Salim Mansur has written in the Toronto Sun:
Multiculturalism is a diminution of Canada’s founding history. It diminishes the vitality and largeness of the political culture that has accommodated a multitude of ethnicities within its borders, while it fails in bringing to immigrants — especially of non-European origin — a compensating increase in appreciation for those values that went into building Canada as a model of civility...Mansur fails to explain something: why is it that multiculturalism flourished soon after non-Europeans started to enter and remain in Canada? Could it be that the differences between Canada’s founders and these current immigrants are just too great?
It is now for the rest of us to engage in a constructive discussion on how to roll back multiculturalism, this doctrine of divisiveness, for the love of Canada.
How much easier is it for a Ukranian immigrant to assimilate fully and unconditionally to Canadian culture than it is for an Indian or Chinese immigrant? Based on cultural, historical and civilizational backgrounds, non-Europeans undoubtedly find it much more difficult.
These are the kinds of difficult questions that writers like Mansur have to face in order to talk honestly about immigration and multiculturalism. Then, we can discuss whether in this current climate and historical juncture it is even feasible to change or dismantle the multicultural policies. But I am getting more and more pessimistic, and I think that in Canada, multiculturalism is here to stay.
