JB Globe

The problem with your argument is you're presuming that dealing with climate change involves an all-or-nothing extremist revolution in our lives - which it doesn't. No credible organization or political wants every citizen and business to immediately give up all their CO2 emitting products and plunge the country into poverty. No one is saying, for example - that they would rather have a diesel firetruck sit unused and let a house burn down than fill it up with gas and send it on it's way. Rather, what needs to happen is we need to start gradually taxing C02 and start subsidizing green products and industries. So that eventually, that fire truck will either be green, or it won't matter if it's diesel or not, because we'll have built an excellent transit system that keeps millions of cars off the road (which of course, would also increase response time). A transit system that could move people out of an area with a natural disaster, much more efficiently than a highway clogged with cars ever could, for example. There is nothing radical about a carrot and stick approach to coaxing the economy into dealing with climate change. In fact, it's radical to NOT do anything about it, because that would eventually spell economic disaster due to the collapse of natural systems our economy relies on.

Wow. That's some of the best graphic design I've ever seen in a political ad.

In lieu of any actual information that demonstrates that May has a hidden pro-American/anti-Canadian agenda, I think it's safe to place this post in the real of conspiracy theory.

So let me get this straight - you got a chain email that was itself a plagiarism of a fake letter to the editor, you didn't bother to verify if any of the claims it was making were true, then you decided to agree with the opinion of the email and present it here as a document that supports your xenophobic worldview. In addition to that, you've dodged discussing any of the content of the email, and your own personal myth you initially posted. Let's flip this, brother - someone posts an antisemitic chain email complete with unsubstantiated negative claims about Jews, then someone posts it here agreeing with it - is it still "much ado about nothing?" - or should that poster be held accountable and at least be told that those claims are baseless in lieu of factual information? Looking forward to your one-sentence response.

YOU are the one who made the sweeping generalization. YOU are the one who also who didn't back up that sweeping generalization. Until you do, it only stands as your personal opinion, not a fact. The onus is on the person who makes the claim to back it up. You can give your opinion all you want - and I can call you out on the fact that you're just pulling said opinion out of your ass. Don't get angry at me, be angry that you don't hold yourself to a higher standard. Do you know what I do when I don't know what I'm talking about? I don't offer my "hunch" - I listen and learn. That's why you don't see my name all over this board on topics all over the place - I read and learn about things I don't know, and participate on things I do know. Which is why you should read my earlier posts in this thread where I referenced well-known historical facts, added studies, polls, newspaper articles, etc. Unless it's true. Than how could you make such a blatantly false statement? - "Immigrants nowadays tend not to want to work their way up from the bottom, or spend much of their time back in the homeland." How on EARTH do you know what ALL new immigrants are thinking? How on earth can you say that ALL immigrants don't want to work from the bottom up? Where are you gleaning this information from? Where? There's a big difference between the honest pursuit of knowledge and pursuing information that will back up your already deeply-held beliefs. Also, when dealing with issues such as social issues, book learning is only half of what you need - these problems affect real people, and if you are completely isolated from the "subjects" you're reading about - how accurate can your observations really be? That would make sense if only some of my favourite authors and columnists were not conservatives, some of whom call for immigration reform. The difference is - they're making reasoned arguments based in reality, and they're motivated by rational concerns, not xenophobia. If you want to have a discussion about immigration reform - by all means. I discussed what I considered to be rational non-xenophobic based concerns earlier in this thread. If you want to vilanize ALL immigrants in lieu of facts, I don't want any part of it. There's nothing broad about a worldview that makes sweeping generalizations. Yet you STILL make unsubstantiated sweeping generalizations about groups of people. When are such statements EVER valid? You need to re-evaluate If you'd have paid closer attention to my posts in this thread, you would have known that I'm white, and you wouldn't have made the assumption that I'm non-white based on the fact that I dispute your claims about all new immigrants being lazy (paraphrase). My point still stands - you would not buy someone's unsubstantiated claim about non-immigrant white folks, so why should anyone buy your unsubstantiated claim about immigrants?

