the treaties and disburse tribal lands.38 As Dale Turner has

articulated from a critical indigenous perspective, “White Paper liberalism” was

entirely consistent with Western European political ideals, which privileged the

individual as the central unit of a political system, while seeking primarily to

balance both the freedom and equality of individuals operating in the society.39

The Multiculturalism Act in 1971 may be seen as a product of the same vision

represented by the White Paper; both aimed to integrate “others” be they

indigenous or immigrant into “our” Shognosh society. While Trudeau felt it was

legitimate to strip Aboriginal peoples of most of their collective rights, he forged

ahead with a plan to institute bilingualism across the country, which promoted

collective rights for French Canadians, and led to their increasing influence at the

national level. When introducing both multiculturalism and bilingualism to the

House of Commons in 1971, he made the following claim: “For although there are

two official languages, there is no official culture, nor does any ethnic group take

precedence over any other. No citizen or group of citizens is other than Canadian,

and all should be treated fairly.”40

For Trudeau operating within an unquestioned colonial mentality, it was right and

proper for the state to decaffeinate both Aboriginal peoples and racialized

minorities at the same time. His claim about the lack of “official culture” and the lack

of “precedence” of one ethnic group over another, perpetuated a myth of liberal

equality in a society still dominated by Shognosh values and institutions. For liberals

like Trudeau, multiculturalism was not designed to fundamentally change Canada.

As Resnick has noted, the primary beneficiaries of these policies were non-‐

British/French Shognosh who had hitherto been the targets of various forms of

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discrimination. His locates the origins of the policy in “ethnic communities of

Eastern European origin, concerned to ensure that their non-‐British and non-‐French

attributes not be drowned out in Canada’s pursuit of a bilingual strategy”.41 While

multiculturalism would later be used as a vehicle for absorbing what one might call

radical difference, it did not begin with this objective in mind.

Mainstream theorists like Kymlicka and Banting recognize that Aboriginal leaders

“have sometimes viewed multiculturalism with suspicion, and while here again

there is no inherent opposition between the federal multiculturalism policy and

aboriginal rights, more work needs to be done on how they interact”.42 The conflict,

however, may not stem from Aboriginal ignorance, but a realistic assessment of the

legacies of colonial multiculturalism, and the reality that this parcel of policies elides

many problems in contemporary society. For instance, Dhamoon has observed

(2010) that “the histories of oppression experienced by people of colour and

indigenous peoples are virtually absent in celebrations of multiculturalism: there is

little talk of colonialism, racism, white privilege, sexism, patriarchy,

heteronormativity, or capitalism…” She concludes: “It is all about accommodation

and diversity, not anti-‐racism, decolonization, white supremacy, or power.”43

While at a certain level multiculturalism helps to defuse antagonisms between

different ethnic groups, it reproduces the Shognosh power dynamics of the state.

Fleras and Elliot put it this way: “Multiculturalism is most effective in terms of

fostering a false consciousness: It either camouflages the real source of exploitation

in society by suggesting cultural solutions to structural problems, or, alternatively,

recourse to multiculturalism creates the illusion of radical change by reinforcing its

image as ‘assimilation in slow motion’.”44 Fleras and Maaka would later caution that

while multiculturalism tolerates weak forms of diversity, it does poorly when

confronting overt challenges to Shognosh perceptions of Canada, especially an

Aboriginal critique of state sovereignty and legitimacy, which “challenges, resists,

and transforms, while an official multiculturalism tends toward consensus,

adjustment and reform.” What is clear for the authors is that “An official

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multiculturalism is anchored in the deep structures of a colonial discourse, thus

tending to uphold the very thing it is seeking to resolve”.45

South of the border, Andrew Smith has critiqued the tendency in ethnic studies for

American Indians to be co-‐opted by broader discourses of racism, which paint them

as fellow victims of racial discrimination while eliding Native sovereignty and the

very real problems of continued colonialism. Smith has also critiqued

multiculturalism on the basis that merely representing “communities of colour”

does not change the nature of white domination and colonialism in the United

States. Indeed, she forcefully observes, “This model does not address the nuances of

how white supremacy is structured, [and] … does not challenge the conditions of the

settler state itself.” 46

The problems faced by Aboriginal peoples then, are reduced to those shared by all

economically disadvantaged minorities. And when immigrants appear to succeed

educationally and financially by playing by the rules of the Shognosh system,

immigrants are held up as models, contrasted with Aboriginal people, who

statistically have a marked disparity with Shognosh Canadians.47 Such disparities

demonstrate performance gaps, which stress the need for Aboriginal people to do

“better”, or for Shognosh-‐led governments to “help” Aboriginal people to attain the

