Group Rights And Political Dialogue—the Political Thought Of Canadian Multiculturalism Research

Unity or pluralism is one of the everlasting topic in the history of political thought and is one of the most difficult proposition in human being’s political life. The Canadian multiculturalism had devoted to solving this proposition since its appearance. Nowadays, the political thought ofinulticulturalism becomes more and more prescious with the enlargement of the varification of the ethnic group and with the deepen of the divergence of the difference. Canadian multiculturalism cares more about the minority’s rights, it admits and respects differences. Citizenship can be replenished by the belonging of some ethnic groups, and social unity and social homogeneity are strengthened while focusing on social heterogenicity. From the1970s till now, Canadian multicultrualism has been implemented for more than forty years. Although there are contradiction and conflict, Canada always keeps unity without any division. The research objective of this thesis is the thought of dialogue communication in the thought of Canadian multiculturalism, and the focal point is the meaning of dialogue communication in the protection of group’s rights.In a multiethnic group country as Canada, the balance among unity and heterogenicity, individual’s right and group’s right, and citizenship and the identity in ethnic groups enjoy a significant role in the maintain of national unity and ethnic harmony. The political thought of multiculturalism provides important meaning for the contradiction and conflict among them. That is to say that it admits, respects, and protects differences, but these differences are simply cultural difference which cannot beyond national unity, and the heterogenicity needs to subordinated to unity. A country guarantees minority’s special rights via laws and constitutional system, and promises their speech rights and participation rights through some specific political system like federalism, autonomy, and the system of group representation. In this way, minority groups can take part in the political life through the dialogue with the mainstream group, and enjoys the right to make decision in things related to themselves. The political thought of Canadian multiculturalism develops political theory, however, there are also some defects in itself which is not scientific.