Canada should articulate a set of common values to newcomers to promote social integration and protect equality rights, says a new book on diversity in Canada.

The book, featuring essays by leading scholars in the field, talks about the "warning signs" and "stress points" within multiculturalism, as well as growing evidence that members of certain visible-minority groups are falling behind their white immigrant counterparts.

"We don't yet have the underclasses that are in Europe," said Leslie Seidle, a co-editor of Belonging, Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada. "But we should be concerned about the people who are falling behind, which could lead to outbursts of violence and civil disobedience."

The book will be published this coming Monday by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal-based think tank....

Canada's history as a country with English- and French-speaking communities, indigenous peoples and large immigrant populations creates a unique experience of diversity, the authors point out. The country permits Sikh RCMP officers to wear their turbans and Sikh children in schools to carry the ceremonial dagger. Muslim women wear the hijab with less controversy than in France and Britain.

And yet this very celebration of diversity has weakened the sense of a common national culture or shared national identity and set of traditions. [Link]