Considering a multicultural Canada

Alison Froese-Stoddard, FASS essay content winner

- June 11, 2012

Alison Froese-Stoddard, at work in the McCain Building. (Danny Abriel photo)
Alison Froese-Stoddard, at work in the McCain Building. (Danny Abriel photo)

“What is Canada?”

Not a simple question, but Alison Froese-Stoddard’s answer netted her the Halifax Overseas Club Essay Prize — and a cool $4,000.

Her winning paper, “The Birth of Canada’s Multicultural Policy: Plotting the Official Acceptance of Diversity,” was originally written for a Canadian Studies class as an assignment asking the “What is Canada?” query above. The essay deals with the origins and politics of Canada’s much-touted multiculturalism.

“The multiculturalism thing is a really big part of what I consider to be Canada,” Ms. Froese-Stoddard explains. “It was the first policy of its kind in any country.”

Shaping today's Canada


The birth of multiculturalism in Canada was more serendipitous than carefully engineered, she argues: Canada was declared bilingual in 1969, and “when Canada was starting to pay more attention to Quebec, the ethnic people of western Canada said, ‘well, if Quebec is going to get special attention, we’re going to be part of this country too…' Trudeau was not expecting to make a nation-building policy out of this. It was mostly a political compromise.”

The resulting wave of officially-sanctioned multiculturalism, including the establishment of the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism in 1973, helped shape the Canada we recognize today.

But is multiculturalism building stronger communities through respect for others’ traditions, or dividing the country by creating what have been called “hyphenated” Canadians?

Ms. Froese-Stoddard doesn’t want to simplify things by offering a simple answer. “I think we’re still learning to figure all this stuff out and figure out how to make our country a better place,” she says. “We came up with this policy from listening to Canadians… we need to keep listening to Canadians and keep a conversation going with all Canadians… when the multiculturalism policy ceases to help us understand each other, then we should replace [it].”

Exploring the many vantage points


The Halifax Overseas Club Essay Prize is awarded to an essay that can “speak to matters that stimulate the study of and an interest in the closer relations of the constituent parts of the British Commonwealth,” to quote the FASS website. The prize is one of multiple awards offered by FASS, but this is actually the first time in several years that it’s been handed out; in recent years, there haven’t been enough suitable applicants. It was first established in 1920 through a resolution passed by the executive of the Nova Scotia Overseas League.

Ms. Froese-Stoddard, a mature student from Manitoba, grew up in a Mennonite town and has seen Canada’s many cultures from various vantage points.

“The multiculturalist ethos, I think, out west, is a little bit stronger… it was pretty common to talk to people and say ‘where you from?’ and you were really saying, ‘where did your grandparents come from?” She also notes that, despite their cultural differences, Prairie folk and Atlantic Canadians have a lot in common. “The sense of humour is pretty similar… I’m still not used to having people bag my groceries, though!”

Ms. Froese Stoddard can imagine transferring her interest in Canadian diversity from her academic to professional career. “I like the idea of organizing information to make it more accessible… information management can be a social justice issue.”

To that end, she’ll continue to work towards her goal of a Masters in Library and Information Science from Dalhousie.

“I’ve always been a book nerd,” she jokes, and with any luck the Overseas Club’s prize will more than help cover next year’s textbooks.


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