They discussed the possibility of applying the model to areas such as the war-torn Balkan region of the former Yugoslavia, where ethnic tensions are manifest. Multiculturalism Policy was unveiled in 1971 by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. It encouraged institutions and individuals from all ethnic groups to participate in shaping and building Canadian society. Many maintain that Canada s model could be emulated internationally. The Czech Republic is nearly a homogeneous state.
Minorities comprise only five percent of the population.
Pavel Barsa of Masaryk University in Brno contends that the relative lack of minorities in this country predisposes it to xenophobia. Here, immigrants are seen as being other, and threatening, said Barsa, who lectured on the integration of the Roma in the Czech Republic, and since the Roma do not have the cultural resources to assert themselves, they are really an excluded group, politically, socially and linguistically. Canadian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Ronald Halpin highlighted how this differs from the Canadian model. Here, there was never an election, he said refering to the Czechoslovak split. There were negotiations between governments.