Since when is pluralism nothing? Like I said before, the onus isn't on my to prove the original post wrong - it's on JBG to prove the claims true first. Otherwise, why would I bother disproving something that hasn't been proven in the first place? Even still - I've still backed up my basic statement (Canadians in general, while they have specific criticisms of certain policies, support immigration and multiculturalism in general) and given widely-known historical events and facts as evidence that yesterday's immigrants weren't saints, as JBG portrayed them in his posts (ie - Christie Pits Riots, ethnic enclaves such as Kensington, etc)

Prove this statement to be true. Can't? That's because it isn't. This is really getting old guys - your own personal "hunches" gleamed from staring at "foreigners" suspiciously on the bus doesn't count as facts. Either post a some sort of credible information that proves this, or admit you don't have anything more than a uninformed personal opinion. You wouldn't buy it if someone came in here claiming "all white people are violent racists" why should anyone by your claims about a whole group of people?

But you've spent all your time here DEFENDING JBG's claims . . . Meaning you're defending a claim which hasn't been proven to be true. And you haven't provided any info yourself to prove it to be true . . . So what does that say about your position?

Argus - you still haven't provided A SINGLE FACTUAL SOURCE for any of the claims you've made. When are you going to prove that "old immigrants were saints / new immigrants are devils?" How long are you going to keep ranting? People who want to EXCLUSIVELY live among people who share their ethnicity and/or religion and isolate themselves from other people in a diverse society are always motivated by xenophobic attitudes. Xenophobia is a human cultural phenomenon - meaning any human being can posses that line of thinking, no matter their ethnicity or religion. No thanks, I don't like Straw men. So it's unreasonable of me to deduce that since you're ranting against Multiculturalism in general, and the immigration of non-white, non-Christian immigrants that you'd be opposed to Multiculturalism and non-white, non-Christian immigration? Perhaps you could explain JUST WHAT EXACTLY your political beliefs are if I've so grossly misunderstood you? That's cute - when are you going to post ANYTHING to back up your claims? How about you do your homework and SHOW me why that study is not valid, rather than widely claiming it is? Canadians want to live in GOOD communities - of which there are MANY which don't consist of all white people. As I showed earlier, the crime rate in small (nearly all-white) Canadian cities is rising rapidly. Where was it that you lived that was good until "all the brown people" started coming again? Where is it you live now? Why are you being so vague? Don't want to get caught making things up again? I don't blame you - it IS easier to lie when you're not specific about anything. So, the fact that I can get sources in a minute or two says one of two things: 1 - I'm much, much smarter than you, if it takes you "hours" 2 - You're making excuses for not sourcing your argument, because YOU CAN'T FIND SOURCES FOR YOUR ARGUMENT. Personally I think it's reason #2 - it's impossible to source an argument which is a complete MYTH. Which is exactly why no one here from your side of the fence has posted ANYTHING. People with no lives, on the other hand, who are desperately insecure and need to "prove" their point will go to almost any lengths. Sorry, but you spend more time on here than I do (ie - I will be away on work in BC and won't be posting for two weeks), just look at your post count. Spare me this comedy.

1 - Not sure if you've ever been to a mosque, but most of the ones in Canada don't have screens. 2 - Men are "forced" to pray separately just as much as women are. 3 - Christian women are "forced" to wait until marriage to have sex - is that sexist? 4 - Just because sexism exists in Islam doesn't mean EVERYTHING ABOUT IT is sexist. 5 - Stay on topic, if you can - you should probably spend more time sourcing your original argument than side-tracking.

