Media Release – The Muddle of Multiculturalism: A Liberal critique

Although it started as a harmless ploy to attract votes to Pierre Trudeau’s government, the official policy of multiculturalism in Canada is now weakening basic principles of our democratic traditions and is being used as an instrument to promote radical ideologies.
Published on February 3, 2011

 

Winnipeg – The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, in collaboration with the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax, today released a new study entitled “The Muddle of Multiculturalism: A Liberal Critique.” 
 
The study is authored by the internationally-recognized academic, well-known author, columnist and commentator Salim Mansur. Born in India and educated at the University of Toronto, Mansur traces the origin of the multiculturalism policy to the stormy political roots of the Trudeau era, seeking electoral advantage in the votes of Canada’s ethnic immigrant communities, posing as a gesture of acceptance and solidarity. 
 
But Mansur points out that what started as innocent politicking in search of votes has unfolded into dangerous attitudes and practices against the fabric of Canadian liberal democracy. The multiculturalism policy is unintendedly undermining basic Canadian beliefs such as individual rights and freedom of expression. 
 
Specifically, the report notes the substantive and critical differences between promoting equality and undermining freedom as historically observed in Canada and its institutions. It draws to our attention that the pursuit of unlimited equality
  • damages individual freedom,
  • undermines our practices of respect and rewards assigned by merit,
  • chokes liberty of expression with new dogmas and a cultural relativism divorced from standards of truth and evidence,
  • promotes narrow parochialism in the name of openness and acceptance, and
  • ultimately suffocates reason and our critical faculties.
 
Mansur is not after erasing Canada’s multiculturalist policy. “I am realist enough to recognize that this official policy will not be reversed or dismantled, as it has become deeply entrenched in the politics of Canada and other Western democracies,” he said.
 
But now that we have a better understanding of its unintended spinoffs, Mansur recommends handling it with caution to limit such consequences: “I do believe there is room for constraining any further growth of multiculturalism at the expense of the liberal values of freedom and individual rights,” he writes.
 
 
Download a copy of the The Muddle of Multiculturalism: A Liberal Critique here.
 
For more information and to arrange an interview with the study’s author, media should contact:
Salim Mansur, Ph.D.
(Professor Mansur is presently on sabbatical. Please email smansur@uwo.ca for direct contact)
 
Marco Navarro-Genie, Ph.D
Research Director 
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
403-995-9916            

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