UPDATED: "Being Black in Canada" - S:21, E:50-something

The state-owned Canadian Broadcorping Castration (CBC) has had its hands full this month trying to figure out which victimized minority deserves pride of place. 

Should it be the Alphabet People? After all, it is "Pride Month" with gay and trans flags flying from every public building, even so-called Catholic schools. 

Should it be Canada's First Nations (indigenous people, formerly known as Indians and Eskimos). That was last week's news, following the discovery of a graveyard at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and the consequent scaping of the goats, featuring the pulling down of statues to Egerton Ryerson and Sir John Eh Macdonald. 

Or how about Canada's Black (formerly negro/coloured/black) people, who are still suffering discrimination in the US of A but whose pain is deeply felt by all correct-thinking Canucks. The DIP (Diversity & Inclusion Propaganda) execs at the Corp had already given the question much thought, and for weeks now have been promoting their fantastic, exciting, diverse, inclusive, expanded website called

You can figure out the meaning of the logo for yourself. (Hint: which clenched fist is biggest?) The website is full of stories about the exploitation of Canada's BIPOCs, but mostly the B segment of that group. Everyone knows that it's the evil white racist Canadians who keep Black people from realizing their full potential. But here's a story that for some reason has yet to appear on the BBiC website.

"Juneteenth", the latest brainchild of the Biden-Harris maladministration, was a beautiful day in the soi-disant Greater Toronto Area. Warm but not hot. A few showers but no real rain. Great day for a birthday. And so it was that a couple of dozen members of Toronto's Caribbean-Canadian underclass [At least he didn't say "Jamaican-Canadian"! Ed.] gathered outside a "community housing" complex in northwest Toronto to celebrate a Black baby's first birthday. What follows is taken directly from the CBC's report.

A five-year-old girl remains in life-threatening condition following a shooting during an outdoor children's birthday party in the Rexdale neighbourhood of northwest Toronto on Saturday evening, police say. An 11-year-old boy and a 23-year-old man who were also shot remain in non-life-threatening condition in hospital, said Toronto police spokesperson Const. Ed Parks. Parks said a one-year-old boy [the birthday boy? Ed.] who was grazed by a bullet did not require treatment in hospital.

Police were called to an address on Tandridge Crescent just before 8 p.m. on Saturday following reports of a shooting at a children's birthday party. Investigators are looking for multiple suspects, according to Toronto police Duty Insp. Kelly Skinner.

Investigators are keeping details on a vehicle seen leaving the scene, as well as suspect descriptions, to themselves for the time being, said Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner, speaking with reporters on Sunday. "We will be releasing that information soon, but right now we're not," he said. 

Taverner said cameras in the area were recording Saturday night, but "that's all I'll say about that." He said police don't believe the children were deliberately targeted, but he couldn't say more about a possible motive. He stressed that "this is a horrific, horrific situation" but that investigators are on it.

Notice that nowhere in the report is mention made of the fact that all the victims, witnesses and bystanders were black. And the suspects? Well, let's not talk about that either. You wouldn't know any of this unless you saw the TV news reports in which a couple of baby mamas -- elaborately made up and coiffed -- were saying what a tragedy this is. 

No baby papas in sight, except, perhaps, the one adult victim seen sitting up on the stretcher. If he wasn't black, then he had one hell of a tan. Police have appealed for the assistance of members of the community but so far nobody done seen nuffin'.

The extended weather forecast for the GTA is for a long hot summer. Everyone knows what that means. But hey, that's what it's like, Being Black in Canada.

UPDATE ADDED 21/6/21 - I know Agent 17, amongst others, will be interested in this update. The Toronto cops have so far failed to apprehend any of the usual suspects (descriptions still unavailable) who fled the scene of the birthday shooting. 

However, they announced this afternoon that the man who was shot, Demar Cadogan of Toronto has been charged with: discharge firearm with intent, possess restricted or prohibited firearm without holding a licence and registration certificate, possess loaded regulated firearm, and possess firearm while prohibited. 

The last one means he's already been before the courts for something or other, and -- can you believe it -- didn't take seriously the court's order to not have no guns no mo'. 

Police have not described a motive for the shooting, but it is not believed that any of the children were specifically targeted. Well of course not. The likely target was Mr Cadogan, you fools! The kids just got in the way. If you ask Mr Cadogan nicely, without saying anything about his blackness, he might tell you who his assailants were. Or not.

