Human rights in a multicultural framework: defining Canadian citizenship, 1945-1970

ID:	HARP-136
Title:	Human rights in a multicultural framework: defining Canadian citizenship, 1945-1970
Source:	Canadian Issues, F’02 pg 32-34.
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Year:	2002
Pages:	0
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Keywords:	Canada, equality before the law, human rights, movement and residency, multi-culturalism, non-discrimination, civil and political rights, minority rights
Abstract:	Postwar reordering of individual expectations and public values was not an exclusively Canadian phenomenon, but there was a distinctiveness in the Canadian version. The global rise of a human rights consciousness was linked, in Canada, to multiculturalism and not simply to individual rights. In designing our own commitment to a new respect for human dignity and equality, Canadians acknowledged the significance of the collective identity, the interests of the individual as a member of a group, and therefore the necessity to respect the integrity of the group in order to fulfil the rights of the individual. It is that essential convergence of human rights and multiculturalism, the extension of the movement towards universalism to incorporate the concept of diversity, that characterized the Canadian experience. Communities, and community identities, would not only be tolerated but encouraged and recognized as frameworks for the full expression of the individual citizen. This distinguished Canadian definitions of citizenship from most other Western democracies at the time. But it did not “just happen”. The political ideas and social vision that contributed to the gradual formulation of official multiculturalism had their origins in demands raised by Canadian citizens, in public crusades that brought pressure on politicians and, more importantly, increased the awareness of the broader population for issues of minority-group concern. “Common sense” was challenged, and sometimes redirected; the public perspective became more inclusive of the problems faced by minorities and more receptive to demands for change. By the time Pierre Trudeau announced his policy of “multiculturalism in a bilingual framework” in 1971, Canadian civic culture had already been converted and certain principles had become not only acceptable but inevitable components of any definition of Canadian citizenship.
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