As we gather on Canada Day, we should ask: What holds us together? Read More
Let’s draw on our own distinct cultures, faiths, and practices to find moments of generosity
Let’s draw on our own distinct cultures, faiths, and practices to find moments of generosity
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As we gather on Canada Day, we should ask: What holds us together?
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It’s not religion, language, or ideology. What binds us, and defines us, is pluralism: the ethic of living well together across real difference — not by erasing it, but by learning from it. Not as a slogan, but as a lived discipline. A way of being.
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Canada did not invent this ethic. Indigenous peoples stewarded the land with a commitment to what professor Willie Ermine calls ethical space — a parallel to pluralism — long before settlers arrived. We see it shaping thought and action globally and through history. But here, it forms a unique sensibility: to care for one another, to learn from mistakes and to find practical, dignified ways forward on complex problems.
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Pluralism is more than unity through diversity. It’s a practice of holding complexity. Of holding pride and pain at once. Pride in our communities, identities, and achievements. And pain from histories of violence and exclusion that still shape our present.
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One does not erase the other. When we engage with humility, respect and a willingness to understand, we create space for healing and collective growth; not by forgetting the past, but by facing it together in ways that draw us all together and forward.
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This cultural commitment is often mistaken for mere “niceness.” But it runs deeper. It’s why our comedians wield humour with honesty, not cruelty. It’s why we’ve earned global trust as peacekeepers and bridge-builders, though that trust is fading as our pluralist identity frays.
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Our pluralist culture has begun to fray. It was never self-sustaining — only held together by the care we gave it, and the ongoing effort to tend and mend it.
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Polarization has eroded our common ground. COVID-19 didn’t just harm bodies, it broke bonds. Friendships fractured. Public discourse curdled. Libraries, parks, and community centres began to feel less like commons and more like battlegrounds. Media fed division, turning neighbours into adversaries. A public health emergency became, for many, an identity crisis.
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We haven’t healed. But we can if we deliberately exercise the muscles of pluralism — of engaging with one another, understanding one another in all our differences, and drawing in each of our unique capacities.
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In medicine, recovery doesn’t end when the crisis passes. After a heart attack, we prescribe cardiac rehab — structured recovery that helps people move and live again. It saves lives.
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Canada needs a deliberate “pluralism rehab.”
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We need spaces to re-learn how to speak truth without cruelty, to disagree without dehumanizing, to understand while honouring dignity, and to laugh again, not to mock, but to mend.