Postulations on the Fragmentary Effects of Multiculturalism in Canada (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Multiculturalism has been the subject of substantial debates in Canada during the past four decades (Wilson 1993; Abu-Laban 1994; Sugunasiri 1999; Fleras and Elliot 2002). Such debates have intensified during the most recent decade largely as a result of the attention devoted by the media to, among other things, the large influx of immigrants and refugees who are members of visible minorities, the claims for and responses to what is now being termed reasonable accommodations, and the actual and potential acts of terrorism. The debates have focused primarily on what Fleras and Elliott (2002, 108) have referred to as the "dialectics of multiculturalism" regarding tive sets of positive and negative effects of multiculturalism public philosophy and public policy (i.e., divisive vs. unifying, essentializing vs. hybridizing, marginalizing vs. inclusive, hoax vs. catalyst, and hegemony vs. counter-hegemony), the myths and fallacies of multiculturalism (Burnet 1979; Peter 1981, Fleras and Elliot 2002, 112-116), and what have been described as real and perceived contradictions related to multiculturalism (Saul 2005).