27
Religions in Canada in the
Twenty-First Century
Introduction
In this article I will examine changes in the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities as reflected in the 2001 census, developments following the events of 9/11 and the implications of Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism. I will also focus on the ‘public face’ presented to Canada’s mainstream, socially, culturally, politically and in inter-faith activities.
The Canadian Context and Recent History
The 2001 Canadian census has revealed that since 1991, although most Christian denominations showed declines in membership, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim Canadians saw their communities grow mainly as a result of Canadian immigration patterns. This means that Canada is becoming increasingly diverse religiously and culturally, a change that is evident in major cities such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Indeed, Canada prides itself on being a multicultural nation (1988 Multiculturalism Act), a status which is supported by the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Diversity, too, is broadly enshrined in the Charter, with the protection of citizens from discrimination in areas such as race, sexual orientation and religion. It was during the 1960s and 1970s that these policies were put in place, marking a shift from a narrow Christian and dominantly British nation to one that aims to be multicultural and tolerant of religious diversity. In 1965 the country adopted the maple leaf flag, one that no longer contained any British symbols. And in 1967 a shift in Canadian immigration policy removed all national, religious, racial and ethnic criteria that had previously favoured people from the British Isles and Europe. Instead, stress was put on language abilities, educational achievement and employment prospects, all of which favoured South Asian professional persons from places like India and East Africa.
For the twenty-first century, the management of this new national identity, characterized by diversity, is a topic that is currently discussed in Canada in terms of reasonable accommodation and tolerance – as, for example, in diversity requirements for chaplains in the Canadian military and the prisons. All through Canadian society questions are raised as to the implementation of policies that deal with Canada’s new cultural and religious reality of reasonable accommodation. Meanwhile, many Canadians continue to form their opinions about religious and cultural minorities based on sensationalized media reports – a situation that does little to facilitate an understanding of religious diversity or a response that is not rooted in fear, especially since the events of 9/11. All of this poses a challenge to the Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim diaspora communities as they attempt to build bridges to and integrate with mainstream Canadian society. Canada’s new national identity with its ideal of enabling immigrant retention of culture and religion in a globalizing context does contain contradictions with which, as we shall see, diaspora communities are struggling. But first let us examine the 2001 census data as one measure of the result of Canada’s changes in immigration policy over the past decades.
Census Results 2001
The following chart, based on the work of Peter Beyer from Canada’s 2001 census, shows the religious identification of Jews, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims nationally, provincially and in some major cities [Beyer in 13: 235–40].
The diversity reflected in these statistics is a reflection of the multicultural policy of the Canadian government (and its influence on immigration) introduced in the 1970s. Beyer notes that in the 1971 census there were at least 16,000 Hindus, 15,000 Sikhs and 19,000 Muslims in Canada. By 1981 the numbers in each group had increased four- or five-fold. By 2001 we see that the number of Hindus has increased almost twenty-fold, the number of Sikhs about nineteen-fold and the number of Muslims about thirty-fold (although not all of the Muslims are South Asian). The greatest increases have been in the major cities of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. But even smaller cities such as Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary show significant diaspora communities so that for most Canadians the multicultural policy (and its corresponding immigration policy) has resulted in a changed Canadian reality and a changed Canadian perception in the twenty-first century. These changes also reflect the changing global context in which Canada finds itself. While 40 per cent of Canada’s immigration continues to come from countries where Christianity constitutes the majority religion (for example, Europe, United States and Australia), 34 per cent of Canada’s 1.8 million immigrants from 2001 to 2006 came from North and East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. From China to South East Asia the proportion was about 28 per cent. From this demographic analysis, it is clear that Canada’s diversity is rapidly increasing [10: 16–22]. Canada’s major cities, especially the greater Toronto and Vancouver regions, are now dotted with new purpose-built temples, gurdwaras and mosques that are visibly identifiable – a change from earlier decades when they were more often store-fronts or Christian church halls. ‘Not only are these globalized religious and cultural distinctions recreating themselves in organizational form in Canada, so too are transnational and global religious movements and organizations establishing themselves in Canada…’ [10: 27]. South Asian examples include the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, the Sai Baba movement, the Swaminarayans, the Arya Samaj, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Sikh Societies and various Muslim orders such as the Sufi Naqshbandi and Chrishti. Taken together these developments display in an increasingly public way the face of Canada’s new religious and cultural diversity. In what follows we will focus our discussion on the ways in which Canada’s minority religious communities engage their religion and culture in establishing themselves in their new home, and in presenting a public face to mainstream Canada. But before that, let us take a brief snapshot of the dominant Christian context within which the minority religions find themselves.
| Table 27.1 Demographics of religious identification in Canada | ||||
| Hindus | Sikhs | Muslims | Jews | |
| Canada | 297,200 | 278,415 | 579,645* | 329,995 |
| Newfoundland | 400 | 130 | 625 | 140 |
| Nova Scotia | 1,235 | 270 | 3,545 | 2,120 |
| Halifax | 960 | 175 | 3,070 | 1,575 |
| Prince Edward Island | 30 | 0 | 195 | 55 |
| New Brunswick | 475 | 90 | 1,270 | 665 |
| Quebec | 24,530 | 8,220 | 108,620 | 89,920 |
| Montreal | 24,075 | 7,935 | 100,185 | 88,765 |
| Ontario | 217,560 | 104,785 | 352,530 | 190,800 |
| Ottawa | 8,150 | 2,645 | 41,725 | 11,325 |
| Toronto | 191,305 | 90,590 | 254,110 | 164,505 |
| Manitoba | 3,835 | 5,480 | 5,100 | 13,040 |
| Winnipeg | 3,605 | 5,320 | 4,805 | 12,760 |
| Saskatchewan | 1,585 | 500 | 2,230 | 865 |
| Alberta | 15,965 | 23,465 | 49,045 | 11,090 |
| Edmonton | 7,830 | 9,400 | 19,580 | 3,980 |
| Calgary | 7,255 | 13,325 | 25,920 | 6,530 |
| British Columbia | 31,495 | 135,310 | 56,215 | 21,230 |
| Vancouver | 27,405 | 99,005 | 52,590 | 17,275 |
| Victoria | 765 | 3,470 | 1,230 | 1,550 |
Source: Statistics Canada, 2001 census.
Note: * Of this total 216,380 declared themselves as South Asian Muslims.
In the 2001 census, of Canada’s thirty million people, about twenty-three million identify themselves as Christians, with slightly over half being Roman Catholic and the remainder mostly Protestants. About 21 per cent of Christians are immigrants with almost 75 per cent of those arriving since 1971. The vast majority of Christians in Canada are Canadian born. French-speaking Roman Catholics dominate in Quebec while in most English-speaking provinces, Protestants are in the majority. The major Protestant denominations include the United Church (a union of Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists), the Anglican Church, a variety of evangelicals, Lutherans, Mennonites and others [32]. In the Canadian mosaic, the value of diversity is held in relation to a hegemonic view of what is normative. That is, there is a normative ‘Canadianness’ over and against which others are judged to be ‘diverse’. In religion, the normative Canadian is Christian (even if he or she never goes to church). Although the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that people can practise the religion of their choice, there is no expectation that everyone who is not born Christian will convert to Christianity. People have a wide range of religious adherence or no religion at all. But Canada is also a country where almost 77 per cent of people claim to be Christian [33].
