Ethnic Ways Retained : Canada--Not Quite a Melting Pot

Athanasios Foussias is both a Canadian success story and a Canadian symbol.

At age 42 and only 14 years after emigrating from Greece to Canada, Foussias has achieved professional acclaim and a comfortable standard of living as a psychiatrist and teacher.

That is the success story. What makes Dr. Foussias a symbol is that he represents a uniquely Canadian experiment, an effort to integrate immigrant and ethnic groups into the society as a whole while allowing, even encouraging, them to maintain their separate and truly distinct cultures.

Rather than trying to sound, look and act like everyone else, Foussias has kept his full Greek name, lives in a Greek neighborhood, sees that his children know and speak Greek and is very active in keeping Greek culture alive in his home and community.

As Canadian as Anyone

Yet, Foussias considers himself and his family as Canadian as any of the English or French descendants of the country’s founders.

“Under this system,” he says, “people take for granted that to be Canadian is not just one thing, one type of person.”

Called multiculturalism, the policy is intended to give Canada a creative and nonviolent way of bridging ethnic and racial gaps and avoiding the trauma and bitterness that often marks the assimilationist approach taken by the United States in dealing with immigrants.

The opposing metaphors of these policies are the melting pot for the United States and the mosaic tile for Canada. In reality, however, both nations blend more than a little of both into their approaches.

Emigrating is never easy and, according to Foussias, “one of the great stresses is the establishment of a new identity; you have to become something different. Multiculturalism is one of the ways to achieve that goal. . . . It allows people the time to reach that new identity and to avoid feeling half here, half there.”

Different Ideologies

The difference between the Canadian approach and those of the United States, Argentina and other nations with large immigrant populations and assimilationist policies is rooted in different social and political ideologies.

The melting pot requires a blend of aggressiveness and passivity, the new resident having to act determinedly as if he or she were an immediate and indistinguishable member of the whole, while quietly submerging most signs of foreign origins.

The need to conform in the United States is currently reflected in the drives in various municipalities and states, including California, to make English the official language and reduce the use of other languages.

“This is characteristic of the differing U.S. and Canadian cultures,” Foussias said, “with Canada trying to deal with conflict in a more peaceful way.”

So, especially in Toronto, neighborhoods are often defined by ethnic populations. Streets signs announcing “Little Italy,” “China Town,” or “Portuguese Village” abound, as do dozens of foreign language newspapers, thousands of ethnic restaurants and grocery stores.

Major cities have government-funded multicultural television and radio stations broadcasting in several languages.

Schools offer “Heritage” programs in several languages and both federal and provincial governments maintain ministries of multiculturalism that provide millions of dollars a year to a variety of national and ethnic associations to promote their activities.

All in all, multiculturalism appears to be a way of promoting if not celebrating differences.

‘Most Divisive Idea’

Not everyone likes the policy. Political commentator Larry Zolf, writing in Maclean’s magazine in 1982, asserted that “multiculturalism is the most divisive idea to dance on the Canadian boards since (Quebec) separatism. . . . In the name of justice and good citizenship we must dehyphenate ethnic Canadians rather than de-Canadianizing them through multiculturalism.”

And a 1981 academic study found that 68% of Canada’s traditional British and French majorities “agree that immigrants and members of a minority group should try to blend into Canadian society and not form ethnic communities.”

Nevertheless, multiculturalism has been official government policy since 1971 and is accepted by all major political parties on both the federal and provincial levels.

“It is,” according to Foussias, “an irrevocable part of Canadian ideology.”

Perhaps so, but there is irony in multiculturalism as both policy and ideology.

Anglo-Saxon, French

For most of its nearly 400-year history as colony and independent country, Canada was overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon and French in makeup. Until the 1950s, the only non-Anglo immigrants allowed into the country in relatively large numbers were either Ukrainians and Poles brought in to settle the unpopulated western agricultural provinces or educated, middle-class Germans.

The attitude toward foreigners was summed up best by a senior government official who, when asked how many Jewish immigrants should be allowed into Canada after World War II, remarked, “None is too many.”

From that restrictive attitude, Canada has changed in little more than a generation into a country where minorities are the majority. According to the 1981 census, only 40% of the nation’s 24 million people are descended from British stock. Just 27% are of French origin, and nearly all of them live in Quebec.

In Toronto, Canada’s largest and fastest-growing city, at least 56% of the population is of non-British or non-French extraction, a fact underlined by the sounds and smells of foreign cultures in the city’s many ethnic neighborhoods.

Need for People

The reasons for the change and the resulting influx of a new type of immigrant were largely economic: a need for more people to fuel the growth of the world’s second-largest country--and one with a low birthrate.

As a result, Canada now has large numbers of previously invisible groups; nearly 1.2 million Germans, about 800,000 Ukrainians, nearly 900,000 Italians (350,000 in Toronto alone), about 400,000 Portuguese, 300,000 Chinese, 170,000 Indians and Pakistanis, 400,000 European Jews and more than 240,000 blacks, mostly from the Caribbean.

And from the crime reports, newspaper accounts and conversations with Canadians, one sees that these disparate groups live side by side with a minimum of stress, conflict or violence.

But questions arise--many of them.

--Is multiculturalism another name for ghettoization?

--Is it really just a divide-and-conquer strategy by which the old Establishment controls business and politics, while the growing ethnic groups focus attention on their internal affairs?

--Does multiculturalism truly promote acceptance of differences while eliminating prejudice and providing equal opportunities?

