I wish I had said this - multiculturalism in Canada

[servicepub (RIP)]

Canada's tolerance misplaced?

By Mahfooz Kanwar, For The Calgary Herald, March 30, 2009


Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is getting flak from the usual suspects, but he deserves praise instead.

Recently, Kenney pointed out that while at a meeting in Toronto, members of Canada's Pakistani community called on him to make Punjabi one of Canada's official languages. It makes me angry that such an idea would enter the minds of my fellow and former countrymen, let alone express them to a Minister of the Crown.

A few months ago, I was dismayed to learn that Erik Millett, the principal of Belleisle School in Springfield, N.B., limited playing our national anthem because the families of a couple of his students objected to it.

As a social scientist, I oppose this kind of political correctness, lack of assimilation of new immigrants to mainstream Canada, hyphenated-Canadian identity, and the lack of patriotism in our great nation.

Increasingly, Canadians feel restricted in doing things the Canadian way lest we offend minorities. We cannot even say Merry Christmas without fear of causing offence. It is amazing that 77 per cent of the Canadian majority are scared of offending 23 per cent of minorities. We have become so timid that the majority cannot assert its own freedom of expression. We cannot publicly question certain foreign social customs, traditions and values that do not fit into the Canadian ethos of equality. Rather than encouraging new immigrants to adjust to Canada, we tolerate peculiar ways of doing things. We do not remind them that they are in Canada, not in their original homelands.

In a multicultural society, it is the responsibility of minorities to adjust to the majority. It does not mean that minorities have to totally amalgamate with the majority. They can practice some of their cultural traditions within their homes -- their backstage behavior. However, when outside of their homes, their front stage behavior should resemble mainstream Canadian behavior. Whoever comes to Canada must learn the limits of our system. We do not kill our daughters or other female members of our families who refuse to wear hijab, niqab or burka which are not mandated by the Qur'an anyway. We do not kill our daughters if they date the "wrong" men. A 17-year-old Sikh girl should not have been killed in British Columbia by her father because she was caught dating a Caucasian man.

We do not practice the dowry system in Canada, and do not kill our brides because they did not bring enough dowry. Millions of female fetuses are aborted every year in India, and millions of female infants have been killed by their parents in India and China. Thousands of brides in India are burned to death in their kitchens because they did not bring enough dowry into a marriage. Some 30,000 Sikhs living abroad took the dowries but abandoned their brides in India in 2005. This is not accepted in Canada.

In some countries, thousands of women are murdered every year for family or religious hon our. We should not hide behind political correctness and we should expose the cultural and religious background of these heinous crimes, especially if it happens in Canada. We should also expose those who bring their cultural baggage containing the social custom of female circumcision. I was shocked when I learned about two cases of this barbaric custom practiced in St. Catharines , Ont. a few years ago.

I have said it on radio and television, have written in my columns in the Calgary Herald, and I have written in my latest book, Journey to Success, that I do not agree with the hyphenated identity in Canada because it divides our loyalties. My argument is that people are not forced to come to Canada and they are not forced to stay here. Those who come here of their own volition and stay here must be truly patriotic Canadians or go back.

I am a first-generation Canadian from Pakistan. I left Pakistan 45 years ago. I cannot ignore Pakistan, because it is the homeland of my folks, but my loyalty should be and is to Canada. I am, therefore, a proud Canadian, no longer a Pakistani-Canadian. I am a Canadian Muslim, not a Muslim Canadian.

I do not agree with those Canadians who engage in their fight against the system in their original countries on Canadian soil. They should go back and fight from within. For example, some of the Sikhs, Tamil Tigers, Armenians and others have disturbed the peace in Canada because of their problems back home. Recently, a low-level leader of MQM, the Mafia of Pakistan, came to Canada as a refugee and started to organize public rallies to collect funds for their cause in Pakistan. On July 18, 2007, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that MQM is a terrorist group led by London-based Altaf Hussain, their godfather. As a member in the coalition government of Pakistan, this terrorist group is currently collaborating with the Taliban in Pakistan. That refugee was deported back to Pakistan. Similarly, I disagree with newcomers who bring their religious baggage here. For example, Muslims are less than two per cent of the Canadian population, yet in 2004 and 2005, a fraction of them, the fundamentalists, wanted to bring Sharia law to Canada. If they really want to live under Shara, they should go to the prison-like countries where Sharia is practiced.

I once supported multiculturalism in Canada because I believed it gave us a sense of pluralism and diversity. However, I have observed and experienced that official multiculturalism has encouraged convolution of the values that make Canada the kind of place people want to immigrate to in the first place.

Here, we stand on guard for Canada, not for countries we came from. Like it or not, take it or leave it, standing on guard only for Canada is our national maxim. Remember, O Canada is our national anthem which must not be disregarded by anybody, including the teacher in Springfield, N. B.

Mahfooz Kanwar, PHD, Is A Sociologist And An Instructor Emeritus At Mount Royal College.

[cliff]

Never a truer word said and what he said is just as applicable in Australia and anywhere else in the world that allows imigrants to become citizens. At last someone is bucking political correctness.

[Keith Webb]

I think it's about time the 'political correctness' pendulum took a swing back towards neutral, both in Canada and other countries.

Imagine not being able to sing the national anthem because someone objects to it. What is this? a national anthem in your own country??? Would the reverse be true in their birth country?

