Visible Minorities to be majority in 25 years

[cybercoma]

When I talk to an adult who deserves respect they will get it. When I talk to an ignorant yabo who snivels and whines and makes moral accusations and then completely fails to address all the substantive issues I will treat them as they - you - deserve.

Instead of recognizing that you use non-white and immigrant interchangeably (since there are thousands of white immigrants that come to Canada, this makes you not only dishonest, but racially biased... iow, racist), you resort to name-calling and insults. No matter. Most closeted racists don't like to be called on their bigotry. You've made a racist argument, plain and simple. It's really too bad that you can't see that I've directed my argument towards the things you've said and how you've said them every step of the way, while you've done nothing but hurl insults and try to tear my character down, presumably to make yourself feel better. A discussion about immigration may have been fruitful, were it not for racist sentiments like yours obfuscating the reality of the situation.

[Argus]

Instead of recognizing that you use non-white and immigrant interchangeably (since there are thousands of white immigrants that come to Canada,

Your snivelling complaints are due to my imprecise language? Yes, I'm perfectly willing to admit there are "thousands" of white immigrants among the millions of non-white immigrants to Canada. Nonetheless, as the vast majority of immigrants are non-white (and the vast majority of non-whites are immigrants) I'm comfortable with the level of accuracy involved.

this makes you not only dishonest, but racially biased... iow, racist), you resort to name-calling and insults.

LOL What level of brainlessness doesn't even see the irony of whiny accusations about namecalling while namecalling in the same sentence?

No matter. Most closeted racists don't like to be called on their bigotry. You've made a racist argument, plain and simple.

Oh? What argument did I make and what was racist about it? Simple is a word which most aptly describes both your understanding of the world and the level your mind operates on.

But then, you've shown no inclination - NONE - to actually discuss immigration. Instead, as you usually do, your intent is to shut off all discussions or redirect them to the alleged immorality of anyone who dares to question immigration.

Edited March 12, 2010 by Argus

[JB Globe]

Which Canada do you refer to? The native Canada was destroyed by too much immigration, if you wlll, the natives overwhelmed by numbers, their culture shoved to the margins, their political importance, if you will, relagated to quaint museum pieces.

That wasn't immigration, that was COLONIALISM. The two are worlds apart.

The French culture was crushed throughout north American, only retained in small areas around St. Lawrence river, and only then due to strenuous efforts at appeasing the locals in order to not provoke them into aiding France in further warfare. However, it would be absurd to make a statement that the people who were then living in New France, didn't lose power over their lives, and over their culture to the newcomers, who pushed them to the margins.

Of course, this occurred before bilingualism became official policy when in fact the Anglo-dominated political system actually were trying to marginalize and eliminate Quebecois and Acadian culture and language.

Bilingualism was of course the basis for multiculturalism - which, under law, protects the freedom of expression of any religious or ethnic minority - meaning that if Anglo-Canadian culture becomes a minority one day, it would benefit from the same laws and programs that today benefit others. It's a policy designed to promote balance and social integration/cohesion, after all.

And does this imprart a moral obligation on the part of the "nativists" today, to put in place immigration policies which ensure our own demise and not complain about it?

Classic Straw man - there's no substantial evidence that immigration has hurt Canada in comparison to developed countries with low levels of immigration.

quote name='Argus' date='12 March 2010 - 10:43 AM' timestamp='1268406915' post='519500']How do you know the nation is any stronger today than it would have been united and whole under one French ruler? In what way is Canada stronger than other nations with more homogenous populations - which do not have the constant linguistic arguments or the complexities of serving dual solitudes? Please explain how we are stronger than, say, Sweden.

So are you trying to re-write immigration policy? Bilingualism? Canadian history?

Let's stay with recent times and look

I've already stated more than once that I make no assumptions about someone merely because they're born here. A child born here who is raised within an ethnic enclave, who shows up at school unable to understand the local language, whose life is surrounded by members of his ethnic group might not be very Canadian at all.

Which enclaves are we talking about here? Can you name them?

The only areas in Toronto where over 90% of residents belong to one racial group are places like Rosedale, The Beaches, Swansea, Forest Hill . . . Which are overwhelmingly white.

From where I sit, it seems that Anglo-Canadians self-segregate themselves a lot more than other groups do on a proportional basis. Part of that is numbers - it's harder to isolate yourself when you're a minority, but part of it is also the fact that lots of white folks still in this day and age lack multicultural skills - they don't know how to interact with people from different backgrounds as fully realized humans. Thankfully this seems like this is largely a generational issue - and as more

The kids who grow up and go to school in places like Rexdale, Jane & Finch, Regent Park, Malvern and other areas with lots of visible minorities have classmates from dozens of different backgrounds. These neighbourhoods are made up of people from everywhere: the Caribbean, the Philippines, India, Russia, Vietnam, etc. - a neighbourhood can't be an enclave if everyone has neighbours and friends from different places.

The only thing you can really say about these places is that they are under 50% for white residents, but there still are quite a few around. ie - There are lots of Italians and Eastern Europeans that live in Jane & Finch.

As for that child you're talking about - they are most often the child of parents who have immigrated recently and thus don't have a strong command of English themselves, it's not like they're not teaching their kid English on purpose. That's why schools have programs for kids who need extra help, such as parent-child ESL classes.

You might think the likes of Omar Khadr and the Khadr family are Canadians, but no matter what their paperwork says i disagree.

Way to take a huge exception and make it the rule. The Khadrs are not representative of the Canadian Muslim community at all.

I don't recall any election where immigration featured prominently.

That's because for most Canadians, it's a relative non-issue.