same level of “success” as their Shognosh brethren. Rarely do we question the

validity of the benchmarks being used to evaluate success. Wotherspoon and

Hansen trace the high proportion of Inuit school dropouts as primarily a reflection

of “the difficulties posed for them to identify with the [Shognosh] education system

provided by the colonizer and which has historically been used to force Indigenous

people to deny their own culture and assimilate into the mainstream”.48 Is it morally

just to understand Aboriginal “success” by Shognosh standards while ignoring

centuries of Aboriginal knowledge about education, law, justice, and living with the

natural environment? Some academics like Friesen and Friesen promote spreading

indigenous forms of knowledge to all Shognosh Canadians, focused on “ecological,

spiritual, and humane” components. 49 This may shift the dynamic to a more

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equitable exchange of values and knowledge, versus the one-‐sided educational

system imposed on Aboriginal peoples.

As articulated by theorists such as Taiaiake Alfred, Kiera Ladner, and John Borrows,

many Aboriginal peoples want their distinctiveness to be recognized by the state, to

have their sui generis rights respected by the government and Shognosh society.50

This would imply first, the recognition that the class of rights available gives them a

status different to that available to Shognosh peoples. This provides them with

“collective rights to self-‐determination are guaranteed by virtue of their ancestral

occupation, not because of difference, need, or disadvantage”.51 In other words, the

rights Aboriginal peoples possess were not given to them by anyone. They simply

had them before the colonizers came, and this provides them with certain types of

rights which we Shognosh peoples are unable to access.52

In terms of the desirable tropes laid out by Kymlicka, none of these attend to

Aboriginal peoples. Morally and legally they are not required to like Canada, or to be

patriotic to our colonial state, its predominantly Shognosh institutions, or our

policies of colonial multiculturalism. They are not required to recognize the

legitimacy of Shognosh Canada’s claim to exert sovereign authority over the

landmass recognized as Canada by other nation states. Indeed, being Aboriginal may

imply having a fundamentally different view of Shognosh Canadian history, and an

antagonistic perception of the state. Ladner put it this way in a recent publication:

“For Indigenous peoples, the story of Canada is one of myth, magic, deceit,

occupation, and genocide. For Canadians, the story is one of discovery, lawful

acquisition, and the establishment of peace, order, and good governance. These

conflicting stories of Canadian history are representative of historical narratives of

the colonized and the colonizer. But they are not just matters of historical

perspective or concern: they define and frame how the colonized and colonizer

explain the past, understand the present, and envisage the future.”53

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To see current multicultural policies and practices as legitimate, one has to accept

certain givens. The first is that the existence of the Canadian state is generally a

positive development, insofar as the history and reputation of the state is in good

order. The national myths are at least acceptable, and preferably desirable, and that

the state itself has legitimacy as a state – that it does not have any stateness

problems, with contested borders, or conflicted identities, or internal sovereignty

claims, or other things, that, as Robert Dahl argues would put into question “the

rightfulness of the unit itself.”54 Yet, indigenous critiques, as Fleras and Maaka

observe, see the concept of absolute crown sovereignty to be untenable, and as such

they have rejected “a colonialist constitutionalism that espoused Crown sovereignty

as a framework for society-‐building.”55

In Mohawk Interruptis, Audra Simpson has proposed (at least for Mohawk) a right of

“ethnographic refusal”, the right to embrace indigenous sovereignty and to refuse to

recognize the sovereignty of the Canadian state to make decisions on behalf of the

Mohawk nation. The point is that Mohawk sovereignty was never relinquished, and

indeed affirmed as pre-‐existing in the John Jay Treaty.56 Simpson’s point is that we

need to understand sovereignty differently – not as something absolute controlled

by states, but something which can be operationalized through treaties by

Aboriginal peoples, who have every legal and moral right to refuse to be Canadians

or Americans, and to assert their own indigenous sovereignty. Of course this can be

complex, and as she argues, Canadians will have a problem with the reality that

“sovereignty may exist within sovereignty.”57

How then should we best proceed in transforming a multicultural society based on

colonial institutions, mindsets, and practices into one that recognizes and affirms

Aboriginal sui generis rights to self-‐determination? Arguably, the way forward lies in

adopting an attitude of being a guest on Aboriginal lands rather than a paternalistic

host who arrogates the legitimacy to decide what is best both for newcomers and

Aboriginal peoples. Equally important is recognizing the dubiously accrued moral

and social capital that we carry around as “mainstream” Canadians vis a vis more

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recent immigrants. In a recent article in the Canadian Journal of Sociology, Wu and

his colleagues have observed that: “An immigrant’s sense of belonging is a reflection

of integration into social networks and institutions, and it fosters feelings of social

solidarity with the core or socially predominant group”. The key here is on the

predominant group -‐ immigrants are gauged against the predominant society and

their success, while the success of multiculturalism is evaluated with reference to

both the host and immigrant populations.58 The real question is why we should

oblige immigrants to integrate into our “host” society when we have never shown

the same respect to our Aboriginal hosts? We need to get past the idea that

multiculturalism can preserve all the colonial structures and that newcomers are

basically obliged to repeat the same patterns of colonialism we have used to

dominate Aboriginal peoples.

