All this hate on Cuba is a little much. I've never been to the actual island so I can't tell you, but here in NY Cuban cuisine is pretty damn good, and no it is not an Americanized version. Go into any good Cuban restaurant, order the ropa vieja and tell me its not good. Or have some roast pork, or a cubano sandwich. Haters.
I said I ate bad food in Cuba, but I didn't say Cuban food is bad. In fact, I specifically noted Cuba's rich creole food traditions. Cuba today is a pretty miserable place if you like to eat, but as soon as people aren't just scraping by with government rations and the blackmarket, I imagine Cuba's food will gradually return to its former glory.
Noted.
I keep wrongly inferring the thread title as "Which country has the worst cuisine" not literally "What country has the worst food."
It would seem Iceland has this on lock just on concept alone.
??orramatur consists of many different dishes, including:
[*]K??stur h??karl[/b], Greenland shark[*]S??rsa??ir hr??tspungar[/b], the cured scrota of rams, including testicles[*]Svi??[/b], singed sheep heads[*]Svi??asulta[/b], head cheese made from svi??[*]Lifrarpylsa[/b] (liver sausage; also known as sl??tur, meaning slaughter), a sausage made from the offal of sheep[*]Bl????m??r[/b] (blood-fat; also known as sl??tur, meaning slaughter), a type of blood pudding, which is prepared like lifrarpylsa, except blood is added to the mix.[*]Har??fiskur[/b], dried fish (often cod, haddock or seawolf), served with butter[*]R??gbrau??[/b] (rye bread), traditional Icelandic rye bread[*]Hangikjot[/b], (hung meat), usually smoked lamb[*]Lundabaggi[/b], sheep’s fat[*]Selshreifar[/b], seal's flippers (occasionally: only if the seals were hunted by the servers themselves)[/LIST]
For food native and exclusive to Canada, you'd probably be looking at First Nations cuisine...including Inuit foods. If you ask me, everyone after that came to Canada and brought their foods with them and they adapted and morphed over time depending on weather, availabilty, etc. - to me this is everything from France to India. Is poutine more Canadian than masala dosa? I dunno...
I respectfully disagree. There are rich food traditions in Canada that date back centuries and while not indigenous in the sense that they originate with the first nations, are uniquely Canadian. Quebec is a great example, especially this time of year when folks do the cabane a sucre thing, which really has no counterpart elsewhere.
Is poutine more Canadian than masala dosa? Of course it is. Poutine originates in Canada, has its roots in various aspects Quebecois culture, and is uniquely Canadian. Good luck finding it outside of Canada.
No one is going to associate dosas with Canada before southern India. I'm sure we're well on our way to an Indo-Canadian culinary tradition, but you'd have to convince me that dosas are currently anything more than a foreign food made here. They're only Canadian if your definition of Canada culinary traditions include everything under the sun, and if that's so, then there's no point speaking in terms of Canadian food at all. My understanding of Canadian food involves some connection to terroir, for lack of a better word. That currently works for defining poutine as Canadian, but not yet for dosas.
On a somewhat related note, you have to be brought up eating Inuit "camp" food to find a lot of it anything other than shocking. Eating raw seal (all of it) is either a taste you're born with or one very slowly acquired...
Yes and I don't really disagree with anything you've written - what I wrote was more about personal experience and that is really influenced by living in major cities, one of them in Quebec even! To me, ground pork and lard smeared on toast is not what comes to mind when I think of the Canadian food experience, not even beaver tails, even though they fit very much into what you are saying; native to the land. My comments stem from wondering how much of the Canadian population eats that these days or even visitors to Canada? When I first saw Canada mentioned - my first thought really was "how would one even answer that?"
For a lot of folks, Canadian is "everything under the sun". I think that's getting a lot more broad than the thread meant. To me, a bunch of folks from China, Iran, Jamaica, Saskatoon, Kenya and Grenada chomping on dosa is becoming more and more indicative of Canadian eating. But again, not really what the thread was asking.