People who want less immigration are always in the 20-30% range of the total population at any given time, and even among them, there's few people who feel very strongly about it - it's not a major motivator for them politically, hence why most political parties don't try to become the "anti-immigration party." - it won't get you elected because people don't care that much . . . Except for a small minority - for whom immigration is almost everything.

[wyly]

People who want less immigration are always in the 20-30% range of the total population at any given time, and even among them, there's few people who feel very strongly about it - it's not a major motivator for them politically, hence why most political parties don't try to become the "anti-immigration party." - it won't get you elected because people don't care that much . . . Except for a small minority - for whom immigration is almost everything.

plus any party that has an immigration targeting visible minorities is headed for political obscurity and back into the arms of the Aryan Brotherhood...

[bloodyminded]

That wasn't immigration, that was COLONIALISM. The two are worlds apart.

Of course, this occurred before bilingualism became official policy when in fact the Anglo-dominated political system actually were trying to marginalize and eliminate Quebecois and Acadian culture and language.

Bilingualism was of course the basis for multiculturalism - which, under law, protects the freedom of expression of any religious or ethnic minority - meaning that if Anglo-Canadian culture becomes a minority one day, it would benefit from the same laws and programs that today benefit others. It's a policy designed to promote balance and social integration/cohesion, after all.

Classic Straw man - there's no substantial evidence that immigration has hurt Canada in comparison to developed countries with low levels of immigration.

quote name='Argus' date='12 March 2010 - 10:43 AM' timestamp='1268406915' post='519500']How do you know the nation is any stronger today than it would have been united and whole under one French ruler? In what way is Canada stronger than other nations with more homogenous populations - which do not have the constant linguistic arguments or the complexities of serving dual solitudes? Please explain how we are stronger than, say, Sweden.

So are you trying to re-write immigration policy? Bilingualism? Canadian history?

Let's stay with recent times and look

Which enclaves are we talking about here? Can you name them?

The only areas in Toronto where over 90% of residents belong to one racial group are places like Rosedale, The Beaches, Swansea, Forest Hill . . . Which are overwhelmingly white.

From where I sit, it seems that Anglo-Canadians self-segregate themselves a lot more than other groups do on a proportional basis. Part of that is numbers - it's harder to isolate yourself when you're a minority, but part of it is also the fact that lots of white folks still in this day and age lack multicultural skills - they don't know how to interact with people from different backgrounds as fully realized humans. Thankfully this seems like this is largely a generational issue - and as more

The kids who grow up and go to school in places like Rexdale, Jane & Finch, Regent Park, Malvern and other areas with lots of visible minorities have classmates from dozens of different backgrounds. These neighbourhoods are made up of people from everywhere: the Caribbean, the Philippines, India, Russia, Vietnam, etc. - a neighbourhood can't be an enclave if everyone has neighbours and friends from different places.

The only thing you can really say about these places is that they are under 50% for white residents, but there still are quite a few around. ie - There are lots of Italians and Eastern Europeans that live in Jane & Finch.

As for that child you're talking about - they are most often the child of parents who have immigrated recently and thus don't have a strong command of English themselves, it's not like they're not teaching their kid English on purpose. That's why schools have programs for kids who need extra help, such as parent-child ESL classes.

Way to take a huge exception and make it the rule. The Khadrs are not representative of the Canadian Muslim community at all.

That's because for most Canadians, it's a relative non-issue.

People who want less immigration are always in the 20-30% range of the total population at any given time, and even among them, there's few people who feel very strongly about it - it's not a major motivator for them politically, hence why most political parties don't try to become the "anti-immigration party." - it won't get you elected because people don't care that much . . . Except for a small minority - for whom immigration is almost everything.

Excellent post, JB.

[Shwa]

Excellent post, JB.

Indeed! Well worth the read!

[cybercoma]

Argus, you may want to boil down your argument to "imprecision", but it's clear to anyone with a shred of intelligence what you're doing. Even in your last post, and JB did a good job of point out how absurd your stance is, you completely ignore the fact that you can't lump all "non-white" immigrants into the same category. Obviously, there are many different cultures, religions, and languages amongst "non-whites". Your argument hinges on some notion of homogeneity between non-white immigrant groups. That homogeneity exists only insofar as they're not white. Otherwise, they're as different as Norwegians are from white Spaniards. In other words, I'm not name-calling; you're as racist as a person gets without donning bedsheets and burning crosses.

[Argus]

That wasn't immigration, that was COLONIALISM. The two are worlds apart.

Not really. They're basically the same in that masses of people from a foreign culture came and took over. Native beliefs and values were pushed aside and marginalized.

Bilingualism was of course the basis for multiculturalism - which, under law, protects the freedom of expression of any religious or ethnic minority

Unless they want to cover their face in Quebec, you mean? Margaret Wente had an interesting column in the Globe this morning contrasting the different attitudes towards foreign ethnics in English vs French Canada. English Canada seems willing to bend over backwards to accomodate newcomers. Quebecers are far less willing to allow their cultural values to be set aside, far more concerned with protecting their culture. Nobody seems to find it odd there. But in English Canada, if you're concerned about protecting you're culture people are aghast.

In fact, one of the main reasons for multiculturalism was Trudeau's belief that a multitude of cultures would drown out the perpetual English-French debate and lessen the severity of the separatist threat.

- meaning that if Anglo-Canadian culture becomes a minority one day, it would benefit from the same laws and programs that today benefit others.

Because those laws are engraved in stone and cannot be changed if the voting public feels they should be. For example, gay rights are enshrined in law. And just because a huge number of voters in twenty or thirty or forty years are extremely religious hindus, sikhs and Muslims, and want that law changed, that won't happen.

Right?

Classic Straw man - there's no substantial evidence that immigration has hurt Canada in comparison to developed countries with low levels of immigration.

