Canadian National Parks Essay Research Paper In

Canadian National Parks Essay, Research Paper

In the 1960s, Canada embarked on a vast social experiment to find a way to coexistence and tolerance. Long before the first European settlers arrived, Canada was a multicultural society. The country was home to hundreds of different tribes of Aboriginal people speaking many different languages. Some tribes got along with each other well, some were at each other’s throats. Whatever the state of their relationships, Canada was certainly multicultural and multilingual. However, many centuries passed before it was felt necessary to enshrine multiculturalism in the law. At the start of the 20th century, Canada was overwhelmingly peopled by members of its three founding cultures — Native (First Nations), French, and English. As waves of immigrants from other cultures began to arrive, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier outlined the idea of multiculturalism that was to come much later. He described visiting a magnificent cathedral in England that was “made of marble, oak, and granite. It is the image of the nation I would like to see Canada become. For here, I want the marble to remain the marble; the granite to remain the granite; the oak to remain the oak; and out of all these elements I would build a nation great among the nations of the world.” Fifty years later, another Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, used different imagery to express a similar idea. He said that Canada is not “a melting pot in which the individuality of each element is destroyed in order to produce a new and totally different element. It is rather a garden into which have been transplanted the hardiest and brightest flowers from many lands, each retaining in its new environment the best of the qualities for which it was loved and prized in its native land.” During the time that Lester Pearson was Prime Minister (1963-68), Canadians were as preoccupied as ever with a debate over national unity. In 1963, Mr. Pearson set up the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism to examine ways in which to counter the growing separatist movement in Quebec.Six years later, the Bi and Bi Commission, as it was popularly known, brought down its report. Its major recommendation was that French and English be declared the official languages of the Parliament of Canada, of the federal courts, and of the federal government. The proclamation of an Official Languages Act (1969) would be a rock-solid guarantee of what was already general, but unofficial, practice. While it concentrated on relations between the English and French, the Bi and Bi Commission also looked at where other ethnic groups would fit into the Canadian mosaic. These groups were now growing rapidly in number and joining the Ukrainians, Italians, Poles, and others already here. Was a bicultural society going to make these Canadians feel like second-class citizens. It was a tricky point and one that then Secretary of State Gerard Pelletier tackled in 1970: “We are talking about the development in Canada of a multicultural society. The government refuses to sacrifice, in the name of unity through conformity, any of the cultures that are represented in our population.” In 1971, the concept of multiculturalism was proclaimed as government policy by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and subsequently by a number of provinces. All his life, Mr. Trudeau had been a foe of nationalism; he saw it as a force that created division, not unity. In the minds of nationalists an us-and-them mentality develops; “Us” equals good, “Them” equals bad. Multiculturalism was to be a weapon to overcome the aggression and division of nationalism. Ierre Trudeau outlined this idealistic view in a speech to a Ukrainian group in 1972: “Our image is of a land of people with many differences — but many contributions, many variations in view — but a single desire to live in harmony…On a planet of finite size, the most desirable of all characteristics is the ability and desire to cohabit with persons of differing backgrounds, and to benefit from the opportunities which this offers.” In 1982, multiculturalism was guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mr. Trudeau said multiculturalism meant, “…encouraging cultural diversification within a bilingual framework.”

Canada’s first conservationists were its native peoples, who for centuries lived off the land with little apparent destruction. Such practices as clearing areas or driving game by lighting fires would have affected forests, but there is little evidence that these activities caused any long- term damage. Furthermore, Indian bands and Inuit family groups often moved their settlements to new areas for better hunting, allowing the regions left to grow back and repopulate with wildlife. Hence there was no need for concern about conservation problems before the first permanent European settlement in the 17th century. In Canada since that time, attitudes towards the conservation of nature and natural resources have developed in 5 overlapping but distinct periods. The first period, from about the 1670s to 1860, has been called the “Tree Reserves Period.” In this period the French and English tried to ensure a steady supply of ship timber. During the second, the “Land Reserves Period” (1860-1885), land was reserved by church and state for schools, universities and railways. A sale of land and land taxes were the only sources of wealth for governments. The first Canadian naturalist clu