With a Sikh Premier in charge, a new day dawns on a Canadian province.
On 24 February, Canada´s far-western province of British Columbia swore in its new premier. The reception was complete with samosas and a sitar and tabla performance, for the new provincial leader was a Sikh — Ujjal Dosanjh. This milestone for Canada´s Indo-Canadian community did not go unnoticed by the media, and for many Canadians, it was proof that the country´s multiculturalism policy is working.
The face of Canadian politics is indeed changing. Last year, Adrienne Clarkson, a Chinese-Canadian woman was appointed the country´s governor general, a symbolic yet high-profile position. A handful of Canadians of South Asian origin have been elected to the federal parliament and provincial legislatures. But no one has come even remotely close to leading a political party, let alone governing a province.
If America is based on the idea of a ´melting pot´, where immigrants are required to leave their baggage at home and assimilate into American culture, Canada defines itself as a cultural ´mosaic´. Since the 1970s, this multiculturalism policy has encouraged immigrant communities to retain their cultures within the framework of official bilingualism (English and French). Critics argue that Canada´s multiculturalism has not been much more than a series of token nods to ethno-cultural communities, while the English and the French have continued to hold real power.