By Daniel R. Meister
In the case of periodizing the historical past of federal coverage of multiculturalism in Canada, present fashions have loosely related adjustments in coverage with the altering of the governments.[1] However a more in-depth examination of the earliest many years of the coverage’s existence means that the Cupboard ministers liable for the coverage had been extra liable for its evolution than the prime minister or political get together in energy. That is even though multiculturalism it was by no means thought-about a prestigious portfolio, and due to this fact among the figures concerned are additionally lesser remembered.
Take, as an illustration, the second minister of state liable for multiculturalism: John Carr Munro (1931–2003). Munro was a long-time Liberal MP for Hamilton East (1962–1984) and though he was liable for multiculturalism for slightly below three years (August 1974–April 1977), this was a relatively very long time for the period. Press protection in his early years as a Cupboard minister emphasised his “social conscience.” As an illustration, in 1972, a prolonged article in Macleans relayed a sequence of showing anecdotes that give a glimpse of a hardworking, grassroots, devoted, and usually well-meaning politician. In keeping with the article, his mom was his best political supporter, even in highschool. He scraped by way of college, turned a lawyer, obtained concerned in municipal politics, and finally ran for Parliament, lastly successful in 1962 however accruing important debt alongside the way in which. Regardless of prime ministerial ambitions, he spent over 5 years as a backbencher. Handed over for a cupboard submit in 1968, he reportedly wept and thought of quitting the Liberal get together altogether.
All Munro’s political tasks had been marked by his passionate dedication and private foibles. The Macleans profile famous that he was lastly appointed to cupboard and given the well being portfolio, he determined to steer by instance and give up smoking chilly turkey earlier than unceremoniously backsliding, bumming cigarettes from these round him. Reporter Lawrence Martin additional recounted that when the 2 met at a restaurant, Munro declared that he was ravenous and “ordered the five-dollar prime ribs,” however as quickly as Martin requested a query, he laid down his knife and fork and engaged in a passionate response for over an hour. When his driver referred to as, Munro rapidly departed “abandoning three empty glasses, an ashtray filled with du Maurier butts – and 5 {dollars} price of untouched meals.”[2]
On account of it being an undervalued portfolio, multiculturalism was at all times given to a minister along with one other portfolio. In his case, Munro was given labour and multiculturalism collectively. Though the previous took up most of his time, he was decided to stand up to hurry on his second portfolio and would sporadically spend lengthy hours within the night with workers from the multiculturalism directorate. Satisfied by these bureaucrats that the coverage wanted to shift from celebrating people cultures to combatting discrimination, he publicly introduced that the coverage could be reoriented alongside these traces. Nonetheless, his efforts had been in the end stymied by an absence of Cupboard assist in addition to outright opposition from some quarters, notably many Ukrainian Canadian teams in addition to the nationwide chair of the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism, Julius Koteles, a Hungarian Canadian. Emotional and cussed, Munro thought-about shifting your complete multiculturalism program to the ministry of labour, so he might extra simply impact change. He finally deserted the concept and was later shuffled out of the place. Nonetheless, a few of his coverage initiatives, regardless of being watered down, finally had been applied by his successor, Joseph Guay.[3]
Though the above paints a typically constructive picture of Munro, trying to find details about his work together with his constituency, nevertheless, I used to be greeted with a far totally different image. In Their City: The Mafia, the Media, and the Get together Machine (1979), Munro is offered as exemplifying the worst type of politician, identified for patronage, undue affect, and corruption.[4] Round 1975, Munro was implicated in a scandal surrounding contracts for the dredging of the Hamilton harbour. In an early try and clear his title, Munro launched an excessive amount of his recordsdata. This transfer did extra hurt than good, nevertheless, for the recordsdata laid naked the mindboggling scope of patronage appointments that he had helped organize.[5] The backlash was such that Munro provided to resign, however Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau publicly defended him, and reportedly instructed him to simply see a health care provider and get some relaxation.[6]
