Vancouver, April 6, 2004
Canada’s Social Fabric: Embracing Duality and Diversity
Speaking Notes for the Laurier Speaker Series
on Diversity and the Future of Canada
Dr. Dyane Adam - Commissioner of Official Languages
Check against delivery
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen...
It’s a pleasure to be here as a guest of the Laurier Institution, which is an important centre for advancing the multicultural values so many of us share.
It’s an equal pleasure to be here in Vancouver, which is teaching the world how to warmly welcome large numbers of new immigrants and teaching it about the wonderful diversity that these immigrants bring to all of us.
In the last 15 years, Vancouver has seen dramatic waves of immigration that have changed the face of your city in exciting ways: in art, architecture and fashion, to name a few.
A visitor can see these changes by just looking at your city’s restaurants, where a fusion of many national cuisines is suddenly creating a new global menu.
This fusion has given Vancouver one of the most hybrid and eclectic cuisines in the world, one that is inventing the new out of the old. Look at a menu and you will see creations like Japanese Tapas, or nouvelle Thai-Indian cuisine, or Greek Filo enchiladas.
Someone recently read me THIS item from a menu here: "Duck crepe in Chinese hoisin sauce brule... served with chutney and a Japanese wasabe lemon-mayo quesadilla.”
That’s at least five cuisines embracing each other in one dish.
Vancouver’s success at fusing so many global cuisines is symbolic of its success at fusing so many nations into one city: 46% of the adults in Vancouver and its suburbs were born outside Canada, and visible minorities now form over 25% of your city’s population.
You have the third biggest Chinatown in the world, not to mention a prospering Little India AND a Little Italy, as well as fast growing Persian, South American, East Indian, Japanese and Jewish communities, to name only a few. And you have a growing French speaking community.
And of course you have the country’s third largest First Nations population, whose contribution to the city is noted the moment you step into your stunning airport.
Your whole city is becoming a kind of human fusion cuisine of the future.
This is what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan meant when he recently described Canada as a "kind of United Nations" unto itself, as it is a diverse and multilingual society of Anglophones, Francophones, immigrants and Aboriginal peoples.
"You are a born multilateralist,” he said "naturally adept at the give and take of international cooperation."
This is true. In a way, Canada is a microcosm of the world, where all cultures, languages... and FOODS are represented. And Vancouver is one of the key reasons why Canada is now seen as a world leader in multiculturalism and diversity.
In recent years, Canada has made greater strides than perhaps any other country in accepting diversity and in celebrating it. We are a country whose strength and identity is increasingly in its MANY identities.
Diversity is now part of our national fabric, creating an ever-changing Canadian who is more adaptive to the outside world, because he or she lives literally IN that world’s communities every day, when that Canadian sees the next-door neighbours.
The Agha Khan, the Muslim leader and philanthropist, has called Canada QUOTE "the most successful pluralist society on the face of our globe."1
Why are we Canadians proving so successful at accepting and embracing this new globalism?
As Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, I believe this success is partly linked to our history. I believe that bilingualism and biculturalism are the foundations for our success as a multicultural country and that our linguistic duality and our diversity go hand in hand.
Ultimately, they make each other stronger than either would be alone. And let me outline some of the reasons.
REASON 1: To start with, there is our history. Canada is a country that has wrestled with bilingualism and biculturalism and that has learned to accommodate them in ways that very few, if any, countries have.
Our nation has spent two centuries struggling with these issues and resolving them, first as we worked to create a nation built on the rights of two founding nations and our Aboriginal heritage, and then as we gradually learned to welcome those who came from many other lands.
The negotiation of a successful compromise between English and French has shaped our country, our institutions and our spirit of generosity.
Compromise has been at the very origin of Canada.
A leading public intellectual and Australian author, David Malouf, recently delivered the Fifth Annual Lafontaine-Baldwin Lecture in Toronto. He reminded us of an important moment in our history. As I quote :
"Precisely where the venture we call Canada began must be almost impossible to determine. (...) One significant moment, no doubt, was when the two men who give their names to this lecture series, Lafontaine and Baldwin, bringing with them their people, their language groups and the experience they represented, made common cause to win responsible government.
