Cipywnyk, Kordan warn Liberals not to further cut multiculturalism (04/27/97)

Cipywnyk, Kordan warn Liberals not to further cut multiculturalism

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - Senior officials with the Canadian Ethnocultural Council spent the weekend preparing for their April 21 meeting with Dr. Hedy Fry. But in the end, the closed-door session with Canada's secretary of state for multiculturalism, which she joined 20 minutes late, lasted only 40 minutes and produced few results.

"She's very adept at handling questions," said former CEC President Dr. Dmytro Cipywnyk. "But a lot of people left quite unhappy that she didn't deal with the federal government's perceived departure from the Multiculturalism Act and the possible violation of [the equality provisions] of the [Canadian] Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms."

Earlier this month, Dr. Fry unveiled a "renewed Multiculturalism Program" that would outline new funding criteria and objectives focused on such areas as combating racism and involving ethnic communities in the public decision-making process.

But with diminished funding allocated for Canada's entire multicultural community, Dr. Cipywnyk said he wonders how ethnocultural groups will be able to survive, let alone pursue some of Dr. Fry's objectives.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to fund French-language programs outside Quebec, but $18.3 million has been set aside for multicultural grants," said Dr. Cipywnyk, a former president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. "Canada is supposed to be a multicultural country within a bilingual framework. We have the framework but we might have little else."

Though disappointed by Dr. Fry's program review process, CEC executive members weren't entirely caught by surprise following their recent meeting with her. They used April 21 to lobby members of Parliament from both the Liberal and Opposition Bloc Quebecois caucuses with a grocery list of issues they want discussed. Among them: the elimination of employment barriers for professional immigrants, cross-cultural awareness training programs for members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and employment equity, particularly for visible minorities, within the federal public service.

In fact, the itemized list will likely form the CEC's campaign strategy during the upcoming federal election. And, the traditional ethnic pockets of voters in major urban centers (such as Toronto's and Montreal's Italian and Greek communities) and western Canada (where there are large Ukrainian and German constituencies) that the Liberals have traditionally counted on may evaporate, said Dr. Cipywnyk. "If we don't get any results, we are certainly going to target the Liberals," he said. "Based on ethnocultural support, a lot of votes could go back to the Conservatives or to the [left-of-center] NDP [New Democratic Party]."

Dr. Bohdan Kordan, a political scientist at the University of Saskatchewan and co-chairperson of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Government Relations Committee, said the federal government has let its preoccupation with preventing Quebec's separation from Canada interfere with its commitment to multiculturalism. "Ultimately, Canadian society is a federation of communities, which includes the multicultural community," said Dr. Kordan, who addressed the CEC Ottawa meeting on April 20.

"But in trying to articulate their vision for multicultural programs, the federal government has moved away from the difficult elements associated with a particular interpretation of multiculturalism and has been highlighting social justice issues," he added.

That in itself isn't bad, said Dr. Kordan, since it makes the notion of multiculturalism "palatable" to most Canadians. "The problem is that when we're talking about social equality at a systemic level, it doesn't just apply to recent immigrants to the country," he explained. "The Ukrainian Canadian community has also been subject to historical discrimination, such as the redress question."

The unresolved community claim for redress over World War I interment of Ukrainian Canadians was not raised during Dr. Fry's meeting with CEC officials.

In focusing on the Quebec issue and pandering to Canada's fiscal conservatives, Dr. Kordan said the federal government has removed both its financial and largely moral support from promoting the country's multicultural reality.

"By 2005, 55 percent of Canadians will be of neither British nor French stock," he said. "Already, we live in a culturally diverse society, and what is important to Canadians is the notion of social justice. Canadians don't say they are a wealthy or productive people. They believe they are a tolerant people, which is how the world sees them."

"Multiculturalism has an important role to play in advancing the cause of liberal democracy and, in that sense, multiculturalism has to be articulated in the government's framework," he stated.

Dr. Kordan said the federal government has failed to recognize that dynamism since it introduced its multiculturalism policy 26 years ago.

"The way a society such as ours works is predicated on the existence of cultural communities," he explained. "For the government of Canada to stop thinking about that heritage is short-sighted. Because, in the final analysis, the importance of those cultural communities is part of Canadian nation-building."

For their own survival, Dr. Cipynwyk warned the Liberals to best recognize that reality: "We have a country that is restless, and there's a great deal of tension and much anger out there."

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