From my personal travels (over 35 countries) I'd have to say the Czech Republic. Thank God they have great beer (some of the best anywhere) and great looking women to make up for their cuisine.
You should check out Joseph Wechsberg writing on Czech sausage culture. This was from before the last war, mind you, and so it may be of questionable relevance to this thread's subject. Still, it made me want to head there.
there was this tv show in japan i dont know the name but i was a devout fan of it. i think it was a gameshow (im not sure cuz i dont understand the language) but yeah, it seemed like a gameshow and theyd convince a dude or 2 to be in the program and then theyd fly them somewheres, usually somewheres in continental asia. yeah, so theyd take them out there and have this whole song and dance about something and when the dudes back was turned the whole crew would just up and ditch the guy and he'd have to figure his way back to japan. with no money. and they usually had them dressed up in some sort of furry costume or something and youd see this mainiacal japanese dude going nuts for a few minutes trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. it was awesome!
For a lot of folks, Canadian is "everything under the sun". I think that's getting a lot more broad than the thread meant. To me, a bunch of folks from China, Iran, Jamaica, Saskatoon, Kenya and Grenada chomping on dosa is becoming more and more indicative of Canadian eating. But again, not really what the thread was asking.
i feel this too for real. i love canada and seeing different ethnicities chomping on others etnicities' foods, just look in the windows of all the restaurants. you dont have to be in a special area to be close to a wide variety of cuisine, its EVERYWHERE. even if multiculturalism is a failed ideal, i feel its real when it comes down to the grub. just attend some of the cheezy festivals and see all pigmentations representing the hunger. i love canada.
I tend to say England. You can have the best and the most delicious ingredients and they still manage to screw things up. Also I don't like the way they cook the life out of everything. If you ever had cauliflower in England, you know what I'm talking about. I had some great fish and chips there though.
There are certain "Indian" dishes which were developed in the UK, and are geared more towards the English palate, such as chicken tikka masala, which I believe was actually created by a Bangladeshi living in Birmingham.
It originates from Glasgow, but still, equally funny.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
There are certain "Indian" dishes which were developed in the UK, and are geared more towards the English palate, such as chicken tikka masala, which I believe was actually created by a Bangladeshi living in Birmingham.
It originates from Glasgow, but still, equally funny.
Y'know, it did actually cross my mind that it might have originated further north, but I wasn't sure. Still, if it isn't a testament to the possibilities of multiculturalism, I don't know what is.
I concur with my Canadian brethren about Cuba having terrible, terrible food. It was a land without spice - garlic was considered too much. Anyone eat any of those horrible "pizzas" cooked in the oil drums? Oof.
UK - terrible food! look at your would-be-rulers across the channel for how you REALLY cook up meats!
i for one don't eat meat,
Maxim food critic revealed!
On a side note, I can't be bothered to argue the worth of good UK cuisine beyond pointing out that many people's list of it on here seem constrained to eating fast food rather than actually going to a decent restaurant serving British dishes.
I'd also like to say that I've never been to a country where I didn't at least like some of their dishes though Holland left me a bit cold.
For a lot of folks, Canadian is "everything under the sun". I think that's getting a lot more broad than the thread meant. To me, a bunch of folks from China, Iran, Jamaica, Saskatoon, Kenya and Grenada chomping on dosa is becoming more and more indicative of Canadian eating. But again, not really what the thread was asking.
i feel this too for real. i love canada and seeing different ethnicities chomping on others etnicities' foods, just look in the windows of all the restaurants. you dont have to be in a special area to be close to a wide variety of cuisine, its EVERYWHERE. even if multiculturalism is a failed ideal[/b], i feel its real when it comes down to the grub. just attend some of the cheezy festivals and see all pigmentations representing the hunger. i love canada.
