Cultural mosaic

[1][2] The idea of a cultural mosaic is intended to suggest a form of multiculturalism as seen in Canada, [3][4] that differs from other systems such as the melting pot, which is often used to describe nations like the United States' assimilation.

Cupolas and domes distinctly Eastern, almost Turkish, startle one above the tops of Manitoba maples or the bush of the river banks.

These architectural figures of the landscape, apart altogether of their religious significance, are centers where crossing the threshold on Sundays, one has the opportunity of hearing Swedish music, or the rich, deep chanting of the Russian responses; and of viewing at close hand the artistry that goes to make up the interior appointments of these churches transplanted from the East to the West…It is indeed a mosaic of vast dimensions and great breadth, essayed of the Prairie.

He saw the melting pot as a process by which immigrants and their descendants were encouraged to cut off ties with their countries and cultures of origin so as to assimilate into the American way of life.

[9] In 1965, John Porter published his influential sociological study, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada.

Some pundits, such as The Globe and Mail's Jeffrey Simpson and Carleton University journalism professor Andrew Cohen, have argued that the entire melting pot/mosaic dynamic is largely an imagined concept and that there remains little measurable evidence that American or Canadian immigrants as collective groups can be proven to be more or less "assimilated" or "multicultural" than each other.