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.
