Metropolis Canada’s 4th Annual Forum on Measuring Identities

Multiculturalism @50: Diversity, Inclusion and Eliminating Racism

SUMMARY

Metropolis Canada’s 4th Annual Forum on Measuring Identities

Multiculturalism @50: Diversity, Inclusion and Eliminating Racism

October 6-8, 2021 (to be held online)

In October 2021, Canada will have reached the half-century mark since multiculturalism became the official policy of the country. While this policy has come to be seen by many, both at home and abroad, as a pillar of Canadian identity, from 1971 to this day it has been a source of controversy. Over the past fifty years there have been multiple occasions where the Government of Canada has redefined the policy and its objectives in an effort to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving population. Along the way there have been debates about the impact of multiculturalism on immigrant integration, on attachment to Canada, on the promotion of shared values, on its impact on secularism and the accommodation of religious diversity, on cross cultural understanding, on the promotion of language duality and the preservation of the French language and the ongoing fight to eliminate racism and discrimination.

On the occasion of this important milestone, Metropolis Canada will host a national forum entitled Multiculturalism@50 that will bring together leading thinkers in Canada and abroad to assess the state of multiculturalism domestically and in other immigrant receiving/pluralist countries.

The Forum will also invite workshop, roundtable and poster submissions from academics, researchers, policymakers and representatives of civil society. The aim of the Forum will be to trace the evolution of multiculturalism as a demographic reality, as a policy and as a message or ideal. The objective is to facilitate a lively debate between champions and critics; and to create a better understanding of the differing visions of Canada that underlie these views. The forum will also hear from international experts to share the varying experiences with multicultural policies in its application to their societies.Looking ahead to the next fifty years, the forum will consider whether the very tenets of the debate require reframing, and what shape multiculturalism’s policy framework should take into account in the context of the changing face of Canada into the 21^st century.