Equally decisive was the reaction of the Lafontaine-Baldwin administration to the burning of Parliament in 1848. (...)
Your authorities chose to go against conventional wisdom and practice, and by a bold act of imagination and faith in the people lay down a new law. In this place violence will not be met with violence because authority here is to be founded on something other than force. (...)
These moments when the temper of a society is defined and shown are decisive. It is these patterns of behaviour, this temper, more than any form of government that in the end determines the kind of society we create; how far it conforms to the common good; how, from one century to the next, it can be referred back to, and kept true to its own best self."2
We are a nation of conciliators who fight our battles with words, not weapons, using ballots, not bullets, and using pollsters instead of holsters.
And when we do send in the tanks, they are very Canadian tanks. They are think tanks, whose job is to ensure cooperation instead of confrontation.
Our success at meshing two nations into one country has created a dualistic way of life that attracts immigrants from all over the world. And I think that is one of the most important reasons for our success with multiculturalism.
REASON 2: Canadians have long understood the value of speaking other languages. A recent survey shows that 77% of Canadians now support bilingualism. And among parents who want their children to learn a second language, three out of four Anglophones choose French.
Meanwhile, 98% of Francophone parents want their children to learn English.
As Commissioner, I’m always glad to see such high levels of support for second language learning. But I’m never surprised. Surveys show the vast majority of Canadians have supported bilingualism since the early 1980s. And they have supported it in all parts of the country, including Western Canada.
In British Columbia today, more than 33,000 children go to full-time French immersion public schools, simply because they and their families want them to. That’s over 5% of all public school students, while 10% of those in kindergarten are also studying in French. In total, close to 240 000 students are taking French as a second language in British Columbia.
This is not just idealism – it’s pragmatism. Like many Canadians, British Columbians understand the advantages of speaking our second language. It is an investment in our children’s future.
According to a recent Compass poll, more than half of Canadian business leaders think that people who speak more than one language will have an easier time finding work. And nine out of ten Canadians agree that bilingual people will be more successful in today’s world economy.
As Canadians, we recognize that in today’s global village, two language skills are a key condition to our children’s and our nation’s success.
We know that bilingualism is good for our families, for our country and for us. And, to boot, French and English are relatively easy second languages for most Canadians to learn, because they are kissing cousins with shared ancestors.
The English and French languages have common roots that go back almost one thousand years to the Norman Conquest, and they have been borrowing words from each other ever since. Today, they have some 10,000 words in common.
That’s why it is easier for many of you to learn French than you know. You ALREADY speak it. You just don’t realize it.
For instance, if I tell you I’m planning to have a rendezvous in a bistro for a little tête-a-tête over a café au lait and a croissant... or maybe an apéritif... I suspect you all understand every word I’ve said.
That’s because most of you are partly bilingual to start with, even if you haven’t studied any French. You are citizens of Canada, where even unilingual English-speakers have a lot of savoir-faire.
Unofficial bilingualism is deep in our skin AND our attitudes. This makes us more international and more NATURALLY open to the world.
REASON 3: Canada’s bilingualism also gives us a competitive advantage over our American neighbours, whose second-language skills have lagged behind ours.
But our advantage won’t last long unless we continue to advance, given the fast-changing immigration patterns in the US.
Today, 18 per cent of Americans speak a second language at home and US Secretary of Education Rod Paige recently said that foreign-language instruction should soon become part of every child’s education.
He added: "A language is more than sounds and syntax. It is a culture: a way of thinking and a perspective on the world. A language opens the mind to new possibilities.”
When you learn to love two languages it’s a short hop to three languages and more. It takes away the mystery and even the TERROR of mastering another language, and turns that fear into excitement instead.
That is another reason why we are committed to teaching many more Canadians how to speak our second language in the near future.
Twenty-five percent of young Canadian high school graduates are already functionally bilingual. They make up the most bilingual generation in our country’s history. But the government has recently announced an action plan to double the percentage of bilingual graduates in the next 10 years — to 50% — so that more Canadians can enjoy these opportunities, and the benefits, that come with bilingualism.
REASON 4: Canadian linguistic duality has promoted tolerance, as well as an appreciation of other cultures and a welcoming attitude toward newcomers.
