Multiculturism is a huge failure

[TimG]

I thought this board had well educated posters. I must have been misinformed.

Nope. You are just one of those deluded people that confuses your personal opinion with facts and think that stating your delusion represents an argument.

[cybercoma]

I thought this board had well educated posters. I must have been misinformed.

Oh, you didn't hear about the bigotry and xenophobia?

[cybercoma]

Nope. You are just one of those deluded people that confuses your personal opinion with facts and think that stating your delusion represents an argument.

Says the guy who doesn't believe in scientific facts.

[jbg]

I thought this board had well educated posters. I must have been misinformed.

What was uneducated about my post?

[TimG]

Says the guy who doesn't believe in scientific facts.

Another person who confuses opinion which happens to agree with what you want to believe with fact. Learn the difference.

[Michael Hardner]

Really? You don't think there are any practical affects to becoming a stranger in your country, not being able to communicate effectively, your kids not being able to find work because they don't speak the language of the new majority?

"Stranger to your country" - that's a personal experience, based on perceptions of change. Of all the changes that happen over time, the change in the people due to immigration is not one that upsets most people I know. Changes in the environment, economy, in congestion, in technology would be more upsetting to most I think.

"Not being able to communicate, language of the new majority" - extreme projections of future events, not happening now to any significant level and not happening in the future. English isn't going anywhere.

What exactly does it mean to not want change? You're making a very strong inference here that change is good.

To not want change is to resist nature. Saying "change is good" is as general and useless as "change is bad". Globalization and the erasure of borders is a huge pervasive force, obviously, and resisting that outright is a waste of energy. It's not a matter of saying "change is good" but of adapting, and not saying "change is bad".

...despite the reality that sometimes change sometimes sucks pretty badly for a lot of people.

Change has sucked worse for me than most, I suspect. My career was globalized without anybody noticing, and I was unemployed for a year, forced to take a job at less than half of my pay. I had to adapt, and I'm glad that I did.

Then too, it's been shown time and again that people basically like living amongst their own kind, not merely here but everywhere on earth.

My "kind" is the group of people that I work with and socialize with, not people who share my race and religion. My group does have things in common, especially their outlook and their economic circumstances.

My group has to make do without union security, government support, or adequate political representation. They're left-wing, but paradoxically they're self-employed business people or non-unionized workers. They have lived all over the world, and represent all races, religions and places. Overall, they are thoughtful, pragmatic, social and thankful for what they have.

People, by and large, like to have comfortable surroundings where people are, more or less like them, where they share a certain sense of community, speak the same language, have the same cultural touchstones and values, etc. etc. Clearly you, of course, are above such dreary concerns, but not everyone is.

Sense of community is more universal than you think. English is more universal than you think. Culture and values too.

Where do you live, may I ask ? Where do you work ? I'm not making this personal, as I said I value your perspective. But it sounds like you're forever speaking about "the other", whereas I live and work among immigrants and therefore it's not as scary to me.

[Keepitsimple]

I can understand how a significant number of Canadians hold some intolerance towards immigrants and newer Canadians who can hardly speak English (or French) and tend to stay within their distinct cultural enclaves. But immigration should not be viewed through that very narrow lens. The success of immigration is measured through second and third generations - the sons and daughters of these new Candians - who are raised through the Canadian school system and speak English as well as - or better than those who have been in Canada for many generations. For those who have been watching the story unfold, tolerance can quickly lead to acceptance, if not an embracing. I think its cool to see people who might not look like me - but are just as Canadian as I am. In fact, these second generation Canadians tend to have a better appreciation of what Canada offers - because their parents left another country to give them a better life.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Keepitsimple

[Michael Hardner]

The success of immigration is measured through second and third generations - the sons and daughters of these new Candians - who are raised through the Canadian school system and speak English as well as - or better than those who have been in Canada for many generations.

If you spend some time with 2nd generation Canadians in their 20s and 30s you will be struck by how Canadian they actually are. It makes you appreciate, or at least makes me appreciate, characteristics that we do indeed have in common rather than the marketed patriotism touchpoints such as hockey and Tim Hortons.

I would rather drink Starbucks and watch NASCAR all things being equal.

