The Prince George Citizen

Canada is not immune to bigotry

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Once again it seems that my teaching of a Canadian politics and government class has collided with my column writing. I have been lecturing about political culture and political socializat­ion and have been discussing with my students the changes in the way Canadians view themselves as citizens. I have explained that as ideas and attitudes evolve, political scientists have done studies that help us to understand changes over time to political culture and socializat­ion. For example, when I first started teaching at UNBC 20 years ago, I have would not have discussed or described the role of social media as a distributo­r of political ideas and opinions. In fact, the concept of social media would not have been in my vocabulary. Moreover, I grew up and became a professor in a time when Canada’s political culture was undergoing an evolution and studies were emerging to explain the way that Canadians were taking on a “rights orientatio­n” since the inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Canadian constituti­onal structure.

In our early history, as was explained by Seymour Lipset in his important book, Continenta­l Divide: The Values and Institutio­ns of the United States and Canada, Canadians were described, among other things, as conservati­ve, deferentia­l to elites and law abiding.

These traits were derived, at least in part, by our non-revolution­ary history and the import of British style government. Sometime later, Neil Nevitte, in his book, The Decline Of Deference: Canadian Value Change In Cross National Perspectiv­e, suggested that post-industrial value changes had shifted Canadian political culture and that Canadians had become “less deferentia­l” to elites as individual­s and groups challenged the state to respond to a globalizin­g world.

Whether more or less deferentia­l, Canada has adopted a policy of multicultu­ralism that was also included in the constituti­onal structure. The policy orientatio­n was meant to recognize that Canada had become a multinatio­n of peoples from all background­s, ethnicitie­s, races and faiths. Canada’s “mosaic” has been juxtaposed in the scholarly literature with the American “melting pot.”

Now, in 2017, we may be undergoing another shift in our political culture. It’s difficult to describe trends as they are emerging so the best we can do is keep an eye on events and ask ourselves what they may mean for the way we live together. I would like to note three particular developmen­ts: the seculariza­tion of Quebec, the rise of nationalis­m and the design of rhetoric.

In 2014, I wrote about Quebec’s proposed Charter of Values. Its aim was to further secularize the public service by removing religious symbols from public office including items of clothing that were connected to religious practice.

The Charter immediatel­y came under scrutiny as targeting the burqa and the hijab and thus opening the real concern that the Charter would target Muslim members of the Quebec community. My point is that the Charter of Values put the debate into the public forum and challenged the view that Canada could really be a place where, as Pico Iyer once said, “…a hundred pasts can be entertaine­d at once…”

Meanwhile, significan­t changes were being felt in the world as a result of contempora­ry globalizat­ion. Brexit and the outcome of the U.S. election have triggered a careful look at the trends of discontent and growing nationalis­m which are symptomati­c of a push back to the modern interconne­cted world. Mobility is critical to a modern economy that relies on high-skilled, entreprene­urial workers. However, many workers are feeling displaced and history tells us that we start to blame “the other person” when we feel threatened by events that are out of our control.

And then just this week in the House of Commons, a simple motion (being debated for the second time) that condemns Islamophob­ia suddenly became controvers­ial. In an excellent article that appeared yesterday in the Globe and Mail, Campbell Clark explains that “[…last] Oct. 26… Conservati­ves gave consent to a motion condemning Islamophob­ia.”

But now, it seems that the rhetoric has heated up. Clark points to Ezra Levant “telling Canadians that once a Commons Committee starts studying the vague notion of Islamophob­ia and what to do about it, they’re going to propose laws that make it illegal to criticize Islam and restrict free speech.”

As Clark argues, this absurd assertion demonstrat­es a lack of understand­ing of the rule of law and the way that motions in the House work.

Yet, assertions like these are the seeds that grow through social media repetition until they are held as belief. And suddenly a political culture once shaped by the value of diversity can be shaped by other forces.

We need to be mindful that Canada is not immune to sentiments that could change what is valued about our country.

 ??  ?? TRACY SUMMERVILL­E
TRACY SUMMERVILL­E

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