There's no substantive evidence it's HELPED Canada.

So are you trying to re-write immigration policy?

Yes.

From where I sit, it seems that Anglo-Canadians self-segregate themselves a lot more than other groups do on a proportional basis.

Curious you use the term "Anglo Canadians". Don't Francophones segregate themselves?

Part of that is numbers - it's harder to isolate yourself when you're a minority,

Not at all, not when your numbers are as high as the immigrants today. My previous address was a Minto complex of two apartment buildings. One was known to be about 40% Somali, the other 70% Somali. Most of the rest of the residents by the time I left, were various hues of middle-eastern and African.

but part of it is also the fact that lots of white folks still in this day and age lack multicultural skills

Oh White folks do, eh? As opposed to that all-embracing attitude among ethnic groups? The most unselfconsciously racist and bigoted statements and opinions I've ever heard have come from non-whites - mostly towards other non-whites - and Jews. And of course, Vietnamese folks are famous for their social relationships with Ethipians, just as Jamaicans love nothing more than a good game of Mahjong at the local Chinese community centre.

-

The kids who grow up and go to school in places like Rexdale, Jane & Finch, Regent Park, Malvern and other areas with lots of visible minorities have classmates from dozens of different backgrounds. These neighbourhoods are made up of people from everywhere: the Caribbean, the Philippines, India, Russia, Vietnam, etc. - a neighbourhood can't be an enclave if everyone has neighbours and friends from different places.

Yeah, the interract with each other like the United Nations - except there's damn little evidence of much Canada there for them to become acclimated to. How do they blend into Canada when there's no Canada there?

The only thing you can really say about these places is that they are under 50% for white residents,

No, Toronto itself as a whole is under 50% White residents, soon to be under 40% then, presumably, under 30% and under 20%... Those areas are more like under 10% white residents.

People who want less immigration are always in the 20-30% range of the total population at any given time,

This site lists a number of polls going back twenty five years all showing the majority of Canadians are extremely uncomfortable and unsupportive of mass immigration.

What The Public Opinion Polls Say

In more up to date polls, a poll taken for Immigration Canada in January of last year showed only about 50% of Canadians had a positive view of immigration. Globe and Mail poll showed almost 80% felt immigration should be based on integration into the mainstream, not multiculturalism. In fact, the support for multiculturalism is by far stronger in the big cities which, not coincidentally, are jammed with immigrants.

and even among them, there's few people who feel very strongly about it - it's not a major motivator for them politically, hence why most political parties don't try to become the "anti-immigration party."

I agree that protecting Canada's culture has not been a strong motivator among English Canadians. And the attitude in media makes it extremely dangerous for any politician to even suggest that immigration be curtailed. As Margaret Wente pointed out, politicians will get major support in Quebec for being seen to be protecting their cultural values, while they'd simply be mocked by the denizens of the English Canadian media.

But I'm not sure what your point is. Is it that because the media have told people this is not important and glossed over future problems I shouldn't be concerned? Is it because you feel I should simply go along with public opinion? Are you under the illusion that, despite my long-time sig, I generally respect public opinion?

Edited March 13, 2010 by Argus

[Argus]

Argus, you may want to boil down your argument to "imprecision", but it's clear to anyone with a shred of intelligence

Which lets you out. I'm done with you.

Talk to the hand.

[cybercoma]

Which lets you out. I'm done with you.

Talk to the hand.

Oh, I see... it's alright for you, but not ok for everyone else. Pretty much sums up your position on everything.

[justme]

CBC or Globe and Mail never made it a racist issue by questioning wisdom of letting Visible immigrants into the country unlike the forum members here...

CBC, Globe & Mail, and for that matter, the Toronto Star, censor comments, and in CBC's case, they receive money from tax payers that they censor. I find it interesting that CBC censored people who opposed the demographic shift, yet saw fit to allow comments that threaten people that oppose it and comments that used profanity.

This is typical behavior of multiculturalists however. They try to silence opposition to their views any way possible. As Noam Chomsky once said (far enough to the left for you?), being for free speech means being for another person's right to speech that you do not agree with. As long as racial slurs, profanity and threats are not being used, people should be free to express their views regardless of whether or not you agree with it.

Personally, I think the word "racist" has been thrown around so much that it's akin to somebody being accused of being anti-semitic because they crticize the policy of the Israeli government. When you do that, the meaning of the word gets watered down.

Edited March 13, 2010 by justme

[justme]

Holey league of lictor wannabes!!

Of course there are nit refutable facts...hell, they aren't even facts!

Of course if they aren't facts, you'd have no problem debunking what I said. Way to fail.

[Shwa]

Of course if they aren't facts, you'd have no problem debunking what I said. Way to fail.

I think the only reasonable way to "debunk" your "facts" would be a healthy dose of olanzapine and a lengthy stay in a comfortable room with a new self-hugging jacket.

[Michael Hardner]

I've already pointed out facts:

1) The white population is declining in all countries with white majorities (must not call them white countries even though it's ok to call black countries black, asian countries asian or muslim countries muslim).

You can call countries whatever you like, but if you want to be consistent, set some rules up as to how you label countries. Lictor, another poster with views simliar to yours, would often post such things then not respond when confronted with the logical inconsistencies.

So define your terms, and then provide proof of your assertion.

2) Black people are treating white people worse in black countries than vice versa. Nearly a million white people have left South Africa due to safety concerns and most have already been driven out of Zimbabwe while on the other hand, the president of the US is half black, and countries with white majorities are helping people in Haiti.

3) Countries with white majorities are taking in large numbers of non-whites, but non-white countries remain virtually homogeneous. How many non-japanese are in Japan (second largest economy in the world)? How many non-chinese is China taking in (with its red hot economy)?