Then, in 1978, when considered one of his constituents was charged with assault (a landlord had attacked a tenant), Munro personally referred to as the choose overseeing the case. When this got here to gentle, he was consequently pressured to resign from Cupboard. Munro nonetheless completed his time period and was re-elected in 1980. He later re-appointed to Cupboard, serving because the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs from 1980–1984. In 1982, Munro introduced that the federal authorities supported the division of the Northwest Territories, a stepping-stone on the trail to the creation of the territory of Nunavut. “This can be a turning level. An historic day within the political evolution of the North,” he claimed, although the assertion was handled with some scepticism.[7]
Through the ultimate years of his political profession, he was subjected to additional allegations of corruption, although these had been disproven. In 1981, an article within the Toronto Solar claimed with out proof that Munro had engaged in insider buying and selling. The reporter resigned, the Solar apologized in print, and Munro gained a $75,000 judgement within the libel swimsuit he lodged.[8] Then in 1989, the RCMP laid 34 fraud fees in opposition to him associated to the federal Liberal management race by which Munro unsuccessfully ran in 1984. The costs had been finally thrown out and Munro sued; he finally settled for $1.4 million, nearly all of which went to authorized charges. “But when [the lawsuit settlement] marked the formal finish to Munro’s political odyssey, his profession epitaph will probably be a fancy one,” the press concluded.[9]
As I’ve argued earlier than, scorecard histories are not often correct histories, and it’s no totally different with Munro. For in assessing his legacy, each accounts are appropriate, if nonetheless incomplete. Munro was actually unscrupulous concerning the means he employed to achieve energy – such because the infinite patronage – however, as soon as he obtained it, he genuinely tried to make constructive social change. Satirically, if he’s in any respect remembered at this time, it’s doubtless not attributable to any of this – multiculturalism, Nunavut, or scandal – however merely attributable to the truth that, since his demise, Hamilton’s airport has borne his title. However the try and reorient multiculturalism from folklore to combatting racism, nevertheless, unsuccessful, can also be an vital a part of his legacy.
Daniel R. Meister is an Adjunct Analysis Professor within the Division of Historical past at St. Thomas College who researches the historical past of Canada’s coverage of multiculturalism. He’s a Common Contributor to Lively Historical past.
[1] Augie Fleras, Canadian Multiculturalism @50: Retrospect, Views, Prospects (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 81–99.
[2] Lawrence Martin, “The Social Conscience of John Munro,” Macleans (Could 1972), 37-39.
[3] For a extra detailed account of his failed try and reorient the coverage, see Daniel R. Meister, “Ethnicity to Fairness? Official Multiculturalism and Racial Discrimination in Canada, 1971-79,” Études canadiennes/Canadian Research 95 (2023): 43–72, esp. 57–63.
[4] Henry Jacek, “John Munro and the Hamilton East Liberals: Anatomy of a Fashionable Political Machine,” in Invoice Freeman and Marsha Hewitt, eds., Their City: The Mafia, the Media, and the Get together Machine (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979),62-73.
[5] Marsha Hewitt, “Hamilton Harbour: Politics, Patronage, and Cowl-Up,” in Their City, 148-66.
[6] “Transcript of the Prime Minister’s Remarks to the Press at Uplands Airport on Departure for European Go to, February 26, 1976,” file 3250-1, pt. 6, field 5, accession 1989-09 319, RG6 (Division of Secretary of State fonds), Library and Archives Canada.
[7] “N.W.T. is at a Turning Level however Division Issues Abound,” Hamilton Spectator (29 November 1982), A9. Munro’s time as minister of the Division of Indian and Northern Affairs requires extra examine however will doubtless be discovered to be equally combined. In keeping with Peter Jull, who held numerous positions within the PMO and as advisor to Inuit peoples throughout this era, Munro “put his shoulder to the wheel within the final years of the [Pierre] Trudeau authorities,” at one level arguing again to Trudeau in opposition to a few of his extra incendiary feedback about Nunavut. In 1982, he initiated a evaluation of claims made by nêhiyawak (Cree) and Inuit peoples that Quebec and Canada had not fulfilled their tasks within the James Bay and Northern Quebec Settlement. See Summaries of Studies by Federal Our bodies and Aboriginal Organizations, vol. 2 of Public Coverage and Aboriginal Peoples, 1965-1992, produced by Centre for Coverage and Program Evaluation, Carlton College, for the Royal Fee on Aboriginal Peoples (Queen’s Printer, 1994), 57. But that very same 12 months, his deputy minister dismissed the concept that any guarantees of return had been made to Arctic relocatees. See Amy Fung, “Redressing the Redress of the Excessive Arctic Exiles: The Limits of Recognition in a White Settler State,” Reminiscence Research 18, no. 6 (2025): 1573–93, quote at 1583.
[8] “Toronto Solar Guidelines Out Libel Ruling attraction,” Calgary Herald (21 August 1982), B6.
[9] Jon Wells, “Even $1.4m Isn’t Sufficient Payback,” Hamilton Spectator (11 Could 1999), A5.
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