Québec to require immigrant wannabes to pass values test

The government of the Canadian province of Québec announced yesterday that it will require immigrants seeking permanent residency to pass a values test to ensure they understand and respect its new secularism law, the provincial government said on Wednesday.

The measure is being implemented by the Coalition d'avenir Québec (CAQ) government of Premier François Legault as part of the plan to make the province totally secular, as promised during last fall's election campaign, in which the CAQ won a majority of seats in the National Assembly. The CAQ -- a nationalist, centre-right party -- ran on a platform which included cutting immigration to the predominantly French-speaking province, in order to protect its distinct identity within the Great No-longer-white North.

The new government was quick to pass Bill C-21, a law banning public employees in positions of authority wearing religious symbols such as Muslim hijabs and Jewish kippahs to work. The values test is intended to make sure that potential immigrants understand that law and its implications, M Legault told reporters on Wednesday. "I think it's important in Québec", he said, "because we are a nation, we are a distinct society, we have our values, we have our charter."

Bill C-21 has been roundly condemned by left-wing human rights activists, both internationally and in the rest of Canaada as infringing on "minority rights", especially the rights of the, errr, Muslim minority. A recent poll showed that over 70% of Québéclois support the law, but what the majority thinks is, of course, irrelevant. During this month's federal election campaign, the leaders of all the federal parties except the Bloc Québécois (the federal version of the provincial Parti Québécois) and Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada spoke out against C-21. Strangely, though, none of them went so far as to show support for a court challenge against the law. Mr Socks, however, said he'd think about it.

Premier Legault described the test as similar to one that exists at the federal level, where individuals applying for Canadian citizenship must pass a test on Canada's history and laws, among other topics. An individual must score at least 75% to pass the new Québec test that covers "democratic values and the Québec values expressed by the (Québec) Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms," the government's official publication said. The test will apply only to economic immigrants and their families, not "refugees". So if you cross the open border with the USA illegally, you can keep your hijab or turban on.

Footnote: The green, white and red flag seen in the picture above is not one of the many Arab flags using those colours in a pattern of horizontal bars. It is le Drapeau des Patriotes (avec Le Vieux de '37). I leave it to interested readers to find out what the flag symbolizes. Any resemblance to the Confederate Battle Flag is purely coincidental.

Toronto "public" housing allowed to discriminate by religion, ethnicity, etc

Meet Austin Lewis. He's 21, and disabled by a disease that attacked his spinal cord when he was 8. And he's homeless. He needs to live in a wheelchair-accessible building, and has applied to more than 100 in the Greater Toronto Area, without success.

Mr. Lewis did succeed, a few months ago, in getting himself on the list at a building called the Ahmadiyya Abode of Peace, on Finch Avenue West in northwest Toronto. The 16-storey building is subsidized by the taxpayers as part of a programme to encourage religious and other non-profit groups to build affordable housing.

In the USA, if your organization gets public funds for something like a school or hospital or affordable housing, the facility must be open to all members of the public. In the USA, there's no discrimination on the basis of race, colour, "gender preference", religion or anything else.

One might think that in Canada, generally a more socially liberal society than the Excited States, the same rules apply. After all, Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms which protects the same "human rights" as those enjoyed and abused by Americans, eh?

If that's what one thinks, one would be wrong. Austin Lewis found that out last week when a letter arrived at his mother's house telling him that he had been removed from the waiting list at the Ahmadiyya Abode of Peace because... wait for it... he is not a follower of the Prophet Mohammed, i.e. a Muslim.

How can this be, Mr. Lewis wonders. "This letter came as a complete shock," he told a Toronto Star reporter. "Why would a government segregate its own building?"

A spokesthingy for the City of Toronto explained that "The City’s mandate policy allows social housing providers to restrict their housing to individuals belonging to an identifiable ethnic or religious group if specific conditions are met." The city provides a subsidy of C$1.7 million ($1.275 million real dollars) for 94 rent-geared-to-income units under an agreement that restricts tenants to "members of the Muslim Jama’at".

But, the city's flak-catcher said, it's not like the Muslims are getting special treatment by being allowed to bar non-Muslims from their building, with its prayer rooms and other "facilities from which others would get no benefit". There are eight such buildings in Toronto, catering to Muslims, Macedonians, Germans, Chinese, Greeks, Hungarians, Lithuanians and "Christian seniors". So that's all right, then.