4) In the Middle East, people face persecution if they're not Muslims. It is a crime simply to enter Mecca if you're not a Muslim. There are thousands of mosques in non-Muslim countries, but how many churches are there in Saudi Arabia?

My suspicion is that you can only provide anecdotal evidence of these things, rather than an in-depth examination and analysis, which would be required.

These are irrefutable facts and that is why you brush them off instead of debating it.

They're very refutable. In fact, they're so refutable that the fact that you posted them without evidence already shapes the character of your presence here.

Edited March 13, 2010 by Michael Hardner

[JB Globe]

Not really. They're basically the same in that masses of people from a foreign culture came and took over. Native beliefs and values were pushed aside and marginalized.

There are few historians alive that would agree with this, and I defy you to find any that do.

Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies of one state in a region occupied indigenously by another people, often against their will. The indigenous population usually has little to no say in how this arrangement pans out, and is often the target of political and economic marginalization, or outright military/paramilitary violence.

Immigration is a government policy that allows people to migrate to a nation to become a part of the workforce and usually the greater society. The numbers and terms of the movement of people are set ENTIRELY by the nation state.

That's a key difference - there's a totally different power structure. Colonialism and immigration are completely different, the only thing they share is the fact that both involve people moving from one place to another.

Saying that they're the same is like saying the Falklands War and the Khmer Rouge genocide are the same thing because they involve organized violence - it's blatantly cherry picking the one thing that they share in common while ignoring the dozens and dozens of other factors that are completely different.

Unless they want to cover their face in Quebec, you mean? Margaret Wente had an interesting column in the Globe this morning contrasting the different attitudes towards foreign ethnics in English vs French Canada. English Canada seems willing to bend over backwards to accomodate newcomers. Quebecers are far less willing to allow their cultural values to be set aside, far more concerned with protecting their culture. Nobody seems to find it odd there. But in English Canada, if you're concerned about protecting you're culture people are aghast.

Quebec is no more racist/intolerant/pick a term, etc. than the rest of Canada. The only real difference is that they have a history of being marginalized by the rest of English Canada, and as a result have developed a much more insular culture as a means of cultural survival. This makes it difficult for them to incorporate people not born Quebcois fully into Quebcois society. Saying Quebec is more racist than the rest of Canada is just way too simplistic and ignores its history which is much different than the rest of the country. Hopefully, they'll realize that focusing more on language and less so on making a dogma out of Quebcois culture will be more helpful in the long run.

Because those laws are engraved in stone and cannot be changed if the voting public feels they should be. For example, gay rights are enshrined in law. And just because a huge number of voters in twenty or thirty or forty years are extremely religious hindus, sikhs and Muslims, and want that law changed, that won't happen.

Your argument, as usually, rests on a lot of uninformed gross assumptions, namely:

1 - All non-white immigrants are religious, and almost always highly conservative and orthodox

2 - The Canadian-born and raised children of these immigrants are just as conservative and orthodox as their parents are

3 - That all non-white immigrants are homogenous in their political aspirations: namely, that they all seek to overpower and dominate white people.

I mean, now you're just making up things that don't exist in the original statscan study that you referenced in the beginning of the article, ie - your claim that "a huge number of voters in twenty or thirty or forty years are extremely religious hindus, sikhs and Muslims" You didn't say this was a hypothetical, you stated it as fact, which it isn't. Not only did the study not mention the religious makeup of Canada in 20 years, your reality would be impossible because at that time only 1 in 3 Canadians would be of a visible minority - which is nothing near a "huge majority"

And add to that fact that this third of Canadians who won't be white will have just as many Filipinos, Africans and Latinos who are Christian as it does Hindus. Meaning, that even among non-white Canadians, there is no one religion large enough to be able to change the chart if in fact, all of its members were orthodox and voted as a bloc (which they don't).

You don't seem to realize just how much diversity there will be among this 1/3 of Canadians in 2030, you keep treating them like they're some sort of homogenous mass who all think the same.

There's no substantive evidence it's HELPED Canada.

I disagree, but I'm not going to re-hash this issue again, we've done it before. Instead I'm going to agree to disagree and argue that if there is no evidence that it's either helped or hurt Canada, but instead that immigration is a benign force, than why eliminate it? If it isn't broke, don't fix it - you might end up with unintended consequences.

Curious you use the term "Anglo Canadians". Don't Francophones segregate themselves?

Yes, but I have more lived-experience with Anglo Canadians - I tend to use examples I'm directly familiar with.

Not at all, not when your numbers are as high as the immigrants today. My previous address was a Minto complex of two apartment buildings. One was known to be about 40% Somali, the other 70% Somali. Most of the rest of the residents by the time I left, were various hues of middle-eastern and African.

I said hard, not impossible. There are extremely few buildings such as the one you mentioned, where one ethnic group makes up a large portion of the tenants, and almost always the ethnic group is comprised entirely of refugees. That's important - because their experiences are drastically different than those of immigrants. Generally, if you've experienced the trauma of war, of persecution, or the double -whammy of both, you're going to want to seek safety and comfort above all else, and in a new country that's going to take the form of people whom you consider to be of your community.

The same was true of refugees from Eastern Europe who arrived after WWII, but within a generation, most of their children did not live in such neighbourhoods or apartment buildings, because they were free from trauma and thus were more outgoing than their parents and able to make connections with people outside their community.

The same thing applies to Somali-Canadians - those children that are and will grow up free from trauma will most likely establish connections outside their community. Keep in mind that the Somali-Canadian community is one of the youngest in Canada, and already they are making many inroads. ie - there are many Somali Canadians in post-secondary school in the GTA, and many involved in the arts scene as well. I'd say they're where they're should be in comparison to past groups of refugees such as those from Eastern Europe post WWII, or Vietnam post-war.

