The Modest Triumph of the Cultural Mosaic

[bibliogramma]

Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism, Michael Adams

In the interests of full disclosure, I must begin my comments with the observation that this book was written by my boss. It's his fifth book, and like his previous ones, it is based on research that the company he founded, Environics Research Group, has conducted into social values going back decades in Canada and the U.S. Each year in Canada, and every four years in the U.S, we poll a representative sample of peple to determine their values about all sorts of social issues. We have reseach partners in other countries who do the same kind of reseach in other countries around the world, and we all share this informaition, building up a database of global trends in social values and attitudes.

I'm not going to talk about the research in detail, because it is proprietary, but we track how much people agree or disagree with statements like "The father should be the master in the home" - one of the questions that Adams likes to use in his public speaking engagements and see how the percentages who agree or disagree change over time.

This particular book analyses some of that research, and some other research we have done over the years tracking issues associated with immigration, multi-culturalism, and a major study done earlier this year with two samples - one of Canadians in general and one of Canadian Muslims.

I think I'll leave the summary of this research up to the author himself. Here's an excerpt from the book that was printed earlier this fall in The Toronto Star, and the short version is that the research shows that, despite all the headlines about immigrant backlash and accommodation crises, we're not doing all that badly at this learning to live with each other despire our differences thing, and the odds are that we'll continue to manage to muddle along in our modest Canadian way. And that we will find every way possible to politely brag about it.

Comments

Re: Part One of My Response

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Is there a particular reason for the greater diversity of migrants to Canada? Is it government policy?

Re: Part One of My Response

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

The high rate of immigration is government policy, and the diversity, I think, is largely a consequence of the way our immigration policy works.

Canada doesn't have an open door policy, but our "quota" is set very high in terms of its proportion to our population. This is our population policy, in fact. With the exception of some provinces (Quebec and Newfoundland, I believe) there are no measures to encourage a increase in the birth rate. We depend on immigration for population growth, since our birth rate is below replacement rates.

We don't have regional quotas which might cap the number of immigrants per year from certain countries or regions of the world, as some countries such as the U.S. have. Instead we have a system whereby we allow so many skilled workers, so many entrpreneurs, so many family members, so many refugees, etc.

On a per capita basis, Canada accepts more refugees than many other developed countries. This also tends to add to the diversity of our immigrant population.

We also have a fairly broad policy on reunification of families, which also tends to add to the diversity - an initial very small wave of immigration from a country can swell as families are reunited.

So I think it's mostly something that just happened. Factors that have little to do with our own policies may be include the possibility that immigrants who would prefer to relocate to the U.S. but don't succeed may pick Canada as a second-best option, possibly with the idea that they might later be able to enter the U.S. from Canada.

Re: Part One of My Response

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

Australia's population policy is a little more complex. There are incentives in place to encourage couples to have children. The birthrate is higher than Canada's but below generational replacement. Nonetheless, there is still a natural population increase due to the age structure and a decline in death rates.

Family reunion is the major component of the immigration program but the effect seems to be the opposite of that in Canada. Here it reflects the mix of people that are already here and therefore works against diversity.

We have quotas for various parts of the world as well as for categories. Again, it is not promoting diversity. The refugee program has become perverted so the preference is to refugees who have skills, or money, or family here.