Why Multiculturalism Has To Be Made An Issue This Election
Multiculturalism has gone well ahead of the assimilation process in Canada and it has to be made an issue this election. Public opinion polls show most Canadians agree and want less immigration and more integration for the country.
This includes many immigrants like myself. Neil Bissoondath, Salim Mansur and former B.C. Liberal premier Ujjal Dosanjh, for instance, have for years chastised Ottawa's elevation of multiculturalism above integration. As Dosanjh put it recently, official multiculturalism has enabled many immigrants today to act like "colonisers" who, instead of integrating into the common culture, try to "remake Canada in their own image." In the long term, he concludes, this will be "extremely dangerous" for Canadian society. Having come from a country born out of ethnic secession (Malaysia, which lost Singapore in 1965) and which is still fraught with ethnic strife, I couldn't agree more.