While I was away: Multiculturalism and Identity

2026/06/08 Leave a comment

Some multiculturalism articles other than on antisemitism:

Christopher Dummitt: Nothing says generic left-winger like getting an honorary degree

Useful analysis:

…Is this a conspiracy? Probably not. But it is a textbook case of systemic bias. Universities are populated overwhelmingly by people who share a homogeneous worldview. They are the ones nominating candidates. Those nominations are then filtered through committees explicitly instructed to favour recipients who embody progressive DEI values.

Imagine the reverse. If universities leaned right and committees were instructed to favour those who champion conservative conceptions of social order, Stephen Harper would top the list. Former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall and former cabinet minister Rona Ambrose would follow. But the more revealing cases come further down. If Desmond Cole can receive an honorary degree, why not Jonathan Kay — journalist, former editor of the Walrus, and a genuine contributor to Canadian public debate? Why not Brian Lee Crowley, founder of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, or Mark Milke, founder of the Aristotle Foundation? These are precisely the kinds of public intellectuals — fighters for their conception of a just society — that universities celebrate on the left. Why not the right?

To be more provocative, but no more so than in the cases of Cole or Rebick: why not former Harper advisor and academic Tom Flanagan? Or John Carpay, whose legal challenges to COVID-19 restrictions represent exactly the kind of principled dissent that universities seem to admire — at least when it comes from the left.

All of these figures are at least as accomplished as many being honoured this year. Many believe deeply in social justice — just with different assumptions about what “just” means.

When Zak Patterson and I published research showing the political composition of Canadian universities some years ago, one of the most striking responses came from those who insisted our numbers were wrong and our surveys flawed. A clearer case of motivated reasoning would be hard to find.

But if hard data on the political beliefs of university faculty isn’t convincing enough, just attend a convocation ceremony this spring. The ideological skew will be on full display — one last kick in the teeth for any non-leftist student or parent. You thought tuition was too high? Here’s one more insult on your way out the door.

McWhorter: A Black Helen of Troy? Fine. A White Obama? Not Yet.

Of interest:

Plus, white actors playing Black figures in “blaccents” of various degrees would verge on minstrelsy. It’s one thing that Black British or African actors such as Idris Elba and Thandiwe Newton do American blaccents in roles (and uncannily well). But Reese Witherspoon or Steve Carell? Um — no.

Or, at least, not now. It would be tragic to expect our current sensibilities to be permanent. If we are truly making progress, then we have to allow that the past becomes history, power relations change, and minstrelsy is too antique to be relevant to our current existences.

In some future time we should have no problem with a talented white man playing the lead in “A Raisin in the Sun,” a white woman cast as Representative Barbara Jordan, or white people singing in “Porgy and Bess.” I didn’t say tomorrow — but sometime.

Whites already talk ever more like Black people, dance ever more like Black people, greet one another ever more like Black people, marry ever more Black people and create ever more half-Black people. There is no reason to assume there is some point at which this melangerie will — or must — halt, regardless of inevitable holdout bigotry. A natural next step would be for white people to be able to portray Black people in performance. Maybe it will be too late for Ryan Gosling to play Barack Obama — but someone like him.

“Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world,” observed the philosopher Eric Hoffer in 1968. That remains true today. Hatred of Israel has become the sty in Western eyes that, as it grows larger, risks making too many people blind.

StatsCan: Preterm births among mothers from racialized groups, 2016-2021

Useful analysis:

Data from the mother-centric data linkages show that:

Compared with mothers aged 25-34, proportions of singleton preterm births were higher for mothers aged 35-39 and 40+ among all racialized groups and non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers, whereas for mothers under 25, the increase was observed only in non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers. 

In Canada, the proportions of single births (i.e., singleton births) that were preterm (<37 weeks) were higher among South Asian (6.9%) and Black mothers (6.3%) compared with non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers (5.5%).

