Canada’s Future Lies in Its Shared Heritage, Not Post-Nationalism

People relax at Verdun Beach in Montreal on June 30, 2025. The Canadian Press/Christinne Muschi

Commentary

The post-nationalism declared by Justin Trudeau has been rejected, and Canadian nationalism is thoroughly back in vogue. The next logical step as a country would be to shelve post-nationalism’s ideological predecessor: Pierre Trudeau’s multiculturalism.

Shortly after his election in 2015, Justin Trudeau described Canada as the world’s “first postnational state” with “no core identity, no mainstream.”

Far from a throwaway remark, this now-infamous comment was an accurate prediction of what the next nine years would look like. Unifying imagery depicting the Fathers of Confederation, Vimy Ridge, and Terry Fox was purged from passports. Christian symbolism in the Canadian Royal Crown was summarily scrapped. The Canadian Navy made plans to replace its historic “Heart of Oak” march song with something “more inclusive.”

Justin Trudeau is gone as Prime Minister, and Canadians are shifting away from a post-national ideology that is insufficient to meet the present moment.

Living through a dramatic and constantly fluctuating Canada–U.S. trade war, and still haunted by the prospect of becoming the 51st U.S. state, many Canadians have embraced a muscular, flag-waving patriotism rarely seen north of the 49th parallel. Polls continue to show that national pride is surging.

Post-nationalism is out. Canadian nationalism is in. Much of the country now wants their government to uplift and affirm Canadian identity, rather than denigrating and cancelling it.

As we emerge from the last decade’s post-national landscape, we would do well to look back over our shoulder and consider the path that led us there. In doing so, we find that post-nationalism is the long-delayed outgrowth of a pernicious ideology adopted in the early 1970s.

In 1971, under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Canada became the first country in the world to enshrine multiculturalism as official state policy. This was a remarkable deviation from the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–1969).

The commission was first established by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson in 1963 to determine “what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding nations [British and French]” while “taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada.”

While warmly praising the contributions of immigrants of all origins, the commission suggested that newcomers learn one of “two official languages” and integrate into either of the “two predominant cultures that have produced two societies – Francophone and Anglophone – which form two distinct communities within an overall Canadian context.”

Pierre Trudeau’s government resonated with the commission’s support for bilingualism, but did not share its view that Canadian identity is best defined by the “fundamental duality” of English and French Canada united together in Confederation.

In a landmark speech to Parliament in early October 1971, Pierre Trudeau announced that “multiculturalism within a bilingual framework” would become official state policy. Explaining his view that Canada has “two official languages” but “no official culture,” he predicted that multiculturalism would “break down discriminatory attitudes and cultural jealousies.”

This dramatic change in policy has not been without its critics. In 1994, Neil Bissoondath published his controversial bestseller “Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada,” in which he took stock of the deep divisions wrought by state multiculturalism in the two decades since its announcement in 1971.

Bisoondath worried that the kind of racial tension he witnessed growing up in Trinidad could be replicated in his new homeland of Canada if immigrant diasporas were encouraged by state policy to form parallel societies.

“Selling Illusions” pulled few punches in its criticism of what Bissoondath felt was a deeply flawed policy, arguing that multiculturalism has “heightened our differences rather than diminished them ... preached tolerance rather than encouraging acceptance; and ... is leading us into a divisiveness so entrenched that we face a future of multiple solitudes with no central notion to bind us.”

Two decades after the publication of “Selling Illusions,” state multiculturalism had started to be abandoned across the West.

In a speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2011, then-British Prime Minister David Cameron argued that “the doctrine of state multiculturalism” has “encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream.” A year before, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel was blunter, declaring that multiculturalism had “utterly failed.”

Just a few years after European leaders began to repudiate multiculturalism, Canadians would elect a government that sought to expand multiculturalism even further, into post-nationalism. A clear and direct line can be drawn between Pierre Trudeau’s contention in 1971 that Canada has “no official culture” and Justin Trudeau’s claim in 2015 that Canada has “no core identity.”

Post-nationalism and multiculturalism seek to redefine Canada into a blank canvas devoid of a historic lineage. Rejecting these doctrines would reaffirm our national identity, offering newcomers a tangible and rich heritage to integrate into rather than shunting them into hermetically sealed ethnic enclaves.

Now that Canadians have judged post-nationalism and found it wanting, we should begin to seriously consider whether the last five decades of state multiculturalism have brought this country and its people closer together or further apart.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.