When you speak someone else’s language you don’t just communicate with them. You get inside their skin. You come to understand how they think. And this makes you more sensitive to other cultures in general.
Look at other countries and you will see few if any that are as committed as Canada is to welcoming people WITH their traditions.
Unlike France we are not passing laws to ban the chador. Unlike Finland and Norway we do not only permit a trickle of 500 to 1000 immigrants each year. We bring in well over 230,000 new Canadian immigrants a year — 80 times as many per capita as those countries.
We are not like Austria, or Germany, or other countries where you can be a guest worker for decades but never become a citizen with full rights.
These are countries where you must lose part of yourself when you emigrate. In Canada we believe in the opposite, because we have duality built into our country.
From our history, we know that other languages and cultures do not threaten our national identity. They add to who we are.
We believe that what you bring with you from your countries of origin — your language, your traditions and your cultural richness — only makes Canada better.
Artist Andy Warhol once said, "You are what you eat.” But here in Canada I think we are whom we greet.
As waves of immigration and inter-marriage wash over us, it is literally changing who we are.
Today a Canadian may be a Quebec boy with a Persian mother who speaks Farsi at home, French at school and English with his pals at hockey.
A Canadian may be a Sikh from Amritsar, India, who loves rap music, reads Margaret Atwood and eats scones for breakfast.
We live in an increasingly hybrid world where we are all becoming a bit of each other, while remaining ourselves, a human version of that fusion cuisine I talked about earlier. This is something we Canadians have truly earned after our long, hard struggle to create a state that actually embraces our differences.
REASON 5: Lastly, I believe bilingualism and multiculturalism have both become essential parts of our national identity.
As a country we used to identify ourselves with England and then briefly with the US. But in recent decades we have developed our own strong sense of nationhood.
More and more, our national identity is defined by our own unique set of shared Canadian values – values that are connected to multiculturalism, individual rights, Medicare, the environment, peacekeeping and bilingualism.
Two-thirds of Canadians say that living is a country with two official languages is one of the things that really defines what it means to be Canadian.
In fact surveys show that seven out of ten people born in Canada and three out of four immigrants agree that "having two official languages has made Canada a more welcoming place for immigrants from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds.”
Canadians know that bilingualism is strongly linked to multiculturalism and that our country is a more inclusive society because duality and diversity mutually support each other.
Bilingualism is at the very source of our success at integrating newcomers and making them part of the changing fabric of Canadian society. And its continued success will only help those who continue to come and live here.
Still, I know some of you may ask, for an English-speaking Canadian, why choose French as a second language? Why not Spanish or Chinese?
There are several answers.
To start with, French is the mother tongue of one Canadian in four — that’s almost 8 million people — so we have a big head start.
Consequently, learning French is both a personal advantage, and a courtesy to others that helps reinforce our country’s sense of unity and cohesion.
French is by far the most frequent second language of choice for English-speaking Canadians. More than two million Canadians speak French as a second language.
The next most popular non mother-tongue language is Spanish, with about a quarter of a million speakers.
As well, French is an international language, spoken in more countries and on more continents than any other language except English. Twenty-five countries have French as one of their official languages.
It is the second most prevalent language on the Internet, and along with English, one of the languages of world diplomacy. French is an official working language of the United Nations, the Red Cross, the European Economic Community and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, all of which helps our nation have its say in the world.
What better way to enhance our traditional role as diplomats par excellence than to speak the two main diplomatic languages of the world?
I believe speaking two languages is our Canadian signature — our national trademark — along with moose, Mounties and maple leaves.
And we must continue to work so that generations of Canadians can learn these languages and use them to become more successful and competitive global citizens.
In fact, I dream of a day when bilingualism will be the first language of all Canadians and a starting point for learning many, many others.
Thank you for listening, and I wish you continued success here in Vancouver with your fusion of people, of languages — and of delicious restaurant dishes.
Notes
1 Globe and Mail, Feb 2, 2002.
2 David Malouf, "A Country Imagined – Democracy and National Identity in a Global Culture", Fifth Annual Lafontaine-Baldwin Lectures, CBC, March 26, 2004.
