Pollster and author Michael Adams on the future of Canadian diversity
In the days following the tragic murder of a young Muslim girl at the hands of her father media outlets across the country reported allegations that she was killed because of her refusal to wear the hijab. Despite the shaky evidence of this claim the abhorrent act was cited as yet another example of the failure of multiculturalism. The papers declared implicitly if not outright that this act was not exceptional but rather further evidence of a systemic rejection of Canadian values by new immigrants.
“When something bad happens in your own group you say ‘well that was a bad apple’” says Michael Adams Canadian pollster and author of the new book Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism (Viking Canada 180 pp.). “But if in another group somebody does something bad you say ‘oh that person actually is evidence that the whole culture of that group is rotten and they’re all bad people.’ What I’m trying to do is get a sense of what the statistics (are) and how things compare over time in a historical perspective. When we compare Canada to other countries what does it look like?”
As founder and president of one of the largest marketing research and public opinion companies in Canada Environics Adams intends this book to serve as a corrective to the doom and gloom portrayal of multiculturalism in the national press. “I cite certain authors who have been saying since at least 1990 that multiculturalism is a tragic mistake that it leads people to be divided into their own communities that it is encouraging people to not adopt Canadian values and that this will lead to tragedy” he says. “The evidence I see is that that is not the case. People are adopting Canadian values.”
Condemned to involvement with one another by our citizenship in the global village Adams argues that Canadians are increasingly projecting the difficulties encountered elsewhere in the world onto the Canadian landscape. “In the last two or three years with events abroad in France Britain Spain Netherlands Germany Australia and even in the United States Canadians are saying ‘well if it can happen there it will happen here’” Adams says. “I’m not so sure if it will happen there it can happen here.”
Adams who writes in an accessible matter-of-fact style makes a compelling argument that Canadians are succeeding where other nations have failed because of the circumstances of our history. With the Quebec Act of 1774 the British allowed French-Canadians to retain their language and religion an act of accommodation that ensured Canada would never be defined by a single language ethnicity or race. Lacking a core group into which immigrants could assimilate Canada ended up adopting a model of integration that has proved surprisingly well suited to supporting social diversity.
While his book cites a wealth of encouraging information from polls research and census data Adams takes pains to make clear that he is a pollster not a Pollyanna. He pays particular attention to the province of Quebec whose culturally insecure majority seems to have more trouble dealing with the concept of “reasonable accommodation” than the rest of Canada. Despite the fact that he has written a hopeful book Adams acknowledges that there is a time and place for critical assessment.
“We all need to hear bad news” Adams says. “Because if we don’t get the negative feedback we won’t take corrective behaviour. If all we hear is positive feedback that everything’s fine we could find ourselves walking into disaster — sort of like George Bush and the decisions he makes.”
