Second-class Canadian

What kind of soldier: Honourable or treacherous? Do you stab your comrades at arms in the back when they are not looking?

What wars? Canada could not afford Indian wars, so it opted for treachery instead. It signed treaties it never intended to honour so the indigenous allies could let their guard down and then sent the RCMP in to sweep the children away before the they could organize a counter-attack. Even the government acknowledged that the indigenous peoples were not likely to rebel once the government had control of their children. That would be the equivalent of Canada joining NATO, positioning itself strategically within it, and then springing the long knives before its allies know what hit them. I'd hardly call that a war. Treachery, yes, but not a war. Now of course one could argue that the distinction between war and treachery is superfluous, that if the indigenous peoples were stupid enough to trust the British and the French, then they deserved what they got. But then what does that say about western values? Not very Christian, are they.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no law prohibiting the use of Dominion Day, is there?

Why not. Studies already show that it would save at least 3 billion yearly. We're not talking pennies here. That's if thhey're serious about savings of course.

Reading some of the posts on here, I might have to agree with you. In fact, they should perhaps be more concerned with the reinstatement of the system.

Just to add to the complications, my father would not be allowed to attend our marriage in Hong Kong due to a previous military security clearance. He cannot enter China for at least another five years. This leaves us with no choice but to marry in Canada even if we end up settling in Hong Kong right away afterwards. He could still visit us five years down the road, or we visit him. Just another complication in all the bureaucracy.

"You want to be here, learn the language, it is that simple. The notion that we need to bend over for people to come is stupid. Don't like the rules........................" I prefer not to guess at incomplete sentences, but I'll take a shot at it... sick it up, buttercup. The slaves didn't like the rules, so British North America abrogated slavery. The indigenous peoples didn't like the rules, so we abrogated the residential school system. The Japanese Canadians didn't like internment either. Are you saying the rules should all be set in stone and never questioned? "But you are advocating for a policy that makes us worse off as a country by excluding productive immigrants that can get by without English for French. The status quo seems far more stupid." Not to mention the promotion of emmigration. I am seriously considering that. One less taxpayer and one less quadrilingual Canadian serving as a bridge between Canada's three largest ghettos. "You can't integrate immigrants from various cultures without a common language. We do not want immigrants who can only function within their own ethnic ghettos nor do we want immigrants who use Canada as passport of convenience and spend all of the time abroad." From my own observations with my own eyes, Chinese in Canada who do not speak English or French well are communicating increasingly frequently with English and French Canadians who have learnt Chinese. "First let me say that your wife-to-be doesn't need to be a citizen to live here. She can (and must do so first before becoming a citizen) apply to be a Permanent Resident of Canada, where there are no language requirements if she applied under the Family Class program, as far as I know." Yes, but most normal relationships do not start at marriage. Even assuming the most religious of relationships with no sexual relations prior to marriage, a relationship still develops prior to it, and a courtship is such a relationship, intermediary between friendship and marriage. In the meantime we're left trapped in a long-distance relationship. "As for citizenship, language is easily one of the strongest aspect of culture, if not the strongest. If you want to assimilate into Canadian society how can you when you can't speak either of the official languages of the country? How can you make voting decisions when you can't understand what any of the politicians are saying? We are a multicultural society but it isn't asking much to have voting citizens of this country able to speak the language everyone else can speak, for most every citizen to be able to communicate with each other. I personally do not like or want more large enclaves of people who can only function in their foreign mother tongue(s) and not with the rest of Canadians. In fact I despise them." You're obviously monolingual. My partner could communicate with French Canadians better than most English-speakers here, given my knowledge of French. And she'll be able to better able to integrate with Chinese Canadians, and I with Japanese Canadians through her. So if anything, we'd be better integrated than most Canadians are. "Yes it does: English outside of Quebec; French inside of Quebec." Chinese is the dominant language in Burnaby, even over English. Are you proposing that those living in Burnaby should be required to integrate into the local community? "You cannot contribute to Canadian society if you can't speak with people outside of your ethnic ghetto." Again, you'd be slurp rise at how many English and French Canadians speak Chinese today, especially where Chinese dominates. "Contribution is more than simply using Canada a base of operations while you run businesses in other countries." But it's also possible now to do business in Chinese alone within Canada's own borders. With Free Trade with the USA, that adds the US market too. And let's not pretend that English Canadians don't trade internationally. "You can if it's a big enough ghetto and you are talented enough in other areas." Chinese is Canada's third biggest ghetto very close after English and French. "Also, do you not see how letting in more immigrants from Hong Kong reduces the magnitude of our future problem with Islamism?" Interesting. I'm a convert to Islam from Catholicism; she's Protestant. That said, I don't see the relevance. "We have enough problems with incompetent PS workers because they have to be able to speak French, which means we are not getting the best and you want people now that cant speak either." But in the private sector, some Chinese are more competent that English and French entrepreneurs. "We don't WANT ghettos that big. We want to reduce their size." Allowing more Chinese in would reduce the relative size of the English and French ghetyos, would it not? "Repeated studies by a variety of government, business and academic groups have stated that one of, if not THE primary requirements for success in Canada for immigrants is a strong knowledge of the local language. Lack of English/French makes it impossible for highly educated immigrants to work in their field, and contributes to a high unemployment rate and a high poverty rate among immigrants." Isolate the Chinese community and check those results again. Given that there are almost as many Chinese and French in Canada, and that the Chinese built the railway, why not add Chinese to the Official Languages Act? Their market is sufficient in itself, unlike smaller communities. You could do business more easily in Chinese in Burnaby or YVR than in French.

