Pursuing a pro-European ethnic strategy within the framework of Canadian multiculturalism is better than calling upon non-Europeans to assimilate to Canada. European Canadians should utilize current multicultural policies to preserve and enhance their ethnic identity as the founding peoples.
Whites Will Soon Become a Minority in Canada
European Canadians, who still made up about 96 percent of the population in 1971, will be reduced to a deteriorating minority within a few decades. One-third of Canada’s population will be a visible minority by 2031. Projections by Statistics Canada (2010) suggest that “whites will become the minority in Toronto and Vancouver over the course of the next three decades.” South Asians, including Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, are expected to make up 28 per cent of the population in these two cities, and the Chinese alone are estimated to constitute 21 percent. In the city of Vancouver, according to Daniel Hierbert, White residents in Vancouver will be reduced to 2 out of 5 residents by 2031. In Toronto, Europeans will number only 37% of the population.
Statistics Canada defines “visible minorities” as “persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.” If we take aboriginals into account, the projections are that “between 21% and 24% of the population of Saskatchewan and between 18% and 21% of the population of Manitoba” will have an Aboriginal identity in 2031.
(It should be noted that Statistics Canada recognizes the existence of races in these projections, using regularly the terms “Caucasians” and “non-Caucasian in race” or “non-white in colour.” I will follow the terminology of Statistics Canada.)
The fact that these projections are pointing to a future Canada in which “Caucasians” will be increasingly displaced by people who are “non-white in colour” is never seen as an issue by any of the mainstream political parties and the media. Instead, Caucasians who lament their dwindling numbers are categorically denounced as supremacists, while “non-Caucasians in race” who call for a majority Asian Canada are celebrated as vibrant and liberal-minded — regardless of their otherwise intolerant customs, hyper-patriarchal dispositions, and unwillingness to marry outside their race.
Certainly, there are many Canadians who oppose current immigration numbers and policies. These critics are not cold-shouldered as long as they avoid framing the issue in terms that only Statistics Canada can enjoy: “Caucasians” versus “non-whites in colour.”
Four Major Arguments Critical of Immigration
There are four major arguments/groups currently in the air calling for immigration reform. These can be identified as follows:
- immigrants cost more than they benefit Canada economically
- immigration-led-population growth is the major factor causing environmental deterioration
- radical Muslim immigration as a potential threat to Canadian values and security
- the problem lies with the way official multiculturalism discourages immigrants from assimilating to “Canadian values”
The flaw in all these arguments is that they fail to acknowledge the in-group ethnic interests of “non-whites in colour” and “Caucasians” and, for this reason, lack an ethnic strategy dedicated to the preservation and advancement of European Canadians. None of these arguments contain an internally consistent position against the eventual end of European Canada, but are indeed compatible with the statistical trends just outlined above.
Critics concerned about rising house prices, cost to taxpayers, government benefits, unemployment and lower wages for existing Canadians, do make powerful arguments against mass immigration, but they still face intractable difficulties guarding the particular interests of European Canadians:
First, the number of non-Europeans in Canada is already very high, and to speak of “Canadian citizens” in neutral terms is to forget the numerous ethnic enclaves in Canada where millions of “non-whites in colour” are naturally pursuing their own ethnic interests.
Second, immigration can always be shown to have positive economic results for certain groups and sectors of the economy averaged as beneficial for “Canadians” even if the beneficiaries are primarily recent immigrants and non-European ethnic groups.
Third, in a future state of economic affairs, combined with below-replacement fertility rates by European Canadians, it can be shown that immigration brings about “economic growth.” In principle, any argument for or against “the economy” can never be used in favor of the ethnic interests of European Canadians since economic arguments tabulate costs and benefits for the economy and for Canadian citizens rather than for particular ethnic groups. Only by speaking openly about the economic interests of particular ethnic groups can such economic arguments be made effectively.
The ecological argument can be very effective in showing that the biggest cause of environmental degradation is population growth and urban sprawl, and the biggest cause of population growth is immigration. But it faces a comparable inability to fight against the end of European Canada. Since its focus is on population size and density per se, it has no views about the ethnic composition of Canada. By logic, environmentalists would prefer a steady-state situation in which non-Europeans outnumbered Europeans than a growth situation in which Europeans outnumbered non-Europeans. Environmentalists are also intrinsically in favor of low fertility rates for everyone even if it means the proportional reduction of European peoples in Canada.