This line totally stuck in my head, so when I read this article, I thought I would post it. I think most ideals "fail" because they are based on an idea of perfection. ____________________________________
To be sure, accepting a quarter-million immigrants annually is not without its challenges, both social and economic. But when we look at multicultural Canada in historical and international context, and when we rely on large quantitative studies to tell us how our country is performing (instead of being frightened by newspaper headlines about a handful of worst-case scenarios), it is clear that this country is achieving great success on a host of dimensions.
As Canada continues to strive for greater equity and efficiency in the integration of immigrants from around the world, paying attention to what is going right in this country is at least as important as paying attention to what is going wrong.
Canadian multiculturalism is predicated on the idea that when migrant and minority groups feel a sense of shared identity and community pride, their members are more likely to feel connected to Canadian society at large ??? not less. From its inception in 1971, the policy framework known as multiculturalism has been geared toward the integration and participation of minority groups, not their separation and ghettoization.
Current data on public attitudes, civic engagement among newcomers, educational and economic outcomes among first- and second-generation Canadians, as well as new findings about Canadians' engagement with the world beyond our borders indicate that the Canadian approach to diversity is working remarkably well.
Like every other society on earth, Canada is imperfect. Racism exists and is evident in quantitative data on the average incomes of various groups, as well as self-reported experiences of discrimination. Employment outcomes for newcomers are not what they should be. And polls show that Canadian concern about the integration of newcomers has grown in the last couple of years.
The challenge of migration is enormous. Usually there are only two factors strong enough to cause a person to move permanently away from home and into the unknown. The first is the pull of economic opportunity abroad. The second is the push of little or no economic opportunity or even violence or political oppression at home. Currently, a large proportion of those who come to Canada in search of economic opportunity are disappointed. According to Statistics Canada's Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, fully a third of economic-class immigrants say they are actually worse off after immigrating to Canada than they were in their country of origin. The rest say they are either better off now (35%) or faring about the same as they were before migrating (31%). As Canada continues to compete for highly skilled immigrants in a global economy, it must ensure that the people it attracts find suitable employment opportunities in this country.
Still, despite many immigrants' justified frustration at not finding employment commensurate with their skills, the vast majority of newcomers to Canada ??? whether economic-class, family-class, or refugees ??? say that their overall quality of life is better now than it was before they immigrated. The vast majority in all categories also say that if they had the choice to make over again, they would come to Canada.
Given that large majorities of Canadians believe that immigrants are good for the country (77%) and help the economy grow (78%) (as opposed to "taking jobs from other Canadians"), it is clear that there are strong foundations of goodwill between new and established Canadians. Governments, NGOs and the private sector are already devoting increased resources to connecting immigrants with suitable economic opportunities. On this, the most serious immigration-related issue in Canada, there is plenty of cause for optimism.
If the economic fortunes of recent immigrants call for both vigilance and optimism, when it comes to the children of newcomers, optimism may be too weak a word. According to the OECD's PISA study, which looks at the educational progress of high school students in 49 countries, immigrant students in Canada do better than their counterparts anywhere else in the world. Something is going very right in this country's public schools. As for second-generation Canadian students ??? students who are the children of immigrants ??? these young people not only outperform their counterparts in other countries, they also score higher than the Canadian average on both math and literacy tests.
School success leads to economic success, and Statistics Canada finds that second-generation Canadians earn higher incomes on average than either immigrants or those whose families have been in Canada three generations or more. Immigrants are not a monolithic mass, and some ethnocultural groups fare better than others in the Canadian economy; the earnings gap between white and non-white Canadians (nearly $10,000 annually according to Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Survey) makes it difficult to dispute that racism is at work. Still, the fact that the children of immigrants on average earn more than the established Canadian population suggests that people who come to this country with dreams of better lives for their children are likely to see those dreams realized ??? and these people are, increasingly, visible minorities.
Some may say that economic success is all well and good, but it does not necessarily signal integration into Canadian society: some immigrants may be earning a good living, but they may also be retreating into ethnic enclaves.