But these Canadians have taught me that we are also pragmatic, hard working, resilient, tolerant and especially optimistic. Also, most often than not, those brought up with a religious background tend to modify their views in line with the Canadian perspective.

But, again, that's my perspective.

In fact, these second generation Canadians tend to have a better appreciation of what Canada offers - because their parents left another country to give them a better life.

I think here about the many Sri Lankan cooks in Toronto who took their families from a bad situation to live in crowded towers in North Toronto, not ideal but better. But we shouldn't be complacent about improving the bottom line for poorer Canadians, and not just by sending them west to work for big oil.

[Argus]

It's mostly because I have a habit of skipping your misinformed posts. I missed the link you posted of the 1000 signatures... which in your mind, are significant number of people in Richmond.

You have a terrible habit of making things up.

I believe your definition of 'making things up' is 'anything I don't agree with'. I can't offhand recall you EVER posting a cite in support of any of the nosensical ravings and dribblings you spew out.

[Argus]

I don't give a shit what he meant.

Ah well then, I guess you not caring what the other party is saying will mean your contribution will be as well-thought-out as usual for you.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Argus

[Argus]

I am glad to see that the majority on this board are not racists and call out xenophobia when they see it.

Two or three indignant lefties aghast that anyone wants to discuss one of their sacred holy policies doesn't give the brainless set the majority, bubba.

[Michael Hardner]

Keep the quality of dialogue up, people. If you say you don't care what somebody posts then you shouldn't be discussing with them. There's no point in saying so, just move on.

[Argus]

Oh, you didn't hear about the bigotry and xenophobia?

All I hear are shrill people frightened and angry that anyone dares to challenge their presumptions. Having no abilty to respond intelligently, they resort to name calling. Which is absolutely perfectly in sync with the norm for you lot.

[carepov]

Then too, it's been shown time and again that people basically like living amongst their own kind, not merely here but everywhere on earth. People, by and large, like to have comfortable surroundings where people are, more or less like them, where they share a certain sense of community, speak the same language, have the same cultural touchstones and values, etc. etc. Clearly you, of course, are above such dreary concerns, but not everyone is.

I agree that most people "basically like living amongst their own kind", however, to me, in this context "living" means a small group of people: family, close friends and some acquaintances. Certainly in Canada one can choose to live all their leisure/social time within "their own kind". Newcomers are not displacing any "traditional Canadian culture" they are adding to it. Who cares about the cultural touchstones of strangers?

[Argus]

"Stranger to your country" - that's a personal experience, based on perceptions of change. Of all the changes that happen over time, the change in the people due to immigration is not one that upsets most people I know.

And that's a personal experience, based, in all likelihood, on the fact that human beings tend to befriend those who are like them. So the people 'you' know are not likely the same types as the people 'I' know.

"Not being able to communicate, language of the new majority" - extreme projections of future events, not happening now to any significant level and not happening in the future. English isn't going anywhere.

You don't think employability is affected by language in a city which is 70% foreign born, especially when the great majority of those foreign born are from the same foreign country?

To not want change is to resist nature. Saying "change is good" is as general and useless as "change is bad". Globalization and the erasure of borders is a huge pervasive force, obviously, and resisting that outright is a waste of energy. It's not a matter of saying "change is good" but of adapting, and not saying "change is bad".

But sometimes it IS bad, and sometimes it SHOULD be resisted. Globalization might be a powerful force but it's not all-powerful, and many of its affects are more helpful to corporations than individuals or societies. Want to go to Walmart in San Fransico? There are none. San Fransisco made the decision that these types of giant chain stores are not good for their community and banned them all. So you can pick and choose what changes you want to incorporate into your society.

Change has sucked worse for me than most, I suspect. My career was globalized without anybody noticing, and I was unemployed for a year, forced to take a job at less than half of my pay. I had to adapt, and I'm glad that I did.

I'm sure you're glad you adapted, but it sounds like you'd have been better off if the change hadn't come at all.

My "kind" is the group of people that I work with and socialize with, not people who share my race and religion. My group does have things in common, especially their outlook and their economic circumstances.

Yes, as I said above, we tend to select those we socialize with on the basis of how much they share our values and preferences, which is why judging society based on our friends is a poor idea.