All racialized groups of mothers had higher proportions of extremely and very preterm singleton births (<32 weeks) compared with non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers.

The proportion of preterm multiple births was more common among South Asian mothers than among non-racialized, non-Indigenous mothers (69.2% vs 58.2%).

The Canadian Armed Forces are right to experiment around recruitment

Nice contrarian and thoughtful discussion compared to the standard outrage largely by right-leaning politicians and media:

…The report was written by the commander of the school responsible for basic military qualifications. It outlined how changes in entry standards, which started in 2022 with the opening of the military to permanent residents, affected training outcomes. The bottom line stood in sharp contrast with the optimism Canadian generals displayed a week prior: the completion rate of basic training declined from a historical average of 85 per cent to 77 per cent. 

These findings sent shockwaves through the defence community, and raised questions around the quality of recruits and future operational effectiveness. But the reaction may miss two key points. First, the report demonstrates that, despite changes in standards to admissions, criteria for success at basic training have not changed. 

Second, the report reflects an important shift toward risk-taking, learning, and adaptation within the military. This is what we want for an organization that wants to win the next war. As retired Australian general Mick Ryan noted in assessing the war in Ukraine, “[a]daptation is THE critical contemporary and future capability for nations and their military organizations to win in war.”

The reality is that any modernization plan must address the critical personnel deficiency that has plagued the CAF for the past 30 years, starting with the poorly managed drawdown of the 1990s. Its effects have been crippling and wide-ranging; contributing to low readiness rates among units and systems, poor morale, high attrition rates, and the delayed transition to new capabilities. Without a robust pool of military personnel to fill existing skill deficiencies, as well as emerging ones as the CAF introduces new capabilities, any effort to create a modern fighting force will continue to stall. Thus, innovation in how the military recruits and trains is an essential element towards this objective.

Immigrants less likely to support freedom of gender expression than people born in Canada: StatCan

Of interest:

…The findings, published in Statistics Canada’s Juristat, were based on self-reported data from the 2018 and 2025 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS). The survey examined how attitudes toward gender-related issues have changed over time.

When it came to gender expression, people born in Canada were more likely to agree with statements supporting people’s rights to gender expression than those born elsewhere.

The survey found that 80 per cent of women and 71 per cent of men born in Canada agreed that individuals should be able to express their gender however they choose, compared to 70 per cent of women and 67 per cent of men born outside the country.

In addition, a larger proportion of First Nations women (82 per cent) than non-Indigenous women (77 per cent) supported people’s right to express their gender.

The survey also found that support people being able to express their gender however they choose has declined in recent years.

The percentage of women who agreed that people should have this right decreased from 85 per cent to 77 per cent between 2018 and 2025, while support among men dropped from 78 per cent to 70 per cent.

A Muslim wage gap? New study exposes major economic disparities in Greater Toronto and Hamilton

Would be more useful if the tables did not just have the dichotomy between Muslim and non-Muslim for compare for all religious groups. When I did an intersectionality between religious affiliation, visible minorities status and citizenship (all of Canada), it indicated that there was a gap across most visible minority groups.

Muslim Canadians in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area earn less and face greater unemployment and poverty compared to non-Muslims despite higher education levels, gaps that a new report suggests are rooted in systemic racism and Islamophobia.

Overall, 51 per cent of Muslims in prime working age who are employed full time hold post-secondary degrees, compared to 40.5 per cent among non-Muslims, according to data extrapolated from the 2021 census.

Yet they had a median employment income of $61,000, $12,000 less than their non-Muslim counterparts. The aggregate annual income loss could amount to $1.2 billion a year, said the report, which offers a rare glimpse at the economic well-being of a religious minority in Canada. …

Black reps left off federal advisory council on rights, equality and inclusion

Not unexpected and from the usual advocates:

Advocates are calling for Black representation and a more inclusive mandate for the federal government’s new Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion.

The calls follow the federal government’s announcement on June 1 of the new advisory council that did not include Black representatives.