Although there is no established religion, at Canada’s founding both Anglicans and Roman Catholics were given certain religious rights [39: 86]. Many parts of Canada have Roman Catholic school systems, and, until recently, the ‘public’ school system often functioned as the Protestant school system. Canadian legal attitudes to religion are broadly shaped by a Christian sense of what religion is and how it ought to function [8]. In Quebec in 2007, the provincial government established a Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. The goal of this Commission, led by the sociologist Gerard Bouchard and the philosopher Charles Taylor, was to determine the limits of ‘reasonable accommodation’ of minority religions in relation to normative ‘Canadianness’ [15]. In comparison with the US, research shows that in Canada the ideal (including for evangelicals) is peaceful coexistence while in the US the religions are more competitive and aggressive [28]. Main-line Canadian Christians report a 97 per cent positive attitude towards those of other religions/ cultures, and a 90 per cent support for mixed marriages between Christians and people of other faiths [28]. At the same time Canada’s Christian churches have struggled to deal with new immigrants from Asia as well as the forces of secularization that have dramatically diminished the size and place of churches in the public arena.
Immigrant cohorts within Christian congregations are frequently more vital and conservative than their more established fellow adherents. Consequently, say Bramadat and Seljak [12: 421], ‘the mainstream congregations and more liberal church leadership find themselves forced to revisit questions they would have liked to have considered closed, such as the ordination of women, the moral status of homosexuality, the inerrancy of scripture, the exclusivity of salvation through Jesus, and attitudes to other religions’. Indeed, it is often these new Asian immigrant Christians that have rescued churches in decline. In some cities there are dynamic groups of Catholic and Protestant Christians from Asia and Africa that are growing in size [12: 422]. While the first generation of immigrant Asian Christians value the authority of elders and ministers, Canadian-born youth often oppose their parents’ demands and feel free to criticize their ministers or priests, resulting in religious, cultural and generational differences (and sometimes conflict) – a pattern that we shall see is present in the immigrant communities of other religions as well.
With regard to the impact of the events of 9/11 on Canadian Christians, Bibby [11: 242 ff.] reports that few Canadians appear to have altered their religious beliefs or churchgoing habits as a result of such terrorist events. But there has been an increased reaching out for liaison and solidarity with other religions, especially Muslims in Canada. Compared with our American neighbours and their deep sense of pain and violation, there was much less impact of 9/11 on religion in Canada [11: 245].
Jews
Canada’s 330,000 Jews (2001 census) make up the largest non-Christian population consisting mostly of Canadian-born persons. In 2001, only about 30 per cent of Jews were immigrants whereas 70–75 per cent of the ethnically Chinese, Muslims or Hindus were immigrants. Canada’s first Jewish settlers entered Montreal in 1760 from the US. The 1851 census records 451 Jews in Canada, mostly well educated and engaged in trade, commerce and industry. These first immigrants from the US played an important role in the economic growth of Canada. Between 1850 and 1914 there was extensive working-class emigration mainly from Eastern Europe, settling in such cities as Montreal, Quebec, Halifax and Toronto. In the 1850s, the gold rush transformed Victoria, BC attracting enough Jews to make it the second largest Jewish community in British North America [26: 115]. Some immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s were sent to Winnipeg, and, as an experiment, to settle Jewish prairie farming communities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Those arriving between 1930 and 1940 and from the Second World War to the 1980s included Jews from the US, North Africa and the Middle East. They came to Canada to escape social, racial and religious persecution. Prior to 1914, emigration to Canada was relatively unrestricted, but after the First World War provisions were tightened. When the rise of Nazism in the mid-1930s threatened Jews throughout Europe, it became very difficult for Jews to find refuge because the traditional countries of immigration, including Canada, imposed restrictions on immigration. As a result, millions of Jews perished – Canada’s record in this regard was dismal.
In cultural terms the early elite of Montreal’s Jewish community thought of themselves as descending from Spanish Sefardi Jews while the later immigrants from Eastern European settlers spoke Yiddish and Hebrew and were often deeply religious. ‘They had different forms of worship from the established Jewish community in such cities as Montreal, and often set up their own modest synagogues while supporting their own religious functionaries… A cultural and economic divide asserted itself, which was marked by a deep division in modes of synagogue affiliation, worship and education, as well as attachment to language’ [26: 116]. The importance of Yiddish was debated along with questions of assimilation to mainstream culture. Modern Zionism allowed Jews to assert their long-held attachment to the land of Israel via fundraising and, for some, by transplanting themselves to the Holy Land for a visit or for good. As Ravvin notes, ‘With the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became an increasingly important part of Canadian Jews’ sense of themselves’ [26: 116]. In the smaller centres of Western Canada, Winnipeg alone saw the development of a Jewish manufacturing community. In Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, ‘the folk culture, secularism and ideological leanings of the Yiddish movement attracted a core element away from what were to become the mainstream expressions of twentieth century Jewish identity: religious conservatism, Zionism, the recuperation of Hebrew, and efforts to assimilate into the mainstream economic and social patterns of the country’ [26: 117].
In twentieth-century immigration history there was a dark period under Prime Minister Mackenzie King when Jewish immigration to Canada was halted during the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the Holocaust, and for a few years after the Second World War. Then a shift in government policy led to an influx of Holocaust survivors. Two other post-war Jewish immigrant groups included French-speaking Moroccan Jews, who settled mainly in Montreal from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. In addition, between 1981 and 1991, one in four Jews who immigrated to Canada was born in the former Soviet Union. Ravvin observes that ‘In each of these cases – Holocaust survivors, Moroccans and Russians – a divide appeared between establishment of Jewish life and the newcomers, who were often called “greener” (a Yiddish word denoting not only one’s newcomer status, but a lack of cultural sophistication). Each group struggled to be included in what mainstream communities considered conventional Jewish life’ [26: 117]. With regard to anti-Semitism in Canada, Ravvin concludes that although it achieved some politically motivated expression in the 1930s and 1940s (especially in Quebec and Alberta), it has had a minimal long-lasting impact on the lives of Canadian Jews who are among the most socially mobile groups of the Canadian multicultural mosaic [26: 120].
The majority of ethnically Jewish people in Canada also identify as religiously Jewish, and about one-half to two-thirds of these are synagogue affiliated. Although synagogue affiliated Jews do not attend with any regularity, most Jews engage in at least occasional Jewish ritual at high holidays [10: 25]. Jews in Canada exhibit a tripartite division into Reform, Conservative and Orthodox, with a good minority identifying with none of these. Orthodox Jews draw rituals, law and life patterns from the Hebrew Bible and its key interpretive texts, such as the Talmud, that characterize their culture as one of continuity from ancient times. The Orthodox group includes great variations within – from the modern Orthodox, who have extensive interaction with secular society, to the ultra-Orthodox, especially Hasidic sects, whose observance erects strong fences between their own and secular society. Begun in the eighteenth century in the Ukraine and Poland, the Hasidic movement is motivated by a mystical struggle to experience and investigate the relation of the individual to God. Hasidism downplays rabbinical learning of biblical texts in favour of ecstatic pursuits – prayer, dance, song and meditation – of the Divine, and follows a new kind of leader, the Tzaddik. While some scholars see Hasidism as a radical renewal of Judaism, its arrival in North America was not experienced this way by the established Jewish communities of Montreal, Toronto and New York. In these cities the Hasidim overwhelmingly exist in enclaves, removed not only from mainstream secular society, but from non-Hasidic Jewish society as well. Thus the Hasidim in Canada are very much a people apart [26: 124]. In contrast, most Jews in Canada behave in their daily and work life, and to a large extent in their home life, like non-Jewish Canadians. Although some children are educated in Jewish separate schools, many children attend public (Protestant) schools and go to synagogue ‘schools after school’ to learn Hebrew language and the Hebrew Bible. Some keep kosher in their home, or both at home and when eating out. But the majority of Canadian Jews belonging to Reform and Conservative synagogues do not follow the prohibition against work on the Sabbath or other biblical injunctions, limiting their observance to holy holidays or ritual occasions like bar mitzvahs [26: 112].