Final word comes from lawyer Barry Swadron (a classmate of Agent 3), who has extensive experience in disability law. "Here you have a building for Muslims, and normally that would be discriminatory because other religions could not be accommodated there," he told the Toronto Star. But the Ontario Human Rights Code says if it's a special-interests organization -- religious, philanthropic, educational or social -- they can discriminate in that way. It's very unfortunate, but that’s how the law was written."

But what about Austin Lewis? Mr. Swadron explained that, while the intention was to create safe spaces for minority communities, this kind of permissible "positive discrimination" inevitably produces collateral damage. Unfortunately for Mr. Lewis, he's "an unintended casualty of the system."

Mr. Lewis says the Ahmadiyya Abode of Peace is the only landlord who's had the courtesty to tell him in writing that he's inadmissible, and wonders how many others have refused his application without bothering to notify him. Seems to me the solution for him is obvious. Don't wait for the politically correct Ontario or Toronto government to change the law to make "public" mean truly public -- open to all. Convert to Islam!

Putin speaks about minorities and Sharia law

Say what you will about Putin, he speaks his mind without worrying about being politically correct!

Wouldn't it be nice if our countries -- yours, mine, any "white Christian" country -- had leaders like this?

Thanks to Agent 34 for sending this along.

Saying the unsayable about the unspeakable in Brampton, Canada

Brampton, Ontario, Canada used to be a nice little white little community. Walt passed through there in the early 1950s and remembers it having a population of less than 10,000 and one (1) traffic light at the main intersection, which everyone called "The Four Corners". (Banks occupied three of the four corners. How Canadian is that?!) The traffic signal had only red and green lights, didn't need a yellow. No-one signalled turns because everyone knew where everyone else was going anyway. It was that kind of town.

Sixty years later, Brampton has changed. The population is well over half a million, and more than half of those are vizmins, mainly from south Asia although a black ghetto is developing in the city's northwest quadrant. Don't take Walt's word for it. Check out "Brampton's growing pains", which appeared in the Brampton Guardian last week.

The Guardian kind of downplays the issues of immigration, race and poverty because Canadians like to pretend problems like ghettoization only exist in other countries. In case you can't find the paper's reference, we'll copy it here.
"The population explosion has also sparked concerns about ghettoization, both in terms of income and race. Like other Peel Region municipalities, Brampton faces growing income inequality thanks to a decline in well-paying jobs, a surge of immigrants who may face language barriers in the workplace, and rising home prices."

The article didn't generate a lot of interest or discussion. Why would it, in places with nicknames like "Bramladesh" and "Sikhdale"? That's the way things are, thanks to Pierre Trudeau's Liberal governments of the 1970s and every one of their successors of both red and blue stripes. The politicians opened the floodgates because every immigrant is a potential voter who will be beholden to the progressive pols who allowed them to escape their third-world cesspits by coming by the boatload to the Great No-longer-white North.

Now, however, a political action group called Immigration Watch Canada, is causing some long-overdue discussion about the pitfalls of excessive immigration of unassimilable minorities. They dare to question the wisdom of "a social engineering experiment that is conducted on Canada’s mainstream population in order to make it a minority."

They're circulating a pamphlet called "The Changing Face of Brampton - Is This What You Really Want?", which has predictably (and instantly) been denounced as "racist" by the usual gang of "progressive thinkers" and forces for good in the community.

The flyer points out the drastically changed demographics of Brampton's population. It shows two photos. The first is of a group of white people. The second shows a group of Sikhs. Under it is the question: "Is this really what you want?"

Certain people are upset -- hotter'n firecrackers as Fred C. Dobbs would say. "This kind of message divides the community", said MPP Jagmeet Singh (NDP, Bramalea-Gore-Malton). Mr. Singh is the first turbaned Sikh to be elected to the Ontario legislature. Said he, "We need to celebrate our diversity and celebrate the fact that Canada is first and foremost a country of immigrants." Ah yes. "Celebrating diversity" is the politically correct thing to say and do. Not "Is this really what you want?"!

Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell expressed her disapproval in a tweet -- of course -- and written statement from her office. "These flyers are disgusting," she said, suggesting the document might fall under a hate crime. ("Hate crime" = political incorrectness.) "Racism has no place in Brampton. I have informed Peel police about these bigoted acts."