Advocates also slammed the federal government for neglecting to include anti-Black racism in the council’s mandate.

“Anti-Black racism was not explicitly identified. At some point, omission becomes difficult to distinguish from indifference,” Nicholas Marcus Thompson, co-chair of the National Employment Equity Council, told reporters in a news conference on June 4.

Indigenous

Aaron Pete: Criminalizing residential school ‘denialism’ won’t help reconciliation

Not the mainstream Indigenous perspective but a valuable one:

A healthier path would be more demanding, but also more democratic: better education, better records, more transparency, more excavation where appropriate, more serious journalism and more honest public dialogue, all carried out in a spirit of kindness, which is the Canadian way. We should confront hatred firmly without turning every difficult or uncomfortable question into a potential criminal matter.

Reconciliation will not be advanced by fear. It will be advanced by truth, humility and mutual responsibility. Canadians should not prejudge one another or assume the worst of intent. This is our shared country, and we all have a duty to seek truth, guard against government overreach and debate complex issues civilly.

The history of residential schools deserves seriousness. So does freedom of expression. A confident democracy should be able to protect both.

Aaron Pete is Chief of Chawathil First Nation in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.

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Christopher Dummitt: Canada’s long-standing tradition of sweeping its British roots under the rug

2025/07/03 Leave a comment

Good reminder of the need for a broader historical understanding:

….Canadian schools got rid of the Lord’s prayer a generation ago. It didn’t fit with a modern diverse Canada. It has been replaced by land acknowledgments.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the school system didn’t operate this way — when Indigenous history and contemporary concerns were not a major focus. There has been a lot of progress to rethink how we approach the Canadian past.

But there’s also the Canadian tradition of turning a good thing into a stupid mess.

These young children know that they need to respect Indigenous cultures — and know that these cultures were sophisticated and fascinating. That’s what they’ve learned.

But what they don’t have are the lessons from an earlier time that would balance out this new appreciation. Instead, their lessons speak against an earlier way of thinking about the country. Without that earlier knowledge, what these kids are getting is the now off-balanced focus on reconciliation, relationships to the land, and inclusivity.

What they lack is the broader story of the settler societies that created Canada — about the dynamism of centuries of progress from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment to the creation of modern forms of democracy, liberalism, and parliamentary institutions. Yet, this isn’t part of the elementary curriculum.

This isn’t the fault of any individual teacher (many of whom are wonderful).

It is, though, about the excesses of a cultural shift — well-intentioned — but also clueless as to its unintended consequences.

This Canada Day, perhaps it’s time to take a lot of the knowledge that’s baked into those pioneer villages dotted across the country and put it back into the curriculum.

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Canada’s long-standing tradition of sweeping its British roots under the rug

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Christopher Dummitt: Canadians need a proud, not guilt-ridden Canada

2025/03/18 Leave a comment

Ongoing arguments for a needed correction:

…The second key element of any national cultural policy ought to be a more realistic approach to pluralism. Canadians live in a country of different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. We aren’t unified. But the fundamental error of the last decade was to do diversity wrong — to engage in a downward spiral of national subtraction. Out of a well-intentioned, but horribly mistaken desire to protect certain historically marginalized groups, we kept demoting our national heroes out of a belief that they “harmed” people in the present.

A pragmatic pluralism would recognize that one people’s hero will be another’s villain. This absolutely should not mean dishonouring anyone because one group says they are hurt.

Heritage harm is a choice. No one has to be offended when they walk into a school named after someone whom they don’t respect. Conservatives aren’t psychologically damaged when they fly out of Pearson airport. Nor do Liberals suffer when they tour the Diefenbunker. Francophones don’t need to avert their gaze as they drive through Durham region just because Lord Durham once advocated for their assimilation. And a Wendat/Huron Canadian doesn’t need to feel threatened when driving past Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory just because the Mohawk people once wiped out Huronia.