As it is, as much as environmentalists may want to avoid ethnic issues, they are still ostracized by “progressives” as racists the moment they talk about reducing immigration. They would earn greater respect if they were to state openly that their concerns about the environment and immigration are tied to their concerns about “protecting” the endangered European Canadians.
Those who worry about radical Muslims simply want greater controls on the type of immigrants, “checks” on their ideological background — but in principle they have no complaints against current levels of immigration, and thus no objections to the reduction of Europeans to a minority. They want Muslims to integrate into Canada as individuals with equal rights rather with special group rights. Critics of radical Islam tend to be critical of multiculturalism as well.
Assimilation Argument is Fundamentally Flawed
This brings us to the most popular criticism of our immigration policies, that immigration in Canada has been framed within the ideology of multiculturalism. Immigration would “work” if only immigrants were encouraged to assimilate to “Canadian values”. They say multiculturalism provides immigrant minorities with cultural resources that encourage them to retain their ancestral customs. They want the government and the educational institutions to encourage a sense of Canadian citizenship, loyalty to Canada’s liberal democratic culture. They believe that assimilation to Canada is all about nurturing a new sense of identity that is “civic” rather than “ethnic”. Any immigrant group (with the possible exception of radical Muslims) is capable of disaggregating itself into abstract individual units and join average Canadians. So long as ethnic group identification is discouraged, Canada can remain Canada, according to this argument, even if European Canadians are eventually reduced to a tiny minority and the country becomes populated by masses of Sikhs, Sri Lankans, Chinese, Indians, and Haitians. They criticize multiculturalists for encouraging race-based identities rather than individual rights.
I believe that if we are interested in preserving and advancing the ethnic interests of European Canadians, it is better to work within the existing framework of multiculturalism than to promote assimilation. There are a number of flaws in the assimilationist strategy. For one, they are hyper-liberals in believing that all forms of group identity can be discarded, “freeing” the individual from all historical and biological antecedents and reducing the formation of identities to mere personal choices.
To be clear, multiculturalists also aim for a society based on individuals that are not “constrained” by traditional identities, but believe that, since “non-whites in colour” are still being oppressed by Caucasians, the government must level the playing field by allowing them to assert their ethnic identities. Multiculturalists also believe that non-Caucasians come from traditional cultures with strong collective identities and that the Canadian state has no right to enforce assimilation on immigrants but should allow them to enter Canada’s liberal culture in terms that allow them to enjoy certain group rights as long as these rights do not violate individual rights. In the words of Will Kymlicka, humans (= immigrants) have a “very strong bond” to their culture and ethnicity; therefore, Canada should tolerate their ethnocentric tendencies and European Canadians should embrace multiculturalism.
We need to reply to multiculturalists that European Canadians also have a “very strong bond” to their ethnicity and historical ancestry, and in this way demand (within the framework of multiculturalism) the right of European Canadians to enjoy a group identity within Canada rather than being reduced to abstract units with individual rights only.
Another problem with the assimilationist view is that the “mainstream Canadian values” it emphasizes now includes multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has become deeply embedded in Canadian society and is now seen by millions as “mainstream” — whether we like it or not. Even critics of multicultural policies welcome the ethnic diversification of Canada’s culture. Let’s emphasize the identity of European Canadians and their group right to their own diversity.
Then again, even if multiculturalism were not an official policy or a much accepted norm in Canada, the issue that matters in the long run is the ethnic origins of the immigrants and their proportion relative to the founding peoples. If the immigrants coming to Canada were “Caucasian” we would not be discussing the impending end of European Canada. History shows that assimilation works when the immigrants are primarily “Caucasian.” Assimilation does not work with masses of immigrants from regions that are “non-white in colour.” The much talked about contrast between the American “melting pot” and the Canadian “mosaic” has lost any substantial meaning. Before the 1970s, Canada was a mosaic in the relative separation of the English and the French within Confederation. Conversely, America was a melting pot in the assimilation of peoples to the “American dream” from the same European ethnic background. But to this day, in America, Blacks and Indians have not assimilated well to the culture created by the majority European peoples of America, despite large scale affirmative action and propaganda. The assimilation now seems to be going the other way: White assimilation to African-American norms, or integration of everyone into some generic mass consumer culture.
