Scholar and politician square off in multiculturalism prizefight

by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - As part of its program to refocus Canada's Ukrainian community on issues it faces within the country rather than questions that concern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation sought to have the issue of multiculturalism debated by two compelling speakers who passionately hold opposing views, while the present federal government conducts a review of it as an official policy.

Readers of The Weekly will know that parliamentarian John Nunziata and veteran scholar Dr. Manoly Lupul have taken high-profile positions on the subject, and so it was only fitting that the UCPBF made them part of its "Canada in Crisis" series, the brainchild of Michael Wawryshyn, the federation's Ukrainian Canadian Congress liaison officer.

Mr. Nunziata has been one of the most vocal opponents of multiculturalism and issued a call for a nationwide debate on the subject in April 1995. Dr. Lupul has been among Canada's best known champions of the policy, and since March 1994 has been ringing alarm bells about the negative effects of the right-wing agenda of the Reform Party of Canada.

This encounter was anticipated like a prizefight and, like many such confrontations, it was rescheduled a number of times. In the end, it took place on March 29 at the Valhalla Inn in Etobicoke, Ontario.

The moderator was Olya Kuplowska, a veteran broadcast journalist, currently a director of research at TV Ontario. Ms. Kuplowska said the Ukrainian Canadian community accords great importance to the idea and spirit of multiculturalism, over and beyond the policy as it was practically applied by governments.

She added that it is "good to take stock of its impact on the individual lives, on society and the country's institutions, particularly this year - the 25th anniversary" of multiculturalism's formal adoption as policy by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1971.

The debaters

Mr. Nunziata, a graduate of Toronto's prestigious Osgoode Hall Law School, a recipient of several awards for service to his community, and a brash member of Parliament (MP) from the heavily Italian Canadian riding of York South-Weston, made a name for himself as one of the "Rat Pack" when sitting in opposition to the government led by Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney in 1984-1992.

As a backbencher in the Liberal government swept into office in 1993, Mr. Nunziata continued to make headlines. In the spring of 1995, he denounced multiculturalism, seemingly an integral plank of his party's platform, a policy backed up by legislation (the Multiculturalism Act of 1988) and entrenched in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the recently patriated Constitution.

Since the debate described in this report, Mr. Nunziata's contrarian ways have cost him a place in the Liberal Party caucus. When he voted against a government-sponsored bill in April, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ejected him.

Dr. Lupul is professor emeritus at the University of Alberta faculty of education (where he has taught since 1958), a man instrumental in the establishment of the Ukrainian-English bilingual program in Alberta's provincial school system, a co-founder and first director of its Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies (1976-1986). Harvard educated (Ph.D., 1963), Dr. Lupul has published widely in the fields of history, multiculturalism and cultural heritage.

The moderator described him as one of multiculturalism's strongest proponents even before the policy was officially adopted in 1971, as a man who has since been intimately associated with its development and evolution (he served as national vice-chair of the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism in 1973-1979).

Dr. Lupul's "yea"

Dr. Lupul said multiculturalism appeared as an inexact concept that generally described "Canada's demographic reality," as perceived by the late Saskatchewan Sen. Paul Yuzyk's generation of Canadian-born Ukrainians and other ethnic Canadians who sought to "liberalize the bicultural [French and English] thrust of two founding peoples in the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism" established by the government of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in July 1963.

The veteran scholar explained that the bicultural movement sought to "achieve greater linguistic living space" for the French language in Canada, and that Ukrainian Canadians had "joined in the same appeal by raising the multicultural umbrella," asking that such a linguistic living space be "increased still further to permit additional cultural expression against the homogenizing tendencies of Anglo-American culture."

Dr. Lupul said multiculturalism presents a model for the "over-all sharing of power and opportunity among the people who share Canada."

In order for multiculturalism to be a workable national state policy and in the interest of national unity, Dr. Lupul suggested that Canadians should put aside "hostility to the concept of two founding peoples at the base of Confederation, with such special status [including recognition of French Quebec as a distinct society] as that implies."

Dr. Lupul said a degree of assimilation is expected and even desirable, but should not be forced as in the U.S., driven by the concept of a national melting pot. "The mark of all of Canada's peoples [should] be clearly discernible in the public culture that emerges," Dr. Lupul emphasized.

The clinching argument for the professor was a global one. "[Multiculturalism] is good cultural policy not just because it gives Canada's diverse peoples a greater sense of belonging through a larger share of the public culture, but [also] because its strengthens the country's economic potential as a trader in a shrinking world and ... raises the level of Canadian civilization."

Multiculturalism's unfinished business

Dr. Lupul said that the multiculturalism policy was often "at the mercy of manipulative politicians." He asserted that the perception of the policy as "grants to ethnic dance groups, cooking classes and festivals" was "invented by politicians at all levels almost as soon as the multiculturalism policy was announced."

Given the often symbolic quantities of funds appropriated, Dr. Lupul said he has observed an increasing tendency for people to turn their backs on the policy altogether.