(Mayor Fennell, by the way, has a higher salary and expense account than just about any other "chief magistrate" in Canada. She gets re-elected year after year thanks in part to the votes of people whose ID might be called into question by people less charitable than Walt.)

Balpreet Singh, of the World Sikh Organization of Canada, doesn't think the "hate crime" charge is going to stick. "I think the pamphlets are in very bad taste," he said, "but I don't think that they go into the territory of hate crime, so I don't expect anything to be done."

That's one thing both Mr. Singhs and Immigration Watch Canada agree on. There will be a provincial election as early as June, a municipal election in the fall, and a federal election next year. Nothing will be done to halt or even reduce the flow into Canada -- and other Western countries -- of unassimilable third-world immigrants. It's too late.

An earlier comment worth reading: "Brampton suffers identity crisis as newcomers swell city’s population", Toronto Star, 24 May 2013

Accept Québec values, black PQ minister warns immigrants

Ouais, Virginie, there are black people in Québec. One such is Maka Kotto, a former politician from Caméroun (a.k.a. Cameroon -- it's in Africa) who immigrated to Canada in 1990 and eventually drifted into, errr, politics. No surprise there. Now he's the current Minister of Tokenism [Culture and Communications, shurely! Ed.] in the Parti Québecois government.

That's the government that has just introduced a Charter of Québec values. If it becomes law, it will ban the wearing of religious headgear and other "overt" religious symbols -- a large crucifix, for example -- in any public workplace in la Belle Province.

Even though he's an immigrant and a vizmin, M Kotto agrees with the proposed charter. He told the Globe and Mailthat when he moved to France, he had to leave in Africa the panther's head that he used to wear on his chest.

Walt wouldn't kid you. M Kotto described himself to the interviewer as a “Catholic, with shamanistic tendencies”. Sounds typical of a member of the modern Church, but I digress. He was describing how "if I wanted to play the mystic, I could go around with my panther’s head on my chest. It’s my family totem. But I don’t, because I adhere to what are accepted as the values of the society that welcomed me.”

As the Assemblée Nationale resumed sitting yesterday, M Kotto said the Charter “applies to me too. When people arrive in a new family, the least we can do is to consider the values of the family and accept their values.”

And that's really the point. It's not that the sight of hijabs and turbans and Muslims praying in the streets makes Québecois see red [orange, surely. Ed.], although it does. The point is that people who choose to move into a land and culture which is not their own should make an effort to conform -- in public at least -- to the norms of that land and culture.

No matter what the lamestream media and the "experts" tell you, that's the majority opinion in America, Australia, Britain and Canada. Multiculturalism is contrary to human nature, and the "intellectuals", "progressives" and politicians who are forcing the wind of "diversity" down our throats will surely reap the whirlwind. Walt is telling you so.

PQ not so PC as TROC?

Too many abbreviations? Walt will provide a glossary. Let's start with "PQ". Before two-letter abbreviations for states and provinces were standardised, "PQ" was the commonly accepted shorthand for "Province of Quebec" or "Province du Québec" to be more PC -- note the accent. Today the correct form is "QC", while "PQ" refers to the Parti Québecois, the quasi-separatist political party which misgoverns la Belle Province.

The PQ, as well as being committed to (one day) seceding from The Rest Of Canada (TROC), is of a decidedly pinkish hue, thus resolutely secular humanist in its values. After the Roman Catholic Church turned its back on its own dogmas in the 1960s, that's pretty much how the majority of  Québecois think things should be.

Religion now has no place in public life, and no religion or creed should receive any special consideration or accommodation. That's politically correct (PC) thinking in Québec and TROC. Or at least it was, until a few years ago, when Muslims started demanding the "right" to pray in the streets, have Islamic religious instruction in public schools, and force their womenfolk to cover all or parts of their bodies against the gaze of infidels. See "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?".

Of course what's fair for the followers of the Prophet must also be fair for the Jews, Sikhs...just about everyone except Christians. Freedom of religion, dontcha know! It's PC! And so Canadians are treated to the spectacle of turban-clad Mounties, looking like extras in Carry On Up The Khyber. Walt is waiting for a Sikh to bring a human rights complaint (or a lawsuit, if in the USA) to force the NHL to let him wear a turban instead of a helmet.

Soccer, of course, is a different story. Soccer players don't wear helmets because -- let's be real -- how can you hurt your head playing a slow sissy game like "football"? Well, OK, you could get beaned by a viciously kicked ball, but wearing anything on your head is still not done... unless you're a Sikh. Along with his holy drawers and kirpan, a Sikh should be able to wear his turban, they say, because it's part of his religion. And anyone who objects is a racist bigot!

