Canadians Are Now Fighting For Their Culture

The Great Northern Rejection of Multiculturalism

Image of the Brampton Hindu statue from True North

“Canada does have a culture. It is more than ideals, hockey and Tim Hortons. We have a dominant ethnic (Anglo/Franco), there is an ancient story there, it’s full of ethno-cultural tradition. The ideals come from it, as does the spirit of our unique Canadian dominant ethnic culture.” - James Pew (@NotWokeThinker) posted to X, December 19, 2023.”

By

James Pew

Multiculturalism was imposed by elite Canadians in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s a story that deserves a full treatment. I plan to write a detailed history of exactly what happened, including the public policy track that morphed from immigration reform into a radical ideology that set the country on a path to race antagonism and post nationhood. The historical account of immigration reform and multiculturalism in Canada will need to be a detailed one - in the meantime, Mr. M and I briefly touched on this in an essay we wrote last year called Charting the Great Illiberal Subversion in Canadian Education. Here is an excerpt from a section of that essay called Immigration, multiculturalism, media, and identity politics:

“Since the beginning of the 20th century Canada has been a leading destination for immigrants. Up until the 1960s, with the majority arriving from European countries, immigrants were expected to assimilate into the mainstream society. Changes to immigration policy in the 1960s resulted in a shift in the demographic configuration of Canada through the 1970s and beyond, accompanied by changes in attitudes and policy directions related to the enculturation of immigrants. Over this period, visible minorities were imported at a greater number than had ever been and further changes in policy direction, clearly brought about through social pressures exerted by the reoriented approach to immigration, ultimately redefined Canada as multicultural.

It was 1971 when Canada embarked on a project that many other nations attempting similar approaches found to be abject failures. When Pierre Trudeau declared that Canada was to become the first multicultural country, he and the original framers of what was often referred to as the cultural mosaic had a vision of a tapestry of ethno-cultural traditions coexisting peacefully throughout the nation. In many ways Canadian multiculturalism yielded those fruits imagined by the Pierre Trudeau government, but unfortunately (and subversively) what also sprouted forth was ideological antiracism. Alarmingly, much of it centered on the black nationalism / black Marxism practiced by radical social agitators under the guise of social justice.”¹

And for those who don’t mind if I impart the gist of my thesis briefly, let me just remind Canadians of a breathtaking historical fact: Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau declared Canada to be the world’s first multiculturalism, and years later his son, Justin Trudeau, also as Prime Minister, declared Canada to be the world’s first “post-nation.” 

At some point, after the initial declaration of Canada’s multiculturalism, a peculiar thing became apparent. Indeed, “multiculturalism,” as it had evolved to function in practice, seemed not to include the host culture upon which it was installing a multitude of foreign cultures. The host culture, what was and still can be referred to as Canada’s cultural heritage, was being adapted to a new national condition in a way that involved the slow erasure of its symbols, myths and traditions, especially concerning the aspects most strongly attached to the founding Anglo/Franco mythology. (I leave out the Aboriginal component on purpose here, as a special explanation is required. The Anglo/Franco component gets the emphasis because it is responsible for the transplantation of the Western cultural values and traditions which formed the bedrock of the original Canadian character).

A few qualities that made up that character, in my view, are curiosity and exploratory-ness, coupled with Protestant work ethic and family values, strong liberal and democratic attachments, open minded and friendly people, both to aboriginal Canadians and to foreign immigrants, heroic in battle, our soldiers were internationally recognized as a force to be reckoned with, and even more importantly, they were thought of as reliable. In the big scheme of things, we may not have been a contender, but we were most definitely a meaningful contributor. 

I think this has something to do with a spirit that can only exist in a pre-multicultural paradigm. Or at least in a paradigm of assimilation, where a nation has no confusion over its cultural heritage and national identity, and so projects a message which resonates and results in a unified national spirit. Multiculturalism kills that spirit, dead. The more involved up-coming deep dive on this topic will provide a thoughtful definition of multiculturalism, until then let me just throw the following out there and see if this provokes thought:

Multi-cultural = Bad.

Multi-racial = Good.

One small qualifier. Under a multi-racial framework a nation must have a strong cultural heritage that it is not afraid to celebrate, and it must also have a strong policy and program of assimilation that helps with enculturation of newcomers into the norms of liberal democracies, where human rights, the rule of law, and enlightenment rationality are exalted. But assimilation should go even further than ideals and inform and encourage newcomers about how to participate in the full range of Canadian cultural heritage including things like speaking English or French, practicing Christianity, engaging in Canada’s founding and subsequent history including the unique relationship with Canadian aboriginals, etc. Again if we are a country with a strong cultural heritage that we aren’t afraid to promote, advocate, exalt, and defend, then we should be infinitely creative and innovative in how we promote, romanticize and sell newcomers on our illustrious Canadian story and vision.

Instead of telling newcomers what awful shits we are, that our history is full of genocidal dark chapters, imagine instead if we were in touch with reality, and told the mostly positive story of a triumphant little, but also gigantic, nation that has been nothing less than an admirable contributor on the world stage, and a dashing success on the domestic one. 

