Multiculturalism born of Yuzyk & Diefenbaker Tories, not PET

I'm all for multiculturalism, or l'interculturalisme. Whatever one calls it, it's just recognising reality, as most poli sci, sociology, anthropology, etc. profs at UdM and elsewhere will tell you. And public policy works better when idealistic realistic. And I think it's ignorant for its occasional critics, right-wingers and nationalists mostly, to attribute its origin to Trudeau. Yuzyk & Diefenbaker, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, deserve the credit, though it had been fermenting on the prairies for a while, among the Ukrainians, Germans, Finns, Russians, etc., all those with "funny" names, like Mahovlich, which Foster Hewitt seemed to go out of his way to mispronounce, adding a vowel between the "v" and the "l", making it something like "MahovOlich". Such experiences, with which today's Arab, African, Asian, Muslim etc. immigrants can identify, motivated the conception of multiculturalism, as related by Yuzyk:

After months of pounding the pavement searching for a school that would accept him, and 77 job applications later, Mr. Yuzyk was finally offered a teaching position in a Ukrainian community near Hafford, Sask.

After several run-ins with discrimination, Mr. Yuzyk formed close alliances with other Canadians who felt that something had to be done about the alarming lack of accommodation for non-British, non-French Canadian citizens.

Said Sen. Yuzyk about his experiences as an unwelcome job-seeker: "They really did things like that, We are all being called bohunks and foreigners. The result was to strengthen my Ukrainianism. I said to myself that if they called me a foreigner when I had been born in Canada, it meant Canada needed some changing."

In a good speech (and clever politics), Jason Kenney outlined the Diefenbaker-Yuzyk story, and how French Canadians were the inspiration for all others, as always, it seems. (One day we'll find out Tim Horton was actually Mario-Pierre Tremblay, from Chicout, who changed his name so as not bring shame on his family by playing for the Laffs, and after hockey was done, was just looking for a way to better market blueberries):

He (Yuzyk) then pursued his academic career as a professor of history and Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba and at the University of Ottawa. For his work as a pioneer thinker and community activist, he was called to the Senate by Her Majesty in 1963 on the advice of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, another great westerner.

In 1963, when the Pearson government created the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Senator Yuzyk argued for a broader view that reflected the totality of Canada’s history and diversity, as did tonight’s award recipient. He argued that reducing Canada to two founding cultures ignored the stories of one-third of Canadians who, like himself, and like John Diefenbaker, had neither British or French ancestry.

In a key speech in the Senate in 1964, he said that, “A great and dynamic nation must be dedicated to great and high ideas and principles which have come from the past. Without the founding peoples and their contributions, there would be no Canada today.” So while he said that we should not have a national identity based exclusively on the notion of the two founding cultures, but nor should we ignore them and their central contribution to Canada’s diversity today.

French Canadians, he said, have much to teach about the preservation of culture and pride in that culture. French Canadians were, he said, “More conscientious of the meaning of life; without the French presence,” he said, “there would be no Canada.” He added that, “The imperishable gift of the British to the Canadian way of life is the parliamentary system of government and evolutionary democracy under the Crown safeguarding the authority of and equality before the law, liberty, justice, fair play, equal opportunity for all, and the dignity of the individual. Through our parliament we have achieved independence, sovereignty, and prestige throughout the world.”

Of course Pearson, PET, and everyone after built on the Tory foundation. And the LPC made the concept meaningful, providing the psychological, legal, political comfort needed to ensure an exceptionally cohesive society, given its challenges of demographic heterogeneity and geography. Our social cohesion is among the highest of all developed nations in absolute terms, and the highest by far if one were to grade on a curve, taking into account our circumstances.

But the Right, especially in the media, should take more pride in multiculturalism. Their bunch started it, after all. It's worked. It works. And careful, responsible administration would ensure its continued success.