Canada is a country that is built on the principle of multiculturalism. Unlike the melting pot of the US, Canada encourages newcomers to settle in Canada and integrate into Canadian society while maintaining and celebrating their own traditions and languages.
The idea is a good one in theory, but it is beginning to show signs of wear and tear across Canada. Allan Gregg, founder and owner of polling firm Strategic Counsel, has recently written a long article about multiculturalism in Canada for the Walrus Magazine. In it, Mr Gregg tracks the course of multiculturalism throughout Canada's history and posits that it is not working, or not working anymore, in the way it was originally intended. He describes the trend of "self-segregation", which sees a drastic growth in self-contained ethnic communities in Canada's biggest cities, whose members no longer show any interest in integrating into mainstream society or learning the language of the land.
Various countries have attempted to make multiculturalism work, without sacrificing their own traditions and culture on the altar of political correctness and multicultural openness.
Britain has introduced a new citizenship test, which tests the applicant's command of the English language as well as his/her familiarity with life in Britain. Germany, too, has begun to require mandatory language tests.
Now along comes the Canadian Fraser Institute, which has recently suggested that Canada should require newcomers and new citizens to take an oath of allegiance or loyalty. The Fraser Institute would also like to subject immigrants to some thorough analysis with respect to their commitment to their new home country.
The Canadian daily Globe & Mail rejects this idea out of hand in one of its editorials. The paper argues that people should be judged on their actions, rather than their beliefs, values or thoughts.
In the past I have written in agreement with the newspaper on that last point: we should judge our newcomers on their actions. But here's the problem: in the past, immigrants who engaged in questionable actions have not been punished or, more appropriately, deported. As a matter of fact, as an investigative journalistic TV show has revealed, there were about 1,700 immigrants in Toronto slated for deportation for having committed serious crimes in 2003, but none of them has been deported yet. To make things even worse, about 1,600 of them are serious offenders and they have been released into society until their cases can be resolved. It goes without saying that this situation is largely responsible for the surge in violent crimes in Toronto, which, sadly, are mostly and overwhelmingly committed by members of the immigrant population.
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Article comments
1 - KAALA
Three words come to my mind.
Balkenization
Melting Pot
Mosiac
Canada has always lauded itself as a mosiac.
but if the facts of this article are to be realized Balkenization has also taken place, as it also has in and around large metropolitan areas of the U.S.
Hmmm, birds of a feather.
I once heard that it took 2 to 3 generations to fully assimulate into the host country's culture and ethic.
2 - Richard Brodie
maintaining and celebrating their own traditions and languages
And what if one of those traditions (as is the case with male muslim immigrants in Sweden) is considering oneself "entitled" to rape the local blonde-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned girls because they are whores for not wearing burkahs?
Does that fall into the category of one of your multicultural "good ideas in theory"?
3 - Victor Plenty
Phew! For a minute there I feared a thoughtful discussion might happen here. Luckily Richard leaped to the rescue with some cheap sensationalism. Now we have the makings of a debate likely to provoke all sorts of things other than thought.
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
The bloggers from Canada are going to be awful pissed off at me. In the 140 years of its existence Canada has tried to assert a separate identity and develop a separate culture. And there are distinct differences in its culture from that of the United States. And access to health care is a lot easier (usually) than in the States. All this is granted.
But taken as a larger picture, Canada is that big blob of English (more or less) speaking territory that is not the USA on the North American continent. The differences between Thunder Bay (Ontario) and Duluth (Minnesota) are not that significant that one could readily tell a difference. If it weren't for the red maple leaf plastered onto everything in Thunder Bay, you would think you were in the United States.
There are some phrases like 'twonies' (two dollar coins), 'loonies' (one dollar coins), chesterfield [maybe] (couch or sofa), 'mandarin' (high level government bureaucrat) that the standard garden variety Yank probably wouldn't know about.
But if you pick up CBC programming on public radio in the States, you do learn these things after a few weeks of listening.
I know a fellow who immigrated to Canada from Poland in 1960 and his comment about Canada was, "Who cares about Canada? Americans are proud of their country, not Canadians."
He and his family came here to live. He couldn't stand his wife (he loved Israel - and if I had to live with his wife, I would have fled the country too) and returned to Canada. They were living in a house in the sticks far from any major cities. I listened to his older son say in all seriousness "I am proud of my Canadian cultural background."
I'm sorry, guys. The question popped into my head immediately, "what Canadian cultural background?" I think I must have laughed on their chesterfield till I fainted. It still cracks me up.
Having now insulted all the Canadians on the list, the significant difference between American and Canadian culture is that Canada is not a melting pot, and America appears to be less and less of one. I think that one of the big factors in all this is that nowadays, you can go to Pearson Int'l Airport in Toronto or JFK in New York and return to the country of your origin with much greater ease than was possible in 1925.
Hey look, I'm writing you from the Middle East, a third of a world away. This message is coming to you in seconds, not days or weeks. This also influences the need to assimilate into the culture of the country you move to. Here, I'm writing from the point of view of the immigrant, who, instead of communicating in Hebrew, the language of this land, is communicating in English.
Nowe could someone please lend me a rag, so I can clean the manure off my shoe?
5 - Richard Brodie
There are just two things that Swedish parents need to know, whose teenage girls have been, and will continue to be, victims of Mulsim "dishonor raping" thugs.
1. Mr. Plenty thinks your daughters' rapes are "sensational"; and
2. Richard thinks that YOU are responsible for the suffering and pollution of the beautiful daughters of your once proud country, to the extent that you have given your support to the sucidal multiculturalist policies that are ruining your nation.
6 - Multikult
The real truth is that politicians have never tried to make multiculturalism work. How could they without a successful model. Trudeau hated the ROC and this is how he got even. The politicians kept spending all our money and as long as everyone was making money, no problems right? Wrong. Most people don't even know what multiculturalism is. Find out why Trudeau implemented multiculturalism. Both parties have attracted newcomers for votes. Multicuturalism is a race to the bottom. The Canadians are the real guinea pigs. Special multicultural thanks to Trudeau, Paul Martin, Mulroney, etc. FUCK YOU.
7 - Multikult continued
Multiculturalism is a made in Canada concoction (blushing). Trudeau envisioned a world after WWII without borders, because nationalism caused wars, take away the nationalism, take away the wars. Simple? not so simple.
Trudeau was asked near his death if this multicultural society was what he had envisioned. He said no. He had no fucking clue. My old neighbourhood looks like Chinatown, the rare sighting of a White person (they must be lost). They look lost. Hell they are lost. The politicians yanked out the carpet from underneath us.
Take away the Nationalism, take away all the symbols and you have nothing. Which is what we have today. A clean slate. Revisionist history. Fuck Trudeau. Fuck Mulroney. Fuck everybody. Call your politician and let them know or be a polite Canadian and say nothing.