CANADA : UNITY

AND DIVERSITY
Questions:
• 1. What is the difference of universalism and
particularism?
• 2. How Canada from factions achieve universalism?
• 3. What is the role of Pierre Trudeau of Canada’s
Multiculturalism?
• 4. Why federalism is a factor in making Canada a
Multiculturalists country?
• UNIVERSALISM
-Universalism searches for what is systematic and tries
to impose the rules, laws, and norms on all of its
members so that things can run more efficiently.

PARTICULARISM
Particularism searches for what is different, unique, or
exceptional in order to create something that is
incomparable or of special quality.
 SOCIO-CULTURAL GROUPS

•1. English Canadians

•2. French Canadians
 FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF CANADA
SELF-GOVERMENT

•The plurality of identity was acknowledged

•Federal solution was regarded as means of
solution 
 CANADIAN FEDERALISM
•recommend the required measures in
order for the Canadian federation to
develop along the principle of equality
between the two founding nations
 BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN ACT
•the majority of English Canadians were divided between
their British root
•the new Canadian symbols and regional loyalties which
were in regression
•Aboriginals were caught in a bind, establishing a historicall
ybased expression of their identity while subject to the
prospect of outright termination of their separate existence.
PIERRE TRUDEAU
• turned to the idea of universalism as the
ideal upon which to construct Canadian
federalism
• considered any form of nationalism as
reactionary, based on emotion and
detrimental to the openness of universal
values
• defended federalism as a bulwark against
the model of the nation-state which he
associated with a closed particularism
Biculturalism
• Biculturalism implies not just behaving in ways consistent with the
two cultural contexts, but also holding values from one’s heritage and
receiving cultural streams, as well as identifying with both cultures
(e.g., as a Chinese American rather than just ‘Chinese’ or just
‘American,’ although either identification may be most salient in
specific situations)

• [Benet-Martínez et al., 2002].

TRUDEAU & the 1969 White Paper
•Federalism
•1969 White Paper on Indian Policy

•Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and

•Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien

•unveiled a policy paper that proposed

ending the special legal relationship
between Aboriginal peoples and the
Canadian state and dismantling the Indian
Act.
Governments in Canada
• Canada is a federal state, parliamentary democracy and constitutional
monarchy.
• A federal state brings together a number of different political
communities with a central government (federal) for national matters
and separate local governments (provincial/territorial) for local affairs.
• As a parliamentary democracy, we elect members to our parliament
and legislatures across the country.
• As a constitutional monarchy, Canada’s head of state is a hereditary
sovereign (queen or king), who reigns in accordance with the
Constitution.
Federal Citizenship

•balance between unity and diversity

• requires an appreciation of the spaces between
rival identities (including the power relations
implied) not measures which attempt to ‘solve’
politics in a federal state per se