He called this a "temptation" which has become stronger because the Ukrainian Canadian community has "realized much of its language and culture agenda," particularly in terms of institution-building. However, the CIUS founder pointed out that many of these successes would not have been possible without the impetus for matching fund programs and other initiatives fostered by the multiculturalism policy, and would be jeopardized if it were eliminated.

Dr. Lupul said Ukrainian Canadian professional and business associations should "hound unrelentingly and forcefully" cultural agencies such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to "honor [their] mandate to all of Canada's citizens."

Criticisms blunted

Turning to the criticisms leveled at the policy of multiculturalism, Dr. Lupul said most can be blunted on principle. Ethnicity is not merely a private matter, as those hostile to the policy assert, "but also a matter of social equity," he said.

"The goal of multiculturalism was not only to take ethnicity out of the closet, where the chauvinistic narrow nationalists had historically swept it, but to give it an equal and honorable place in the country's ... public culture," stated the Alberta-born academic.

Countering the argument that the policy creates "hyphenated Canadians" who have "divided loyalties," Dr. Lupul asserted that "the more responsive the public institutions are to ethnocultural aspirations, the less need will there be for separate institutions that marginalize or segregate ethnocultural groups."

Dr. Lupul denounced such critics as Liberal MP John Bryden who question achievements made under the multicultural policy as "mere pandering by government to special interests, as if ethnocultural interests were somehow improper and had to take a back seat to the country's other special interests."

Simply put, Dr. Lupul had two answers: 1. In a democratic, pluralistic society, all interests are special interests; 2. Canada's citizens, all from immigrant backgrounds, have earned their share and deserve a more equitable distribution of its resources.

Enemies identified

The scholar said the policy's supporters should not yield to the "narrow nationalists" of Quebec, such as Jacques Parizeau, former provincial premier and Parti Quebecois leader, and those of English-speaking Canada, "the members of the Reform Party of Canada."

Dr. Lupul indicated that the English-speaking segment draws on the tradition of "nativists" who dominated the country prior to World War I and enforced "Anglo-conformity," while the more extreme Quebec separatists had revived notions of "pure-laine" (pure wool, or old-stock) French chauvinism.

The Alberta-based academic singled out Reform leader Preston Manning's platforms as particularly invidious. He stressed that the party's "principle that individuals or groups are free to preserve their cultural heritage using their own resources" is actually a formula under which "all ethnocultural groups, apart from the Anglo-Celts and the French in Quebec, would be equally excluded from participating in the development of Canada's public culture on the quality footing that public funds alone can ensure."

Referring to Mr. Parizeau's bitter complaint that votes controlled by "money and ethnics" caused the recent slim referendum defeat for the separatist side in Quebec, Dr. Lupul said "the irony of the supposedly divisive 'ethnics' actually helping to save Canada last October has still to register with English-speaking Canada's own narrow nationalists - the members of the Reform Party of Canada."

Dr. Lupul contended that multiculturalism breeds mutual respect, and this respect is best able to hold Canada, a heterogeneous country, together. "It is not divisive, but the strongest possible cement," he said.

Mr. Nunziata's "nay"

Mr. Nunziata began by greeting "his fellow ethnic Canadians" and distancing himself from other critics of multiculturalism. "I don't consider myself to be a narrow nationalist," the MP said, "I don't particularly like Jacques Parizeau, and I certainly don't subscribe to the policies of the Reform Party. Yet when I'm asked whether there's a place for multiculturalism in Canada's 21st century, the answer is, in my view, an unequivocal 'no.' "

"In my view," Mr. Nunziata said, "[multiculturalism] served its purpose for a limited period of time." Although he dismissed contentions that Mr. Trudeau was "not sincere" in introducing the policy, the maverick politician added: "Unfortunately, what was great philosophically has not succeeded in the pragmatic reality of society."

"Simply declaring multiculturalism in law does not translate into a multicultural society," Mr. Nunziata added. The Toronto-based MP asserted: "Canadians have not embraced the concept that we are all part of the multicultural mosaic; that we are all ethnic and therefore equal."

Mr. Nunziata recalled an incident in the early 1980s when politicians from all parties addressed a meeting of the Canadian Ethnocultural Council. "John Turner, the leader of [the Liberal] party said 65 percent of my constituency is multicultural," the MP related, "then [New Democratic Party leader Ed] Broadbent stood up and said 70 percent of his constituency was multicultural. Each tried to out-do the other," the legislator said.

Mr. Nunziata said, "If the policy was a success, then 100 percent of every constituency, 100 percent of every community would consider themselves to be part of multicultural Canada."

Seemingly heedless of the criticism of politicians voiced by Dr. Lupul, Mr. Nunziata derisively reiterated the perception of multiculturalism as "quaint activities, festivals, folk dances."

Multiculturalism as segregation

The MP claimed that "instead of undercutting the concept of second-class citizenship, multiculturalism encourages it by preventing the full integration of all ethnic groups into mainstream Canadian society."

Mr. Nunziata asserted that Bill C-18, which became the Multiculturalism Act of 1988, was merely a blatant attempt [by a government he opposed] to win the ethnic vote. Mr. Nunziata pointed out the compartmentalization of the issue after the Multiculturalism Act was passed, with separate ministries of culture and of multiculturalism. He compared this to the segregation of African Americans in the southern states of the U.S.

