Warm hearts in snow country
Wednesday October 11th 2006
Gavin ReddinEight months into my stay in Montreal and still trying to put my finger on what makes Montreal unique compared to the European countries where many of its citizens originate. It came to me during the election campaign. I saw Paul Martin proudly proclaiming the Liberals the party of immigration, and while I was in Vancouver for the holidays he announced that the head tax, originally introduced to discourage immigration from China 100 years ago, would be abolished should the Liberals be returned to government.
Many call Montreal the most European of all North American cities, but in terms of its ethnic make-up and attitudes of its citizens, it is anything but European. As an active participant in English elections, I am used to the coded language of UK politicians. When being polite they refer to ?overstretched resources?, ?low educational attainment? or ?crime-ridden areas?. When being more direct, they blame unemployment, crime, single motherhood and delinquency on immigration. It would be suicidal for a UK politician to call for more immigration; it would rank with calling for higher taxes as the preserve for those who have no intention of getting elected.
A second incident confirmed the view. I was in that most middle-class of areas, Westmount, at my daughter?s school waiting to be served at the school uniform shop when I overhead an elegantly dressed and obviously well-off mother bemoaning the lack of ethnic diversity of the school. In English terms this was far from true: my daughter?s friends boast parents of at least 12 ethnic origins that I am aware of. Had this scene been repeated at an English school the conversation would have been taking the opposite tack: too many children have English as a second language, there are too few resources and too much diversity.
So what is Europe missing? Tolerance for the most part ? the chance to witness and learn from the great diversity of cultures that immigration brings. On an economic level, the enterprise and drive that immigrants bring to an economy are often replaced with an economy unable to embrace new ideas and change. It also leads to the deadweight of discrimination and bigotry, which can mean riots as they have had in Paris and other parts of Europe. In Europe immigrant populations tend to congregate in a single (often poor) area. Resource discrimination and lack of social mixing cause distrust and resentment that on occasions boil over into violence.
The difference in approach may be found in the belief in integration rather than assimilation. London and other great cities of Europe that are proud of their heritage try to convince everyone to become English or French or German. Those newcomers who insist on holding dear their culture and traditions, who refuse to assimilate into the local population, are treated with suspicion. In Montreal, by contrast, this heritage is embraced, thus aiding and allowing integration. Ideas and cultures mix and evolve as indeed do people. To be of Indian or Italian or French decent is spoken openly and with pride.
It has to be said that Montreal is unique even in North America. Many great cities have large ethnic populations; indeed, in the US the Spanish-speaking populations form very sizeable minorities in many cities. The difference is though that each community speaks its own language often to the exclusion of the other. In Montreal bilingualism is commonplace and large groups of people cannot be classified as either Anglophone or Francophone as they speak both languages with equal skill.
The history of European colonialism explains much of what is unique about Montreal but so does the latter waves of immigration that have contributed to the dynamics of the city. I was driven yesterday by an Persian-speaking taxi driver who is married to an Azerbaijani women and who has three children educated in French who can speak both their parents? languages and are intending to go to English-speaking universities!
The other thing that is unique about Montreal is that people actually live in the heart of the city. There is no business district emptied at the weekend. Grocery shops, bars, libraries, cinemas all proliferate through the city, along with densely populated residences usually rented by mobile communities. The Chinese area of the city may in two or three generations turn into the Italian part, new immigrants settling and moving each July 1 when leases expire.
There may be much I miss about London and the UK but on the issue of tolerance and diversity Montreal stands head and shoulders above it.
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