I digress. Earlier this week, controversy broke out over recent developments concerning the erasure of Canada’s cultural heritage. First, Toronto’s Marxist mayor, Olivia Chow and the socialist city council she rules, decided (with what appears to be no public consultation), to rename Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square. However, what was intended to be an “antiracist” move, turned out to be a really dumb one. 

“Sankofa” comes from Ghana and is attached to a time period entangling the Ghanaian locals, who thought “Sankofa” was the cats ass, with the slave trade. Whereas, Dundas, who is being replaced by a word spoken glowingly by slave traders, was himself a hero of the abolitionist movement. In a postmodern paradigm, brains are broken, what more proof do we need? Anyway, just read about Henry Dundas on the Dorchester Review FFS!

Other issues that caught my attention were the debate that occurred on X and in independent media over O Canada being sung in Punjabi at a Winnipeg Jets hockey game, and a 55 foot Hindu statue that was recently erected in Brampton Ontario. Those who are defending this type of cultural encroachment are appealing to Religious Liberty and to private property rights. In both cases they make good arguments. However, even if added together, these arguments are inadequate and unconvincing. The freedoms enjoyed by citizens of a Western liberal democracy are to be maximized to the most practicable extent, however, they are not to be employed in the service of an ideology that seeks to erase the foundations on which those sacred Western liberties sit. 

That brings me to Harrison Faulkner and Candice Malcom from True North. Harrison reacted to both the Punjabi rendition of the national anthem, and the Hindu statue story, in a way I deem appropriate (Harrison shares my outrage). Then, Candice produced a True North video discussing the issue, Harrison’s take, and the X controversy Harrison and other commenters who defended Canada’s cultural heritage inspired. 

Here is the Candice Malcom video:

Here is what Harrison Faulkner had to say about Punjabi O Canada on X:

“We are right to oppose this display, as any person would be right to oppose this display in their country. Canada is not a melting pot of the world's cultures. Canadians are a distinct people and we have the right to seek to preserve that for our future generations. Politicians of all parties, at all levels, have been complicit in the destruction of Canadian identity. This is the result and Candians don't like it.”

I agree with both Harrison and Candice. However, I would criticize their takes in the same way I criticized the detractors who argued “Private Property,” and “Religious Freedom” in favour of the Hindu statue. In my view, Candace and Harrison provided excellent but inadequate analysis. While I agree with them (almost to the word), I feel there is so much more that needs to be said in defense of Canada’s cultural heritage.

Here is another X Post from Harrison, he makes a good point!

I promise to write a detailed essay that expands on this soon. I am still deep in the research and writing stages of a big project that I have been publishing in chunks on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict (which among other things, explains why that foreign conflict is of such consequence to people living in the West). That series is being published on my personal Substack called The Turn - there you can read my latest essay on Israel called The Case for Israel.

Before I forget, here is a great advocate for history: known on X as Jenifer Dundas - follow her, learn history right! She posts the straight goods about Henry Dundas.

I’ll add a final thought before I sign off. Since the supporters of Brampton’s new Hindu Statute and Winnipeg’s new Punjabi O Canada are freedom minded agents of enlightenment, they won’t mind at all if I exercise my freedom of speech and tell readers of Woke Watch Canada exactly how I feel about that 55 foot menacingly hideous abomination desecrating the landscape, and the equally insulting offence of that awful Punjabi O Canada disaster.

The examples given above of Canada’s culture erasure are merely the tip of the iceberg. We all know this nonsense has been going on for years. Examples are uncountable. This topic absolutely deserves a full treatment…maybe I’ll make it my new year's resolution to write it up in 2024!! In case I don’t publish again until after the 25th, please have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

___

Thanks for reading. For more from this author read, Historical Injustice & Class Action Settlements

BREAKING NEWS: James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Gave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

There are now two ways to support Woke Watch Canada through donations:

1) By subscribing to the paid version of the Woke Watch Canada Newsletter for - $7 Cdn/month or $50 Cdn/year

2) By making a contribution to the Investigating Wokeism In Canada Initiative, which raises the funds necessary to maintain and expand Woke Watch Canada’s research and investigation into Dysfunctional Canadian School Boards, Education, Indigenous Issues, Free Speech, and other areas of Illiberal Subversion and the Canadian Culture Wars.

1. For the development of an alternative race-centric form of Marxism, see Black Marxism: the Making of the Black Radical Tradition by black studies professor Cedric Johnson. Elbaum (2002, 121), a self-styled “New Communist” observed this about the Marxist-Leninist and (black) nationalist activism of the late 1960s: “Marxist-Leninism also gained ground relative to revolutionary nationalism within the African American movement. Though these two currents intertwined considerably in the first few years after 1968, a process of differentiation inevitably took place as revolutionaries started to formulate more defined strategies and build organizations to implement them.” For the debt which anti-racism ideology owes to Marxian theorizing, see Mansfield and Kohoe 1994, 2; Bakan and Enakshi 2014.