Canada seems like an ideal case study of pluralism. Founded, as Canada was, on the alliance of at least two great, diverse nations (“deux solitudes”), and subsequently folding into its story many other Indigenous nations, the origin story of the Dominion of Canada is conspicuously covenantal.
While Canada has experienced its own share of political violence, cultural rivalry, and state-sanctioned oppression, its origin as a separate and discrete dominion is not usually considered a special consequence of any of those things. Rather, it may seem, at least at first, a somewhat idealistic series of political negotiations which produced a serviceably covenantal, even if bland and lawyerly, settlement: the British North America Act. The only major casualties were casks of whisky.
This is not an unusual way to talk about Canada’s origin story, not least because it provides a nicely sharp contrast with our neighbours to the south, who factor inevitably into any kind of Canadian identity. Partly for this reason a kind of national myth has grown up around Canada as a mosaic—independent identities woven into a whole cloth—compared to the United States as a melting pot—independent identities dissolved into a larger identity. Our prime ministers are heard saying things like “diversity is our strength,” and one of Canada’s main comparative advantages, at least once upon a time, has been a broad, bipartisan consensus that diversity is generally a net good, and newcomers and immigrants in particular add to the nation’s vitality and productivity.
This story pairs well with the aspirations of Yuval Levin’s book, American Covenant. In it, Levin paints a picture of something like what Chris Stewart, Chris Seiple, and Dennis Hoover call covenantal pluralism. Levin argues that “unity does not quite mean agreement” and that “we have forgotten the practical meaning of unity: in the political life of a free society, unity does not mean thinking alike; unity means acting together.” Levin’s admiration for the Constitution of the United States of America, as both manifestation and tutor of a structure for this kind of unity, is his central argument.
Like Levin, Stewart, Seiple, and Hoover argue that pluralism is more process than end point, more organic than mechanical. It depends, they say, on at least three fundamental things: freedom of religion or belief; cross-cultural worldview literacy; and the virtues and structures within which mutual difference can be constructively conciliated.
On this latter point, Levin places heavy emphasis. At least within the context of the U.S., he argues, the Constitution and its arrangements anticipate and make possible the kind of pluralism that Seiple, Stewart, and Hoover have in mind. In other places, it may look otherwise. Perhaps, very close to home, is not a bad place to search.
“Canadian” identity
So, is this true of Canada? What is the status of this story, of this broad set of conditions for a sustainable form of robust pluralism to exist today?
There is a prior question to the practice of pluralism that much politics may take for granted. In order to do pluralism, in order to establish a relationship, we must know not only how to do it, or what is to be decided, but who is in the relationship. This question of identity, when it comes to Canada, is remarkably vexatious. It is the problem at the heart of our constitutional chaos.