Oh White folks do, eh? As opposed to that all-embracing attitude among ethnic groups?

I didn't say that all white folks, after all, I'm white and so are a lot of my friends. I also didn't say all non-white folks are embracing of other people either. Anyone can be a bigot. You're completely mischaracterizing my argument, as usual.

I'll repeat what I said in an even more straightforward manner: non-white, and especially Anglo-Canadians tend to have less of an ability to relate to people of other backgrounds and racial groups as fully realized human beings, instead of variations of stereotypes. This is primarily due to the fact that as a minority it is much more difficult, but not impossible to isolate yourself amongst people of your own culture than it is for people who belong to a majority. Minorities face economic marginalization if they don't develop the skills to integrate themselves, thus they have more of an incentive to do so versus say, an Anglo-Canadian that lives in Grey County, or a wealthy Anglo-Canadian that lives in Rosedale and is an executive at Royal Bank.

Are we clear now?

Yeah, the interract with each other like the United Nations - except there's damn little evidence of much Canada there for them to become acclimated to. How do they blend into Canada when there's no Canada there?

Canada IS there in the form of various public and private institutions that make up key components of our society such as, the education system.

What do you mean by "there is no Canada there" - explain.

No, Toronto itself as a whole is under 50% White residents, soon to be under 40% then, presumably, under 30% and under 20%... Those areas are more like under 10% white residents.

It differs for each community, because they're all different, but I still fail to see what the issue is if a neighbourhood is under 10% populated by white people - how is that inherently bad in and of itself?

This site lists a number of polls going back twenty five years all showing the majority of Canadians are extremely uncomfortable and unsupportive of mass immigration.

I'll say it again - don't post blatantly biased websites yourself if you're going to turn around and criticize others for doing the same thing. Most of the data is outdated, and frankly I simply don't trust blatantly biased websites to not only avoid cherry-picking facts, but even to not distort or invent polls and data themselves.

Now I could go and find some sort of rabidly pro-immigration website to counter the one you posted, but instead I'll post a link to a PDF article by he head of Environics, which is a polling company. To pre-empt claims of "lefty pro-immigrant bias", I'll point out that the author is the former leader of the young PC's in Ontario, and that Environics does research for private companies, such as newspapers, such as the National Post. If you're going to call bias, make sure you don't accidentally reference an Environics poll in the post that shows for example, Harper's approval rating rising.

As he mentions, Canadian attitudes towards immigration and multiculturalism have become more positive over time, even with increased levels of immigration, to the point where from the 80's to today, the amount of people who hold negative opinions (either strong or slightly negative) of multiculturalism has gone from 2/3rds to 1/3rd. And Multiculturalism as a source of national pride has gone from 10th place to 2nd, just behind democracy at #1.

As I said before, if people are that strongly opposed to something, they organize and force political parties to take action. But the fact that there hasn't been ANY credible anti-immigration political movement at all since things changed in the 60's speaks volumes. You mentioned the Reform party, and I'll point out one of the biggest reasons why they couldn't break out of the prairies, even after they stopped being a "Western party" in terms of their policies, was that they they were anti-immigrant (and homophobic, which is one of the knocks you used against non-Christian religious groups before, remember?), and that attitude only really flies in places where there aren't any immigrants (which is an environment in which it's easier to harbour anti-immigrant sentiment), and the prairies have historically had some of the lowest immigration rates in Canada, primarily because they've been have-not provinces for so long, and immigrants migrate to where the new jobs are . . . Note, in case you want to mischaracterize me again - I'm not saying that the prairies are INHERENTLY anti-immigrant, like it's in the water or something.

In fact, the support for multiculturalism is by far stronger in the big cities which, not coincidentally, are jammed with immigrants.

But of course, even non-immigrants in those cities have a higher opinion of multiculturalism than non-immigrants in rural areas.

It's telling that people with the most direct experience living with multiculturalism have a higher opinion of it than folks who have never/rarely experienced it. It begs the question of who's opinion is more valid?

ie - On the issue of Ottawa being a nice place to live, do you weight the opinion of someone who's never been to Ottawa the same as a lifetime resident?

quote name='Argus' date='13 March 2010 - 10:06 AM' timestamp='1268491087' post='519870']But I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is, that the chicken-little predictions that are based on irrational fears about immigration and multiculturalism have more to do with the declining dominance of Anglo-Canadian culture in Canada and less to do with any economic or democratic damage supposedly caused by immigration.

We just haven't seen any evidence that Canada will be a worse place to live in 20 years because 1 in 3 people won't be white, it's as simple as that. It's really only a terrifying reality if you don't really like non-white folks.

[bloodyminded]

There are few historians alive that would agree with this, and I defy you to find any that do.

Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies of one state in a region occupied indigenously by another people, often against their will. The indigenous population usually has little to no say in how this arrangement pans out, and is often the target of political and economic marginalization, or outright military/paramilitary violence.

Immigration is a government policy that allows people to migrate to a nation to become a part of the workforce and usually the greater society. The numbers and terms of the movement of people are set ENTIRELY by the nation state.

That's a key difference - there's a totally different power structure. Colonialism and immigration are completely different, the only thing they share is the fact that both involve people moving from one place to another.

Saying that they're the same is like saying the Falklands War and the Khmer Rouge genocide are the same thing because they involve organized violence - it's blatantly cherry picking the one thing that they share in common while ignoring the dozens and dozens of other factors that are completely different.

