Is Diversity Canada’s Strength?
Our Strength
When Justin Trudeau took office in 2015, he boldly proclaimed, “Diversity is our strength.”
The city of Toronto has, since 1997, proudly worn the words on its coat of arms.
And, as reported in the 2016 census, 1 in every 5 Canadians is a foreign-born immigrant. Nearly 20% of working-age Canadians are a visible minority, and over 250 different ethnic origins or ancestries were reported by the population.
At NameShouts, we strongly believe in the importance of diversity. The most groundbreaking innovations have come from pools of diverse minds.
We also believe that creating an environment, community or country where these people can come together and feel equal and included is essential.
We’re not alone. As a part of FounderFuel’s 2019 Cohort, we experienced first-hand the impact diversity can bring, as founders came together to share resources and insights. And across Canada’s tech community, companies like Crescendo and #movethedial are making sure that Canada walks the talk when it comes to including people of different backgrounds.
In the spirit of that, we decided to explore some of the past, present, and future of diversity in Canada, to see how things have progressed, and what we can do today to make things better tomorrow.
Looking Back:
Multiculturalism as a policy only entered Canadian law in the 1980s. But Canada was “multi-cultural” before it was a nation, due to the rich history of its indigenous peoples.
Under the legal system, Indigenous people are identified within three broad groups: the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. But as many historians and activists have noted, the collection of cultures and people within each group is incredibly diverse.
For example, in 2003, Cora J. Voyageur noted that the First Nations people in Canada are affiliated with over 633 Indian bands (or governing units) over 2,000 reserves.
Meanwhile, the Métis have built a unique cultural identity around their historical experience, while still recognizing differences of identity within their people.
Their lifestyles and day-to-day concerns are as diverse as their cultures, with people living across these lands, from cities to remote villages.
Voyageur also notes that multiculturalism often refers solely to the people who have immigrated to Canada, and certainly that still remains relevant today. The politics of multiculturalism may be recent and focused on the novelty of immigration, but for hundreds of years, what is now called Canada has always been a multicultural land.
Recent History:
That powerful history of multiculturalism is amplified in the current spirit of Canada, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the tech industry.
Diversity in tech here is high relative to other industries. With immigrants representing nearly 2 in 5 Canadian tech workers, the industry can be considered the vanguard of Canada’s push for inclusion. And immigrants and visible minorities are more likely to work in tech compared to other Canadians.
This is in part due to Canada’s push for tech talent, which has made it easier for high-skill immigrants to come to the country for work. And with immigration levels rising and an over-50% increase in tech jobs over the last five years, the trend seems likely to maintain its course.
This means that centers of technology in Canada are likely to see large increases in diversity of people, as innovative workers from around the world come to join the growing tech field. To put that in more concrete terms, Statistics Canada projected in 2017 that by 2036, nearly 1 in every 2 Canadians would be first or second-generation immigrants.
Immigration is certainly one of Canada’s strengths. A majority of Canadians are immigrants, seeing as the nation of Canada was established by settlers on native lands. With that in mind, it’s important to look at some of the challenges multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion will bring about, and how to resolve them.
Moving forward:
Nearly a quarter of the Canadian labor force are immigrants. While diversity can increase innovation, and some consider there to be a crisis of talent in the tech industry, there are also challenges to overcome when it comes to immigration.
Challenges include the rising cost of living in major cities, as well as an influx of people moving into rural areas, which could disrupt the local environments.
But a major challenge lies in the interaction of cultures and ideas.
For people living here, immigrants can present new and challenging ideas that are different from their way of life. For people arriving, anxiety and pressure to conform to a “Canadian identity” can make people feel alienated, isolating them within their own cultural confines.
Additionally, minority communities already living in Canada (such as those of Indigenous peoples) constantly find their identities and cultures threatened, by both Canadians and immigrants alike.
This is an age-old struggle and can be overcome by efforts to reach out and build a respectful community around diversity of opinions and cultures. Immigrants are not nameless invaders: they are seeking the chance to build a better life for themselves and their family. Our history is dark, but our future does not have to be.
We strongly believe that one of the first paths to begin crossing this cultural divide is through names. By taking the time to understand the simplest part of each other’s identity, we can begin to understand each other.
It’s why we built NameShouts, and it’s a guiding principle as we develop the platform and company. And it is the spirit and politics of multiculturalism that guides us through to that mission.
Read, absorb, and learn something about Canada’s history this week. Think about how it relates to our present. And look to the future, to see challenges and overcome them.
Share this moment with us. Here’s to multiculturalism: past, present, and future.