He expressed outrage that the issue of redress to Japanese Canadians interned during World War II was treated as a multicultural issue, "when it had everything to do with fundamental justice."

"Could you imagine," Mr. Nunziata asked, "if the Nazi war criminal issue were handed to the minister of multiculturalism?"

He stressed that the source for all rights of all citizens of the country was found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. "We don't need the policy to give us, or any other individual, any greater rights," Mr. Nunziata said.

"The greatest damage created by Canada's multiculturalism policy is not to our budget," he continued, "but to the creation of an 'us versus them' mindset, which perpetuates this mentality among policy-makers - it ghettoizes, segregates, marginalizes and forces people to become hyphenated Canadians because of their heritage."

"Professional ethnics" denounced

"Multiculturalism in Canada has become a self-perpetuating tool used by professional ethnics to manipulate politicians and used by politicians to manipulate votes," Mr. Nunziata said.

He caustically described how "politicians up until a few years ago used to march into the Railway Committee Room in Ottawa every time the [Canadian Ethnocultural Council] would come forward; these politicians would suck up to them, as if these professional ethnics could deliver the 'multicultural vote.' "

Mr. Nunziata bitterly recalled his resentment at being referred to as "the ethnic MP from Toronto" when he first joined the Liberal caucus in 1984.

Mr. Nunziata said it was too easy to dismiss the opposition of Messrs. Parizeau and Manning as "racist," contending that the policy is widely unpopular in Canada, and not simply among bigots and "narrow nationalists."

Mr. Nunziata asserted, "The time has come to move on. What we should move toward now is toward a policy of Canadianism; of unhyphenated Canadia-nism. We need to emphasize, promote and encourage what we have in common." He said that Canadians have difficulty in expressing their patriotism and defining their identity, and that multiculturalism has compounded the muddle.

Mr. Nunziata added that it is time to debate the question nationally, and thanked the UCPBF for having provided a forum for such a discussion.

Fiery discussion

A lively discussion followed the two presentations and, prompted by questions, the differences between the two debaters were stripped down to their ideological essentials: that Mr. Nunziata believes no further intervention or manipulation of society is necessary in order to redress imbalances because sufficient progress has been made; while Dr. Lupul holds that considerable systemic problems persist that can be overcome only with a purposeful creation of a better climate, by way of an ongoing multicultural policy.

Mr. Nunziata said funding for heritage language instruction is "not multicultural funding," simply a reflection of a particular community's political influence. He suggested that "the Ukrainian community is in positions of power and influence, and you have only yourselves to blame if a history of the Ukrainian involvement in Canada isn't written."

Mr. Nunziata also challenged his hosts, the UCPBF, directly. "I don't know how politically active your professional and business association is; I have no idea, I've certainly never received a letter from you to act on your behalf as an MP," he added.

Luba Zaraska, head of the local branch of the Ukrainian Canadian School Board, offered a riposte to the MP's suggestion that the multiculturalism policy produces institutional compartmentalization. Ms. Zaraska asserted that the bureaucracy and both the present and previous governments abetted this cynical manipulation, and that he was being disingenuous in blaming the policy for it.

Dr. Lupul took the floor to relate his experiences in dealing with bureaucratic and political fiefdoms in securing funding. "Even when times were more prosperous than now, no heads of departments would want to share their 'limited funds' - whether it was a minister or a bureaucrat, especially at the upper levels."

"If [the government is] serious about this [multiculturalism] policy for Canada," Dr. Lupul said, "then [it should] simply provide the additional bucks, it's as simple as that."

The academic conceded that disbursed grants are not always used wisely by recipients in the community, but added "I will not defend the actions of any politician or bureaucrat in this area."

Dispute over a "Canadianism Act"

Mr. Nunziata was asked what legislation could adequately replace the Multi-culturalism Act, so that its scrapping is not seen as a victory by "the Mannings" whose Canadianism is defined very narrowly.

Mr. Nunziata said he is drafting a bill for a prospective Canadianism Act. He mentioned that in his preamble he would draw on the experience of the failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords to "define Canada."

When Mr. Nunziata proposed a preamble that referred to aboriginal, English, French and "immigrant" Canadians, a heated exchange took place. Dr. Lupul charged the parliamentarian with perpetuating stereotypes of the English and French as somehow "non-immigrant."

Dr. Lupul predicted that the situation in the country will worsen because those in power don't understand how to benefit from diversity by sharing power and resources in a time of increasing scarcity.

As the discussion continued, Mr. Nunziata directed a "professional ethnic" jibe directly at Dr. Lupul, and the latter jumped to his feet and angrily denounced the MP as "nothing but a professional poli-tician" who has "absolutely no idea what a citizen's duty as a Canadian" consists of in the field of education and ethnic affairs.

After this conversational meltdown, Mr. Nunziata graciously apologized for allowing "his Italian heritage" to get the better of him, the Ukrainian scholar made similar conciliatory noises, and the assembled crowd descended on the MP to harangue him in a more private fashion for some time after the formal proceedings were adjourned.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 30, 1996, No. 26, Vol. LXIV

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