To address this argument, it is worth thinking about the immigrant groups often said to be the most successful examples of simultaneous social integration and community pride: Italian Canadians and European Jews. With strong civic engagement, obvious economic and cultural contributions, and many notable acts of philanthropy, these two groups ??? both of which arrived in large numbers after World War II ??? are often held up as the ideal. Statistics Canada data has shown that these highly successful groups are among the most residentially concentrated in Canada (and were more concentrated when they first arrived than either South Asian or Chinese Canadians are today). This suggests that ethnic enclaves do not lead to isolation and alienation, but instead may provide a supportive platform for social and economic participation by minority communities.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that immigrants are strongly engaged with their adoptive country. First, Canada has the highest naturalization rate in the world: immigrants to Canada are more likely to become citizens than are immigrants to any other country. Canada also has the highest proportion of foreign-born elected political representatives of any country, suggesting that immigrants are interested in running for political office and have the networks and reso
urces to mount successful campaigns.
It's not just immigrants from elsewhere who are interested in Canada; Canadians, wherever they were born, are fascinated by the rest of the world. The Pew Center finds that Canadians are one the four most globally engaged publics on earth, with 70 percent saying they follow international news on a regular basis. A recent Environics survey conducted on behalf of the Canada's World project found remarkable rates of international travel among Canadians, and strong evidence of Canadians??? global connectedness and concern. One notable figure: between charitable contributions to organizations working internationally and personal remittances to family and friends in other countries, Canadians sent an estimated $27.3 billion overseas in 2007. The Canadian International Development Agency???s budget was $4 billion.
And foreign-born express higher levels of global engagement and international connectedness than the national average, which is matched by another important subset of the Canadian population: young people aged 15 to 24. If the attitudes of young people are any indication, this country's future is likely to be even more global than its present.
Canadians' attitudes and behaviours tell us that as a nation we are comfortable with our multiple and overlapping identities: we can succeed in the Canadian economy and also participate enthusiastically in our minority communities; we can contribute to Canada and also care deeply about people beyond our borders.
Multiculturalism, as an evolving policy framework and as a loosely defined national credo, suggests that personal identity is not zero-sum: people need not choose between the heritage their grandparents strove to protect and the plural identities their children long to explore. Surveys and other data show us that Canadians see their lives and relationships in Canada and beyond not as "either/or" tests of loyalty, but as "both/and" opportunities for engagement and connection.
Michael Adams is the president of Environics and author of a number of books including Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism.
For a lot of folks, Canadian is "everything under the sun". I think that's getting a lot more broad than the thread meant. To me, a bunch of folks from China, Iran, Jamaica, Saskatoon, Kenya and Grenada chomping on dosa is becoming more and more indicative of Canadian eating. But again, not really what the thread was asking.
i feel this too for real. i love canada and seeing different ethnicities chomping on others etnicities' foods, just look in the windows of all the restaurants. you dont have to be in a special area to be close to a wide variety of cuisine, its EVERYWHERE. even if multiculturalism is a failed ideal, i feel its real when it comes down to the grub. just attend some of the cheezy festivals and see all pigmentations representing the hunger. i love canada.
I kinda wish I lived in Canada. Quebec is a different beast:
Quebecers not as open to minorities: poll Jeff Heinrich, The Gazette Published: Monday, March 17
Compared to other Canadians, Quebecers have less contact with foreigners, eat less foreign cuisine, go on fewer foreign trips, have fewer friends in foreign places, don't e-mail people as much in other countries, and don't work as much in multicultural environments, a new poll suggests.
Quebecers are also more comfortable with people of their own ethnic origin, and are more likely to think minorities weaken their culture, according to the L??ger Marketing poll, released yesterday at a Montreal conference on Quebec's two-decade-old policy of interculturalism.
The poll's findings echoed some other presentations at the conference, organized by the Association for Canadian Studies with the Quebec government's Conseil des relations interculturelles and the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
In her fieldwork these days, well-known Montreal immigration researcher Annick Germain said social workers are increasingly telling her it's getting harder to integrate minorities - and often blame the minorities themselves.
