Winter 2018 The Social Contract Diagnosing ’s Suicidal Decay

A fresh look at Canada’s demographic shift vis-à-vis mass immigration and ethnic diversity

Mark Wegierski

icardo Duchesne, a professor at the University of tural genocide” and “ethnocide,” that is, the in Atlantic Canada, is among a deliberate destruction of the ethnic heritage of Rvery small number of conservative or traditional- a people. I do not mean the deliberate killing ist professors in the Canadian academy today. Duchesne or extermination of Euro-, which is virtually unique in his principled opposition to Can- is also part of the definition of “ethnocide.” ada’s and mass immigration policies. I mean the deprivation of Euro-Canadians of Among his other books are The Uniqueness of Western their integrity as a people with a distinctive Civilization (2011) and Faustian Man in a Multicultural culture and ethnic identity in possession of Age (2017). Duchesne is the founder and one of the chief their own nation-state. contributors to the Council of European Canadians web- site (www.eurocanadian.ca). Canada in Decay offers a well-written and tightly CANADA IN DECAY argued account of the ongoing drastic course that is Mass Immigration, Diversity, and the changing the face of Canada. In the book’s preface, Du- chesne states forthrightly, Ethnocide of Euro-Canadians By Ricardo Duchesne As late as 1971, when Prime Minister [Pierre] London: Black House Publishing, 2017 Trudeau announced multiculturalism as an official government policy, over 96 percent of Hardcover, 369 pp., $23.00 Canada’s population was European in origin. Today, the proportion of Canadians with a European ethnic origin has declined to less Duchesne demonstrates that the idea that Canada than 80 percent, with non-whites already has always been “a nation of immigrants” is palpably making up close to half of the residents of false. The British and French were not immigrants, but Greater Toronto and Metro . In “pioneers, settlers, and discoverers.” In the case of the less than two decades immigrants and sec- French, from an initial population of 10,000 settlers, the ond-generation children of immigrants will rapid birthrate had led to a population of 70,000 in 1760. account for almost 50 percent of the popula- Thereafter, there was near zero immigration from France, tion. In less than a century Canada will be 20 and the population increased solely due to high rates of percent white, 65 percent non-white, and 15 fertility, reaching four million by the 1950s. Duchesne percent of mixed race. also writes about the , a small and unfortunate French group in Canada. The main initial wave of Loy- Duchesne explains his provocative title: alist English settlers numbered about 50,000. The Eng- [B]y “ethnocide of Euro-Canadians,” I mean lish population also increased rapidly, and immigration what the United Nations also means by “cul- in the nineteenth century came mostly from the British Isles. As Duchesne notes frequently, Canada was still 96 percent European as late as 1971. Duchesne dissects the leading theorists of Cana- Mark Wegierski, a Toronto-based Canadian writer, da’s “immigrant multiculturalism” insanity, notably Will is a contributor to The Social Contract. His writings Kymlicka and Charles Taylor. The central contradiction have appeared in various publications, including of these theorists is that, while they claim minorities Telos, The World and I, Chronicles, and the Quarterly require a community and group-values, they deny that the Review. majority has any claim to a communal cultural identity.