Quebec is no more racist/intolerant/pick a term, etc. than the rest of Canada. The only real difference is that they have a history of being marginalized by the rest of English Canada, and as a result have developed a much more insular culture as a means of cultural survival. This makes it difficult for them to incorporate people not born Quebcois fully into Quebcois society. Saying Quebec is more racist than the rest of Canada is just way too simplistic and ignores its history which is much different than the rest of the country. Hopefully, they'll realize that focusing more on language and less so on making a dogma out of Quebcois culture will be more helpful in the long run.

Your argument, as usually, rests on a lot of uninformed gross assumptions, namely:

1 - All non-white immigrants are religious, and almost always highly conservative and orthodox

2 - The Canadian-born and raised children of these immigrants are just as conservative and orthodox as their parents are

3 - That all non-white immigrants are homogenous in their political aspirations: namely, that they all seek to overpower and dominate white people.

I mean, now you're just making up things that don't exist in the original statscan study that you referenced in the beginning of the article, ie - your claim that "a huge number of voters in twenty or thirty or forty years are extremely religious hindus, sikhs and Muslims" You didn't say this was a hypothetical, you stated it as fact, which it isn't. Not only did the study not mention the religious makeup of Canada in 20 years, your reality would be impossible because at that time only 1 in 3 Canadians would be of a visible minority - which is nothing near a "huge majority"

And add to that fact that this third of Canadians who won't be white will have just as many Filipinos, Africans and Latinos who are Christian as it does Hindus. Meaning, that even among non-white Canadians, there is no one religion large enough to be able to change the chart if in fact, all of its members were orthodox and voted as a bloc (which they don't).

You don't seem to realize just how much diversity there will be among this 1/3 of Canadians in 2030, you keep treating them like they're some sort of homogenous mass who all think the same.

I disagree, but I'm not going to re-hash this issue again, we've done it before. Instead I'm going to agree to disagree and argue that if there is no evidence that it's either helped or hurt Canada, but instead that immigration is a benign force, than why eliminate it? If it isn't broke, don't fix it - you might end up with unintended consequences.

Yes, but I have more lived-experience with Anglo Canadians - I tend to use examples I'm directly familiar with.

I said hard, not impossible. There are extremely few buildings such as the one you mentioned, where one ethnic group makes up a large portion of the tenants, and almost always the ethnic group is comprised entirely of refugees. That's important - because their experiences are drastically different than those of immigrants. Generally, if you've experienced the trauma of war, of persecution, or the double -whammy of both, you're going to want to seek safety and comfort above all else, and in a new country that's going to take the form of people whom you consider to be of your community.

The same was true of refugees from Eastern Europe who arrived after WWII, but within a generation, most of their children did not live in such neighbourhoods or apartment buildings, because they were free from trauma and thus were more outgoing than their parents and able to make connections with people outside their community.

The same thing applies to Somali-Canadians - those children that are and will grow up free from trauma will most likely establish connections outside their community. Keep in mind that the Somali-Canadian community is one of the youngest in Canada, and already they are making many inroads. ie - there are many Somali Canadians in post-secondary school in the GTA, and many involved in the arts scene as well. I'd say they're where they're should be in comparison to past groups of refugees such as those from Eastern Europe post WWII, or Vietnam post-war.

I didn't say that all white folks, after all, I'm white and so are a lot of my friends. I also didn't say all non-white folks are embracing of other people either. Anyone can be a bigot. You're completely mischaracterizing my argument, as usual.

I'll repeat what I said in an even more straightforward manner: non-white, and especially Anglo-Canadians tend to have less of an ability to relate to people of other backgrounds and racial groups as fully realized human beings, instead of variations of stereotypes. This is primarily due to the fact that as a minority it is much more difficult, but not impossible to isolate yourself amongst people of your own culture than it is for people who belong to a majority. Minorities face economic marginalization if they don't develop the skills to integrate themselves, thus they have more of an incentive to do so versus say, an Anglo-Canadian that lives in Grey County, or a wealthy Anglo-Canadian that lives in Rosedale and is an executive at Royal Bank.

Are we clear now?

Canada IS there in the form of various public and private institutions that make up key components of our society such as, the education system.

What do you mean by "there is no Canada there" - explain.

It differs for each community, because they're all different, but I still fail to see what the issue is if a neighbourhood is under 10% populated by white people - how is that inherently bad in and of itself?

I'll say it again - don't post blatantly biased websites yourself if you're going to turn around and criticize others for doing the same thing. Most of the data is outdated, and frankly I simply don't trust blatantly biased websites to not only avoid cherry-picking facts, but even to not distort or invent polls and data themselves.

Now I could go and find some sort of rabidly pro-immigration website to counter the one you posted, but instead I'll post a link to a PDF article by he head of Environics, which is a polling company. To pre-empt claims of "lefty pro-immigrant bias", I'll point out that the author is the former leader of the young PC's in Ontario, and that Environics does research for private companies, such as newspapers, such as the National Post. If you're going to call bias, make sure you don't accidentally reference an Environics poll in the post that shows for example, Harper's approval rating rising.

As he mentions, Canadian attitudes towards immigration and multiculturalism have become more positive over time, even with increased levels of immigration, to the point where from the 80's to today, the amount of people who hold negative opinions (either strong or slightly negative) of multiculturalism has gone from 2/3rds to 1/3rd. And Multiculturalism as a source of national pride has gone from 10th place to 2nd, just behind democracy at #1.

As I said before, if people are that strongly opposed to something, they organize and force political parties to take action. But the fact that there hasn't been ANY credible anti-immigration political movement at all since things changed in the 60's speaks volumes. You mentioned the Reform party, and I'll point out one of the biggest reasons why they couldn't break out of the prairies, even after they stopped being a "Western party" in terms of their policies, was that they they were anti-immigrant (and homophobic, which is one of the knocks you used against non-Christian religious groups before, remember?), and that attitude only really flies in places where there aren't any immigrants (which is an environment in which it's easier to harbour anti-immigrant sentiment), and the prairies have historically had some of the lowest immigration rates in Canada, primarily because they've been have-not provinces for so long, and immigrants migrate to where the new jobs are . . . Note, in case you want to mischaracterize me again - I'm not saying that the prairies are INHERENTLY anti-immigrant, like it's in the water or something.

