ABSTRACT
In Expo '67 Canada named its pavilion katimavik meaning meeting place. Few other words could so aptly descrilJe the settlement of this country and character of its culture and population. Nor, indeed, could any other country have a better claim to that name, for Canada figures most prominently among the countries which encourage and promote multiculturalism. Here cultures meet not to turn into a melting pot but to enrich each other and create a mosaic in which each ethnic group can recognize its contribution. Canada has been affected by immigration to a degree far out of proportion to any other industrial country in recent his tory. It is true that the number of new Canadians, that is the postwar immigrants, has been very large but the mere numbers minify and do not fully convey the immensity and pervasiveness of their influence which is manifest in almost every walk of life. Here the immigrants do not merely add to the number of inhabitants, populate vacant territories, till new lands, run factories, occupy high positions as weil as lowly ones, as was the case, for example, in the neighboring Uni ted States. They have also brought with them their customs and traditions, their names and nomenclature, their beliefs and their faiths, their arts and cultures and their outlook on and oflife. Their presence has very profoundly affected our social fabric, our cultural heritage and even the spectrum of our religious life. Some of these influences have been inevitable if for no other reason than the mere force of the number of people who brought them and others irresistible by virtue of their aesthetic appeal and cultural value. The vast cultural mosaic in this country is made up of 54 ethno-cultural groups that inhabit this land and 72 languages that they speak. Thus it is not surprising that the high priest of media communication, Marshall McLuhan, who gave us the concept of global village, is the product of this country.