In his assessment of Canadian Jewish life in the twenty-first century, Morton Weinfeld [38: 1–2] sees it as a significant success:
Jewish life in Canada today is as good as it has been anywhere since the Golden Age of Spain. In an atmosphere of relative security, Jews are able to fulfil the twin promises of Canadian multiculturalism: they participate fully in the life of their surrounding society, and at the same time maintain a vibrant Jewish culture.
Weinfeld goes on to claim that the Jewish community in Canada is on its way to becoming the second-most important diaspora community, after the United States. ‘But’, claims Weinfeld, ‘the quality of Jewish life in Canada is higher… Canadian Jews rank with Americans in terms of freedom and affluence, but they enjoy a deeper Jewish cultural and communal life’ [38: 347]. Although anti-Semitism has not disappeared, says Weinfeld, it is increasingly irrelevant to the daily lives and opportunities of Canadian Jews.
In recent years Jewish feminism has made significant steps, though not as dramatically in Canada as in the United States. In Toronto, Reform Rabbi Elyse Goldstein’s educational and devotional innovations have adapted adult education and synagogue ritual to egalitarian needs. Another example is the long and successful struggle of Orthodox women to alter the Canadian Divorce Act. Norma Joseph, Professor of Jewish Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, played a leading role in obtaining this amendment and describes the problems as follows. In Orthodox and Conservative Jewish communities, a Jewish divorce document, ‘a get’, is required. This document must be administered by a rabbinic court, and initiated by a man. The problem is that rabbinic courts outside of Israel do not have enforcement power and are unable to convince the man to give the get. As a result women in countries like Canada have found themselves chained to disintegrated marriages and dependent on their ex-husbands. The new Divorce Act amendment effectively bans anyone from maintaining barriers to the religious remarriage of their spouse. This is an example of a civil law being used to deal with a difficult religious problem [26: 128]. Other recent shifts in relation to women include allowing women to be counted as part of the traditional male quorum of ten required for communal prayer (in Conservative congregations) and development of the bat mitzvah, for girls, to parallel the bar mitzvah for boys as a rite of passage into adult community membership [26: 128].
Hindus
According to the 2001 census, Hindus make up the largest South Asian diaspora community at almost 300,000 people. The earliest Hindus came to Canada during the 1950s and were Punjabis. The next largest group were Hindus from Uttar Pradesh. Middle-class Hindi speakers, they came with a large group of South Asian professionals arriving during the 1960s. Tamil and Bengali Hindus began to arrive during the same period, many of them teachers. Also during the 1960s and 1970s many Hindus arrived from former British colonies – in East Africa, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Guyana and Trinidad. While Hindus from East Africa tended to be professionals, those arriving from the other areas tended to be blue-collar workers [14: 212–47]. Spreading across Canada, Hindus settled in the larger cities, as doctors, teachers and university professors. Most of Canada’s Hindus (217,560) live in Ontario, the majority in Toronto. Between 1991 and 2001 the number of Hindus in Canada increased by 89 per cent. In the past decade, 7 per cent of Canada’s new immigrants were Hindus.
Whereas during the earlier decades, Hindus often met in church halls, by the dawn of the twenty-first century Hindu temples with their distinctive architecture were visible in most cities. In centres like Toronto, the Hindu community is now large enough to divide into regional linguistic and cultural sub-groups, each with their own temples and cultural organizations. Some temples, such as Dr Budendranauth Doobay’s Vishnu Mandir, cater to a cross-section of Hindu immigrants with a variety of images on the altar (for example, Vishnu, Durga, Siva, Hanuman, Ganesh and Rama). The Sunday service proceeds in Sanskrit, Hindi and English and draws hundreds of people. Dr Doobay (a heart surgeon from Guyana) is known as a fine worship leader and teacher of Vedanta – he also speaks on the Voice of Hinduism TV programme. With priests from India to assist, the Mandir offers a prayer schedule each day of a Maha Vishnu Puja at 6:30 a.m. and a 7:00 p.m. Puja to other deities such as Siva, Hanuman, Lord Ayyappa and even Sai Baba. The temple also offers a full range of other activities including a youth group, a Montessori school, a Canadian Museum of Hindu Civilization, a library, gift shop and a seniors’ home with twenty-five units. While the primary role of the Toronto Vishnu Mandir is clearly to serve the Hindu communities, it also reaches out to mainstream Canadians with its museum, library and openness to visiting groups. Positive responses from school groups of non-Hindus are posted on the temple website. The Toronto Vishnu Mandir has been described in some detail, for it serves as one model of how to draw together Hindus of different practices, languages and cultures into a single congregation – a model that has been successfully adopted in cities across Canada. Paul Younger refers to this as the ‘community temple’ model [40]. Not only has Dr Doobay’s leadership served the Hindu communities well but his temple reaches out to interested Canadians and presents a positive Hindu face to non-Hindus. Another example, the Ram Mandir (in Mississauga, a western suburb of Toronto), is a community temple with an energetic Caribbean congregation. This temple community is involved in inter-faith conversations with neighbouring churches and reaches out with confidence to both the wider Hindu community and the Canadian community [40]. There are multi-use facilities with similar eclectic approaches in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Ottawa, St Johns and other locations – especially in the smaller cities where Hindu numbers are not large enough for the ethnic groupings to establish their own temples. While many such temples may help with university or hospital chaplains, and take part in inter-faith activities, their main focus is in-turned upon the needs of the Hindus. Some still meet in converted Christian churches with an OM symbol replacing the cross on the steeple, but by now most have their own purpose-built building presenting a distinctive Hindu face to Canadian society.
A particularly striking example in this regard is the new Toronto Swaminarayan Mandir which was officially opened by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007. Just east of Highway 427, near Finch Avenue West, sits a new white stone temple crafted in the traditional Hindu style, with domed roofs and tall tapered towers, and a large stone staircase. While Canadians driving by the earlier Hindu temples in converted Christian churches may not have noticed anything very different, the new public Hindu face of the Swaminarayan Mandir will not be missed by passing motorists, many of whom will want to know more. In this and other ways, the reality of Canada’s multicultural policy is visually present in all major cities, but especially in Toronto. It is a bold step forward for Canadian Hindus in the twenty-first century. Some in Hamilton, Ontario, remembering the burning of their Hindu temple following the events of 9/11(it was mistaken for a Muslim mosque), may wonder if such an ‘in your face’ approach is the best way to go. So far, for this and other Hindu temples in Toronto, the new architectural face of Hinduism seems to be succeeding. Indeed an umbrella organization, the Hindu Federation of Canada, has been formed with most of the Toronto area large Mandirs as founding members. The Federation chose Diwali, 2008, as a Hindu Festival to present to all of Toronto. The Festival included a parade of Hindus carrying banners from their respective temples. The Swaminarayan Mandir set up a museum display showcasing the roots of Hinduism to the thousands who attended. On stage, 200 young artists performed a Ganesh Puja. There was a message from the Premier of Ontario. Dramatized stories from Hindu scripture were presented. In addition, a parallel Hindu Youth Conference ran with programmes ranging from the practice of yoga to the ten avatars of Vishnu. As a presentation of the public face of Hinduism for both Hindus and other mainstream Canadians, this event seems to be a step up from the food fairs of the past. It garnered a Canadian Press News Wire article that went out across the country.
Another group with a Toronto focus is the Hindu Students’ Association, centred at the University of Toronto. There are connections with similar associations at McMaster, McGill and Carleton universities and the Hindu Students’ Council of the United States. There is sponsorship from the Hindu Federation (the Toronto Hindu Mandirs) along with ties to the University Hindu chaplain. The students engage in inter-faith activities through the Campus Chaplains’ Association and offer both academic and social/religious mentoring to incoming Hindu students. Their events are religious (for example, Sarswati Puja), and case studies of, for example, caste, Hindu core beliefs and issues connected with dating, inter-marriage and parental pressure are discussed. Since 9/11 these Hindu students feel a need to distinguish themselves from Muslims and deal with racial/religious stereotypes encountered in mainstream Canadian culture. These students were also critical of ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) because of its proselytizing of non-Hindus and its exclusive focus on Krishna which seems to put limits on a ‘limit-transcending religion’. ISKCON, say these students, gives Hinduism an untrue public face [3].