Well idiot, French/Engish weren't the only two divisions in Canada prior to 1982. Western alienation was still present, natives were still marginalized, and xenophobia still existed. And in case you hadn't noticed, there still is a French/English division. But like I said - if a policy is THAT unpopular - the government gets voted out. I'll say it again - show me a study that proves that your xenophobic views have widespread public support. Can't? Than that means what you claim isn't true. And your point is what? Are you implying that the US is better because it doesn't have a lot of immigration. Frankly, I look at the US' higher crime rate and worse social system and if (by using your reasoning, which I don't agree with) that's a result of a lack of immigration, than I say bring on more (to be clear hear - I don't buy your casual relationship between US-society and immigration). Actually, the reason the US has a positive natural birthrate is because Hispanic Americans have a lot of kids: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...te.39dcfdf.html "If it weren't for Hispanic births, the U.S. could be confronting long-term population declines similar to those in Germany, Japan and other industrialized countries. Hispanics are the only ethnic group now producing more than two children per family, according to a Census Bureau report released Monday. That's the number necessary to replace the mother and father and keep the population stable. "The Hispanic population is growing; whites and Asians are not replacing themselves," said Jane Dye, the Census Bureau demographer who wrote the study." Sorry - explain to me why a country is "garbage" because they have a negative natural birthrate? I'd LOVE to hear your reasoning. 1 - I don't think he's going to be able to sell full-universal. 2 - He hasn't said anything about letting in more immigrants, and immigrants apply to multiple countries as it is now - I don't think it will make much of a difference. I've already posted polling data and academic studies (ie - Queens University Study) that prove that the majority of Canadians support multiculturalism and immigration in general (specific policies not withstanding). That's proof. So far, you've posted NO SOURCES to back up your claim that the majority of Canadians are opposed to immigration in general (just like everyone else with your position in this thread). Time for you to get to work. That divide still exists. If you're implying what I think you're implying (that it's wrong to give CANADIAN CITIZENS the right to vote because they immigrated to Canada in their lifetime) than you're getting dangerously close to radical White Nationalist territory here, buddy. You'd deny the right to vote to Canadian Citizens because they immigrated? What about their Canadian-born kids? Them too? 1 - What is your definition of economic migrants? ANY immigrant that includes economic factors as one of many reasons for coming co Canada? If so - you've just classified ALL immigrants who ever came to Canada (even the first Brits and French) as economic migrants. 2 - What evidence do you have that these migrants are ONLY influenced by economic factors? 3 - Other than Brits or French, each immigrant community as a whole did not have a language or historical basis for immigrating to Canada, but that didn't stop them from integrating and adding to Canadian society - this idea that only Brits and French can be productive Canadians is ridiculous. You're officially out to lunch. Does anyone dispute my labeling of this guy as a fanatic for the following reasons: 1 - The notion that the Queen of England is not just our head of state, but actually wields REAL political control over Canadians, and SHOULD wield that control to save "us" from the conspiracy set upon us by the Liberal, NDP, Bloc, Conservative New World Order. 2 - The bible should be the basis of Canada's foreign and domestic policy. Stop setting this up as a conspiracy against white Euro-Judeo Christian Canadians. I'M a white-Euro-Judeo-Christian Canadian - so are most of the people who support immigration and Multiculturalism in general - there is no conspiracy - there's just less and less room in mainstream Canadian society for xenophobia.

Hey JBG, Good to see you're still checking around this post - when are you going to attempt factually back up that myth of yours? I'm going to Vancouver for two weeks, does that sound like a reasonable amount of time for you to find a study or two that proves your claims? Or shall we assume this is another baseless rant-post? Actually, sorry to break it do you, but observant Jews DO in fact degrade women and use Torah to justify it. We're not automatically angels just because we're chosen.

One only needs to give xenophobes a rope in debate like this, they'll be more than happy to hang themselves . . . My earlier statement still stands: NO ONE HAS PROVEN THE INITIAL CLAIM BY JBG TO BE TRUE USING FACTUAL INFORMATION. Not one analysis by a historian has been referenced, not one study, nothing. So far, the only "proof" that "old immigrants were saints and new immigrants are devils" comes in the form of unsubstantiated ranting from the people supporting that argument. I'm sorry that you all missed that part of high school where it was taught that - you must PROVE something to be true using factual information, because otherwise, no matter how BADLY you want it to be true, it isn't. The only thing this myth tells us is how xenophobes view the past and how they use it to justify their agenda in the present. Oh, and the fact that they are too lazy / unable to find sources that support their position. If I'm wrong about this, and there are in fact studies and analysis which support your positions, by all means - GO AHEAD AND POST THEM. You've only had what is it? Two weeks to find them? I found a study for my side of the argument in a few minutes, what's the hold up on your end?