So if I understand correctly, they should not be compensated in any way for a systematic act of cultural genocide that lasted over 100 years into the 1990s?

Canada's pre-jet-age immigration policies need a major overhaul. Having been in a courtship for the last year now, I can say that whoever wrote Canada's immigration policy was completely out of touch with the reality of relationships in the internet age and changes in Canada's demographic landscape. I'm a French Canadian about to marry a Hong Kong resident in the next year. She's trilingual in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese, and I'm quadrilingual and sharing Mandarin as our common language. We have already explored the possibilities in Canada, and in spite of her lack of knowledge of English and French, she would be quite capable of starting her own online business catering to Canada's large Chinese market. In fact, she already has a tentative business plan in mind (she used to manage 300 workers before and has more recently been working in import and export between Hong Kong and mainland China). The problems? Oh where do we start?! Bearing in mind that I've only recently thought about this matter, the ideas below are still just a quick brainstorm. Problem 1: the law ignores the reality of courtship in the jet age, let alone the internet age. We'd met by chance while she was visiting her cousin in Canada. We quickly became friends, I showed her around the region when her cousin was busy, we both let our guards down (neither of us being interested in courting a foreigner), and when she went back to China (after which we both assumed our friendship would remain just that), the friendship continued to blossom online. I'd eventually visited her in China, then she came to visit my family in Canada, and I'll be going back to visit her family in China soon. At one point, her cousin offered to hire her to manage her rental business (which specializes in the Chinese market), but because she was not a citizen, Canadian law ignores the reality of courtship, we were not yet married, and we were not yet prepared to commit to marriage at that time, she could not obtain a work visa and we therefore had to maintain an expensive long distance relationship over the last year until now. The law needs to recognize the existence of courtship otherwise it is out of touch with reality. For example, why could the government not grant a renewable five-year residency card to any foreign national in an official courtship with a Canadian citizen? It would reduce the likelihood of rushing into marriage (and marriage fraud in some cases) and allow the couple to live in the same city for some time before making the big decision. It would not cost the government any money and would introduce one more taxpayer to Canada. To protect the foreigner from any possible abuse from his Canadian partner, the law could guarantee that the foreign partner could keep the residency card independently of the relationship afterwards, with the Canadian partner being prohibited from entering an official courtship with any other foreign national during that period of time. To protect the Canadian partner from pressure to enter into such a relationship or marriage, the law could prohibit consensual sexual relations between the partners and allow immigration officials to replace the five-year residency visa with a one-year residency visa should they obtain proof of such while being prohibited from spying for this purpose. Though the couple could illegally engage in such relations easily enough without getting caught, it would still make the foreign partner think twice about using sex to pressure the Canadian into such a relationship given how easy it would be for the Canadian partner to prove such relations to the authorities short of the foreign partner claiming sexual assault should the relationship go sour afterwards, given that there does exist a grey area between consensual sexual relations and sexual assault. Problem 2: Canada's language requirements to obtain Canadian citizenship. Unless she's planning to work for the Federal Government, why should the government care whether or not she knows English or French as long as she can prove her ability to sustain herself in Canada? Why not give her a five-year residency visa and let her prove herself? Besides, just as it's possible to live in Canada in English without knowing French or French without knowing English, it is quite possible to live in Canada in Chinese. The last time she was in Canada, I remember spending over two straight weeks outside of work living more than half of my free time in Chinese with my partner, her cousin and her husband and friends, whether at home, in restaurants, at the bank opening a joint account and using a Chinese-language ATM, reading Chinese-language newspapers, or cell phone and other shops that all served in Chinese. Many English and French Canadians fail to appreciate (or racism prevents them from accepting) that there are almost as many Chinese Canadians as French Canadians in Canada, and that a knowledge of English or French is superfluous to the business-savvy Chinese in Canada (some traditional doctors in Chinese medicine in Burnaby do not know English and serve Chinese speaking patients only). In fact, I'd used more Chinese than French outside of work while visiting Ottawa during that week! Problem 3: Lack of protection against ill-willed Canadians. I'd heard one story (the veracity of which I've not been able to confirm) of a poor Canadian marrying a rich Chinese. They'd bought a house together, and then when she'd come back from a trip to visit her parents in China, she couldn't enter Canada. It turned out her husband filed for divorce and contacted border services to keep her out of the country. She hadn't seen any of this coming. Certainly a foreigner should be allowed at least a five-year residency visa after a divorce unless a valid reason to not grant one can be presented in court. Let's not assume that ill-willed Canadians are incapable of wielding Canadian law as a weapon against an innocent unsuspecting foreigner for his own ends, and let's not allow the government to serve as an unwitting accomplice to such. These are just some of the problems I've been able to identify in Canadian immigration policy, and I'm sure there are plenty more.

