An Examination of Multiculturalism's Social Impact on Canada

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the social impact of multiculturalism in Canada. It explores the historical context of multiculturalism, its official adoption in the 1970s and 80s, and its constitutional recognition. The paper examines the influence of multiculturalism on immigration, cultural diversity, and social stratification within Canada, highlighting the country's ethnocultural society and government policies supporting multicultural values. The essay discusses the positive outcomes of multiculturalism, such as racial and ethical peace, inter-cultural understanding, and the fostering of linguistic affiliation. It also analyzes demographic data related to immigration and ethnic groups, including the changing religious landscape. The conclusion emphasizes the success of multiculturalism as a key feature of Canadian identity, promoting equality, respect, and economic growth.

Running head: MULTICULTURALISM – SOCIAL IMPACT ON CANADA
Multiculturalism- Social Impact on Canada
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1MULTICULTURALISM – SOCIAL IMPACT ON CANADA
The primary purpose of this following paper is to focus on how multiculturalism
impacted the society of Canada. As stated by Gorringe (2017), Multiculturalism is the
essence of a sociological fact and can also be termed as cultural pluralism. Multiculturalism
is an ideology where several broad groups of ethnic people merge into participation with each
other considering their own identities. It can be specified as a community where plural
traditions of culture exist. In this connection, keeping Canada into consideration regarding
the value of multiculturalism, this paper argues that the adoption of multiculturalism has
proved to be advantageous for the Canadian people and country as a whole. The principle of
multiculturalism in Canada was officially adopted in the late years 1970’s and 80’s under
Pierre Trudeau (Reiss, 2016). The Canadian Government has set an ideology on the value of
multiculturalism by setting up its prominence on the Social importance on Immigration.
Pierre Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada in its 1970s examined the importance of
recognising the several cultural groups residing in Canada and called up for a program of
Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework. Further, this was taken into consideration
under Section 27, of Charters of Rights and Freedom, and multiculturalism was finally
determined as the part of the Constitution of Canada (Sumino, 2017). Since then, the
ideology of multiculturalism is taken widely into consideration by the Canadians in the field
of both sociology and politics.
Multiculturalism, determining its promise of tolerance, was supposedly insufficient
in satisfying the recognition of the indigenous people in Canada because the concept of
multiculturalism was introduced as a legal concept in Canada since 1971. Whereas, the
indigenous people strived to minority and inheriting rights since long history. In this
connection, Murray (2015) opined that syncretic multiculturalism was taken into
consideration, to involve a binational perspective that would help in recognising the rights of
the indigenous people in Canada. This would not just help the aboriginal people have a right

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to recognition but also help Canada as a country to move beyond the system of colonial
multiculturalism. Further, in the connection of restoration, bringing changes in the operation
of multiculturalism played an essential role in fixing the abuses done to the indigenous
people. In this context, to fulfil this requirement a different set of government was established
to consider the matter. The government was named as Shognosh (Boyd & Lorefice, 2018).
Hence, the shognosh government took a step forward to provide these unrecognised people
with the privilege of residential learning and gaining the opportunity to hold a place in
educational regards and better recognisable policies. This changes in the policies and terms of
multiculturalism for the betterment of the aboriginal people did not just benefit the people but
also created a positive impact in the image of the country (Short & Lennox 2016).
Examining multiculturalism in today’s environment of Canada, this paper analyses
Canada in the connection of the same (Abu-Laban, 2018). Briefly, it can be said that Canada
as a community has headed towards ethnocultural society, which includes people from
different background, cultures and races (Guo & Wong 2018). Not just this, the ideology of
multiculturalism has government policies involved in Canada which takes it to be a political
factor to form a legalised value of multiculturalism in Canada. However, the study examined
that multiculturalism has not been living up to expectations in other parts of Europe, but its
only Canada where the same is into peace and consideration (Ivison, 2016). Canada remains
to be a peaceful and racial free country of ethnic strains and violence. In the Canadian
context, it is believed that all the citizens residing in the country are equal. This fundamental
ensures that all the citizens are liable to have a sense of belongingness to their ancestry, their
own identity and acceptance. This level of recognition provides the people residing in Canada
to enjoy a feeling of security and pride in their personalities. This, in turn, fosters them to be
more open and acceptable towards the diversified cultures in Canada. Based on the Canadian
experience of multiculturalism it was examined that this ideology of plural-cultural