The Hindu Conference of Canada, also centred in greater Toronto, bills itself as an activist organization dedicated to upholding the interest of Hindus and lobbying federal and local governments on domestic and foreign policy issues. The focus is Human Rights. They inform the broader Canadian society of human rights’ abuses against Hindus and lobby the Canadian government to bring about a just resolution of such matters. The programme activities of the organization during the autumn of 2006 focused on the derogatory stereotyping of Hindu children in schools and was supported by the Toronto District School Board. The organization has links with the Hindu American Foundation and has held joint events with the Hillel Jewish student association at Ryerson University. The post 9/11 goal of the Hindu Conference of Canada seems to be to counteract stereotyping of Hindus in schools, to identify abuses of human rights against Hindus and to ensure that the Hindu tradition is fairly presented to Canadians.
The oldest Hindu umbrella organization in Canada is Vivekananda’s Ramakrishna Mission. Its branches established in Canadian cities in the 1960s and 1970s often refer to themselves as the Vedanta Society. My first experience (1973) was with the Calgary branch which met on Sunday afternoons so that Christians could come after attending their church services in the morning. Readings were from Vivekananda’s translations and commentaries on the Upanishads, Yoga-sutras, or works by Sankara, led by a Ramakrishna Mission monk or a lay person. Visiting Swamis from Chicago or Portland appear from time to time and give guest lectures and teaching sessions in various homes. The clear message to Christians and other mainstream Canadians is that Hinduism does not seek to convert anyone, but simply presents teachings, such as yoga, ahimsa and Sankara’s Vedanta philosophy which can be practised by anyone without giving up their own religion. The Vedanta Society presentation of Hinduism has been appealing to some Canadians and shows a public face of Hinduism that is open and tolerant of other traditions.
Also active in Canada since the 1960s and 1970s, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) takes as its role the protecting of Hindu dharma. Unlike the tolerant, non-violent face of Hinduism presented to Canadians by the Vedanta Society, the VHP portrays a militant Hinduism which stands up to Islamic terrorism and the conversions of Hindus by Christians. The VHP protects what it takes to be the core values, beliefs and traditions of Hindu dharma. The VHP is thus inwardly focused on the Hindu community. World conferences have been held in 1966, 1979 and 2007. Its concern for Hindus living in Canada is that they are alienated from their original land and cut-off from their traditional dharma. In Canada, the main VHP temple is located in Burnaby (a part of greater Vancouver) with strong links to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America. However, across Canada, the VHP seems to have little influence on the public face of Hinduism. Nor does it have much place in the various Hindu communities. Unlike the VHP, ISKCON was established in New York in 1966 by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada to give Hinduism a public face in countries like the United States and Canada. ISKCON now has temples in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. Devotees of Lord Krishna, as found in the Caitanya tradition, ISKCON followers were early on advised against association with anyone other than Vaisnava Hindus. Thus Swami Bhaktivedanta and his early followers took an isolationist attitude towards other religions – the very opposite tack of the Vedanta Society. However, Bhaktivedanta’s successors in the ISKCON leadership changed that position – they courted academic respectability and fostered a positive approach to other religions. From the ISKCON perspective, a problem with Christianity is its meat-eating. If Christians become vegetarians and accept that Christ is a form of Krishna then, says ISKCON, there is no problem and no conversion is required. All of this Bhaktivedanta maintained is taught in the Bible [1: 535]. While early on ISKCON was very much ‘in the face’ of mainstream Canadians, confronting them on the city streets and in airports, today this missionary approach has largely disappeared. Instead, for example, public forays of the Vancouver Temple now take the form of a free meal for the skid row residents on the last weekend of the month before welfare cheques are received. This is a joint activity of ISKCON and the Simon Fraser University Vegetarian Club. Many teaching classes at the temple are open to the public and free of charge. Theatre performances of events from Krishna’s life take place. The devotees are a mix of white and South Asian Canadians. The attitude of Canadian Hindus towards ISKCON is best described as mixed, with some becoming ISKCON devotees and others wanting nothing to do with the organization. It seems fair to say that Swami Bhaktivedanta’s goal of giving Hinduism a public face in North America in the form of Lord Krishna has succeeded. Also, it is perhaps the one Hindu organization that is umbrella in nature, having temples across Canada from Vancouver to Montreal and a headquarters temple in Toronto. The public face that ISKCON presents is fairly constant from temple to temple. Banerjee reports that many Hindu young people prefer the consistent ritual standards and open format of the devotional talks by the Swamis who encourage questions [5: 46].
An informal survey of cities across Canada turned up the following views on the public face Hindus present to the mainstream. In Victoria, devotees at the Hindu Parishad Temple found that practising Hindu rituals in Canada was easy given the openness of Canadian society. Although the temple had a priest from the Punjab and was dominated by Punjabis, there were also people from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Bengal who liked all being together. Some felt it was preferable to bigger centres where Hindus broke down into regional and caste divisions. The only umbrella organization in Victoria is the India-Canada Association branch which is seen to be basically secular, social and business oriented towards the whole South Asian community, not just the Hindus.
At Calgary, the Hindu communities in the city do not succeed in presenting a unified public face. Rather, they retrench into their particular ethnic community (for example, Punjabi, Gujarati, Malyalam, Tamil and Bengali). However, through the India-Canada Association pan-Indian events and cultural festivals thrive – so long as issues of religions and/or politics are kept out. Cultural activities have included exhibits at the Glenbow Museum, film festivals and dance and music concerts at the performing arts centre. But when they tried to highlight the Hindu religion at any major event, such as Diwali, the arti ceremony usually ends up being left-off or tacked on at the end after most people have left.
In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Hindus work to engage other religious groups and civic organizations. The Hindu Society of Saskatoon, which manages the local Lakshmi Narayan Temple, invites federal, provincial and municipal politicians to their events – and they show up. The Society holds a Gala Banquet annually attended by 500–600 people, at least half being non-Hindu friends. Sponsored classical dance and music performances are held with about 10–20 per cent non-Hindus in attendance. Hindus are regularly involved in local charity work serving the whole community – for example, Meals on Wheels, the Open Door Society and Food for the Poor. Thus, through inter-religious events, arts activities and charity work, the Hindu Society of Saskatoon, as well as operating the Lakshmi Narayan Temple, presents an active and engaged public face to the mainstream.
Winnipeg has three major Hindu temples and a Vedanta Society. There is also a TV channel hosted by Sumitra Biswas with interviews and lectures. There is an Indian dance academy that gives both classes and performances and is a major cultural arm of the community. In the realm of politics, Hindus and Sikhs tend to work together in supporting Indian candidates.
Montreal has seven temples built by people from different regions (for example, Sri Lankans, Trinidadians and Gujaratis) but they all cater to all Hindus. There seems to be no Hindu Students’ Association. But the Hindu community has represented itself publicly by endowing a Chair of Hindu Studies at Concordia University, now filled by Dr T. S. Rukmani. There are also many Bharatanatyam dance groups run by Hindu women. But they cater to all Canadians and thus serve the important function of bringing Hindu culture through dance and music to mainstream Canada.