"The workers start by saying 'They don't speak French, their women are oppressed, they prefer their temple to our community centre, etc.' and invariably they finish by saying 'They don't want to learn anything from us, so how can we mobilize them if we have the impression there's nothing we can give them?'" Germain said.
"But shouldn't we be turning the question around? Don't they have something to teach us?"
Minorities don't just get a bad rap in the regions, they also get it in the city, and "that's very worrisome," said Marie McAndrew, another well-known immigration expert. "In the regions, intolerance comes from misunderstanding; in the city, it comes from living together," said McAndrew, a Universit?? de Montr??al education professor.
About 40 people attended the conference, including the deputy-director and spokesperson of the Bouchard-Taylor commission into "reasonable accommodations" of minorities, as well as several members of the commission's advisory committee. The commission's report on its three-month road-show of public hearings, held last fall, is due May 31.
In the L??ger poll, Quebecers lagged behind other Canadians on openness to foreigners, ethnic minorities and their cultures. The poll found that:
* Forty-two per cent of Quebecers prefer to live in neighbourhoods of people of the same ethnic origin as them, three times the level in B.C;
* Twenty-four per cent of Quebecers are more comfortable with people of their own ethnic origin, almost double the level in Ontario;
* Nineteen per cent of Quebecers "strongly agree" that cultural life is enriched by people of minority cultures, compared to 39 per cent in Alberta;
* Thirty-eight per cent of Quebecers really like foreign cuisine, the lowest level in the country;
* Thirty-six per cent of Quebecers have travelled internationally at least three times in the last three years, compared to 39 per cent of Ontarians;
* Forty-nine per cent of Quebecers have friends outside Canada, compared to 80 per cent or more of Albertans, British Columbians and Ontarians;
* Nineteen per cent of Quebecers communicate with foreigners by e-mail or over the Internet very often, compared with 40 per cent of people in Ontario and Alberta;
* And only 18 per cent of Quebecers work in a very multicultural environment, compared to over 30 per cent in the other provinces.
The poll of 1,500 adult Canadians was done between Feb. 6 and 11. Statistics Canada census data were then used to weight the data in terms of regions, age, sex and mother tongue to make them representative of Canadians as a whole. The poll's margin of error is 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Comments
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/20...-hong-kong.html
def ride for the kimchi family from across the way though.
ohh, and korean cat elixer!
Noted.
I keep wrongly inferring the thread title as "Which country has the worst cuisine" not literally "What country has the worst food."
It would seem Iceland has this on lock just on concept alone.
??orramatur consists of many different dishes, including:
[*]K??stur h??karl[/b], Greenland shark[*]S??rsa??ir hr??tspungar[/b], the cured scrota of rams, including testicles[*]Svi??[/b], singed sheep heads[*]Svi??asulta[/b], head cheese made from svi??[*]Lifrarpylsa[/b] (liver sausage; also known as sl??tur, meaning slaughter), a sausage made from the offal of sheep[*]Bl????m??r[/b] (blood-fat; also known as sl??tur, meaning slaughter), a type of blood pudding, which is prepared like lifrarpylsa, except blood is added to the mix.[*]Har??fiskur[/b], dried fish (often cod, haddock or seawolf), served with butter[*]R??gbrau??[/b] (rye bread), traditional Icelandic rye bread[*]Hangikjot[/b], (hung meat), usually smoked lamb[*]Lundabaggi[/b], sheep’s fat[*]Selshreifar[/b], seal's flippers (occasionally: only if the seals were hunted by the servers themselves)[/LIST]
Yes and I don't really disagree with anything you've written - what I wrote was more about personal experience and that is really influenced by living in major cities, one of them in Quebec even! To me, ground pork and lard smeared on toast is not what comes to mind when I think of the Canadian food experience, not even beaver tails, even though they fit very much into what you are saying; native to the land. My comments stem from wondering how much of the Canadian population eats that these days or even visitors to Canada? When I first saw Canada mentioned - my first thought really was "how would one even answer that?"