As the former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations George Erasmus makes

clear: “Aboriginal people have a unique historical relationship with the Crown, and

the Crown represents all Canadians. From this it follows that all Canadians are treaty

people, bearing the responsibilities of Crown commitments and enjoying the rights

and benefits of being Canadian.”59 As such it is necessary that immigrants as well as

Shognosh Canadians understand what the crown means in their lives. Moving to

Canada entails not only opportunity, but also accepting the moral debts of the

Shognosh state to Aboriginal peoples, even if this was not a fully disclosed part of

the social contract when immigrants chose to come here.

While immigrants might relate to Aboriginal peoples as fellow victims of a colonial

system (for example the Japanese internments and Chinese head taxes), this shared

marginalization may build some bridges, but it does not imply equality or sameness.

Aboriginal people rightly claim a different status to new immigrants or and to more

established Shognosh settler populations. As Simpson puts it persuasively,

Aboriginal peoples are “nationals with sovereign authority over their lives and over

their membership and living within their own space...”60 It is time we fully recognize

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this, and stop using multiculturalism as a means of continuing the colonization of

this country.

Conclusion

Arguably multiculturalism has been successful in the sense that it has helped

immigrants to integrate culturally and economically into Shognosh Canadian society

over the medium to long term. However, multiculturalism is hardly perfect, in that it

has obliged immigrants to integrate into a fairly rigid set of values and ideas. Rather

than the presumption that these values are universal, such values are very much tied

to the colonial state, and its Shognosh institutions. Further, Kymlicka and Banting’s

emphasis on integration produces binaries about what good immigrants should be

doing.

These binaries have been used to evaluate Aboriginal peoples, discursively

disciplining Aboriginal peoples for not “integrating” as well as immigrants. In the

process, multiculturalism elides the distinct historical, legal, and constitutional

aspects of Aboriginal rights, and elides with even more alacrity, Aboriginal

languages, values, governance traditions, and other aspects of Aboriginal ways of

knowing and being. The time to honour the treaties and promote restorative justice

is now. This should include re-‐presenting Canada as the site of bi-‐nationalism with

the two treaty peoples as equal founders of the country, its institutions, and its

political and social cultures.

REFERENCES -‐ My apologies these need to be cleaned up / added to, and will be after the chapter has been sent out for review. 1 Haroon Siddiqui, "On multiculturalism, Harper’s got it right" Toronto Star Apr 16 2011 http://www.thestar.com/opinion/2011/04/16/siddiqui_on_multiculturalism_harpers_got_it_right.html 2 Kymlicka, Will. 2010. The current state of multiculturalism in Canada and research themes on Canadian multiculturalism 2008‑2010. Ottawa, ON: Citizenship and Immigration Canada http://wwwcicgcca/english/resources/publications/multi-state/section1asp (accessed October 20, 2013). Kymlicka, Will and Keith Banting. 2010.

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Canadian Multiculturalism: Global Anxieties and Local Debates British Journal of Canadian Studies 23(1). Foster, Cecil. 2006. Foreword. In Navigating Multiculturalism: Negotiating Change, edited by Dawn Zinga. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press; The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices edited by Steven Vertovec, Susanne Wessendorf Rotueledge 2012 Editors “Introduction” pp 1-‐31.