The Hindu community in St John’s, Newfoundland may well be unique in North America. They have become a leading member of a group called the Religious Social Action Coalition. First formed after 9/11, the group now includes all major religious groups and takes the elimination of poverty as its goal. Dr Veersh Gadag, Chair of the Hindu Temple Association of St John’s, also sits on the Executive of the Religious Social Action Coalition. Calls for participation are brought to the Hindu Temple from the Coalition, for example, to participate in a meeting with politicians to discuss the government’s response to the economic crisis. Also, the local CBC radio station has broadcast the Coalition interviews with politicians. Apart from activity with the Coalition, the St John’s Hindu Temple contributes to local charities like the food bank and to individual events of conflict and natural disaster relief as the need arises. In St John’s, the public face of Hinduism is one of strong ecumenical participation with the other religions in lobbying politicians and the media for the elimination of poverty for all Canadians.
Ottawa has three Hindu temples. The Hindu Temple of Ottawa-Carleton has been giving regular tours for high school and university students during the past two decades. It is a multiple deity community temple that caters to both north and south Indians. The newest temple is a Siva Temple which conducts its activities in Tamil and serves the Sri Lankan Tamils. Its main focus is to raise money to build a Tamil style temple. Another fund-raising project of the Ottawa community is directed towards establishing a Chair of Hindu Studies at Carleton University. Ottawa also has its share of Hindu dancers and musicians. There are two film-makers – one being Rashmi Gupta, whose film Passage to Ottawa has been well received. The closest thing to a Hindu umbrella organization seems to be the Sai Center which hosts a soup kitchen each month, collects for the food banks and participates in local walkathons to raise money for cancer and heart and stroke treatment. Radhika Sekar writes an ‘Ask the Religion Experts’ column for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. She also publishes children’s books on Hindu mythology and visits schools to read from her book on Diwali. As a result of this variety of service, dance, music and educational activity, Hinduism seems to have a vibrant public face in Ottawa.
In Hamilton, the Hindu Samaj Temple was burned when it was mistaken for a mosque following 9/11. Paul Younger, who was involved with this temple from its beginning on the McMaster campus in 1976, tells how the temple grew. A flood of working-class immigrants from the Punjab and Guyana arrived in the city in 1970 and pushed the elite leadership of the Hindu Samaj to find a temple site. A church building was purchased and the Board of the temple was carefully selected to represent every region of India. Similar care was taken to make the deities representative and to find a priest who could function to the satisfaction of all. The burning of the temple after 9/11 hit the newspapers across Canada. While it looked for a time that the public would help provide funds to rebuild the temple, in the end it was the Hindu community itself that had to raise the funds for restoration. A new temple was reopened on the old site. While the elite might wish the architecture of the temple to make an impression on the Canadian public, it is the need for the majority of working-class worshippers to be able to feel at home in the temple that is of greatest importance. Younger comments that Hindus of all stripes can come to such a temple to worship ‘knowing that in “multicultural” Canada they have a perfect right to a secure religious home’ [40: 14].
Younger has argued that the evidence outlined above suggests a Hindu pattern for Canada that is different from that of the United States. Whereas in the United States Hindus have followed an ethnic community life pattern that is similar for all minority groups, in Canada Hindus have developed a different pattern which Younger calls a ‘new homeland’ model [40]. The new homeland model allows for the various ethnic communities (for example, Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and others) to establish quite different patterns as they create new homelands for themselves. This is made possible by Canada’s multiculturalism policy, which creates both the opportunity and the ‘space’ for an immigrant minority community to recreate itself in ways different from its old country patterns. Younger understands Canada’s multiculturalism as a policy of ‘indifference’ that gives minority immigrant communities the ‘space’ to develop in new ways suitable to their new country, context and immigrant history. The majority of Hindus who came to Canada emigrated not directly from India, but from post-colonial indentured British societies (for example, Guyana, Trinidad, Fiji and Uganda) – new environments in which they had already been actively engaged in redefining their cultural and religious heritage. The previous experience of building a new homeland that these communities brought to Canada, together with the opportunity offered by Canada’s Multiculturalism Act, encouraged Hindus in Canada to work hard in establishing a ‘new homeland’. It also allows for differences between the various Hindu communities in Canada, as we have seen above. In addition, it is likely that the patterns created by the first-generation immigrants of these communities will change as the second- and third-generation Hindus continue to negotiate their place within Canada’s multicultural framework. According to Younger, in the past two decades, diaspora Hindus began to realize that multiculturalism meant not only government neutrality, but also a post-colonial openness in the value system of Canadian society. Thus, like the Canadian Sikhs, but different from them, the Guyanese, Gujaritis and Sri Lankan Tamil refugee communities have each in their own way begun to set forth their own version of Hindu truth in the public forum. As Younger puts it, ‘One might not think that the social gospel energy of the Ram Mandir, or the smug puritan ethic of the Gujarati organizations, or the spectacular asceticism of the Tamil festival would be the best way to present the Hindu truth to the Canadian public, but those were the authentic religious practices that came to the fore when people realized that they could unselfconsciously practice their religion in any way they wanted’ [40: 21].
While Younger’s analysis seems basically correct for the larger population areas such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, in the smaller centres across Canada the community temple pattern in which only one eclectic Hindu face is presented is more the norm. And, if the thinking of the second- and third-generation graduate students (like those interviewed at the University of Toronto and reported above) is anything to go by, Hindu voices in the future may become more unified (something like the Vedanta vision, perhaps). The very good thing is that this freedom to creatively evolve both their identity and form(s) of religious expression comes from Hindus who feel very much at home in multicultural Canada.
I want to register a slight disagreement with Younger’s interpretation of Canadian multiculturalism as a policy of ‘indifference’ or ‘neutrality’ towards minority ethnic and religious communities [40]. While ‘indifference’ may be a correct interpretation of the multiculturalism policy in Canada’s constitutional law tradition [9], I have always taken multiculturalism to be more ‘positive’ in both intent and practice. This view is given support in two recent publications of Varun Uberoi of Oxford University. Uberoi notes that Canada has both a Multiculturalism Act and anti-discrimination measures, while the United States has no such formal policy, constitutional commitment or act [35: 405]. Uberoi’s historical analysis shows how and why the Canadian government agreed to insert in the Charter Section 27 which states: ‘This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians’, and that this policy has shaped Canadian national identity [36: 1]. According to Uberoi, the reason Prime Minister Trudeau agreed to change terminology from ‘biculturalism’ to ‘multiculturalism’ was that by the 1970s the federal government wanted to cultivate a national identity that would be meaningful to all Canadians, not just to those of British or French descent [36: 5]. Now this is clearly more than a policy of ‘indifference’. Indeed, from the perspective of the Canadian Ukrainian community, it is a positive statement of the multicultural complexion of Canada [36: 4]. Indeed, changing Younger’s interpretation of Canada’s multiculturalism policy from ‘indifference’ to a positive national ideal in no way lessens the correctness of his analysis of Hindus in Canada, but rather strengthens it. Canada’s multiculturalism policy is quite different from that of the United States or the United Kingdom [41].
Sikhs
My earlier article in this volume gives the immigration history and religious experience of the Canadian Sikhs and will not be repeated. Here I focus on recent developments in the interaction of Sikhs with mainstream multicultural Canada. Mahmood describes how in 2002 Canadian Sikhs celebrated the centennial of their arrival in Canada by wearing gold pins with a maple leaf entwined with the khanda, the Sikh double-edged sword, and danced to fusion music mixing the best of sitar with hip hop at parties from Vancouver to Toronto. ‘Young Sikhs in particular have embraced the policy and tradition of Canadian multiculturalism, which they assume promotes the notions of citizenship in an ethnically neutral Canada’ [20: 52]. Of the almost 300,000 Sikhs in Canada, mostly in British Columbia and Ontario, about two-thirds are foreign born, with roots largely in villages of the Punjab. Homeland politics have been imported to Canada where the Sikh communities are sharply divided between ‘extremists’ and ‘moderates’ on issues such as national homeland (Khalistan), dress (turban and kirpan), eating (on floor vs at tables and chairs), and the academic study of Sikh scriptures. Engagement with these issues has resulted in the Air India explosion (killing 329 people, mostly Canadians), court cases over wearing turbans and carrying kirpans, court cases over use of tables and chairs in gurdwaras, and media fights over the teachings of professors occupying Chairs of Sikh Studies at major universities. Thus, in the minds of many Canadians, Sikhs are connected with terrorism, security and legal problems. Yet at the same time Sikhs have developed key economic enterprises, have been ministers and elected officials in provincial and national governments and served in the military with pride.
