Mr. Chair, first I would like to congratulate my colleague. He has impressed me. His knowledge about the multicultural program and the policy was so thorough that I am speechless. He is a new member of Parliament and yet he knows so much about what we believe in and what this country is all about. He is the first member of Parliament of Portuguese descent, and I must congratulate him and welcome him to this House.
The hon. member has asked a very important question about the very important issue of racism. I am the minister in charge of multiculturalism, which is one very important task, a very important mandate. I take it very seriously. Even though Canada is multicultural and there is so much harmony in our society, yes, racism does exist in our society. We must be very vigilant in doing everything we can to combat racism. It is to our peril if we do not do that. Racism is a deterrent to participation. If we do not deal with that issue, we will not be able to build this country with all the resources that we have.
With multiculturalism, one of the most important mandates is to make sure that all Canadians can participate fully in our society economically and socially, as well as politically. Only when we do that can we can make use of all the resources in Canada, particularly human resources, to build a strong country and to be able to compete with the rest of the world.
Many people thought that multiculturalism was designed for ethnic visible minorities. This is not true. When multiculturalism was designed back in the 1960s and the 1970s, the visible minorities were a very small percentage of Canada's population, probably less than 1% of the total population.
When I came to Canada back in 1969, there was only about 15,000 Chinese Canadians in Vancouver. We would hardly see another Chinese person on the street. Every time we saw another Chinese Canadian we would be so happy, we would say hello, shake hands, take out our address books and take down each other's phone number. Now there are 400,000 Chinese Canadians in Vancouver and we hardly say hello to each other.
We have to do our best to work together to build this country. It is amazing that from time to time when I reach out across Canada these days to talk about multiculturalism, many Canadians of European descent say, “Make sure that multiculturalism includes us as well”. Of course it does.
This is why I am so happy to see our first member of Parliament from Portugal, and other members of Parliament who descend from other parts of the world. It is amazing that over the years multiculturalism has worked so well.
I went to Saskatchewan and participated in a round table with the Ukrainian community. The Ukrainian leaders were so proud, when we talked about the history of multiculturalism, to tell me how it started. They said, “It was when the right hon. Pierre Trudeau had to deal with the inequality in Canada at the time. Even though the francophones in Quebec were the majority in the province, they had a hard time competing with the anglophones. Even though they were the majority, the economic control and political control in Quebec was in the hands of the anglophones. In order to have a level playing field for the francophones, the right hon. Pierre Trudeau started talking about two official languages for Canada. He brought people together to talk about how we could give all people in Canada a level playing field”.
When Mr. Trudeau talked about a level playing field for the francophones and the anglophones, the Ukrainians said, “How about us?” They are present in Canada. Of course in the 1960s and the 1970s, there were many ethnic groups in Canada, the Ukrainians, the Italians, the Jewish, the Germans.
Canada was multicultural in reality even back then. Multiculturalism evolved because of all these ethnic groups. All should have a level playing field and our party and the right hon. Pierre Trudeau believed in that. This is how the policy came about.
The visible minorities contribute a lot to Canadian society right now. It is important, as mentioned by my colleague, that the source of immigration has shifted. About 60% or 70% of the immigrants coming into Canada are from Asia. The visible minorities are going to build up to a high percentage in Canada. Right now they constitute about 12%--