Canada Today: Less Hotel, More Live-in Condo – My Take

My take on changes to the multiculturalism program by Jason Kenney over the past 7 years, starting with this initial 2008 quote from him:

But having criss-crossed this great country; having attended hundreds of events and talked to thousands of new Canadians, I am certain of this: we all want a multiculturalism that builds bridges, not walls, between communities.

We want a Canada where we can celebrate our different cultural traditions, but not at the expense of sharing common Canadian traditions.We want a country where freedom of conscience is deeply respected, but where we also share basic political values, like a belief in human dignity, equality of opportunity, and the rule of law.

We don’t want a Canada that is a hotel, where people come and go with no abiding connection to our past or to one another, where citizenship means only access to a convenient passport. We want a Canada where we are citizens loyal first and finally to this country and her historically grounded values.

The key to building such a Canada, to maintaining our model of unity-in-diversity, is the successful integration of newcomers.And that should be the focus of today’s multiculturalism.

Canada Today: Less Hotel, More Live-in Condo – New Canadian Media – NCM.