Kamala Nayar [24] explains Sikh tensions as a conflict between, on the one hand, preservation of Punjabi culture (sanctioned by the Canadian policy of multiculturalism), and, on the other, socializing into mainstream Canadian society. Rather than an advantage, as with the Hindus, for the Sikhs, says Nayar, multiculturalism has drawbacks especially when the immigrant group has a religious identity rooted in traditional oral village society, and suddenly has to adjust to a literate modern society. In the clash between modernity and Sikh village tradition, multiculturalism obstructs the adjustment of many Sikh immigrants to mainstream Canadian society. This is evident when the impact of multiculturalism on three generations is analysed. As Nayar points out, there is inevitably a generational time lag while the traditional oral community ‘learns’ the new literate society [24: 223]. The immigrant generation often fails to realize that the cultural values associated with Canadian society (such as self-differentiation, success by merit, personal choice and egalitarianism) are integral to the economic order and to the independence they gain from that order. Nayar notes that this ‘is especially evident in the tension between generations and genders in the areas of household dynamics, child rearing and development, and religious and social practices’ [24: 224]. The literate children of immigrants, raised in Canada, much more easily than their parents engage in self-reflection, analytical thought and individual rather than collective decision-making. These tendencies, learned in Canadian schools, are often viewed by their parents’ and grandparents’ generations as undermining authority and tradition. This modern mentality also encourages ‘a self-conscious approach to religion, including the right to question Sikh beliefs and practices’ [24: 228]. Nayar finds that the Canadian policy of multiculturalism actually aids this conflict because it promotes preservation of one’s culture. Some parents and grandparents who have come from village India create ‘little Punjabi’ communities for themselves in Canada with strong links to their homeland and so resist absorbing mainstream values. Nayar concludes that the parents’ and grandparents’ generations need help in integrating with the mainstream while their Canadian-born children need guidance in living as modern Canadians – but without losing their own cultural and religious heritage. To achieve this, says Nayar, ‘multiculturalism needs to be reoriented toward encouraging communities to interact with the Canadian mainstream… [and] the Sikh community as a whole could benefit by moving away from its traditional village/clan mentality…’ [24: 232–3]. Mahmood, however, is strongly convinced that the new generation of diaspora-born Sikhs have already made such a move and now identify themselves with the global Sikh community. The young, she says, circulate freely to camps and meetings across the US – Canada border, and find spouses without regard to that border. For some, the social universe of the Sikh world is a set of urban centres linked by cell phones, the Internet, Punjabi newspapers, gurdwara congregations, itinerant musicians and preachers [20: 63–4]. Over the past two decades Canada has been a locus of Sikh modernizing activity and homeland politics. For example, a Canadian Sikh scholar, Pashura Singh, helped open the Adi Granth to modern analytical study. As they take part in political and religious debates regarding Sikh nationalism, Canadian Sikhs are at the very heart of discussions over what it may mean to be a Sikh and live as a Sikh in the future. To chart this activity one need only consult the proceedings of the various Sikh conferences held in Canada from 1979 to the present [31]. These conferences also dealt with issues Sikhs were presenting to the Canadian government and mainstream culture.
Turning to the ‘public face’ of Sikhs in Canada, Hugh Johnston observes that over the past decade negative perceptions resulting from the Air India disaster, the nationalist Khalistan movement and court cases to resolve internal Sikh disputes (for example, use of tables and chairs) have begun to dissipate. Civil order rather than religious conviction has carried the day in these court decisions [19: 359]. In terms of umbrella organizations, the Federation of Sikh Societies of Canada was formed in 1981 with its head office in Ottawa. The purpose of the Federation was to maintain Sikh religion and culture, and to speak on behalf of Canadian Sikhs at all levels of government. Briefs were presented to various government and UN commissions on matters such as wearing the kirpan and turban, and human rights. The Federation presented a kirpan to Prime Minister Trudeau in 1984 [31: 127]. However, the Indian army invasion of the Golden Temple in Amritsar and the idea of a separate state of Khalistan led to political, regional and personal differences that pulled gurdwara societies in various directions resulting in the collapse of the Federation in 1985. The following period saw the birth of the American-based World Sikh Organization and its rival, the International Sikh Youth Federation. Both organizations secured some support in Canada, but not from all Sikh societies, and neither filled the void left by the Federation. Indeed, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has deemed the International Sikh Youth Federation a threat to national security [27: 88].
In spite of the above ups and downs, Sikhs have been very successful in Canadian politics. In British Columbia, Sikhs have been elected as members of the Legislature and several have served as Cabinet ministers. Special mention might be made of Ujjal Dosanjh who served as Attorney General and Premier of the Province of British Columbia where he instituted reforms of the justice system, equality, environment and social justice. Since 2004, Dosanjh has served as a Member of Parliament in Ottawa and from 2004 to 2006 as federal Minister of Health. He is a widely respected politician in Canada. More than the South Asian Hindus or Muslims, Sikhs have made significant contributions to Canada’s political life in the twenty-first century.
Muslims
For the immigration history of the Muslims in Canada, the reader should consult my earlier article in this volume. During each of the past two decades, the number of South Asian Muslims in Canada has more than doubled. Beyer estimates that by 2011 there will be 1–1.3 million Muslims in Canada with one-half or about 500,000 being of South Asian origin [10: 21]. Despite its policy of multiculturalism, Canada, like the whole of the Western world, seems somewhat hostile to those who are attempting to be faithful to the traditional practice of Islam. The media may bear a major responsibility for this. Negative stereotyping of Muslims became widespread after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center have further deepened that negative perception. Muslims suddenly became news and a tendency arose to link all Muslims with terrorists such as al-Qaeda. All of this came closer to home when in June 2006 RCMP officers and Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents arrested seventeen members of an Ontario group described as ‘Islamic extremists’ who apparently planned to attack targets such as the CN Tower using homemade explosives [16: 69]. The resulting Islamophobia is a direct challenge to Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism. Although Canadian Muslim sympathy for terrorist attacks is almost non-existent, controversial images of Muslims in the media have caused many problems for Canadian Muslims [17]. A national organization, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) analyses Canadian press coverage of Islamic issues, and finds that the ‘public face’ of Islam in the media is that of an inherently violent religion. This distorted image of Islam causes Muslims, especially young people, ‘to experience a loss of self-esteem, feelings of inferiority, and even suicidal tendencies according to the CIC’ [21: 138]. From the Canadian public such stereotyping can inspire suspicion, hate crimes, vandalism and racial profiling. Besides countering bias in the media depictions of Muslims, the CIC urges ‘Canadian Muslims to participate nationally in the social, cultural, political and educational aspects of Canadian public life for the well-being of the whole country’ [21]. Another group that works to counter negative media coverage of Islam and Muslims is the Council of American Islamic Relations Canada. Publications on their website (www.caircan.ca) include guides to Muslim practice for employers and teachers.
