What does it mean to be Canadian?

What does it mean to be a Canadian? What are the values that we collectively share that hold us together as a community of Canadians? I ask these questions because we seem to have drifted away from common goals to demands for prioritizing respect for extreme individual rights. For decades we have been hearing about human rights and individual rights. We have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; freedom of peaceful assembly; and freedom of association.

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We all have these rights but at times rights conflict. How will we decide between conflicting rights? Our government has come up with a solution. Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, emphasized that “Canada’s responsibility, as envisioned by our prime minister and our government, is to demonstrate, in word and deed, that diversity must be considered an asset to humanity, not a threat. Openness, respect and acceptance of difference must be our message for all. We must be the champions of diversity.” We won’t have to deal with a conflict of rights-we will be diverse! Becoming a champion of diversity has led to the right of a woman to wear a niqab; a custom, not a religious belief, therefore not a right, but a custom that represents the right of a man to oppress a woman. We watched a male Muslim barber, whose shop was meant for men, be taken to the Human Rights Tribunal for refusing to cut the hair of a woman. That there were other shops on the street more than willing to cut her hair did not matter. She had her rights! The shop owner did not. Was he not properly diverse? And now we have a new controversy over transgender people and toilets. How about a building a separate toilet with a sink for all who want privacy? Wait we have that already- for wheelchair accessibility. Just change the signage. That is not the point. The point is diversity. The “diverse” take precedence over the rest of us. That they are different gives them more rights-not equal rights. There is no doubt that the rights of the minority must be defended-but to what extent? Perhaps it is time to reconnect to the social contract that underpins our culture so we can have a thoughtful conversation rather than an emotional one filled with vitriol. As I wrote in my book 'Back to the Ethic: Reclaiming Western Values', “although democracy exists in order to allow people to pursue (within agreed-upon limits) their individual goods, the foundation of any viable democracy is, first of all, an agreement about the proper and permitted means to pursue and achieve our individual goods. In other words, a viable democracy must be based on a living social contract: what the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau described as an agreement that makes it possible for citizens to 'give up certain of their rights and freedoms, handing them over to a central authority, which in return, will ensure the rule of law within the society and the defense of the realm against external enemies.' “Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762 wrote in 'Of The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right’ that one of the building blocks of a healthy society is the agreement with which a person enters into civil society. 'The contract essentially binds people into a community that exists for mutual preservation. In entering into civil society, people sacrifice the physical freedom of being able to do whatever they please, but they gain the civil freedom of being able to think and act rationally and morally.' “Citizens enter a democratic community voluntarily. By doing so, they are choosing to accept what has been established as the best interests of that society: the common good, and the general will, which expresses what is best for that state as a whole. This requires a delicate social balancing act of both rights and responsibilities that is at its best in a democracy. Democracy is not a suicide pact.” Our obsession with individual rights under the auspices of the Charter of Right and Freedoms is leading to fissures in our democracy. We are fragmenting rather than unifying. Our governments pander to different ethnic groups rather than seeing us as Canadians first-ethnicity second. A few are actually bullying the many. Any attempt to point out the loss of rights of the many is met with accusations of racism or intolerance. Yet those making individual demands never think of themselves as intolerant. We are becoming a nation of people with grandiose infantile delusions of entitlement. It’s all about me and my needs and my personal values. I suggest this is taking place because we have lost the definition of Canadian; we no longer have declared common values and goals to which we can all aspire. Instead we aspire to be a nation of diversity. What exactly does that mean?