For a lot of folks, Canadian is "everything under the sun". I think that's getting a lot more broad than the thread meant. To me, a bunch of folks from China, Iran, Jamaica, Saskatoon, Kenya and Grenada chomping on dosa is becoming more and more indicative of Canadian eating. But again, not really what the thread was asking.
haha!
We are the World![/b]
I love y'all's bacon! Thanks for continuing to export it down to your southerly neighbors! We are forever in debt! Props!
Yes.
- THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR FAVOURITES -
Cindy Lauper killed it!
!
"rionel litchie"
You should check out Joseph Wechsberg writing on Czech sausage culture. This was from before the last war, mind you, and so it may be of questionable relevance to this thread's subject. Still, it made me want to head there.
Boo Yaa Tribe reppin....
wow, that shit is off the chain.
Asian Tina Turner?
i feel this too for real. i love canada and seeing different ethnicities chomping on others etnicities' foods, just look in the windows of all the restaurants. you dont have to be in a special area to be close to a wide variety of cuisine, its EVERYWHERE. even if multiculturalism is a failed ideal, i feel its real when it comes down to the grub. just attend some of the cheezy festivals and see all pigmentations representing the hunger. i love canada.
HAHAHA! The host called dude "the kinda fat Stevie Wonder".
Grocery Eats
Also I don't like the way they cook the life out of everything. If you ever had cauliflower in England, you know what I'm talking about.
I had some great fish and chips there though.
It originates from Glasgow, but still, equally funny.
Y'know, it did actually cross my mind that it might have originated further north, but I wasn't sure. Still, if it isn't a testament to the possibilities of multiculturalism, I don't know what is.
Maxim food critic revealed!
On a side note, I can't be bothered to argue the worth of good UK cuisine beyond pointing out that many people's list of it on here seem constrained to eating fast food rather than actually going to a decent restaurant serving British dishes.
I'd also like to say that I've never been to a country where I didn't at least like some of their dishes though Holland left me a bit cold.
Careful, if Spelunk finds out that you said this he will say, "LOLZ@".
This line totally stuck in my head, so when I read this article, I thought I would post it. I think most ideals "fail" because they are based on an idea of perfection.
____________________________________
Dimensions of Diversity
To be sure, accepting a quarter-million immigrants annually is not without its challenges, both social and economic. But when we look at multicultural Canada in historical and international context, and when we rely on large quantitative studies to tell us how our country is performing (instead of being frightened by newspaper headlines about a handful of worst-case scenarios), it is clear that this country is achieving great success on a host of dimensions.
As Canada continues to strive for greater equity and efficiency in the integration of immigrants from around the world, paying attention to what is going right in this country is at least as important as paying attention to what is going wrong.
Canadian multiculturalism is predicated on the idea that when migrant and minority groups feel a sense of shared identity and community pride, their members are more likely to feel connected to Canadian society at large ??? not less. From its inception in 1971, the policy framework known as multiculturalism has been geared toward the integration and participation of minority groups, not their separation and ghettoization.
Current data on public attitudes, civic engagement among newcomers, educational and economic outcomes among first- and second-generation Canadians, as well as new findings about Canadians' engagement with the world beyond our borders indicate that the Canadian approach to diversity is working remarkably well.
Like every other society on earth, Canada is imperfect. Racism exists and is evident in quantitative data on the average incomes of various groups, as well as self-reported experiences of discrimination. Employment outcomes for newcomers are not what they should be. And polls show that Canadian concern about the integration of newcomers has grown in the last couple of years.
The challenge of migration is enormous. Usually there are only two factors strong enough to cause a person to move permanently away from home and into the unknown. The first is the pull of economic opportunity abroad. The second is the push of little or no economic opportunity or even violence or political oppression at home. Currently, a large proportion of those who come to Canada in search of economic opportunity are disappointed. According to Statistics Canada's Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, fully a third of economic-class immigrants say they are actually worse off after immigrating to Canada than they were in their country of origin. The rest say they are either better off now (35%) or faring about the same as they were before migrating (31%). As Canada continues to compete for highly skilled immigrants in a global economy, it must ensure that the people it attracts find suitable employment opportunities in this country.