Across Canada following 9/11 inter-faith study groups sprang up, especially between Christians and Muslims – to provide support for Muslims facing Islamophobia, and for the Christians to learn more about Islam. In Victoria, for example, the Ismai’ili community joined with Christians in bus tours to their Burnaby mosque in Vancouver. Also, a group of Ismai’ili authors have recently published a book, Belonging and Banishment that tells the mainstream what it is like to grow up Muslim in Canada [2]. In addition, the Ismai’ilis sponsor a charity walk each year to raise funds for Saint Paul’s hospital in Vancouver, a walk in which the whole community participates. Events such as 9/11 have called forth from the Muslims a need to do a better job of educating mainstream Canada on Islam. In the universities, more appointments of scholars of Islam have been made. Endowments have been created, largely from the Islamic community, to sponsor special lectureships on Islam. For example, the Oxford University scholar, Tariq Ramadan, visited Victoria and Vancouver to speak about the reforming of Islam from within so as to live in the modern Western scientific democratic world. Ramadan has also spoken in Montreal where he warned Muslims not to demonize the modern West as evil. He urged Canadian Muslims to be constructive citizens rather than indulging in utopian fantasies about creating perfect Muslim societies [25: 139]. Muslims are now much more active in inter-faith activities than they were before 9/11. For example, on World Youth Day in July 2002, when Pope John Paul II visited Toronto, members of the Muslim community offered to host ‘pilgrims’ and a joint meeting of Muslim and Catholic youth on pluralism and tolerance attracted some 300 young people [25: 145].
In 2002 Samira Hussain of Montreal undertook a community participatory research project investigating the effects of 9/11 and its aftermath on Canadian Muslim women. She conducted fourteen focus groups across Canada including one in French. The results included expressions of horror at the terrorist acts and distress over the stereotyping of all Muslims as somehow responsible. In every location there was at least one report of vandalism on the local Islamic centre. However, in a positive response, these new threats have motivated Canadian Muslims to open themselves to more encounters with other Muslims and non-Muslim Canadians. The many ethnic groupings have joined together into umbrella organizations (something that could not have happened before) and throughout the country many mosques held open houses seeking to explain themselves to their fellow citizens. In response, Muslims report a strong show of support from the mainstream community towards Muslim communities, especially in smaller cities such as Halifax. This the Muslims describe as a true demonstration of the Canadian spirit [18].
In Canada, the role of imam or prayer leader has been evolving from the traditional mosque imam who led prayers and preached the Friday sermon [37: 124]. In Canada, imams may be professional persons who also volunteer as imam. In Toronto, for example, Abdul Hai Patel, an electrical engineer, had received traditional training in the Qur’an in both India and the Caribbean. In addition to traditional teaching and preaching, he performs marriages and funerals and represents the ‘public face’ of Islam by serving on the Ontario Human Rights Commission, as a co-ordinator of the Canadian Islamic Council of Imams, a Muslim chaplain at the University of Toronto and the Whitby Mental Hospital, and a member of the South and West Asian Consultative Committee of the Toronto Police [21: 140]. Mainstream Canadian society thinks of imams as performing roles comparable to Christian ministers who also function as pastoral counsellors and civic representatives of their people. This evolution in the role of the imam has also led to greater lay authority in, for example, the hiring of imams. Imams have also ended up with major responsibilities in Canadian Islamic Schools (Statistics Canada estimates that about 3,500 or 7 per cent of Muslim students now attend Islamic schools). In her fine study of these schools, Jasmine Zine notes that a major problem with the schools is that they are often politically run by the imam. What is needed, she says, is a parents’ council and an elected board of trustees to run the schools rather than the imam [42: 321].
Canadian Muslims have also been evolving their own umbrella organizations. In Edmonton, the Islamic Family and Social Services Association (IFSSA) specializes in Muslim needs. IFSSA provides food and clothing banks, financial and social assistance, refugee settlement and halal food. To help with women’s issues, a national organization, the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW) works with government organizations concerned with multiculturalism and the status of women. At its conferences, keynote speakers (for example, Abou El Fadl of Egypt) are invited who engage women’s issues in the revision of Muslim law codes. Inter-faith meetings have been held with Jewish and Hindu women’s groups and the Calgary Chapter has worked with the city police to produce a pamphlet on ‘Violence Against Women’. Among the Muslim women many are highly educated and have done well. One example is Lila Fahlman who grew up in the midst of the Depression on the Prairies. She earned a PhD in educational psychology, served on the Edmonton School Board, helped in building the first Canadian mosque in 1938, and became vice-chair of Vision TV. She created the World Council of Muslim Women’s Foundation and has travelled to meet Muslim women in China. Fahlman was awarded the Order of Canada in 2001 [21: 142].
Another umbrella organization, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), describes itself as a non-ethnic, non-sectarian, North American-wide organization promoting conversions to Islam. Those who join are expected to accept the group’s understanding of Islam and to engage in a programme of attendance at regular Qur’an study sessions. There is an ICNA da’wa centre and bookstore on Bloor Street in Toronto from which its missionary effort is conducted. Yet another umbrella organization is the Council of Canadian Muslim Communities (CCMC), which works with mainstream Canadians in promoting equality, equity and social justice initiatives. The CCMC works nationally to develop Muslim leadership, summer camps for youth, religious resources, and to act as the public face of Muslims in Canada. There are also a number of Sufi orders active in Canada including the Naqshbandi, Burhanniya, Chistiyya, Qadiriyya, Mevlevi, Ovisi and Jerrahi [21: 147]. Sufi organizations attract some mainstream Canadian members and focus on the personal spiritual development of their devotees. In terms of politicians, Rahime Jaffer served as a Member of Parliament for an Edmonton riding, and Fatima Houda-Pepin has three times been elected as a member of the Quebec National Assembly.
Generational issues have arisen when some younger Muslims have become more religiously conservative than their parents. As McDonough and Hoodfar observe, younger Muslims often learn what they take to be a universal Islam at mosque study circles, camps or Muslim youth associations, and use religious knowledge and rigorous practice as a means to separate themselves from their parents’ ethnic culture. Defining Islam this way, rather than tied to an ethnicity, gives young Muslims freedom to use personal choice and analysis in religious practice and belief, as well as a larger pool from which to choose marriage partners [21: 145]. From his interviews with Muslim university students, Beyer found evidence of a global Islam constructed by the young when they rely not only on sources in Canada (for example, parents, relatives and local religious leaders) but also on globalized sources like television and the Internet. This allows them to conduct their own personal searches and selections for an authentic Islam. ‘The only really consistent source for most of them are the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet (Sunna), but this is also a key aspect of the global model’ [10: 35]. These young Muslims seem to be developing localized versions of their globalized and traditional Islam. These Muslim university students attribute some of their religious freedom to the Internet, but they also credit Canada’s policy of multiculturalism and its religious diversity. Multiculturalism, they say, represents an effort by people from all over the world to learn how to live together while respecting their difference – which makes Canada a microcosm of the world. These same students, without exception, says Beyer, rejected political Islamism, and the idea that religion should be imposed by the state on anyone. As one Muslim student put it, ‘There are certain points to staying and understanding your own culture…But to be able to evolve and to move on with the times…we can show the world here how to live amongst people from all different backgrounds’ [10: 36]. This student’s view of the future of Islam in Canada has much in common with the vision of Tariq Ramadan [25]. And yet, as a powerful new study of Muslim immigrants to Canada shows, ‘moving from the past into the future is one of the most complex and challenging issues facing them and their new country’ [23: 195].