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acceptance has encouraged ethical and racial peace and inter-cultural understanding between
the people. The level of mutual respect for different cultures and traditions helps in the
development of common attributes of attitude. In this connection, the people who are not a
citizen of Canada, but is residing in Canada as an immigrant also respects, addresses and
follows the legal and political norms of Canada as equal to the natives of Canada.
As opined by Robyn (2016), Canada is termed to be a mosaic country because of its
diversified ideology in multiculturalism. The merging of different people in Canada from all
over the world with different races, culture and lifestyle makes it a country of diversification.
By mixing different races, the Canadian government has highly fostered towards eliminating
discrimination and racism (Sheppard, 2016). The Canadians believe in the theory of plural
culture because it creates a clear understanding of different culture and mentality. The people
who immigrate to Canada diversify in learning different languages, cultures and custom.
Furthermore, on analysing the demographics of multiculturalism in Canada, it was
found that in between the years of 2006-2011, a population of about 1,162,900 people
immigrated to Canada, and by the end of 2011 the total number of foreign-born population of
an immigrant in Canada was determined to be of around 6,775,800 (Fleras, 2015). The Asian
region, including the Middle-East, was specified to be the largest source of immigrants in
Canada in the last five years. The National Household Survey (NHS) reported over the
embankment of over 200 ethnic groups originating in the ethnic ancestry of Canada. The
minority population of Canada was visible to some around 6,264,800 people, representing
19.1% of the total population. 30.89% of these minor population were born in Canada, and
the remaining 65.1% were the immigrants born out of Canada. Out of these only, 4% were
not considered as permanent residents of Canada. The age range of this minority population
was estimated to be 33.4 in 2011. The religious distribution in Canada according to a survey
was determined as, two-thirds of the Canadian people to be of the Christian community,

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around 3.2% of them represented themselves as Muslims, 1.5% to be Hindus, 1.4% as Sikhs,
1.1% as Buddhists and 1.0% of Jewish. Around 23.9% of the whole population were
represented under no affiliation of religion. These shreds of evidence shows the ethnocultural
structure of the Canadian society shaped by both its immigrants and descendants. This is a
piece of clear evidence that one of every five citizens of Canada is an immigrant of the
country and not it's descendant.
Social stratification is a term that determines the legalised system of social inequality
(Posselt & Grodsky 2017). It is not similar to that of individual differences but is based on
membership of groups and classes. As the word strata determine the different horizontal
layers of rock, similarly the word social stratification determines the different societal layers
of people. The people obtaining the highest amount of resources are distributed on the top
layer of the stratification and so on. According to Canadian ideology of social stratification,
the Canadian government follows an open system of stratification that allows every citizen in
Canada to have the possibility to gain an equal chance and opportunity to obtain success
(Grusky, 2018). In this connection, Canada dominants the presumption of this structure by
standing on the firm belief of equality of opportunity. This can be ideally contrasted with the
uniformity of condition. The symmetry of condition is an ideal situation where every citizen
can have a similar level of power and status. The same is only viable in the case that every
citizen has equal access to pursue their economic and social rewards, equal access to gain
education and also that they are accessible to every factor without discrimination. Eventually,
it depends solely on the capability of particular individual’s to use the opportunity as per their
interest and passion which would define the social structure of each.
The multicultural ideology of Canada, introduced over more than four decades ago, is
fostering into nation building since it attracts people from all over the globe to immigrate to
Canada and make Canada their home place (Banks, 2015). As mentioned in the above shreds

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of evidences that Canada allows equal rights and participation to every citizen where both the
immigrants and descendants of the country enjoys retaining their identity and ancestry, this
helps the citizens to intermingle with each other freely (Kymlicka, 2015). The people from
different country and culture respects the differences of every single citizen and tries to
communicate, interact and learn the different languages and lifestyles of different people
which enhances the communication of inter-cultural prospects in Canada. The various sectors
of people come together as one and inter-mingle with each other to understand each other's
culture and traditions. This, in turn, creates unity in diversity in Canada and fosters higher
rate of multiculturalism. Both the descendants and immigrants of the Canadian society
continue to believe in respecting and understanding the diversity of bilingual Canada and
behaves accordingly to adjust themselves in the country. Thereby, this helped into the
fostering of linguistic affiliation of Canada (Joshee et al., 2016). In this connection, this
study examined that back in 1996, the Canadian citizens who reported English as their
mother language were just 60% of the population and that of French were almost near to
24%. However, with the change of the decade, the regionalised phenomenon changed and the
percentage of English speaking population increased, and that of French declined. About 17%
of the Canadians were reported to have been speaking both the languages.
To conclude, it can be stated with the help of the above analysis that multiculturalism
in Canada, the people in Canada are well accepted and encouraged towards taking the
different cultures exhaling in society. Canada became a completely officially recognised
multicultural society in 1971. This happened when the government of Canada finally realised
the importance of the dignity and value of different races, languages and cultures of people
residing in Canada. Both the immigrants and the descendants living in Canada were made
viable to enjoy equal rights, opportunities and participation in their daily social and political
life. Moreover, multiculturalism in Canada is examined as one of its most exceptional and

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significant success and a vital differentiating feature of the identity of Canadian people.
Canadian descendants have agreed to the fact that the immigrants from different foreign
countries make Canada a better place to live in and also helps in the growth of the economy
of Canada’s GDP as a whole. Multiculturalism was adopted in Canada in terms of respecting
and recognising the society as a whole including the aspects of diversified culture, religion,
language, customs and races. Therefore, this shred of evidence proves that the ideology of
multiculturalism has shown to be fruitful for both the people of Canada and the country.

7MULTICULTURALISM – SOCIAL IMPACT ON CANADA
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