But of course, even non-immigrants in those cities have a higher opinion of multiculturalism than non-immigrants in rural areas.

It's telling that people with the most direct experience living with multiculturalism have a higher opinion of it than folks who have never/rarely experienced it. It begs the question of who's opinion is more valid?

ie - On the issue of Ottawa being a nice place to live, do you weight the opinion of someone who's never been to Ottawa the same as a lifetime resident?

My point is, that the chicken-little predictions that are based on irrational fears about immigration and multiculturalism have more to do with the declining dominance of Anglo-Canadian culture in Canada and less to do with any economic or democratic damage supposedly caused by immigration.

We just haven't seen any evidence that Canada will be a worse place to live in 20 years because 1 in 3 people won't be white, it's as simple as that. It's really only a terrifying reality if you don't really like non-white folks.

Again, a lot of great stuff here, JB. All I can add is that there appears to be some pretty promiscuous misapprehensions about hypothetical demographics that is either the cause or the effect of a distrust of immigrants from non-European countries. But you've said it all really well, so I can't add much more.

Polemicists like Mark Steyn have not been too helpful here, I don't think.

Edited March 13, 2010 by bloodyminded

[daniel]

I don't know why some people are so concerned. Take a look at our parliament. The MPs representing the majority of the population are in opposition. The MPs representing 30% of the population are on the government side.

So just because visible minorities will soon represent the majority of the population, it'll have no effect in terms of who actually holds the power.

[justme]

I think the only reasonable way to "debunk" your "facts" would be a healthy dose of olanzapine and a lengthy stay in a comfortable room with a new self-hugging jacket.

Again, way to dodge.

[Argus]

My suspicion is that you can only provide anecdotal evidence of these things, rather than an in-depth examination and analysis, which would be required.

Oh come on. Just which of the statements you quote do you actually believe is incorrect?

Edited March 14, 2010 by Argus

[Argus]

Colonialism is the building and maintaining of colonies of one state in a region occupied indigenously by another people, Immigration is a government policy

Irrelevent. The fact is what you have in both situations is masses of newcomers coming in and pushing aside those already there by sheer numbers, substituting their cultural values for what was there before.

Quebec is no more racist/intolerant/pick a term, etc. than the rest of Canada. The only real difference is that they have a history of being marginalized by the rest of English Canada, and as a result have developed a much more insular culture as a means of cultural survival. This makes it difficult for them to incorporate people not born Quebcois fully into Quebcois society.

What you mean is they're aware of the fragility of culture and are emotionally commited to ensuring their culture does not melt away in the face of the greater numbers of others. Why is that acceptable for them but not acceptable for English Canadians.

Your argument, as usually, rests on a lot of uninformed gross assumptions, namely:

1 - All non-white immigrants are religious, and almost always highly conservative and orthodox

Immigrants tend to be far more religious than Canadian born, and I made no absolute statement. I merely posed a question. What do you do if the newcomers - who by and large are considerably less welcoming towards homosexuals - shift the cultural values of this country to the point where the majority population decides to cut back on gay rights? It'll be a bit late at that point to ask them to leave, won't it?

3 - That all non-white immigrants are homogenous in their political aspirations: namely, that they all seek to overpower and dominate white people.

No, that's your own straw man. I never suggested any such thing. What I inferred was that the cultural values of immigrants, be they Sikhs or Hindus from India, Muslims from Pakistan, or Christians from the Phillipines or Boliva, are much more religious and conservative in social beliefs, and as their numbers rise, will become more powerful in Canada.

Not only did the study not mention the religious makeup of Canada in 20 years, your reality would be impossible because at that time only 1 in 3 Canadians would be of a visible minority - which is nothing near a "huge majority"

Don't put quotes around something I never said. I said "huge number" of voters would be foreign born, and I am assuming that, as now, many Canadian born voters are also unwelcoming towards gay rights. I did not suggest that immigrants alone would pose a majority within 20 years (except of course, in places like Toronto and Vancouver). I suggested that their added numbers and conservatism on social issues would alter the political landscape to the point gay rights are no longer given the protection they now are. I could have said the same about womens equality status.

I disagree, but I'm not going to re-hash this issue again, we've done it before. Instead I'm going to agree to disagree and argue that if there is no evidence that it's either helped or hurt Canada, but instead that immigration is a benign force, than why eliminate it?

Because it's damned expensive, costing the government, according to a Fraser Institute report, something close to $20 billion per year. Because it engenders rises in violent crime and in anti-semitism. Because it increases overcrowding in our cities and all the resulting polution and destruction of farmland and forest. Because the more foreigners you bring into the country the more watered down our local cultural values and beliefs will be.

I said hard, not impossible. There are extremely few buildings such as the one you mentioned, where one ethnic group makes up a large portion of the tenants, and almost always the ethnic group is comprised entirely of refugees.

There are whole areas of the country in places like the GTA and lower mainland where you can go blocks without seeing a native born Canadian.

The same thing applies to Somali-Canadians - those children that are and will grow up free from trauma will most likely establish connections outside their community.

Well, given more than half the residents at Ottawa's juvenile detention centres are Somalis I suppose you could say they're "establishing connections".

Keep in mind that the Somali-Canadian community is one of the youngest in Canada, and already they are making many inroads.