Any Canadian party that wants to be seriously considered as a defender of the nation should promise a pragmatic pluralism which builds up and doesn’t tear down our country. Each group of Canadians should be allowed to keep their historical heroes. Instead of tearing down John A. Macdonald statues, a new federal government should promise to raise statues of figures like Tecumseh or Big Bear. Canada is a diverse country. We can have a diverse set of historical heroes. No one gets a veto. Individual Canadians can choose to be harmed by a name if they want — but our national government needs to be bigger than this — stronger and more resilient.

What’s more, a third key promise ought to be the adoption of a culturally mature notion of diversity. Canada hasn’t always looked the way it does today. People in the past didn’t think the same or act the same. A responsible national government would take pride and celebrate this diversity.

Canada’s prehistory was dominated by Indigenous peoples who have fascinating histories that long-predate the origins of Canada itself. We ought to celebrate these histories. And this shouldn’t mean just pretending that pre-contact Indigenous peoples were benign environmental-loving hippies. We should tell the more accurate and much more fascinating stories of conflict and war and struggle.

From the time of New France up to the 1960s, most Canadians could trace their ancestors back to two places — France and the British Isles. This is just a fact of history and demography. We don’t need to apologize for it. We were an overwhelming white western European colony. We shouldn’t expect our historical figures for much of our history to represent the diversity of multicultural Canada in 2025. They didn’t, and they don’t.

We could instead celebrate the amazing fact of Canadian governments in the 1960s — first under Diefenbaker and then under Lester Pearson — to remove racism from our immigration system. This was an astounding decision. Most groups, for almost all of human history, have wanted homogeneity — to insist on sameness. It’s not odd that Canada was similar before the 1960s, but it is quite amazing that Canada changed its tune. A build-it-up national cultural policy would celebrate this fact, and the Canadians who came before. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Our heritage should be about building up and adding on, not deleting.

Finally, a more mature approach to diversity would acknowledge that Canadians are sophisticated and not bigoted. They don’t have to share the same identity characteristics of our heroes to appreciate Canadian history. That kind of racial in-group thinking is a barrier to true national belonging. You don’t have to be Black to admire Viola Desmond. You certainly don’t need to be white or German-Canadian to be proud of Diefenbaker’s “One Canada vision” and his championing of a Bill of Rights.

Who will offer this proud Canadian vision? Which party will turn its back on the subtraction-heritage distraction of the last decade?

The way ahead ought to be clear: a vision of the country where pride and dignity comes first; a proud pluralism that allows every Canadian group to have its heroes and its stories; and a mature approach to diversity that assumes a resilient Canadian population, one that sees and celebrates our differences over time, and assumes that any Canadian, regardless of their background or when their ancestors arrived here, can share in the story.

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Canadians need a proud, not guilt-ridden Canada

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No devil in Museum of History details

2013/12/05 Leave a comment

Further to my earlier post on the fears of Victor Rabinovitch, former director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, an alternate more relaxed perspective by Christopher Dummit of Trent University, following the unveiling of the plans for the rebranded Canadian Museum of History:

David Morrison, the head of the team putting together the new Canada Hall, revealed that the main stories to be told were the relations between aboriginal peoples and European settlers, French — English relations, and the experiences of new immigrants. Political history would give structure to the exhibit but “the real content is the consequences of political history …. What did this mean to ordinary people?” He got out ahead of the critics by asserting that the museum would include many troubled aspects of the nation’s history including “residential schools, the imprisonment of Ukrainian Canadians during the First World War, anti-potlatch laws and the forced relocation of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.”

Where were the swords and scythes, the royalists with machine guns, the mock lynching-in-absentia of Lester Pearson? Absent. For now, anyway. Perhaps between now and the opening, Harper’s history apparatchiks will descend to wreak their havoc. Maybe. More likely, the new museum will give us a benign version of Canada’s history — a museumified Canadian Studies 101.

No devil in Museum of History details.

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