Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Canadian Multiculturalism During the Harper Governments (2006–2015): Diachronic Variance and the Importance of Electoral Outcomes

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Diversity in Decline?

Part of the book series: Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series ((CAL))

  • 494 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter takes the first step in developing the book’s hypothesis. It highlights multicultural policy developments that took place in Canada between 2006 and 2015. It points out the paradox that the first (2006–2008) and second (2008–2011) Harper Conservative governments continued to implement multiculturalism and even maintained previous levels of public expenditures on Canada’s multiculturalism program. It shows that Canada began to experience a real and overt retreat from multiculturalism under the third Harper Conservative government (2011–2015). Based on this evidence, the chapter draws preliminary theoretical propositions about electoral results and multicultural outcomes as well as on the role of veto players and policy design as additional impediments to multicultural retreat.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    After an extended period of electoral success, the Progressive Conservative Party suffered devastating losses in the early 1990s. At the 1984 and 1988 federal elections, the Progressive Conservative Party formed consecutive majority governments winning 211/282 parliamentary seats in 1984 and 169/295 parliamentary seats in 1988. At the 1993 federal elections, the Progressive Conservatives lost control of all but 2 of their parliamentary seats. The party did only marginally better in the next two federal elections, winning 20 parliamentary seats in 1997 and 12 parliamentary seats in 2000. In brief, from the early 1990s to 2000, the Progressive Conservatives were supplanted by the Liberal Party of Canada as the country’s governing political party and were electorally outpaced by the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party and the Reform Party, three of Canada’s “third-parties” (Bélanger 2004).

  2. 2.

    Between 2005 and 2008, the province of Québec experienced what is commonly referred to as “the reasonable accommodation debate.” By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century Québec’s yellow press had begun to expose what they termed “excesses” of accommodation. Very quickly the number of news reports on “excesses” of accommodation began to multiply and, in the words of Giasson et al. (2010), coalesced together to form a “media tsunami” that created the illusion of deep divide between Québec’s Francophone majority and the province’s immigrant population. This “tsunami” then found its way into political discourse. December 15, 2006, Mario Dumont, leader of the Action Démocratique du Québec, asked that he be permitted a “reasonable accommodation” on behalf of the on behalf of the province’s majority to wish Québécois “merry Christmas” rather than the non-denominational tidings offered by the leaders of the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Québec Liberal Party (Chartrand, Journal de Montreal, December 15, 2006). A few months later, Dumont issued a public statement appealing to Québécois that the majority should not “curve its spine” over issues of accommodation and that a clear statement should be made about Québec’s core societal values (Shields, Le Devoir, January 16, 2007). For some commentators (Nieguth and Lacassagne 2009), it was this appeal that helped the ADQ garner enough political support to win 37 additional seats in the Québec National Assembly and, in so doing, to present a real challenge to the PQ-QLP two-party hegemony in Québec politics. Faced with this new threat, Premier Jean Charest, leader of the Québec Liberal Party, co-opted the discussion on excesses of accommodation and launched a public commission, chaired by sociologist Gérard Bouchard and philosopher Charles Taylor, tasked with examining the place of Article 10 of the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms within the context of Québec society’s immutable and non-negotiable collective values. Since the Charter’s inception in 1975, public institutions (and in many cases private institutions) have taken article 10 to mean that they are also under the obligation to ‘reasonably accommodate’ the following protected characteristics: race, colour, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, civil status, age, religion, political convictions, language, ethnic or national origin, social condition, or handicap. Between 2007 and 2008, the commission, chaired by Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard, conducted public inquiries into the status of reasonable accommodation and majority–minority relations in Québec. After much discussion and debate, the commission’s final report, the Bouchard-Taylor Report, declared that the talk about “excesses” of accommodation was much to do about nothing: Québec’s francophone majority had simply suffered an “anxiety” attack and there was little to any evidence that the province’s policy of reasonable accommodation had failed or was malfunctioning (Bouchard-Taylor Report, 18).

  3. 3.

    The “Quiet Revolution” was set in motion by the death of Maurice Duplessis in 1959 and the subsequent electoral victories of the Lesage Liberals in 1960 and 1962. Maurice Duplessis headed of the Union Nationale, an ultra-conservative political party with a largely rural electoral base and he served as Premier of Québec from August 17, 1936 to November 8, 1939 and then from August 30, 1944 to his death on September 7, 1959. This period of time leading up to the “Quiet Revolution” is sometimes referred to as “la Grande Noirceur” (the Great Darkness), indicating that Québec society had not yet entered modernity (Linteau 1999).

  4. 4.

    The province of Québec has held two referenda on national sovereignty, the first in 1980 and the second in 1995. Both the 1980 and 1995 Québec independence referenda where initiated by PQ governments. In total, 3,738,854 ballots were cast in the 1980 referendum held on May 22, 1980; 59.56% (2,187,991) of ballots were cast for the “no” vote against Québec acquiring sovereignty while 40.44% (1,485,852) of ballots were cast for the “yes” vote in favour of Québec acquiring sovereignty. The outcome of the 1995 referendum, held on October 30, 1995, also saw the “no” side prevail. The results were much closer this time around; in total, 4,757,509 ballots were cast, with 50.58% (2,362,648) going for the “no” vote against Québec acquiring sovereignty and 49.42% (2,308,360) going for the “yes” vote in favour of Québec acquiring sovereignty.

  5. 5.

    Given that the term is employed in the context of a distinction between an immigrant on the path to citizenship and “our community.”

  6. 6.

    Romain Garbaye (2014) contends that political discourse in Canada on diversity, multiculturalism and immigration during the Harper governments is evidence that the dissemination of ideas on integration and accommodation which have typically flowed from Canada to Great Britain may now be reversing course.

  7. 7.

    Translated from the French: “Ma position est très claire, vous la savez tous, vous la connaissez tous. Je crois que si un homme ne peut pas imposer sa volonté… [concernant] comment une femme s’habille, on [ne] devrait pas avoir un état qui impose comment une femme [ne] devrait pas s’habiller”.

  8. 8.

    Translated from the French: “Notre position depuis longtemps est quand on se joint à la famille canadienne…on ne devrait pas cacher l’identité. Et c’est la raison pour laquelle…on croit que des nouveaux citoyens doivent prêter serment à visage découvert” (ibid.).

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada

    Arjun Tremblay

Authors
  1. Arjun Tremblay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Tremblay, A. (2019). Canadian Multiculturalism During the Harper Governments (2006–2015): Diachronic Variance and the Importance of Electoral Outcomes. In: Diversity in Decline? . Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02299-0_4

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02299-0_4

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02298-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02299-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation