"Multiculturalism hasn't failed here": Canada is doing a much better job than western European

[pampango]

countries of integrating immigrants

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Multiculturalism+hasn+failed+here/3703101/story.html

"(Canadian Immigration Minister Jason) Kenney was commenting after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last weekend that multiculturalism in her country, Europe's richest, had "failed utterly." Similar views are often heard across western Europe these days. In her next breath Merkel explained, perhaps without realizing it, the failure she admitted: "We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, but that's not the reality."

North Americans, very many of us knowing the names of our immigrant ancestors of just one, two, or three generations ago, have had a different approach: We understood that new immigrants, too, were here to stay. Successive waves of newcomers to the U.S., and to a degree to Canada, faced sometimes-fierce anti-immigration sentiment. But both countries have historically been dependent on immigration for growth, and in both the U.S. melting pot and the Canadian cultural mosaic that reality has won out.

Canada has expected immigrants to integrate, but has not demanded that they abandon their cultures. The multiculturalism policy of the Trudeau years told newcomers they could keep the best of their homelands while enjoying Canada's advantages. Some scoff that this policy amounted to little more than "colourful old-country costume" festivals, but over the decades it also surely helped re-assure many newcomers. The result, paradoxically, has generally been healthy cultural and economic integration of immigrants and their children and grandchildren. This week Calgary elected a Muslim mayor with south Asian roots, a fine example of how cultural integration should work.

Our leaders do appear to understand that although Canada has done well in making immigrants into Canadians, new challenges in this area demand our attention. Representatives of all three federal parties acknowledged this week that immigration is "a two-way street," as Liberal multiculturalism critic Rob Oliphant said. New Canadians need to be open to their new neighbours and Canadian values; and meanwhile established Canadians, and their governments, must keep working to remove any barriers to success.

[Winston Wolf]

1. Kicked...

...and recommended.

[pipoman]

2. Exactly

People both here and abroad think the US has crime problems because of our gun laws, or because of the history of slavery here, or because of less social safety nets. The truth is none of these things are as instrumental in our historically higher crime rate as our "melting pot", multicultural society. Seems I am forever reading, especially in the guns forum and on issues of social programs, people advocating the US should follow the lead of European policy...it's bullshit..the US isn't Europe and Europe isn't even in the same ballpark as the US when it comes to a multicultural society....nor is Canada fore that matter.

[pipoman]

3. k&r

[arikara]

4. Those Reform... er Conservative party bozos

have no room to preach. Any multicultural success in Canada has nothing to do with them. Whatsoever. Their party foundation was based on racism.