you and the professor before referred uh to yourselves as proponents of multiculturalism that to me kind of backs a question what are the the moral imperatives behind this um Mission almost on on the the moral impulse behind multiculturalism the there's there's lots of things to say about that but um one quick way to put it is that um we we we live in a world which um for the past 200 years let's say if not more has been constructed um uh has been defined by um ideas of racial and ethnic hierarchy so this is what this is what underpinned colonialism uh it's what underpinned the the colonization of the Americas um it's what underpinned racially discriminatory admissions policy about who was admitted into the US and Canada it underpinned racially disced laws about who was eligible for citizenship I could go on you know all of this right that that up until really up until the 1960s it was accepted it was a widely accepted feature of Western societies that that there were racial hierarchies and that that was reflected in both foreign policy and domestic policy um and we have uh committed ourselves to the idea that we we believe in Racial equality but but we live in a in a world globally as well as domestically which uh in which we've inherited structures that were initially created and defined on the basis of ideologies of of hierarchy and Supremacy and so I think we have um so and so we're all familiar with some of the some of the movements to contest those hierarchies so um various civil rights strategies anti-discrimination strategies and affirmative action strategies and so on but I I think the multiculturalism has to be understood I think that the rise of indigenous rights is part of this the the rise of anti-discrimination policy is part of this but so too is is multiculturalism and and and by the way I I would I would extend it even further I I would say that that um these these mobilizations by ethnic and racial and Indigenous groups since the 1960s are also linked with for example the rise of the second wave feminism gay rights disability rights all of these uh movements which which basically arose in the same time these are all kind of 1960s and forward movements um are all I think best understood as contesting inherited hierarchies it and inherited hierarchies which Define certain people as um less capable of governing themselves less deserving of participating in shared governance and were therefore ruled through essentially coercion and paternalism so all of these relations between between dominant and subordinate racial groups religious groups ability disability men women uh uh they they were historically governed and structured through through coercion and paternalism and all of these movements I think are trying to replace those hierarchies and those practices of coercion and paternalism with with new relationships new social and political relationships which are based on equality are based on participation based on on on cooperation uh rather than coercion and paternalism and what what exactly that means is going to take different forms so mult this is why multiculturism is a kind of complicated phenomenon it's it's it's going to mean a different thing for indigenous peoples than it does for the kbec W than it does for African-Americans than it does for uh uh other more recent immigrant groups or refugees groups but so the form it takes varies but I think the impulse the moral impulse has to be understood as part of this larger I I I think the world has changed since 1960 I think we have gone through a rights Revolution which is which has discredited and delegitimized these earlier ideologies of hierarchy and suprem and we're still working our way through what's what's the alternative to it and multiculturism I think is helping us to work our way through it