Still, despite many immigrants' justified frustration at not finding employment commensurate with their skills, the vast majority of newcomers to Canada ??? whether economic-class, family-class, or refugees ??? say that their overall quality of life is better now than it was before they immigrated. The vast majority in all categories also say that if they had the choice to make over again, they would come to Canada.
Given that large majorities of Canadians believe that immigrants are good for the country (77%) and help the economy grow (78%) (as opposed to "taking jobs from other Canadians"), it is clear that there are strong foundations of goodwill between new and established Canadians. Governments, NGOs and the private sector are already devoting increased resources to connecting immigrants with suitable economic opportunities. On this, the most serious immigration-related issue in Canada, there is plenty of cause for optimism.
If the economic fortunes of recent immigrants call for both vigilance and optimism, when it comes to the children of newcomers, optimism may be too weak a word. According to the OECD's PISA study, which looks at the educational progress of high school students in 49 countries, immigrant students in Canada do better than their counterparts anywhere else in the world. Something is going very right in this country's public schools. As for second-generation Canadian students ??? students who are the children of immigrants ??? these young people not only outperform their counterparts in other countries, they also score higher than the Canadian average on both math and literacy tests.
School success leads to economic success, and Statistics Canada finds that second-generation Canadians earn higher incomes on average than either immigrants or those whose families have been in Canada three generations or more. Immigrants are not a monolithic mass, and some ethnocultural groups fare better than others in the Canadian economy; the earnings gap between white and non-white Canadians (nearly $10,000 annually according to Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Survey) makes it difficult to dispute that racism is at work. Still, the fact that the children of immigrants on average earn more than the established Canadian population suggests that people who come to this country with dreams of better lives for their children are likely to see those dreams realized ??? and these people are, increasingly, visible minorities.
Some may say that economic success is all well and good, but it does not necessarily signal integration into Canadian society: some immigrants may be earning a good living, but they may also be retreating into ethnic enclaves.
To address this argument, it is worth thinking about the immigrant groups often said to be the most successful examples of simultaneous social integration and community pride: Italian Canadians and European Jews. With strong civic engagement, obvious economic and cultural contributions, and many notable acts of philanthropy, these two groups ??? both of which arrived in large numbers after World War II ??? are often held up as the ideal. Statistics Canada data has shown that these highly successful groups are among the most residentially concentrated in Canada (and were more concentrated when they first arrived than either South Asian or Chinese Canadians are today). This suggests that ethnic enclaves do not lead to isolation and alienation, but instead may provide a supportive platform for social and economic participation by minority communities.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that immigrants are strongly engaged with their adoptive country. First, Canada has the highest naturalization rate in the world: immigrants to Canada are more likely to become citizens than are immigrants to any other country. Canada also has the highest proportion of foreign-born elected political representatives of any country, suggesting that immigrants are interested in running for political office and have the networks and reso urces to mount successful campaigns.
It's not just immigrants from elsewhere who are interested in Canada; Canadians, wherever they were born, are fascinated by the rest of the world. The Pew Center finds that Canadians are one the four most globally engaged publics on earth, with 70 percent saying they follow international news on a regular basis. A recent Environics survey conducted on behalf of the Canada's World project found remarkable rates of international travel among Canadians, and strong evidence of Canadians??? global connectedness and concern. One notable figure: between charitable contributions to organizations working internationally and personal remittances to family and friends in other countries, Canadians sent an estimated $27.3 billion overseas in 2007. The Canadian International Development Agency???s budget was $4 billion.
And foreign-born express higher levels of global engagement and international connectedness than the national average, which is matched by another important subset of the Canadian population: young people aged 15 to 24. If the attitudes of young people are any indication, this country's future is likely to be even more global than its present.