I've already addressed this false-myth of the "golden-saint old immigrants" versus the "heathen-devil new immigrant" in this post, all the points I made initially in response to JBG's original post apply to your views here, scroll up to check them out. I will add however that, just like JBG, Angus, DogonPorch, and all the others who've tried to prove this myth true - you haven't provided any factual information that proves this myth to be true. And I doubt you will be able to find any from credible sources.

Men and women praying separately is about as sexist as men and women having different bathrooms. Honestly - it's so entertaining to me to watch how long you all can go without making a serious argument. This thread has absolved any fears I had about a new xenophobic movement gaining strength in Canada. It's hard to be scared of something so intellectually pathetic.

The thing is - there's a huge difference between reforming the immigration system, and xenophobia. Just because someone wants to fix the immigration system, doesn't automatically mean they don't like people from different ethnic groups from their own. You're confusing support for immigration reform with an anti-immigrant, xenophobic agenda. And as I showed you earlier, the majority of Canadians support Multiculturalism, so sorry to break it to you - but you're in the minority on this one, based on your political views. The vast majority of Canadians are not outraged at the prospect of living next to a non-white neighbor. Okay then, show me specifically where that study I posted fudged up the question to influence the answer. Go ahead, show me. As usual, you're doing nothing but making wild claims and not connecting the dots to any factual information. What is this? A dozen posts without a source cited? Without a study referenced? I mean, do you WANT me to put you in the "hack" category of posters or not? I'm giving you a lot of chances here to make a rational argument based on solid data - but you just keep ranting. Are you just too lazy to do so? Or can you just not find any facts to support your argument? And if so, what do you think that says about your argument?

You said "most" and that's simply not true. I also live in a very diverse area, and I don't find that to be true at all. Where do you live? What are some examples of this? Again, totally untrue, I doubt you can prove this statement with any factual information.

As we all know - calling someone retarted is a great way to start any intelligent post . . . But yes - I'm for real. If a majority of the population is extremely angry with a policy a government puts forward, they vote that government out. That's a cute claim - can you prove it to be true? I mean - can you actually prove that the (still large) majority of Canadians who are white are powerless? The thing is - as I illustrated earlier with that Queens U study on attitudes towards immigration - "old Canadians" SUPPORT Multiculturalism and immigration in general. Just because YOU don't like immigrants and YOU are white doesn't mean all white people think like you do. If anti-immigration was an ideal held by as many Canadians as you claim, and none of the parties are catering to to that "majority of old Canadians" than surely after +30 years there would be a strong, organized anti-immigration movement filled with lobbying groups, activist groups, and even political parties - but there isn't, in fact, such a movement is relegated to the extreme margins of society. Prove to me that immigrants are "nulifying" my voice - prove to me they're taking away job opportunities and driving down wages. So far you're doing nothing that a whole slew of xenophobes in this post have already done - make wild claims and accusations without any facts to back them up. I said it before and I'll say it again - you people don't have an argument to stand on - all you do is make wild claims and create false realities in your head that aren't based on any factual information. Do you REALLY expect anyone to believe you on the basis of "immigrants are bad, trust me!" you've got to SHOW us why they're so bad - the fact you can't do so with factual information demonstrates how bunk your whole position is.

