Good Argument For An Un-Hyphenated Canada

Do ethnic enclaves impede integration?
Marina JiméNez investigates how multiculturalism is failing Canada's visible minorities

MARINA JIMÉNEZ

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

BRAMPTON, ONT. — It is here, on the border of Brampton and Mississauga, that it is most striking: Canada's famed multicultural mosaic has morphed into a series of monocultural neighbourhoods.

If it weren't for the snow and salt in the parking lot, Plaza McLaughlin Village outside Toronto could as easily be in New Delhi. There is goat and lamb for sale at the Doaba meat shop. The latest Bollywood hit, Guru, is at West End Video. You can do your taxes, go to the doctor and book a flight in Punjabi. And the clock in the photocopy shop shows the time in New Delhi. The only Caucasian faces are the officers at Brampton's community policing station.

The number of ethnic enclaves like this one has exploded in Canada. In 1981, there were only six in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. By 2001, there were 254, according to a study by Statistics Canada, which defines ethnic enclaves as communities with 30 per cent of the population from one visible minority group.

Some neighbourhoods are low-income, underscoring the reality that visible minority families make up three-quarters of the country's poor. In a way, they mirror earlier waves of immigrants, such as Jews and Italians, who congregated in ethnic enclaves out of economic necessity and cultural identity long before anyone had ever heard of multiculturalism policies.

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