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Duchesne then looks at the weakness of some con- ner consistent with the preservation and ventional conservative and liberal criticisms of multi- enhancement of the multicultural heritage of culturalism, namely those promoting individualism and Canadians. assimilation. The ideas of Leo Strauss and his disciples Also, Section 15 of the Charter subsection 1 pro- are criticized, for their universalism and repudiation of claims the equality of everyone before the law. Subsec- the actual cultural and religious (Christianity) traditions tion 2, however, says that the government has the con- of the West. Duchesne stitutional right criticizes Janet Ajzenstat, to create special programs aimed at improv- who has tried to re-inter- ing the situation of individuals who are mem- pret Canada’s found- bers of groups that have historically experi- ing in 1867 as merely a enced discrimination in Canada…. “political nationality,” removing its ethnic and Perhaps some of these developments might have Tory aspects. Towards been tempered had there been a more genuinely conser- the end of Part Three, vative opposition. Duchesne has a fascinat- However, as Duchesne writes about Brian Mul- ing short section about roney (Progressive Conservative Party Prime Minister, the debate on Oxycon- 1984-1993), he tin, which seems to but- was the most ardent promoter of multicultur- tress ideas of “natural in- alism, mass immigration, and a global iden- group behaviors.” Liav tity for Canada. It was under his government Orgad’s The Cultural that mass scale immigration from non-Euro- Defense of Nations: A pean sources on a continuous basis irrespec- Liberal Theory of Majority Rights (2015) also gets scru- tive of the economic needs of the Canadian tinized. While the message of the book is welcome, it working class was fully implemented. It is not powerful enough to deal with the challenges now was under his insistence that multicultural- facing the West, notably the incredible demographic ism would be enforced into “all aspects of surge of Africa in the coming century. Canadian society” and that Canada would be In Part Four, “Canada Spiraling Out of Control,” sold to the world as a business place with a Duchesne looks at how the “ethnic ” of an global, not a national, identity dedicated to earlier Canada, where there were no qualms about pro- the enhancement of racial diversity. The Con- claiming Canada as English and French, was conceptu- servatives had come to realize that cultural ally transmogrified into the current-day “immigrant mul- Marxism was coterminous with global capi- ticulturalism.” He bases his argument largely on Carl talism and that selling Canada to the world for Schmitt’s concept of the political, claiming that liberal- its humanitarian diversity was a great image ism has an underdeveloped sense of the truly political. to solidify global capitalism in Canada. Duchesne traces the long process of gradual decline Duchesne calls this “’s Globalist from “ethnic liberalism” to ever more intense notions of ‘Post-Fordist Regime’ of Accumulation.” “immigrant multiculturalism.” He does say that World In 1987, there arose the Reform Party, co-founded War II was a great watershed. In many people’s minds, by Preston Manning. This Western Canadian-based pro- all forms of ethnic nationalism are synonymous with test party became a country-wide party by 1991. the totalitarian policies of National Socialist Germany. In 1991, it stated its opposition to “any immigra- Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson’s Immigration tion…designed to radically or suddenly alter the ethnic Regulations of 1967, where the so-called points sys- makeup of Canada.” The Reform Party was forced to tem was brought in, was a major step towards changing back off from this statement after intense accusations Canada’s traditional immigration patterns. Pearson was that it was harboring racist and xenophobic ideas. followed by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who launched “an According to Duchesne, the Reform Party move- assault on bicultural nationalism,” declaring Canada a ment was essentially defeated in Canada, with the aris- “multicultural society” in 1971. In 1982, Pierre Elliott ing of the more moderate Canadian Alliance, and then Trudeau brought the Charter of Rights and Freedoms the creation of the new Conservative Party, where very into Canada’s constitutional structure. It essentially few of the old Reform ideas persisted. enshrined virtually his entire agenda, as the highest law As far as the Conservatives go of the land. Section 27 of the Charter states: (Harper was the Conservative Party PM, 2006-2015), This Charter shall be interpreted in a man- Duchesne offers this assessment:

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Yet, in the end, Kenney, and the Harper gov- but Duchesne has little concrete to suggest. ernment, more than ever, would make a habit If there is one shortcoming to Prof. Duchesne’s of boasting about how their conservative gov- otherwise fine work, it is the lack of sufficient- atten ernment had sustained immigration levels that tion to the so-called “white ethnics” in Canada. Much made “Canada the largest per capita receiver of the impetus behind the initial adoption of multicul- of immigrants in the entire world,” and how turalism came from “white ethnics,” notably the Ukrai- the immigrants it brought deserved to be nian-Canadians. The term largely meant a recognition of admired as truly Canadian for having “a much other European (non-English and non-French groups), higher incidence of post-secondary degrees especially Eastern and Southern Europeans. Neverthe- than the Canadian population at large.” less, it was quickly transmogrified in the general culture In October 2015, the Liberals came roaring back to mean “visible minorities.” with a strong majority in the federal Parliament, under Also, it is worth pointing out that the English are the leadership of (Pierre’s son). Among still very prominent in many aspects of Canadian life. It Justin’s most well-known statements is that Canada is could be argued that they remain so on the basis of ideo- a “post-national” state. Duchesne says that this phrase logical affinity rather than ethnic solidarity. They are the signifies the repudiation of even the thinnest forms of most liberal, most politically correct group in Canada. civic nationalism. Prof. Duchesne’s book is certainly a strong chal- Prof. Duchesne’s work can certainly lead to disqui- lenge to the currently regnant notions of multicultural- eting reflections on the possible future of Canada. From ism and mass immigration in Canada. Wide reading of beginnings that certainly appeared to be auspicious, this book by Canadians could be the first step toward a Canada has slipped into very negative directions. The better future for Canada. ■ question of “what is to be done?” certainly looms large,

Ricardo Duchesne, author of Canada in Decay (2017) and The Uniqueness of Western Civilization (2011), studied history at McGill and . He is assistant professor at the University of New Brunswick.

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