The Sunday Magazine

What are Canadian values and who decides?

The phrases have become campaign clichés - Canadian values, shared values, family values. But what are Canadian values? And how do they change over time?
Women protest in front of Montreal City Hall against Quebec's Bill 94, which requires that women remove their face coverings, in order to receive government services. (Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter McCabe)

The phrases have become campaign clichés - Canadian values, shared values, family values. They are meant to persuade voters that politicians care about more than deficits, GDP and international trade. But what are Canadian values? And how do they change over time? 

Michael's guests are: 

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, associate professor in the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta, and expert advisor to UNICEF on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, columnist for The Kingston Whig-Standard.

Rinaldo Walcott, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Equity Studies at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, author of Black Like Who? Writing Black Canada.

Michael Adams, President of Environics Institute for Survey Research, author of Sex in the Snow: Canadian Social Values at the End of the Millennium and Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values.