Limits on Liberty: The Experience of Mennonite, Hutterite, and Doukhobor Communities in Canada

T.D. Regehr, a professor of History at the University of Saskatchewan,
is the author of For Everything a Season: A History of the
Alexanderkrone Zentralschule and Mennonites in Canada, Volume 3,
1939-1970.

A society’s commitment to liberty may be judged by the way it treats
ethnic, cultural, racial, or religious minorities with differing values
and lifestyles. Canada has a long history of accommodating a great
variety of minority groups, including Mennonites, Hutterites, and
Doukhobors. But there were also limits to the concessions a
democratically responsible government was willing or able to
accommodate.

Janzen identifies four main areas in which Mennonites, Hutterites, and
Doukhobors needed special accommodations or liberties. Unique
land-holding patterns, control over the education of their children,
exemption from military service, and administration of social welfare
policies independent of the state were regarded by some members of these
groups as essential for the preservation of their distinctive religious
and cultural lifestyle. Janzen explains how and why these groups were
granted special concessions, then argues that Canada’s historical
willingness to accommodate minority groups has been tested by a
“liberal” political culture that emphasizes “individualism, a
certain egalitarianism, majority rule, integration, and participation
with only limited appreciation of the significance of distinct
groups.”

The research supporting this study is comprehensive and meticulous, and
the arguments are presented cogently and persuasively. The heavy
reliance on an essentially “liberal” analysis can be questioned,
particularly in the light of Seymour Lipsett’s recent book,
Continental Divide, in which he shows that “Tory,” not “Whig,”
ideology has been fundamental in the formulation of Canadian social
policies. The omission of other minority groups, notably Jehovah’s
Witnesses—which found the limits on their freedom more severely
restricted than did the Mennonites, Hutterites, and Doukhobors—is also
disconcerting. The implications of Canada’s new Charter of Rights and
Freedoms are discussed briefly. The strength of the book lies in the
light it sheds on Canada’s historical experience in accommodating
minority rights.