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Integration before Assimilation: Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Canadian Polity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

John C. Harles
John C. Harles
Affiliation:
Messiah College
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Abstract

As a strategy of immigrant inclusion, official multiculturalism in Canada is based on the premise that national integration is possible, even preferable, without assimilation. This article considers whether such an approach can be successful. Drawing on a qualitative study of Lao immigrants in Ontario, it is suggested that newcomers can in fact be disposed to high levels of political commitment, specific mechanisms of political assimilation aside, as a result of the process of immigration itself. At least in the short term, though perhaps mainly in the short term, the Canadian political order does not seem to suffer for lack of an assimilative emphasis.

Résumé

Comme stratégie d'inclusion des immigrants, le multiculturalisme au Canada est construit sur la prémisse voulant que l'intégration nationale soit possible, sinon préférable, sans assimilation. Cet article examine si cette démarche peut réussir. À partir d'une étude qualitative effectuée auprès d'immigrants Laotiens en Ontario, cette étude propose que les nouveaux venus peuvent, en fait, être enclin d'afficher un niveaux élévé d'engagement politique compte-tenu du processus d'immigration lui-même lorsque ne sont pas considérés les mécanismes d'assimilation politique. Au moins à court terme, voire même principalement à court terme, l'ordre politique canadien ne semble pas souffrir de l'absence de pressions assimilationnistes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 711 - 736
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1997

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References

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24 According to statistics compiled by Employment and Immigration Canada, between 1979 and 1990, 16,297 immigrants from Laos were resettled in Canada, over 5,800 of those in Ontario alone ( Employment and Immigration Canada, Immigration Statistics [Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1989], 20Google Scholar; and Employment and Immigration Canada, Annual Report, 1990–1991 [Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1991], 50).Google Scholar These figures do not strictly distinguish individuals on the basis of ethnicity—rather, all individuals whose origins are somewhere in Laos are regarded for statistical purposes as Lao. Neither do they differentiate “highland” Lao—most prominently Hmong and Mien tribespeople—from “lowland,” or ethnic, Lao. It is the political orientations of this latter contingent, historically the politically and culturally dominant group in Laos, that the present study explores.

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