Sense of community is more universal than you think. English is more universal than you think. Culture and values too.

We are who we are raised to be. You can emmigrate to Egypt and get an Egyptian passport and citizenship, but you'll always be Canadian. You will never get all the intricacies of their language. You don't share their religion. You didn't grow up there and don't understand or share their traditions. Your views of the world and your values will always be different from theirs.

Why would you think that would be any different for foreigners coming to Canada?

Where do you live, may I ask ? Where do you work ? I'm not making this personal, as I said I value your perspective. But it sounds like you're forever speaking about "the other", whereas I live and work among immigrants and therefore it's not as scary to me.

I've had a variety of life experiences. Right now I live in a mostly white upper middle class area with parks and large back yards. When I was younger and poorer, however, I lived for more than a decade surrounded mostly by immigrants. It was a rougher area with a lot of crime, and the Heatherington Street projects, home to ethnic street gangs, were two blocks away. I've worked as everything from a a janitor to a security guard to a store clerk to a data entry operator to a senior program officer with the government, so I've worked among plenty of immigrants myself (who, incidentally, were by far the worst racists I ever met, though mostly against each other, and Jews, rather than whites in general). I know you're trying to figure I'm living in the boonies and have never seen a non-white face, but that's very, very far from true. My views on immigration are informed by both experience and empiracle evidence.

[Argus]

I can understand how a significant number of Canadians hold some intolerance towards immigrants and newer Canadians who can hardly speak English (or French) and tend to stay within their distinct cultural enclaves. But immigration should not be viewed through that very narrow lens. The success of immigration is measured through second and third generations - the sons and daughters of these new Candians - who are raised through the Canadian school system and speak English as well as - or better than those who have been in Canada for many generations.

I don't entirely disagree provided those generations blend into the mainstream, but a lot of people are living NOW in areas where they are outnumbered by the first generation of immigrants. Telling them things will be better in another generation or two is unlikely to have a lot of impact.

[jbg]

I don't entirely disagree provided those generations blend into the mainstream, but a lot of people are living NOW in areas where they are outnumbered by the first generation of immigrants. Telling them things will be better in another generation or two is unlikely to have a lot of impact.

The other problem is that under "multiculturalism," at least as practiced in New York, we educate in people's home languages. We create conditions under which ethnic communities are sustainable. Back in my great-grandparents' day staying in our (then) ethnic enclave, the Lower East Side wasn't very inviting. In fact the movie Crossing Delancey is about that era. These days such enclaves seem to be more entrenched due to government and societal sustenance.

[Michael Hardner]

And that's a personal experience, based, in all likelihood, on the fact that human beings tend to befriend those who are like them. So the people 'you' know are not likely the same types as the people 'I' know.

Right, which is why I try not to project my experiences on the whole country.

You don't think employability is affected by language in a city which is 70% foreign born, especially when the great majority of those foreign born are from the same foreign country?

The question is not whether it's affected, but how and to what degree. There are many forces at play, including increased opportunities in financial services, for example, due to an influx of foreign capital.

So you can pick and choose what changes you want to incorporate into your society.

Right, but in the wide view, WalMart isn't significantly impacted by local opposition to their way of doing business.

I'm sure you're glad you adapted, but it sounds like you'd have been better off if the change hadn't come at all.

It's all supposition. I wouldn't be the person I am today, and I like who I am so I guess then I may not have been better off.

Yes, as I said above, we tend to select those we socialize with on the basis of how much they share our values and preferences, which is why judging society based on our friends is a poor idea.

Not just friends, but people like us. Does Canada love immigrants to the degree my friends seem to ? Is it a powderkeg about to blow. Based on our experiences, one person is right and one person is wrong. The truth is far in between.

Your views of the world and your values will always be different from theirs.

It's viewS plural. There's no one Canadian viewpoint and I have much more in common with Israelis, Europeans, and Americans that I have met than my next door neighbour. You're overemphasizing the idea of the nation, which itself is a fairly new construct and not natural to human existence.

I know you're trying to figure I'm living in the boonies and have never seen a non-white face, but that's very, very far from true.

Not at all. As I said before, you need to have a modicum of trust in the person you're arguing with. Your background doesn't surprise me - I already knew you were well off. At what point in your life, and what point in time did you move from one area to the other.