[Kuno]

I is already a few years back, when my neighbour in Switzerland told me that the director of the school where he sent his children had forbidden them to wear red T-shirts with the Swiss cross on it.... to avoid that oder pupils with Balkan-origin might feel provoked. And this was official.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Never a truer word spoken, here in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)! Here we now have a vast enclave of multicultural ghettos whose members (depending on the nature of their hyphen) refuse to associate with any others, and woe betide anyone not of their ilk to venture forth therein, especially at night.

Even 15 years ago, I was refused service in a goddam convenience store because I was a white anglo male... this is NOT the Canada our forefathers fought for!

The violence itself here is ridiculous now, orchestrated and perpetuated by gangs from just about every corner of the third world, and mostly against each other - yet the police are mostly hamstrung, because the citizens of these urban ghettos will rarely talk to them, even if they're known to be witnesses.

Even when the criminals are caught, they're usually back out on the streets shortly thereafter because of the laxness built into our failing judicial system, which at times seems designed to coddle the guilty and punish the innocent. All in the name of "human rights" and "multicultural diversity".

This is disgraceful.

And I won't even get into the fact that in the midst of a civic workers' strike (no outdoor services including garbage pickup and a mayor without the balls to stand up for us), the city welcomed the Gay Pride Parades last weekend but canceled Canada Day celebrations here in Toronto. You figure it out.

I can't blame anyone here for wanting to find another, better place to live - I'm certainly working towards that myself now. Even my trip to Cambridge last Wednesday for the Canada Day parade was a breath of fresh air! The politicians here - at all levels - have certainly sold us out over the last 40 years and I for one am sick of it!!

I could go on and on...

[REL]

The problem is public apathy. When the public actually does something results soon follow, as in the case of that goof-ball principal.

[Mark W. Tonner]

Originally Posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball

This is disgraceful.

And I won't even get into the fact that in the midst of a civic workers' strike (no outdoor services including garbage pickup and a mayor without the balls to stand up for us), the city welcomed the Gay Pride Parades last weekend but canceled Canada Day celebrations here in Toronto. You figure it out.

... I guess you do not want to hear that the Federal Minister of State for Tourism gave Toronto's Pride Parade $400,000 from the Marquee Tourism Events Program ...

[sapper740]

My Gawd, what are those cretins doing to my country? Don't they know that when you try to appease all groups in a society you appease NONE! We need to tell the fools in Ottawa to pick one culture and force ALL groups to adhere to it and I suggest the culture they choose be the one that has served Canada well for over 140 years...the same culture that fought on the Plains of Abraham, fought the Fenian raids, the War of 1812, the Great War, WWII, the Korean War, fought in the Former Yugoslavia, and is fighting and dying in Afghanistan.
People would do well to observe and learn from the example Texas sets for having a homogenous culture, and by that I don't mean racially homogenous but culturally we are all proud to be TEXANS first and for the most part the rest of the country and the world can go piss up a rope! And it's not just the white guys that think this way, the other two major racial groups in Texas also feel the same way which makes for a very unified society. Sure, there is some racism here, but I used way more racial epithets while living in Canada than I have living in Texas. My fellow Canadians know the truth of this.

[Grant Bowker]

Originally Posted by sapper740

......the same culture that fought on the Plains of Abraham........

Just to stir the pot, which of the "two founding cultures" are you refering to? The original occupiers who "stole" the plains from the "first nations" (how many can be first? one? more?) or those perfidious English who snuck up on Montcalm's forces while the general was having a quicky with his (pur laine?) mistress?

[servicepub (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Grant Bowker

...while the general was having a quicky with his (pur laine?) mistress?

Grant,
You make this sound like a bad thing...?

[sapper740]

Originally Posted by Grant Bowker

Just to stir the pot, which of the "two founding cultures" are you refering to? The original occupiers who "stole" the plains from the "first nations" (how many can be first? one? more?) or those perfidious English who snuck up on Montcalm's forces while the general was having a quicky with his (pur laine?) mistress?

Grant, I make no apologies for either the English or the French and their treatment of our First Nations. It's simply a historical fact that in the development of any nation there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers...C'est la guerre, n'est-ce pas? The point I was making is that our original, and by that I mean French and English cultures came to Upper and Lower Canada back in the day as immigrants with the dream of carving a better life out of the wilderness. By their sweat and blood Canada grew into what it is today. And a lot of sweat and blood it was! I have my Grandfather's family journal telling of our family coming to Canada in 1782 after being run out of New York for being United Empire Loyalists. Samuel and Jemima Platt settled in Picton County with not much more than the clothes on their back and through back-breaking labour built a farm and a life in Canada. If they complained about what language the National Anthem was sung in, it wasn't mentioned in the family journal. Now, jump forward 227 years to the present day. Instead of being grateful to be allowed to live in one of the greatest countries on the planet, immigrants today are complaining that, Holy Cow! there is Canadian culture in Canada and they don't like it! Stop that singing "O Canada", and why can't I find the Grass Hockey game between Mumbai and Calcutta on Saturday night!?! Who the heck is Don Cherry and why is Ice Hockey so popular? Stop it! I don't like it!


P.S. as for the perfidious English sneaking up on the French, I believe it's called "Tactics".

Derek.

[Ganmain Tony]

P.S. as for the perfidious English sneaking up on the French, I believe it's called "Tactics".

Derek.[/QUOTE]

A legitimate ruse of war old boy!!!

[Grant Bowker]

Originally Posted by Ganmain Tony

P.S. as for the perfidious English sneaking up on the French, I believe it's called "Tactics".

Derek.

A legitimate ruse of war old boy!!![/QUOTE]
I'm sure it all depends if you are on the giving or receiving end of the attack, but then the victors write the history (until the revisionists get at it).