3 Shognosh and Aboriginal are not essentialized categories, and forms of “metissage” are relatively common. There are also Anishinaabeg names for French, American, Asian Quebequois, etc. My thanks to Dawnis Kennedy and Edward Benton-‐Banai for their help. I hope I did not get things wrong. A phonetic spelling of Shognosh is zhaaganaash, but I am using Spielmann’s spelling; Spielmann, Roger. 2009. Anishnaabe World: A Survival Guide for Building Bridges Between Canada and First Nations. Sudbury, ON: Your Scrivener Press. See also The Ojibwe People’s Dictionary. Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota. http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/english/search/%2A%3A%2A?page=2&browse=1&index=e (Accessed 31 October, 2013). 4 Dewing and Leman 2006 1 5 Rosado 1996 2 Rosaldo, Caleb. 1996. Toward a definition of multiculturalism. Rosado Consulting http://wwwrosadonet/pdf/Def_of_Multiculturalismpdf (accessed October 20, 2013). 6 Mahtani, Minelle. 2002. Interrogating the Hyphen-‐Nation: Canadian Multicultural Policy and ‘Mixed Race’ Identities Social Identities 8(1): 67-‐90. Dhamoon, Rita. 2010. Identity/difference Politics. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press; Maaka, Roger and Fleras, Augie. 2005. The Politics of Indigeneity: Challenging the State in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand. Dunedin, NZ: University of Otago Press. 7 Migdal, Joel S. (2001) State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another Cambridge University Press, 16 Resnick, Philip. 2005. The European Roots of Canadian Identity. Peterborough, ON: Broadview. 8 (Billig 1995, 8-9) 9 (Docker 2004:2) 10 (Weaver 2004:223-‐24) 11 (Galabuzi, 2006:233-‐35) 12 Resnick 2005 19 13 Jackson 2005 1; 18 14 Brotz 1980 44 15 Bissoondath 1994 82 16 Appiah 2005 136 17 Žižek 2010 18 Fish 1997 378 19 Fish 1997 378-‐9 20 Fish 1997 383 21 (Bohaker and Iacovetta 2009). 22 Kymlicka 1995 6-‐7 23 Kymlicka 1995 19 24 The issue is cogently explored in Bradford W. Morse, “Quebec Secession and Self-‐Determination of First Nations,” Native Studies Review 12, no. 2 (1999) passim pp 34-‐45. See also Jill Wherrett, “Aboriginal Peoples And The 1995 Quebec Referendum: A Survey Of The Issues” Political and Social Affairs Division Library of Parliament February 1996 http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/bp412-e.htm#CONCLUSIONS(txt) 25 Dewing and Leman 2006 26 (on this see Backhouse Colour coded 1999) 27 Yiftachel and Ghanem 2004 180

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28 Yiftachel 2000 729-‐32 29 Kymlicka, Will and Keith Banting. 2010. Canadian Multiculturalism: Global Anxieties and Local Debates British Journal of Canadian Studies 23(1). 30 Kymlicka, Will and Keith Banting. 2010. Canadian Multiculturalism: Global Anxieties and Local Debates British Journal of Canadian Studies 23(1). 56; Kymlicka 1998 20 31 Kymlicka, Will. 1998. Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp 18-‐19 32 Banting and Kymlicka 2010 54 33 Kymlicka 1998 31 34 Banting and Kymlicka 2010 56-‐7 35 Senior College Symposium Immigration and Multiculturalism 2011 36 Dewing and Leman 2006 37 Borrows, J. 1998/99. Re-‐Living The Present Title, Treaties, and the Trickster in British Columbia BC Studies, 120(Winter): 99-‐109. (Borrows 1998/1999, 103-‐104) 38 Indian Chiefs of Alberta. 1974. Citizens Plus, In The Only Good Indian edited by Waubageshig, 12-‐16. Don Mills ON: New Press. 39 Turner, Dale. 2006. This is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. P. 13 40 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott. 1971. Announcement of Implementation of Policy of Multiculturalism Within Bilingual Framework. Ottawa, ON: House of Commons Debates, 8545-‐48 http://wwwabheritageca/albertans/speeches/trudeauhtml (accessed October 20, 2013). 41 Resnick 2005 57 42 Banting and Kymlicka 2010 64 43 Dhamoon 2010 x-‐xi 44 Fleras and Elliot (1999:28) 45 (2005:177). 46 Smith, A. Indigeniety, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy. Global Dialogue, 2010. 47 (Castellano et al 2008; Proulx 2003, Warry 2007). 48 (2013:32) 49 Friesen, J.W., and Friesen, V.L. 2002. Aboriginal Education in Canada: A Plea for Integration. Calgary, AB: Detselig. (2002:17) 50 For a discussion see MacDonald ….. 51 Fleras, Augie, and Elliott, Jean. 1999. Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada. Scarborough, ON: Prentice Hall Allyn and Bacon. P. 189 52 Fleras & Elliot 1999 189-‐190 53 Ladner, Kiera L. 2009. Take 35: Reconciling Constitutional Orders. In First Nations, First Thoughts: The Impact of Indigenous Thought in Canada edited by Anne-‐Marie Timpson, 279-‐300. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. P. 279 54 Dahl 1989 207 55 Maaka & Fleras 2005 57 56 Simpson, Audra. Indigenous Interruptions. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Dale University Press, 2014. Pp 10-‐11 57 (Simpson, 2014, p. 10-‐11) 58 (Wu et al. 2012:383) 59 Erasmus, George. 2011. Introduction. In Cultivating Canada: Reconciliation through the Lens of Cultural Diversity, edited by Ashok Mathur, Jonathan Dewar, and Mike DeGagné, vii-‐x. Ottawa, ON: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. (Erasmus 2011:vii). 60 (Simpson, 2014, p. 16)

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