Revelatory Insights

Not that most people are unaware that there are bigots, racists and immigrant-detractors in the general population. There always are, it's just the way things are. In a mixed society derived historically through immigration the original settlers, those of Anglo-Saxon ancestry seem to find it hardest to accept a dilution of a social culture proudly borne from country of origin to a new land made their own.

But even immigrants from Europe, finally assimilated into the greater culture, accepting of social attitudes, find much to grumble about, with the onslaught of immigrants from other continents into what has become their own. It's immigrants from Asia, from India, from Africa, from Latin America, from the Middle East more latterly settled in Canada that now bear the brunt of suspicion from that relatively minor proportion of the population who may view them with some disquiet.

All the more so since immigrants now comprise such an immense proportion of the population; the original French minority and Anglo-Saxon majority appear threatened to become subsumed by a steady influx of migrants from more exotic locales.

Bringing with them their customs, traditions, religious inheritance; a total way of life sometimes quite at odds with what is considered the Canadian norm. Still, there is a lot of goodwill generally and acceptance, and respect offered immigrants. And now, in this modern era, government at every level go out of their way to provide assistance in settling in, something that was entirely non-existent years earlier. There are private aid agencies, charitable groups, church-operated agencies as well set up to assist immigrants in finding their place.

Canada's dedication to multiculturalism is all very well and good; the encouragement of minorities to continue recognizing the validity within this society of their origins and their cultural underpinnings. This is Canada's willingness to recognize the complexity of the world we live in generally, and the growing complexity of settling in to a country that prides itself for its inclusiveness in the backdrop of an often exclusionist and hostile world. The laissez faire attitude toward the responsibility of immigrants to embrace Canadian customs and social and legal mores however, leaves something to be desired.

The term "reasonable accommodation" and the backlash in the population against the incursion of immigrant groups who have latterly begun to assert themselves as separate cultural-social-religious entities in the atmosphere of freedom of expression has brought to the fore all of the concerns on both sides. The sense of entitlement by immigrants to concessions, the sense of grudging hostility on the part of Canadians who feel that the situation has become too lop-sided, with immigrants flocking to the country to take what they will of what it offers, without themselves feeling a commitment to its values.

The recently-concluded Bouchard-Taylor "reasonable accommodation hearings" whereby through 22 public fora, the public was invited to express their opinion about reasonable accommodation was fairly revelatory in its conclusion. But it hasn't told us anything we haven't been aware of; that a small proportion of Canadians in the Province of Quebec are downright racist in attitude (1.83%), a somewhat larger proportion are intolerant (12.79%), a helpfully larger segment are tolerant in nature (47.79%), and finally pluralists represent 19.56% of the population.

This airing of public opinion was meant to be a cleansing project. To allow whoever wished to do so to be given a public arena to unleash their frustrations and points of view; citizens of French-Canadian origin specifically, since it has been in Quebec that small groups have become vociferous in their criticism of the demands placed on the larger society by minority set-apart groups. Hateful, painful-to-hear and receive apprehensions of differences were revealed through the hearings by a small minority. There is little reason to believe the responses would be different elsewhere in Canada.

Expressions of negative apprehensions revealing stereotypical prejudicial judgements are by their nature sufficiently overwhelming to stultify an atmosphere of general acceptance by the larger majority. The listener tends to be more aware, because the statements are hurtful, of expressions of blame, distrust and dislike, than the more copious and generous expressions of respect and inclusiveness. During these hearings Muslims were described as dirty, violent and sexist, while Jews were characterized as litigious, crass and rude. Sikhs were described as fanatics. It's these labels that the target groups remember because they are painful, not the more general expressions of acceptance.

So what, really, was gained by this long, careful and tedious process?