Multiculturalism in Canada: A Muddle

Abstract

The policy of multiculturalism is unclear because the term culture, which had replaced the older term 'way of life,' became unclear. When the latter is restored, one sees that there are no ethnic differences in Canada about the desirability of the bourgeois-democratic way of life. What exist, apart from the Quebec question, are private or social differences in ethnic tastes, the right to pursue which is guaranteed by the fundamental unity. There is also no difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada about the fundamental way of life. For historical reasons, however, which do not exist elsewhere in Canada, the status of Quebec constitutes an ethno-political problem. As such it will have to be resolved by political dialogue, mainly, at this point, within Quebec itself.