Canadians' attitudes and behaviours tell us that as a nation we are comfortable with our multiple and overlapping identities: we can succeed in the Canadian economy and also participate enthusiastically in our minority communities; we can contribute to Canada and also care deeply about people beyond our borders.
Multiculturalism, as an evolving policy framework and as a loosely defined national credo, suggests that personal identity is not zero-sum: people need not choose between the heritage their grandparents strove to protect and the plural identities their children long to explore. Surveys and other data show us that Canadians see their lives and relationships in Canada and beyond not as "either/or" tests of loyalty, but as "both/and" opportunities for engagement and connection.
Michael Adams is the president of Environics and author of a number of books including Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism.
I kinda wish I lived in Canada. Quebec is a different beast:
Quebecers not as open to minorities: poll
Jeff Heinrich, The Gazette
Published: Monday, March 17
Compared to other Canadians, Quebecers have less contact with foreigners, eat less foreign cuisine, go on fewer foreign trips, have fewer friends in foreign places, don't e-mail people as much in other countries, and don't work as much in multicultural environments, a new poll suggests.
Quebecers are also more comfortable with people of their own ethnic origin, and are more likely to think minorities weaken their culture, according to the L??ger Marketing poll, released yesterday at a Montreal conference on Quebec's two-decade-old policy of interculturalism.
The poll's findings echoed some other presentations at the conference, organized by the Association for Canadian Studies with the Quebec government's Conseil des relations interculturelles and the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
In her fieldwork these days, well-known Montreal immigration researcher Annick Germain said social workers are increasingly telling her it's getting harder to integrate minorities - and often blame the minorities themselves.
"The workers start by saying 'They don't speak French, their women are oppressed, they prefer their temple to our community centre, etc.' and invariably they finish by saying 'They don't want to learn anything from us, so how can we mobilize them if we have the impression there's nothing we can give them?'" Germain said.
"But shouldn't we be turning the question around? Don't they have something to teach us?"
Minorities don't just get a bad rap in the regions, they also get it in the city, and "that's very worrisome," said Marie McAndrew, another well-known immigration expert. "In the regions, intolerance comes from misunderstanding; in the city, it comes from living together," said McAndrew, a Universit?? de Montr??al education professor.
About 40 people attended the conference, including the deputy-director and spokesperson of the Bouchard-Taylor commission into "reasonable accommodations" of minorities, as well as several members of the commission's advisory committee. The commission's report on its three-month road-show of public hearings, held last fall, is due May 31.
In the L??ger poll, Quebecers lagged behind other Canadians on openness to foreigners, ethnic minorities and their cultures. The poll found that:
* Forty-two per cent of Quebecers prefer to live in neighbourhoods of people of the same ethnic origin as them, three times the level in B.C;
* Twenty-four per cent of Quebecers are more comfortable with people of their own ethnic origin, almost double the level in Ontario;
* Nineteen per cent of Quebecers "strongly agree" that cultural life is enriched by people of minority cultures, compared to 39 per cent in Alberta;
* Thirty-eight per cent of Quebecers really like foreign cuisine, the lowest level in the country;
* Thirty-six per cent of Quebecers have travelled internationally at least three times in the last three years, compared to 39 per cent of Ontarians;
* Forty-nine per cent of Quebecers have friends outside Canada, compared to 80 per cent or more of Albertans, British Columbians and Ontarians;
* Nineteen per cent of Quebecers communicate with foreigners by e-mail or over the Internet very often, compared with 40 per cent of people in Ontario and Alberta;
* And only 18 per cent of Quebecers work in a very multicultural environment, compared to over 30 per cent in the other provinces.
The poll of 1,500 adult Canadians was done between Feb. 6 and 11. Statistics Canada census data were then used to weight the data in terms of regions, age, sex and mother tongue to make them representative of Canadians as a whole. The poll's margin of error is 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.