Canada’s multicultural policy has been in effect since 1971, and corresponding changes to immigration policy since then have resulted in a significant shift in ethnoracial demographics. What was once seen as the “great white north” is becoming, especially in large urban centres such as Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, increasingly non-white in terms of population.

The new government of Trinidad and Tobago has expressed 'multiculturalism' as a policy thrust, and a way of framing the country's plural population. This article suggests that the education of teachers will be a key to arriving at a society in which the different cultural strands can find expression. But the development of such a curriculum can be problematic, requiring a conceptual framework that shows sensitivity to the country's postcolonial status, including the histories that must be taken into account in locating the different peoples.