There's no problem with coming up with a better definition, I'd support any public discussion on updating the idea of Multiculturalism for today, after all - ideas need to stay relevant, what worked in the 70s may not work today. They key would be however is it would have to be an honest discussion - it shouldn't be used by groups with an agenda (ie - xenophobes, be they anglo-Canadian, Jewish, Jamaican, or otherwise). I'm really not aware of this on a large scale (as you said "entire communities") such places are usually VERY small (ie - I used to live across the street from an orthodox synagogue in North York, Toronto that had maybe 300 members, many lived close by and had some businesses in the area, and they didn't really associate with anyone, even us fellow Jews, but they were only a few hundred in a large community of tens of thousands that was fully-integrated). So I'd need to see where these large, isolated communities are first, otherwise we should deal with this issue with the fact in mind that most of these isolated communities are small, and most immigrants do integrate. I'm assuming you're talking about Pacific Mall, just across Steeles in Markham (north of Toronto). I don't really really think DVD bootlegging is tolerated any more just because the mall happens to have mostly Chinese tenants. The reason that there's still bootlegging going on there is because bootlegging is a next to impossible crime to deal with from a police standpoint. Officers are reluctant to tie up manpower and money on a detail unless they actually make an impact on the structure of that criminal enterprise. Every time they hit up Pacific Mall, within a few weeks it's up and running again - the thing is though, the same can be said about DVD bootlegging operations run by online rings of geeky white kids. Police aren't avoiding Pacific Mall because it's Chinese, they're avoiding it for the same reasons they're avoiding throwing resources at DVD bootlegging in general. I agree that wouldn't be multicultural at all, but as I've said before - do places like this even really exist on a large scale? Granted I'm only going by what I read and my experiences working on multicultural/immigration issues and growing up/living in Toronto. Is Vancouver that radically different, for example? I've heard people say it's not as integrated - I'm heading there next week for the first time, it'll be interesting to check it out.

Obviously. I was speaking on behalf of those opposed to this notion of "new immigrants are the devil, old immigrants were saints" Since we're on the other side of the debate table, it's the responsibility of Angus, yourself and others to convince us that your views are correct - and that requires arguments that are based in fact. So far there's been no information provided by your side in this post that demonstrates there's any factual basis to this claim. So, speaking on behalf of the other side of the debate, I'm telling you guys - you can't possibly expect us to buy this line on the basis of "trust us, it's true" you have to SHOW us it's true. I mean really - would you believe me if I said "group x of people are negative and we need to kick them out of the country" and provided no basis for those claims? This is the main reason why this xenophobic line of thinking is such a hard sell - either you guys are too lazy to go and source your arguments, or you can't source your arguments because there's no factual information to back them up (ie - they're not based in reality).

So, in response to my accusation that you're making unsubstantiated claims you . . . Make more unsubstantiated claims? Wonderful . . . Like I've said before - if citizens really, really don't like the policies of their government, they vote for a new government. If many people were in fact outraged by the Multicultural Act, it would've been an election issue in '72 or '74, but it wasn't. The closest thing Canada has come to organized opposition to progressive immigration reform or Multiculturalism was the negative reaction to the '67 Green Paper on immigration - and that was spearheaded primarily by ad-hoc xenophobic or racist organizations created in response to the findings of that study. Sorry to break it to you, but there was and is no conspiracy here - the fact of the matter is that while people may have problems with specific programs/policies, Canadians support Multiculturalism and immigration in general. Even one year after 9/11 (a period marked by increased anxiety about immigration), support for Multiculturalism still stood at 72%. Source: http://www.queensu.ca/cora/_files/diversity_dasko.pdf Now as for your claim about multiculturalism only being supported by "urban elites" - do you have any data that supports this? Or is this another baseless claim of yours? After all, if it was only the domain of urban elites, you'd never get 72% approval. Where? Where? Also - we're getting to a point where whiter doesn't equal safer: ie - small cities of under 100 000 in Ontario are almost always overwhelmingly white, yet the overall crime rate is 43% higher than in a city like Toronto (even violent crime is higher). Source - Statscan study mentioned here - http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...Od8Yx05hpLZvS0g It's my belief that ethnicity in and of itself has no causal relationship to crime (meaning I don't believe white people are inherently more or less criminal than other people), and we should instead be looking at economics, law enforcement and social services. I hope you actually manage to cite a source in your response to my post - it would be a first.