My views on immigration are informed by both experience and empiracle evidence.

"Empirical" ... but I maintain that you look for evidence to support your experiences. I'm the opposite, because I don't think people have lived as I have, nor do I think they are as optimistic as me.

[TimG]

Multiculturalism works because it provides a framework to allow new immigrants to join society without requiring that they completely abandon their current identity. This means Canada is much better at assimilating immigrants that countries like France or Japan.

Multiculturalism fails when the immigrants forget that if they want to live in Canada they also must strive to be Canadian - in addition to (not instead of) their ethnic identity.

[cybercoma]

All I hear are shrill people frightened and angry that anyone dares to challenge their presumptions. Having no abilty to respond intelligently, they resort to name calling. Which is absolutely perfectly in sync with the norm for you lot.

It's not name calling at all. It's an accurate description of the arguments some "you lot" put forward.

[Black Dog]

Why do we leave out the obvious Quebec example? Isn't that dumb? Or is that acceptable?

Besides, you're ignoring the actual point, which is that a significant number of people are upset because they feel this flood of foreigners is taking over their country and it doesn't seem like the place they grew up in any more.

This isn't a new phenomenon, though. Go back a few years and the place was being overrun by Poles, Italians and Portuguese. Before that, it was the Jews and the Irish that were causing the Orange Order types to rage about how the whole place was going to hell in a handbasket. Each successive wave of immigrants was loathed, then integrated, and then joined in to despise the next wave. Plus ca change...

70% of the population of Richmond is foreign born. I bet thirty or forty years ago it was more like 3%. That's a huge change to someone who has lived there all their lives. You can't simply dismiss them as if their concerns had no validity.

We can certainly examine their concerns and determine whether or not there's any value there. Sometimes there's legit issues raised. Sometimes its little more than "these people with their gross cooking smells" type stuff.

I haven't been to Toronto for a while now, but the last time I was there I had trouble making myself understood in English to service personnel at the hotel and at stores and restaurants. I was very much not impressed. More than half of Toronto are foreign born too, I know.

I've said it before, in the great majority of countries on Earth if this many foreigners were brought in there'd be blood in the street, starting with the leaders who brought them in. I'm certainly not advocating for any kind of violence but to suggest that even being unhappy with the results is an illegitimate concern is pretty damned arrogant.

Well, it's like the thing when you were talking about black on white crime. When you keep company on issues with neo-Nazis, people are going to look at you a little side-eyed.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Black Dog

[PIK]

I thought this board had well educated posters. I must have been misinformed.

Because we don't fall for the PC crap. You need to grow up and maybe learn about the human race.

[Big Guy]

Every board has one or two posters who will take a racist or misogynistic or xenophobic point of view to get attention or just to stir up a little controversy and emotion. It is a common practice that produces much response.

Every once in a while we will get someone who actually believes the bigotry and racism presented in their posts and tries to anonymously defend a distasteful position. Bigotry, racism, xenophobia and misogyny are not illegal. They are the excuse certain angry individuals use to explain their own shortcomings or their perceived threat to their assumed superiority. Fortunately, it is an ugly and intolerant trait not common in the majority of Canadians.

[Keepitsimple]

I don't entirely disagree provided those generations blend into the mainstream, but a lot of people are living NOW in areas where they are outnumbered by the first generation of immigrants. Telling them things will be better in another generation or two is unlikely to have a lot of impact.

That is a reality - but you can't please everyone. I live in Markham - heavily Chinese...easy to feel "outnumbered" - especially with Chinese-only signs.....but it really is insightful to see the kids talking and playing mostly in English. As tolerant/accepting as I think I may be, I'd still like to see a couple of tweaks to our policies.....sign "laws" and other marketing - like menus in restaurants where English is the prominent language and the secondary language is smaller.

......and perhaps keep those older people from Hong Kong who have never driven a car before....perhaps give them a better driving test before they get their license? Yeeeesh!

[guyser]

......and perhaps keep those older people from Hong Kong who have never driven a car before....perhaps give them a better driving test before they get their license? Yeeeesh!

Dont worry, they pay extravagantly for the opportunity to drive.