Putting Canada in a Comparative Context: Still the Multiculturalist Unicorn. Issue 3 (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mudde, Cas
• Is Part Of: Nationalism & ethnic politics. Volume 22:Issue 3(2016)
• Page Start: 351
• Page End: 357
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: World politics -- Periodicals; Ethnic relations -- Periodicals; Nationalism -- Periodicals; 320.54
• DOI: 10.1080/13537113.2016.1203710
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1353-7113

Abstract

Abstract : In a very respectful response—titled with a classic rhetorical question: "Does Canadian Multiculturalism Survive through State Repression?"—Phil Ryan supports most of the arguments that Emma Ambrose and I laid out in our article "Canadian Multiculturalism and the Absence of the Far Right." However, he does question two particular claims: (1) that the Canadian state represses critique of multiculturalism and (2) that there are no other supply-side factors to explain the absence of the far right in Canada. In this short response, I will argue, first and foremost, that Ryan perceives Canada too much through an exclusively Canadian lens, exaggerating the tolerance of the Canadian state for far-right discourse as well as the criticism of multiculturalism by the Conservative Party of Canada.