Conclusion
Canadian research shows that while recent immigrants often find their faith plays an important role in helping them to adjust and find their self-identity in their new homes [e.g. 24; 13], the second-generation offspring of these immigrants – people who have grown up in Canada – do not face the same kind of challenge. According to the demographical analysis of Beyer, about one-third of each of the South Asian communities are second- or third-generation people who have grown up and been socialized in Canada [Beyer in 13: 235, 236, 240]. The involvement in religion of the second- and third-generation youth of these communities varies greatly. They tend to be more individualistic (that is, they base the content and extent of their religious involvement on their own decisions) than their parents and often exhibit a greater combination of the global and the local. They engage in their own research and experience and then evaluate traditional texts, their parents’ practice, religious leaders and organizations from that basis. They do not simply copy their parents but selectively appropriate their parents’ traditions. The events of 9/11 and thereafter seem to have further exaggerated this tendency, especially in the Muslim community. The engagement of these younger people is also new in their use of the Internet in the global presentation of their religious traditions. The Internet is also being used by these religious traditions in Canada (in both their local and national organizations) to offer increasingly sophisticated websites as their ‘public face’ to the Canadian mainstream.
Overall, says Beyer, one can conclude that the consequences of Canada’s shift to multiculturalism (in both immigration and internal policies) during the period between 1970 and 2000 and the first decade of the twenty-first century has significantly changed the experience and perception of mainstream Canadians. Especially in Toronto and parts of Montreal and Vancouver where non-white, non-Europeans dominate, Canada no longer seems to be mainly shaped by persons who are from British, French and Christian roots. Yet, says Beyer, in spite of this new diversity the Canadian experience is much as it has been in the past: the ‘newcomers’ arrive and adapt to the local styles and forms that are dominant among the resident Canadians, but at the same time the global specificity of the ‘newcomers’ helps to transform the religious diversity of the mainstream [10: 38].
I wish to acknowledge the assistance of June Thomson, Paul Bramadat, Patricia Dold, R. T. Rukmani, Radhika Sekar, Klaus Klostermaier, Arti Dhand, Braj Sinha, Tinu Ruparell, Sikata Banerjee and Paul Younger.
Bibliography
1 BAIRD, R., ‘Swami Bhaktivedanta and Ultimacy’, in Robert Baird (ed.), Religion in Modern India, New Delhi, Manohar, 1995, pp. 515–41
2 BAKHT, N., (ed.), Belonging and Banishment: Being Muslim in Canada, Toronto, Tsar Publications, 2008
3 BANERJEE, S., Personal interviews with members of the University of Toronto Hindu Students’ Association, 24 May 2002, unpublished
4 BANERJEE, S., Personal interview with Swami of the Toronto Vedanta Society, 16 May 2002
5 BANERJEE, S., and COWARD, H., ‘Hindus in Canada: Negotiating Identity in a “Different” Homeland’, in Paul Bramadat and David Seljak (eds), Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, Pearson, 2005, pp. 30–51
6 BASRAM, G. S. and BOLARIA, B. S., The Sikhs in Canada: Migration, Race, Class and Gender, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003
7 BEAMAN, L., ‘The Myth of Pluralism, Diversity and Vigour: The Constitutional Privilege of Protestantism in the United States and Canada’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 42, 2003, pp. 311–25
8 BEAMAN, L., ‘A Cross-National Comparison of Approaches to Religious Diversity: Canada, France and the United States’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 199–216
9 BERGER, B., ‘The Cultural Limits of Legal Tolerance’, The Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, vol. 21, no. 2, 2008
10 BEYER, P., ‘From Far and Wide: Canadian and Cultural Diversity’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 9–39
11 BIBBY, R., Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada, Toronto, Stoddart, 2002
12 BRAMADAT, P., and SELJAK, D. (eds), Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, Pearson, 2005
13 BRAMADAT, P., and SELJAK, D. (eds), Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2008
14 BUCHIGNANI, N., INDRA, D. M., and SRIVASTAVA, R., Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada, Toronto, McCelland & Stewart, 1985
15 COTE, P., ‘Quebec and Reasonable Accommodation: Uses and Misuses of Public Consultation’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 42–65
16 COWAN, D. E., ‘Fearing Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Sociophobics and the Disincentive to Religious Diversity’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 67–83
17 HELLY, D., ‘Are Muslims Discriminated against in Canada since September, 2001?’, Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, vol. 36, no. 1, 2004, pp. 24–49
18 HUSSAIN, S., ‘Voices of Muslim Women: A Community Research Project’, Canadian Council of Muslim Women, 2400 Dundas St. W., Mississauga, ON, 2002
19 JOHNSTON, H., ‘Sikhism and Secular Authority’, in Marquerite Van Die (ed.), Religion and Public Life in Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001, pp. 346–62
20 MAHMOOD, C. K., ‘Sikhs in Canada: Identity and Commitment’, in Paul Bramadat and David Seljab (eds), Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, Pearson, 2005, pp. 52–68
21 MCDONOUGH, S., and HOODFAR, H., ‘Muslims in Canada: From Ethnic Groups to Religious Community’, in Paul Bramadat and David Seljab (eds), Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, Pearson, 2005, pp. 133–53
22 MISTRY, R., A Fine Balance, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 1995
23 MOGHISSI, H., RAHNEMA, S., and GOODMAN, M., Diaspora by Design: Muslims in Canada and Beyond, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2009
24 NAYAR, K., The Sikh Diaspora in Vancouver: Three Generations Amid Tradition, Modernity and Multiculturalism, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2004
25 RAMADAN, T., Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009
26 RAVVIN, N., ‘Jews in Canada’, in Paul Bramadat and David Seljak (eds), Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, Toronto, Pearson, 2005, pp. 111–32
27 RAZAVY, M., ‘Sikh Militant Movements in Canada’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 18, 2006, pp. 79–93
28 REIMER, S., ‘Does Religion Matter? Canadian Religious Traditions and Attitudes Toward Diversity’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 106–25
29 SAHOO, A., and NARAYAN, K. L. (eds), Indian Diaspora: Trends and Issues, New Delhi, Serials Publications, 2008
30 SHANI, G., Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age, London, Routledge, 2008
31 SINGH, N., Canadian Sikhs: History, Religion and Culture of Sikhs in North America, Ottawa, Canadian Sikh’s Studies Institute, 1994
32 STATISTICS CANADA, 1971, 1981, 1991 & 2001 Census Custom Tabulations, DO0324, CD-ROM, Ottawa, Statistics Canada, Advisory Services Division, 2003
33 STATISTICS CANADA., Questionnaire, http://www.statcan.ca/english/sdds/instrument/3901_Q2_v2_E.pdf, consulted 30 November 2007, 2001b
34 TULCHINSKY, G., ‘Justice and Only Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: Considerations on the Social Voice of Canada’s Reform Rabbis’, in Marguerite Van Die (ed.), Religion and Public Life in Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001, pp. 313–28
35 UBEROI, V., ‘Do Policies of Multiculturalism Change National Identities?’, The Political Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 3, 2008, pp. 404–17
36 UBEROI, V., ‘Multiculturalism and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’, Political Studies, 2008, pp. 1–23
37 WAUGH, E., ‘The Imam in the New World: Models and Modifications’, in Frank Reynolds and Thomas Ludwig (eds), Transitions and Transformations in the History of Religion, Leiden, Brill, 1980
38 WEINFELD, M., Like Everyone Else…But Different, Toronto, McCelland & Stewart, 2001
39 YOUNG, P. D., ‘Two by Two: Religion, Sexuality and Diversity in Canada’, in Lori Beaman and Peter Beyer (eds), Religion and Diversity in Canada, Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. 85–103
40 YOUNGER, P., ‘Canadian Hinduism’, paper given at the Annual Meeting, American Academy of Religion, San Diego, 2007
41 ZAVOS, J., ‘Religion and the Organization of Hindu Identity in Contemporary Britain’, paper presented at the Wabash/Manchester Seminar on the Public Representation of a Religion Called Hinduism, Wabash College, March 2009
42 ZINE, J., Canadian Islamic Schools, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2008. See also her chapter, ‘Safe Havens or Religious “Ghettos”? Narratives of Islamic Schooling in Canada’, in Y. V. Haddad, Farid Sengar, and Jane Smith (eds), Educating the Muslims of America, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 39–65