Multiculturalism and Indigenous self-determination
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Bannerji as stated by Thobani states that not only is multiculturalism used as a way to manage cultural differences in Canadian society, it also creates a Canadian identity in the international community as somehow being distinctly, and uniquely different from other western nations in their nationally-defining policies of multiculturalism, and actually defines itself as a nation through their differences from other Western countries with policies of assimilation. As we have discussed in this class time and time again, a pattern continues of monetary transactions between Western nations and immigrants. Immigrants, and Canada's policies of multiculturalism, are not for the sole purpose of allowing immigrant communities to prosper but are also for the purpose of Canada to help promote themselves in the international community, especially to distinguish themselves from the melting pot of the US.
According to Thobani, multiculturalism as implemented by the government in Canada has been a tool to continue to disenfranchise Indigenous people of Northern Turtle Island. Instead of upwardly mobilizing Indigenous people and providing them with equitable resources and opportunities in education and employment, the government of Canada has favoured immigration from outside, as not only economic tools, but also to allow resources to flow away from Indigenous people, who, if strong enough, can effectively mobilize for their self-determination, and acknowledgment as the original inhabitants of the land, and towards immigrants who can supply cheap labour, be coopted by political parties and ideologies, and who can be the scapegoats for when the economy is not doing well.