Remember all that stuff I said about Ibbitson's idea of using the notwithstanding clause to settle immigrants in the Atlantic provinces? Kinda? No? Here's what he wrote in his book:

"The points system used to rate potential immigrants could be modified, even lowered, to make it easier for applicants to qualify for entry to Canada, provided they are willing to settle in one of the four Atlantic
provinces and provided they agree to live there for a period of at least five years.

"Inevitably, such an arrangement would be challenged in court, as a violation of the Charter guarantee of freedom of mobility. If the challenge succeeded, then federal and provincial governments should
invoke the Charter's notwithstanding clause. Some purists object to any application of that constitutional hammer, citing Quebec's decision to apply it to protect legislation limiting English-language rights. But
the trust is that the clause has also been invoked by the Yukon, Saskatchewan and Alberta for such prosaic and uncontroversial purposes as permitting women to collect pensions earlier than men, and enforcing back-to-work legislation. Protecting legislation that encourages immigration to Atlantic Canada would be exactly the sort of pragmatic purpose the clause was intended for in the first place."

Ibbitson, the Polite Revolution
Pp. 242-243

Sound familiar now? Well GUESS WHAT? Turns out, it's not possible. I asked Prof Richard Haigh, the associate director of Osgoode Hall's graduate program about it, and it turns out the notwithstanding clause can't be used to over-ride section 6 of the Charter, which protects mobility rights.

I guess the maritimes will have to continue to entice newcomers with their seductive fiddle music.

BACK TO THE OLD: 

Here's some food for thought:

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen writes "The history of multiculturalism offers a telling example of how bad reasoning can tie people up in terrible knots of their own making" in an article in the Financial Times.

ORIGINAL POST AGES LIKE WINE BELOW

Dear Internet,

Thursday, we here at the Agenda will throw our junk in the trunk and head to the Munk. We're having one of our special live on location editions, at Toronto's glamorous Munk Centre for International Studies, and the topic will be multiculturalism. When and why did Canada adopt this idea, and what have we gained from it?

Ihad a brief chat with Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson about this. In an essay for an upcoming book, Ibbitson writes:

"We ask only of our immigrants that they embrace the principles of liberal democracy embodied by our Constitution - which are an amalgam of English and French polticial tradition - that they abide by the laws and accept the legal philosophy underpinning those laws - again, an amalgam of common law and civil code precepts - and that they respect the uniqueness of other peoples and cultures, just as others respect them, which is the essence of Canadian multiculturalism. The overwhelmin majority of immigrant have had no difficulty living by these rules, because it was those rules, and the society that created those rules, that drew them here in the first place."

I also spoke to Binoy Thomas, editor of the Indo-Canadian newspaper Weekly Voice.

"Everybody comes [to Canada] for economic purposes, not because Canada gives us permission to eat samosas," he says. "I live in Brampton and the only place I see white people is on TV. Show me one place, one part of our lives that is improved by multiculturalism."

How will Mr. Ibbitson respond? Tune in Thursday to find out.

And, considering the largely negative response to the CBC's feel-good stranger-in-a-strange-mosque yukfest that is Little Mosque on the Prairie on this blog, just how well do you think Canada has implemented its cultural policies? What, if any, benefit have they had for the country? Are these serious policies or just window-dressing?