The answers are mixed.

‘Life More Secure’

Walter Lopes, a trained historian and president of the Portuguese-Canadian Club who came to Canada as a teen-ager in 1960, does not see the neighborhood grouping as a ghetto but part of a design that “instead of being integrated with a hammer makes life more secure, particularly for kids. There’s not as much questioning of who I am. I can be both.”

Yet Lopes acknowledges that many in his community have not integrated into Canadian life:

“Many came for economic reasons and a lot of the older people still talk about going home when they’ve made enough money. A lot of people are still more interested in Portugal than events here and since Portuguese here can vote in Portugal’s elections, that takes away some of the focus” on Canada.

Mary Mouammar, a Palestinian and spokeswoman for the 30,000 Arabs living in Canada, is more critical, saying that “the focus on retaining culture is negative in and of itself. . . . With each group keeping within itself, they are creating their own ghettos. . . . Living in an area where only Arabs live is negative, it doesn’t give you a world view. It creates conflicts and saps your energy.”

Social Critic’s View

And from Nick Auf de Maur, a Montreal city councilman and social critic, comes this comment: “You can’t get them (immigrants) into the mainstream by keeping them separate.”

The issue of political manipulation also brings mixed answers.

There are minority members at various levels of government, but far fewer than their share of the population merits. Part of this is explained by the newness of the immigrants--most are still first- and second-generation.

“People who are still trying to find their way and make a living don’t get into politics right away,” said Lopes. “They’re more interested in paying the mortgage than in who is running for office.”

This is supported by the experience of the Ukrainian, Italian and Jewish communities, all of which have been in Canada for a relatively long time and have had the most political involvement and success at all levels of politics.

Motive Is to Attract Voters

But it was not easy, according to a successful Italian political figure, Consiglio Di Niro, president of a Toronto trust company. Di Niro, who is involved in both local and provincial politics, said, “The motive behind multiculturalism was political, to attract voters” to the Liberal Party, which controlled the federal government when the immigration strategy was formed.

In fact, he added, “the only real difference between multiculturalism and the melting pot is that the doors have not been as open to new immigrant groups” in Canada as they were in the United States, where political parties immediately sought the new settlers’ support to gain control.

However, Di Niro said, multiculturalism has evolved into something that other politicians and the ethnic groups realized could be used to their respective advantages.

So Canada’s other major political parties, the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats, have opened their doors to ethnics and the ethnics are becoming increasing active.

Acceptance of Differences

Besides, Di Niro said, multiculturalism breeds an acceptance of differences.

“The sense of discrimination is less here” than in the United States, he said. “Multiculturalism is very healthy because it said you don’t have to be like us. An Italian could be elected mayor of Toronto.”

Social critic Auf de Maur, however, has a differing view of the political and social ramifications of the mosaic, at least in terms of the historical conflicts between the English and French populations of Quebec.

“The French have used it to dilute English influence (in the French-speaking province) because assimilation has always worked in the English’s favor,” he said, referring to the traditional alliance between new, non-French-speaking immigrants in Quebec and the English minority there.

On the other hand, Auf de Maur said, on a national level, the English Establishment has used multiculturalism “to minimize the French” in the rest of Canada by lumping them in with newer ethnic groups.

‘Ruse to Deny Equality’

“Multiculturalism is a ruse to deny equality,” he charged.

That claim is made about economic opportunities for immigrants as well.

“Ethnic job segregation is important in the allocation of job rewards,” wrote Toronto University Prof. Jeffrey Reitz, a sociologist, meaning that most employment for several immigrant groups comes from within those communities and not from the majority population.

“Three ethnic groups--Italians, Portuguese and West Indians--are segregated in occupations and work settings with low job status and incomes. . . . Ukrainians and Germans are the only ethnic minority groups to earn high incomes without relying upon a significant degree of job segregation,” according to Reitz.

Small Disparities

Nonetheless, statistics indicate only small disparities in incomes between ethnic groups and the general population, with blacks, for instance, averaging $11,965 (Canadian) a year against an average of $12,993 for the total population.

This is particularly notable since the bulk of black immigration has come only in the last 15 years.

Finally, in judging multiculturalism, the perceptions of the involved groups themselves come into play. A 1985 study showed that only 25% of Canada’s blacks thought they were discriminated against in schools, with the overwhelming majority saying they were satisfied with life in the country.

However, the University of Toronto survey found that almost three-quarters of West Indians, who make up 90% of Canada’s blacks, say they are victims of job discrimination, an impression weakened by the fact that black unemployment is only marginally higher than the national jobless rate.

The next highest percentage among groups that felt job discrimination against them was a serious problem came from 24% of the Chinese, a community with a near average income level and an unemployment rate only half of the national figure.

With all the pros and cons and because of its relatively short life, multiculturalism “hasn’t really proved itself yet,” said Bhausaheb Ubale, an immigrant from India who is a former Ontario human rights commissioner.

Recent Critical Events

But, he added, Canada has gone through several recent critical events that normally bring out bigotry and frustration against minorities.

“In the depression (of the early 1980s), there was no resentment against the minorities who didn’t suffer as much” as some of the more established groups, he said.

It seems, then, that multiculturalism may not perfectly match the opportunities for immigrants with the privileges of established groups, but it has provided a relatively easy and peaceful way for newcomers to enter the society without giving up their identity or pride. What it all comes down to in the end, said Dr. Foussias, is that multiculturalism means “to be Canadian is to be different.”