Canada has a reputation for being multicultural. I generally get the impression it is a more popular destination for imigrants (in spite of it being colder) so that would be my guess as to why.
Multicultural would be a place with lots of people from different cultures in. The place I'm living now is very mono-cultural - Most people who see me are very interested - it's not often you meet a foreigner! :P
I actually find them to be much more intense than when I applied for a green card in 2002. I am going through immigration for my husband right now and it is kinda ridiculous. Even the hoops I had to jump through to get my daughter's citizenship card was a huge pain in the ass.
Supposedly we put more resources into preserving cultural heritages. The whole "mosaic instead of a melting pot" thing. I don't know if it makes a difference in reality, but it sounds good.
Canada does add a lot more immigrants, particularly when you consider Canada has only 1/9 the population of the US.
I've heard Toronto called the most multicultural city in the world, too. That's probably hyperbole but I wouldn't think it's too far from the truth. I'm taking "multicultural" to mean a lot of distinct cultural practices happening all in one place.
Yeah I guess we support cultural events a lot. If you're wanting to put on a "Tamil food and music festival" or something, chances are you'll get a good amount of financial support from the governments. Or I think so. I've never tried to organize one of these cultural events myself, but that's how it looks to me.
Immigrants are the major component in multiculturalism, I'd say. Having established Canadians seek out their cultural roots is nice and all, but you can't build a cultural community around that sort of thing.
Yep, pretty much all of this. I can't remember the source of the "most multicultural city in the world" thing, but at the time when I first heard it I remember looking at the reasoning behind it (and comparisons with other contenders) and going "Oh, okay, that makes sense".
There definitely seems to be a lot less "Go back to your own country!" up here, as well.
I have also never lived outside Toronto (and grew up in one of the more multicultural areas), though, so I have a rather limited viewpoint.
I think Canada is definitely more multicultural than the US, mainly because of the fact a higher percentage of our population is immigrants. In my part of the city, white people are probably more in the minority than being the majority! It's noticeable too, when I travel in the USA, that it's just not the same culturally as Canada.
Mostly just the northern states (North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, ect). I can't pinpoint it exactly, but I think it might be partially because the only language I ever hear is English, when I walk around here I can hear people speaking in all sorts of languages that aren't English or French, and I just don't hear that in the US.
I can only speak on my personal experiences in this city in Canada but mulitculturalism is promoted a lot. One of our biggest festivals is two solid weeks of different pavillions around the city focusing on different parts of the world. I feel that it's not only ok to retain your heritage but it's encouraged.
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Multicultural would be a place with lots of people from different cultures in. The place I'm living now is very mono-cultural - Most people who see me are very interested - it's not often you meet a foreigner! :P
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I think it's mainly because our immigration policies are MUCH more lax than those in the U.S.
Like...so much more.
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The stuff to the US, that was easy peasy!
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Canada does add a lot more immigrants, particularly when you consider Canada has only 1/9 the population of the US.
I've heard Toronto called the most multicultural city in the world, too. That's probably hyperbole but I wouldn't think it's too far from the truth. I'm taking "multicultural" to mean a lot of distinct cultural practices happening all in one place.
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Do you personally think this to be true living in Canada? And does multicultrual to you only include how many immigrants you have in your country?
I only ask because this is the second comment that made it seem as if having more immigrants equals multicultural.
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Immigrants are the major component in multiculturalism, I'd say. Having established Canadians seek out their cultural roots is nice and all, but you can't build a cultural community around that sort of thing.
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There definitely seems to be a lot less "Go back to your own country!" up here, as well.
I have also never lived outside Toronto (and grew up in one of the more multicultural areas), though, so I have a rather limited viewpoint.
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