The melting pot worked — after major difficulties and persisting divisions — only in regards to European immigrants. In recent decades, with the mass entry of Mexicans, there is little melting going on in many areas of the United States. While the United States does not have an official policy of multiculturalism at the federal level, one finds, under the pressure of relentless immigration and political correctness, a multiplicity of pro-diversity policies and programs at the state and municipal levels on matters related to school curricula, policing, hiring practices, and race relations generally. As Nathan Glazer already observed in the late 1990s, under the title, We are all Multiculturalists Now:
The melting pot is no more. Where not very long ago we sought assimilation, we now pursue multiculturalism. Nowhere has this transformation been more evident than in the public schools, where a traditional Eurocentric curriculum has yielded to diversity — and, often, to confrontation and confusion.
Best Argument is to Recognize Ethnocentric Interests of all Groups
The best strategy is to unify all our economic, environmental, and cultural concerns about immigration under a pro-European ethnic group strategy that is operational within, but recognizes the limitations of, multiculturalism in Canada. There are ways in which multiculturalism can be used to serve our interests. Take the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which is a law passed in 1988; this Act says that “multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, enhance and share their cultural heritage.” Clearly, we could use this Act to protect and enhance the cultural and ethnic traditions of European Canadians. For example, we would be in favor of immigration so long as it was demonstrably advantageous to the economic interests of European Canadians. We would also favor immigrants from countries with similar cultural and ethnic backgrounds on the grounds that they would have an easier time and a greater disposition to assimilate to the majority culture of Canada.
It is odd that the very same people who created multiculturalism have precluded themselves from enhancing their own group interests, preferring to speak only of their individual rights while granting both group rights and individual rights to other ethnic minorities. In fact, we have practically criminalized any form of European ethnic attachment, treating it, and only this ethnocentrism, as “a pathological condition.” We need to break out of this mental prison house.
There are of course many limitations within multiculturalism as this policy is currently framed. Multiculturalism supposes (erroneously) that Canada was somehow from the beginning “fundamentally” a nation based on racial diversity and that it must be dedicated to the promotion of diversity. It acknowledges the founding Anglo and French peoples only as linguistic categories. In response, we must affirm the historical truthfulness of Canada as a nation that was created by the Anglos and the French Quebecois, and then by Europeans. The aboriginals were the first people inhabiting this area, but the Anglos and French were clearly the creators of this country; all the institutions, infrastructure, culture, religions, educational curriculum, arts, architecture, everything, were French and Anglo, and from the late 19th century onward other European peoples came to participate.
We will NOT be arguing in favor of multiculturalism as a minority to advance our group rights, but will be arguing within multiculturalism in order to make Europeans aware that they are the founding peoples and that Canada is their homeland and that we intend to keep the country majority European. By working within multiculturalism, locating its weak points, “preserving and enhancing” our culture, demanding our rightful place as the majority Canadian culture, with the right to decide whether we want this country to remain European or not, we will undermine the ways in which multiculturalism currently favors non-Europeans. Minorities should continue to enjoy the right to advance their group rights but should not be granted a dominant position over the founding nation. In seeking to re-establish Canada as a European nation, we demand a special place as the nation’s leading ethnic group such that it becomes official policy that Canada is predominantly European by descent and will ever remain so. Once that minimal condition is achieved, we can all enjoy our individual rights the way we did in the days before official multiculturalism was introduced in 1971.
Our maxim will be the same one expressed by Prime Minister Mackenzie on May 1, 1947, in a speech before parliament:
With regard to the selection of immigrants, much has been said about discrimination. I wish to make quite clear that Canada is perfectly within her rights in selecting the persons whom we regard as desirable future citizens. It is not a “fundamental human right” of any alien to enter Canada. It is a privilege. It is a matter of domestic policy…. There will, I am sure, be general agreement with the view that the people of Canada do not wish, as a result of mass immigration, to make a fundamental alteration in the character of our population. Large-scale immigration from the Orient would change the fundamental composition of the Canadian population.