And of course, part of that shared vision is Multiculturalism, meaning in general, Canadians see having many cultures being present within the Canadian nation as being a positive factor, you however, don't see things that way: This of course means, that you're out of line with Canadian values. Of course, that doesn't stop you from criticizing the extreme minority of new Canadians for being out of line in a different manner. Perhaps you should take a look in the mirror before criticizing others. Prove they're "wildly different" and prove it's changing the national personality. So far in this post all you've done is rant, nothing more. Surely you don't expect us to believe the things you write based on the reasoning of "because I said so"

Please continue . . .

I'm not talking about "wrong" acts committed by old immigrants before they came to Canada, I'm talking about things old immigrants did once they got to Canada. Your rose-tinted, nostalgic mythology of what old immigrants were "really" like is not based in reality, and is not supported by any factual information. Some Old immigrants: - lived in ethnic enclaves (Kensington Market, The Ward) - Were part of organized crime (the Mafia) - Participated in riots (Christie Pits Riots) - Didn't learn English, didn't integrate While most old immigrants lived a productive and law-abiding life, integrated into Canadian society and contributed a great deal to it. That didn't stop xenophobes in society from focusing almost solely on the few bad apples, and ignoring the rest. You can see this in op-ed pieces in the Star & Globe from that era - the way anti-immigrant commentators spoke about those old immigrants is strikingly similar to how they're talked about today. Old immigrants were no worse or better than new immigrants are today. The problem is that people are creating false myths about the past in order to justify their anti-immigrant agendas in the present. Most believe the myth to be true, but some know it's false yet still actively promote it because the ends justify the means. What's most disturbing however is to see the descendants of old immigrants who believe in this false myth. It's very disheartening to watch them fill the role of the xenophobe/anti-immigrant - especially when their parent's lives were made so difficult by those people. There's something stomach-churning about the descendants of people who experienced racism promoting racism against a new crop of immigrants. I understand it, but I don't condone it - In light of anti-immigrant attitudes, it's a method of distancing oneself from these new "bad" immigrants by claiming one's own immigrant ancestors were totally different from new immigrants, and were angels, in effect.

Of course it does. A text which is plagiarized, anonymous, and does not contain any factual information to back up its claims is a BAD TEXT. The only thing the source may do is tell us how the author feels - but since we don't know the author, we can't really say if it was the person's honest feelings, or if the text is actually part of someone or some organizations' propaganda campaign. Generally, people don't use bad sources as the basis for a supposedly good argument. There's a reason that (no matter what the topic at hand) you won't see any one on this board using plagiarized anonymous chain emails in their posts. The reason? - it makes the poster's argument look weak by association, and it doesn't add anything (say, facts) to the argument either. I really don't know why you think this was a good thing to post - maybe you were lazy and didn't want to bother looking for something more credible? Maybe you couldn't find anything that supported your argument that was any better? Who knows. Of course it is. I think an absolute statement about ALL (not even some, but ALL) new immigrants being negative, without offering any facts to back it up, qualifies this text as being xenophobic. I think perhaps you are being lazy, hence this straw man argument. Perhaps you could actually do some work for a change and connect the dots - show me the relationship between integrating immigrants into a Multicultural Canadian society, and that society turning into a "craphole" I find it telling you think that all immigrants come from "crapholes," irregardless of which country it is. Your belief that (new) immigrants are crap contributes to your views of where their coming from, and vice-versa. Obama isn't from Kenya or Indonesia - he was born in America, and only lived abroad for around two years of his life. Having a parent who is an immigrant doesn't strip you of your citizenship You regularly make comments such as this - implicating a person isn't Canadian or American simply because they're not white, or because of what religion they follow, while ignoring the obvious criteria for determining someone's nationality - CITIZENSHIP. Why do you do this?