On June 8, Liberal MP for Etobicoke Centre, Yvan Baker, introduced a private member’s bill to declare July of every year as “Somali Heritage Month.”It should be noted that Toronto’s Etobicoke is home to a large, heavily concentrated Somali population. In June 2024, Baker gathered with “members and leaders of the Somali-Canadian community” to raise the Somali flag at City Hall to “celebrate Somalia's Independence Day.”Baker’s bill was co-sponsored by fellow Liberal MP and former Immigration Minister (2017-2019), Ahmed Hussen, who came to Canada with his family from Somalia as a refugee and serves as the national president of the Canadian Somali Congress. In a post on X, Baker explained his bill by writing that “Canada is home to many Canadians of Somali heritage” who “have left and continue to leave a historic mark on Canada” and whose contributions are “reflected in Canada’s economic, political, social, and cultural life.” .Also included was a short speech, which ended with Baker pronouncing that a Somali Heritage Month would give Somali Canadians “another reason to celebrate their Canadian pride and another reason to say ‘Somalia Hanoolato.’” For those unfamiliar, this phrase translates to “Long live Somalia.”If the celebrants of Somali Heritage Month will apparently be so keen on “Canadian pride,” why will they also be saying “Long live Somalia?” It does sound incoherent, but in fact is a perfect summation of the Canadian political elite’s strange vision of national identity. This vision was kick-started by the imposition of state multiculturalism in 1971 under Pierre Trudeau.In the decades since Canada became the first country in the world to adopt a policy of official multiculturalism, the country has been reduced to a blank canvas on which the cultures of the world are encouraged to express themselves, a new United Nations in the cold hinterland of North America. This was expressed in the CBC’s bizarre 2023 marketing campaign, which proclaimed: “It’s not how Canadian you are. It’s who you are in Canada.” At the time, many commentators mocked it as being incomprehensible drivel. Drivel indeed it was, but it had an internal logic. Our national broadcaster was telling us that being Canadian cannot be boiled down to one or a handful of metrics, that Canadian identity is simply whatever arises from the many gems in the mosaic.Prime Minister Carney said as much in a February press conference in which he argued that “Canadian nationalism is a civic nationalism” that “respects diverse cultures, diverse faiths, people without faith, all aspects of diversity, the great diversity of this beautiful country.”.In defining Canadian nationalism as encompassing “all aspects of diversity,” the Prime Minister has seemingly extended the definition to include every identity in the known universe. This is in keeping with Ottawa’s rapidly growing list of heritage month declarations.Before 1995, the federal government did not dedicate entire calendar months to celebrating the ethnocultural heritage of specific groups. It was in December of that year that the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion to declare February as Black History Month.From 1995 to the mid-2010s, a small handful of new months were added, including Asian Heritage Month in 2002 and Indigenous History Month in 2009. From then on, the pace began to accelerate. Canada now has well over a dozen such months, including for Tamils, Italians, Portuguese, Latin Americans, Filipinos, Sikhs, Hindus, Poles, Irishmen, and more. We now even have an Islamic History Month (in October) despite Canada having little Islamic history to speak of.The only politician to speak out so far against the establishment of the latest heritage month addition, for Canada’s Somali population, has been People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier, who denounced the idea on X: “NO THANKS! THE ENTIRE YEAR SHOULD BE DECLARED ‘Canadian Heritage Year.’”.Canada’s 2021 census enumerated 450 ethnic and cultural origins, 200 places of birth, and 100 religions. The logic of multiculturalism would dictate that we should dedicate a calendar month to each of these siloed identities while ignoring our one common Canadian identity. This absurdity demonstrates why it is time to consign multiculturalism to the dustbin of history.