Given that the TRC has recommended that the Government of Canada spend as much money to revive indigenous languages and cultures as it spent on trying to destroy them (adjusted for inflation) in a systematic act of cultural genocide, where should all of that money come from? I personally can see at least two possible sources: the separate school system and the English and French provisions of the Canadian Constitution. According to one study referring to a merging of separate and secular schools in Ontario, "The total estimated annual savings due to merging have been calculated at between $1.269 billion and $1.594 billion." Given that the Churches that are involved in the separate school system are by no accident of history the same ones that were involved in the residential school system (and that the UN has already criticized Canada for the separate school system violating the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights), it would seem appropriate to take the funds from the same source by abrogating the separate school system from the Constitution. According to another study published by the Fraser Institute, fulfilling the English and French language requirements of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms costs Canadian taxpayers an estimated 2.4 billion dollars a year. Given that these are the same languages, again by no accident of history, to be imposed in the residential school system, it would seem appropriate again to get the funds from the same source by eliminating the English and French language provisions of the Constitution. Of course extra-constitutional legislation might still protect some English and French language privileges and so fail to save the entire 2.4 billion a year, but even if it manages to save half of that money, that would still be 1.2 billion yearly. Considering that schools on reserves are underfunded from between 2,000 to 3,000 dollars yearly per child today compared to off-reserve schools in comparable circumstances, the savings could go towards funding public schools on reserves. An additional advantage aside from reconciliation would be putting our religions and languages on a comparatively more equal footing in the Constitution. Where would you propose we get the funding for reconciliation?

Thank you.

Given that both the separate school system and official bilingualism are quite expensive among other reasons, support, at least in principle, the establishment of a Royal Commission on Religion and Language to recommend, applying the knowledge gained from universal legal, educational, linguistic, economic, ecological, physiological, religious, and other fields, and taking into account the impact of its recommendations on unofficial religious, linguistic, and ethnic communities, the most just revisions to be made to the religious and linguistic provisions of the Constitution of Canada and its indigenous Treaties, and to Canada's international linguistic policies, so as to conform them to today's universal human rights declarations and the religious and moral sentiments of residents of Canada?

I understand patriotism as love for one's country. Nothing more, nothing less, nor does it necessarily exclude love for other countries. Depending on how one defines his "country", that could mean Cascadia, Canada, North America, or even earth. I understand nationalism as a belief in the moral superiority of one nation over another.

Thanks eyeball. I don't actually see patriotism as a bad thing though. If anything, it's an effective remedy against nationalism.

I would tend to classify assimilation into three broad categories: 1. Active voluntary assimilation. The only example that comes to my mind in this category is the Egyptians. Copic and Arabic are of the same language family. Muslim converts chose to assimilate to Arabic as the language of the Qur'an of their own free will. Initially it was a process of integration, but once most knew Arabic, they perceived Copic as redundant and chose to abandon it. Few Egyptians today know Coptic. 2. Forced assimilation through an official policy of cultural genocide. The Indian Residential school system comes to mind as a clear example, though the Official Languages Act and other such laws can be viewed as moderate variations of it. 3. Forced circumstantial assimilation in the absence of any official policy. A person settles in a city where no one knows his language but everyone knows another common language. He'll first integrate and might assimilate. His child will probably assimilate if he will not have done so already. Apart from assimilation, there is also integration. Indonesia comes to mind where everyone agrees to learn Indonesian as a common second language evolved from a trade pidgin while promoting the mother tongue too so as to prevent assimilation. I personally prefer integration to assimilation whenever possible. To impose an official policy of assimilation where integration would have sufficed amounts to cultural genocide.

I'm pro life too, but all four major parties have essentially the same policy on this matter.

