POL214Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Hijab, Forced Marriage, Distinct Society
14 Aug 2018
School
Department
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POL214 – Lecture 18
Diversity
Language of Diversity:
- Used to use the word minorities, sometimes still do. Is it accurate?
• Women considered minority but they are over half the population
- The government, statistics Canada use ‘visible minority’, using a racial tone
- The UN has a committee on this issue, they have said Canada is racist for using the term
visible minority
- Diversity:
• Skin colour/race: race used in different ways. (ex: “The Race Question in Canada”)
• Gender: male vs. female
• Sexual diversity: homosexuality, heterosexuality
• Physical diversity: disabilities
• Ethnic: Italian Canadians vs. Greek Canadians
• Cultural: language, national origins
- One person can reflect a number of diversities.
- If we start pigeon-holing someone, which term to use?
- We all have multiple identities, it depends what’s going on
- Context is critical when it comes to notions of identity.
- The categories are just social and descriptive, that don’t describe attitudes, beliefs, socio-
economic situations of these people
- Language changes: ex. Aboriginals or first nations or indigenous?
- One of the tropes/metaphors used is that: Canada is a Mosaic, while the US is a melting
pot
• The idea is that in the US, the demand is that you become assimilated into the
American way of life, but in Canada, “it is a community of communities”. Canada
has individual rights, but also group rights. American constitution is simply
individual rights
• In Ontario, there is a group right for Catholics, with Catholic schools
• In the US, there are certain cities that are multicultural, like NY, even more so than
some Canadian cities.
- The main divide that was discussed historically in Canada was the language divide
between French and English
- Later groups (Ukrainian, Scandinavian, Russian) started coming between 1890s and
1920s, overwhelming majority became assimilated to the English language
• The French had a privileged language and religious status.
Meanings of Multiculturalism:
- Canada seen as a success story in managing different cultures
1. A Policy: flush out what the policy is. Pierre Trudeau speech in the house of commons in
1967. (Russel Reading)n
2. A Social Reality: people come from different cultures into Toronto
3. A Resource: Resource legally, can rely on it. support for it in constitution (27 of CORF).
Section 15, cannot discriminate because of ethnicity, creed, skin colour, gender.