Yes, they're rather notorious in Ottawa for their high level of cultural sophistication and dedication to law and order and public welfare.

I'll repeat what I said in an even more straightforward manner: non-white, and especially Anglo-Canadians tend to have less of an ability to relate to people of other backgrounds and racial groups as fully realized human beings, instead of variations of stereotypes.

Sounds like cliche'd nonsense to me. Most of our immigrants come from relatively homogenous areas where suspicion and hostility towards other ethnic and national groups is endemic and often results in violence between such groups. Why you get the idea they come to Canada - an open society which has had mass immigraton for some forty years now, and that THEY would be more likely to embrace people of other backgrounds is beyond me. As I've said before, the most racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic and anti-semitic comments I've ever heard in my life - by far - have all come from immigrants and were all directed - with the exception of the anti-semitism and sexism - at other ethnic minorities.

Minorities face economic marginalization if they don't develop the skills to integrate themselves,

Funny then, how reports on immigrants economic status indicates an increasing economic marginalization.

What do you mean by "there is no Canada there" - explain.

I thought I already had. If you're an immigrant child and go to a public school were 90%+ of the students are not Canadian born just how is it you're going to learn to integrate with Canadians?

I'll say it again - don't post blatantly biased websites yourself if you're going to turn around and criticize others for doing the same thing.

Perhaps you could suggest what site which is NOT concerned about immigration which would host a number of economic studies and statistical reports hostile towards immigration? I mean, realistically, just where do you think such reports would be found? And all of the reports, studies and surveys cited were from mainstream organizations.

Most of the data is outdated, and frankly I simply don't trust blatantly biased websites to not only avoid cherry-picking facts, but even to not distort or invent polls and data themselves.

Your statement didn't have a time limit on it regarding Canadians' support for immigration, so the fact the polls go back as far as two decades shouldn't cause protest on your part. And everyone who posts any poll, survey or study here cherry picks it, including you. No one ever posts studies which DON'T support their position in a discussion.

As he mentions, Canadian attitudes towards immigration and multiculturalism have become more positive over time, even with increased levels of immigration, to the point where from the 80's to today, the amount of people who hold negative opinions (either strong or slightly negative) of multiculturalism has gone from 2/3rds to 1/3rd.

And yet a Leger poll from last month showed the support for multiculturalism dropping in all provinces, to just over half in English Canada, under half in Quebec. And given the number of immigrants whose opinions were likely included (statistically) less than half of Canadian born appear to support multiculturalism. Further, the answer depends on the question and context. When Canadians are instead asked whether or not newcomers should integrate/blend into Canadian society large majorities say yes. So multiculturalism does not mean the same thing to everyone.

As I said before, if people are that strongly opposed to something, they organize and force political parties to take action.

This is a particular issue which is almost impossible to confront in that manner. Any group which actually formed to attempt to combat immigration would instantly be derided as racist. Hell, the Tories are still derided as racist even though they support mass immigration. There isn't a prominent Tory anywhere who isn't constantly asked questions about immigration by reporters fishing for a "bigoted" quote they can make national headlines with.

You mentioned the Reform party, and I'll point out one of the biggest reasons why they couldn't break out of the prairies, even after they stopped being a "Western party" in terms of their policies, was that they they were anti-immigrant (and homophobic, which is one of the knocks you used against non-Christian religious groups before, remember?),

The Reform Party was never anti-immigrant. Large numbers of its members were immigrants right from the start. Large numbers of their MPs and candidates have always been visible minorities. However, they were for toning down immigration numbers in order to protect Canada's home-grown culture. That is all it took to be accused of being bigoted towards immigrants. As for homophobic, the media salivated at any remark by a Reform MP which was anti gay but generally shrugged off even worse comments by Liberal MPs as not really newsworthy.

It's telling that people with the most direct experience living with multiculturalism have a higher opinion of it than folks who have never/rarely experienced it

And you know this how, exactly? Just because opinion polls taken in Toronto are more welcoming to immigration doesn't mean that the native born population there is. Any poll would be distorted by the huge numbers of immigrants who, statistically speaking, would be bound to be included.

[Michael Hardner]

Oh come on. Just which of the statements you quote do you actually believe is incorrect?

You do a good job of defending your posts, so why jump in and try to assist another poster with their arguments ?

What is a "black country" "white country" or whatever ? He talks about Japan - what is that ? It's all just prejudiced observations, to my mind.

[wyly]

You do a good job of defending your posts, so why jump in and try to assist another poster with their arguments ?

What is a "black country" "white country" or whatever ? He talks about Japan - what is that ? It's all just prejudiced observations, to my mind.

I'll be technical here and ask what is a white nation and what is a black nation...according to outdated racial classification south Asians are?..white...people of the middle east(Arabs)are?..white....people of North Africa are...white...my asian wife has lighter skin than I do, does that make her white and northern euro butt black?....racial classification itself is based on racist beliefs that we were different and not equal in some moral way so one group can claim a racial superiority and dominate over others...

and I say the racial classification is outdated because there are no races, we are all one species virtually identical, skin colouration is extremely insignificant a product of environmental and sexual selection...skin colour was an arbitrary choice for race classification/discrimination it could have been eye colour or shape, or size of our ears and noses...

any time a debate comes down to skin colour it's racist and any attempt to cloud/hide the issue with talk of economics or moral values doesn't change the fact that there's bigotry behind it...

[DogOnPorch]

Yet you were fine describing 'white Canadian conservatives' as patently anti-homosexual in the Wilders thread.

[wyly]

Yet you were fine describing 'white Canadian conservatives' as patently anti-homosexual in the Wilders thread.

good point not quite the same, but it's true...

[DogOnPorch]

Seems that skin colour was indeed mentioned.