@Canada_First: My Chinese partner and I are planning to marry in the next year. Though I'm a French Canadian tracing my roots on my mother's side to New France and my father's to the UK and Austria (first generation Canadian born in the UK to a British father and an Austrian mother), our only common language is Mandarin Chinese. When she came to visit, the local Chinese population was large enough for us to live and do business in Chinese most of the time. She had managed 300 workers under her at one point and though she'd suffered bad luck in the last few years, is still self employed in import and export between Hong Kong and the mainland. She's fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese, and has already drawn up a plan for an online business targeting Canada's Chinese market if she moves here. Worse case scenario if she should not be accepted due to the language tests, we'll settle in Hong Kong. We don't live in the 1800's anymore, my friend. You may be surprised to learn that today many Canadians of British and French origin in relationships with foreigners might speak the foreign language and not the other way around, and that is often what allowed them to meet in the first place. And as for foreigners coveting Canada we both prefer Hong Kong. The only reason we're considering Canada at least for the first few years is to give my mother and military father a chance to adjust to the reality that we may move far away later. Though she has no interest in obtaining Canadian citizenship but only live here for a few years, I must ask what reception most Canadians would give her. From my experience, she people were friendly towards her last she was here, at least in my presence; but reading the rubbish online, I must wonder how people might judge her in my absence or in their minds, especially if she did want to immigrate. So would you deny her the right to immigrate to Canada?

I tend to take a much broader view of reconciliation and cultural genocide. If we set the residential school system aside for a moment (since the TRC's mandate was narrowly circumscribed to that) and focus instead on the beliefs on which it was raised, we find that that system shared the same credal foundations as the separate school system, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the abrogation of the right of German and Ukrainian Canadians to send their children to school in their own languages, discriminatory immigration policies favoring British immigrants initially and English and French speaking immigrants later, Japanese internment against the advice of the Canadian military, the Official Languages Act, and even the religious and linguistic provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The residential school system was only one small part of the government's policy of cultural genocide since Confederation even to this day (consider the powers of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and the role of the Commissioner for Official Languages among many other players throughout the government's structures today). At the height of the residential school era at the time of the '60's scoop, the government already knew that the residential school system had to be dismantled eventually. In many respects, the B&B Commission report was a preparation for this. You can read in that report how it explicitly excludes "the Indians and the Esquimaux" from belonging to the two "founding races" which it defines as "Canadians of British and French origin" apart from the "other ethnic groups". The same Report outlines how the government intended to completely assimilate the indigenous peoples into the provincial systems. The Indian Policy of 1969 further elaborates on the plan to completely wipe out indigenous rights. In essence, the Official Languages Act was aiming to replace the Indian Act. Though that plan failed, the OLA and now the CCRF still serve a certain subtle assimilationist purpose off-reserve when the Indian Act does not apply. In many respects, the OLA and the CCRF among many other laws are just cultural genocide with a friendly face.

My user name is corrected. Thank you. Now as for the belief that the British built Canada, I have a different understanding (anyone please feel free to correct me): The British in collusion with the French administered the building of Canada. Starting at Confederation, Parliament, dominated mostly by the British and the French, recognizing Canada's military weakness and inability to wage a US-style war against the indigenous peoples, decided to enter into treaties it never intended to live by while establishing the residential school system at the same time. With the British being the dominant group in Parliament, immigration policy favored British immigration though it did accept Chinese, German, Ukrainian and other immigration as required to build Canada. The French tolerated this because of the French birthrates.Though the Canadian Government appreciated the Chinese cheap labour to build the Trans-Canada railway, it soon turned on them with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Parliament had also gotten the Germans to build Yonge street in what is today Toronto in exchange for land. Once the road was built though, Parliament reneged on its side of the bargain. The Germans sent one representative to London to plead with the Crown directly. The Crown agreed with them but acknowledged it had no power to do anything about it. Many Germans died of starvation in the following year. After the Federal Government invited Germans to build Berlin, Ontario (now Kitchener: nothing like historical revisionism!) and Ukrainians to build the prairies, provincial governments then revoked their right to send their children to school in their languages after WWI. How's that for bait and switch? By the 1960s, French birthrates had declined, indigenous and other Canadians were starting to organize politically, and the residential school system, having reached its peak, was becoming too expensive to maintain. In comes the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, a brilliant act of Anglo-French collusion to quell the indigenous and other opposition, further revise history, defend the separate school sysyem, and establish the Official Languages Act, the labelling and packaging act, CBC/SRC and other laws and bodies to solidify Anglo-French gains. With indigenous (and to a lesser degree other) Canadians continuing to further organize politically, in comes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to further entrench Anglo-French dominance. By the time of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it was fair to say that the British in collusion with the French administered the building of Canada.

Happy Dominion day, everyone. Question. How do I correct the misspelling in my user name?