What a “visible majority” could mean for the Church
A recent study from Statistics Canada suggests that in 20 years, today's so-called "visible minorities" will represent a "visible majority" in urban Canada and make up one-third of all Canadians. It predicts big changes ahead for the face of the Canadian nation.
If today's "visible" minorities make up a majority of citizens in Toronto and Vancouver and significant percentages of the population of other urban centres such as Montreal by 2031, are we in for a tsunami-sized change in Canada's social and economic realities? And what does this mean for Canadian Christian churches, especially mainline Protestant denominations that have been and continue to be run by WASPs (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants)?
Before we consider the implications for the churches, let's first look at what a "visible majority" will mean for Canadian politics and power.
During the 1970s, the federal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced multiculturalism in Canada as the official policy of the Canadian government. The argument for promoting multiculturalism was that the policy promotes the national interest by breaking down social and cultural barriers. Rather than weakening the national character or encouraging distinct racial or cultural groups to appeal for separate treatment, multiculturalism would strengthen Canadian national identity by binding citizens to a single "moral community" (a group of people drawn together by a common interest in living according to a particular "moral philosophy").
Multiculturalism has been hailed as a tremendous success in making Canada the most pluralistic society on Earth. In fact, the policy was enshrined in the Canadian Constitution in Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Unfortunately, the only official "moral" philosophy in Canada is a dark secularism which pays lip service to "diversity" but in reality seeks to drive cultural or racial groups into ethnic ghettos and wash away the individual cultures in favour of a type of statism built on conformity to political correctness. It is a philosophy that loves funding folk dances but won't tolerate dissent on "moral" issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion and forces assimilation on those who would join the political and corporate elite in this country.
My experience growing up in Toronto during the 1970s was that those in power—government officials, teachers, academics, media—hailed multiculturalism but were reluctant to share their power with those of us who were of a "new" culture. And I'm not even a member of a "visible" minority group.
I remember, for example, a well meaning high school counsellor telling me that it was "perfectly okay" if I wanted to become a construction worker like my father (a trade that attracted and continues to employ scores of Portuguese since the 1970s). The fact that I did well in school and wanted to be a writer seemed to him a quaint idea.
My personal experiences (I really hated being forced to join my school's Portuguese folk dance group since I'm Brazilian) may be the exception. But the question that needs to be asked is whether having more people from non-French or English (or even European) backgrounds making up our population automatically means changes to the power structures in this country.
Will Toronto having 63 per cent of its population classified as "visible" in 2031 really see much of an impact in who owns our companies or run our governments, universities, and media or how they run these institutions? Will we even notice a difference if the name of the CEO, the government leader, the university president or the newspaper publisher isn't Anglo-Saxon?
We are certainly seeing Quebec push back on the question of accommodations for minorities in that province. A government commission on "accommodation practices related to cultural differences" in 2008 recognized that Quebec is a de facto pluralist society, but that the Canadian multiculturalism model, "does not appear well suited to conditions in Quebec." Why would multiculturalism work any better in Saskatchewan or Newfoundland?
So what could a visible majority mean for Christian churches, especially those in urban Canada? I see three potential impacts:
Traditional denominations could die because they refuse to change outdated practices and church structures that don't welcome people from other cultures/viewpoints (most of whom have no interest in "another gospel" preached by many mainline Protestant denominations.)
Second: barn-storming, evangelical, multicultural churches may become the standard-bearers of the traditional Christian faith.
Finally, independent ethnic churches may continue to grow and become centres of care for communities that turn away from the broader secular society which offers little spiritual comfort.
Let us remember what Trudeau, the father of multiculturalism, said back in 1971: "There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an 'all Canadian' boy or girl? A society that emphasizes uniformity is one that creates intolerance and hate."
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