Building multiculturalism : the contribution of the Ukrainian-Canadian Community to a re-thinking of Canadian identity

• Main Author: Westlake, Daniel Jesse
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27640

This paper examines the role played by the Ukrainian-Canadian Community in the adoption of Canada’s first multiculturalism policy in 1971. The first section of the paper looks at the political development of the Ukrainian-Canadian Community prior to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. The second looks at the impact that the community had on the Commission and the Report that it produced. The final section examines how the Commission’s findings interacted with the broader political context at the time to lead to the adoption of multiculturalism. The paper argues that the Ukrainian-Canadian Community had a substantial amount of influence over the Royal Commission and that this influence, combined with political factors at the time, was important to the adoption of multiculturalism in Canada.