So what, said the Québec Soccer Federation? A few weeks back the QSF passed a bylaw forbidding the wearing of turbans or anything else while playing the beautiful game. Accusations of religious discrimination and being less-than-PC immediately emanated from the lamestream media and swivel-eyed loons of the human rights industry. To which Pauline Marois, the PQ premier of Québec replied, so what?! This is Québec and we'll follow our own customs and values.

A couple of weeks later, following condemnation from the Canadian Soccer Federation and a statement from the international governing body (FIFA) that it didn't care one way or the other, the QSF backed down. But there remains in QC the very strong sentiment that accommodation of religious and ethnic minorities has gone too far.

Having determined the direction from which the political wind is blowing, the Québec Minister of Citizenship, Bernard Drainville, has announced that he's pushing ahead with a long-promised "Charter of Values" which (he thinks) will resolve the problem of religious accommodation, once and for all. He pointed to a public opinion poll that asked whether Québecois think religious accommodation is still an important problem. Two-thirds of the 1506 respondents polled said yes.

When asked whether doing away with "unreasonable accommodations" would promote a more integrated society, 70%. Said M Drainville, "We do want this debate to be about what unites us, not what divides us. What unites us. And I do think equality between men and women, between all citizens notwithstanding origin, religion, mother tongue -- I do think these are important values if we want to build in Québec a united society."

A united society... Wouldn't that be something... If putting an end to extreme political correctness in Québec works, perhaps TROC could try it! And if it works in Canada -- as if! -- perhaps the other half of North America could have a go. We could even give the principle a name... something like "majority rule"!

Most British Christians see themselves as persecuted minority

Yesterday (Holy Saturday) brought depressing news from the Disunited Kingdom, a.k.a. Once-great Britain. A survey done by pollsters ComRes revealed that more than two-thirds of  British Christians feel they are now part of a "persecuted minority".

And guess who the persecutors are? Not Romans and Jews, as in the time of Jesus, or even Muslims, but the promoters of what the polling firm calls "aggressive secularism", which churchgoers increasingly feel threatens freedom of religion.

In the UK, even more than in the USA and Canada, court rulings against people who want to wear crosses at work, and legal action preventing prayers before council meetings, have combined with a persistent anti-religious bias in the press to make Christians feel marginalized.

Adding fuel to the flames of resentment is the British Government's decision to legalize "marriage", in spite of the opposition of the Church -- including, in a half-hearted way, the Church of England -- and a significant chunk of popular opinion.

According to the PressTV article on the poll, if the march of secularism continues unabated, by 2030 Britain will no longer be a Christian country. By that date, there will be more non-believers than Christians. Why, because immigrants from Asia keep their faiths, and "born Christians" (as opposed to "born-again Christians") don't.

In the past six years, the report says, the number of Muslims has surged by 37% to 2.6 million. Hindus have increased their numbers by 43%, and Buddhists by a massive 74 per cent. Meanwhile, people who choose to call themselves Christians declined in number by more than 4 million between the censuses of 2001 and 2011. In the latter census, fewer than 60% of all residents of the UK described themselves as Christian. That's down from 72% in 2001.

A former Archbishop of Canterbury -- head of the so-called Anglican Communion -- has a comment on the role of Britain's government in the decline of Christianity in his country. Walt will be posting a précis later today.

Aux E-U, plus ça change...

Ed again. Here's what I can read of the scribblings on the scraps of foolscap littering Walt's floor. I've made no attempt to put them in order or otherwise make them coherent.

Four more years, four more years... Exactly! $6 billion later and we're in for four more years of the same! Dysfunctional Congress + drifting "leadership" = gridlock.

What policies will Obama follow? He didn't say. What about Mitt's 5-pt plan? During the "debates" Mrs Walt kept asking "How? How? How?" But she's not an Indian!

"Triumph of moderation" one of the liberal nitwit pundits is saying. Bullshit. Triumph of multiculturalism is more like it. White, straight, (practising) Christian males now a minority. Triumph of mongrelization, of which the Prez is the living image! Hm, mongrelization? Didn't someone predict that about 50 years ago? Look up "White Citizens Council". And lo, it has come to pass.

Could Ron Paul have won? Two chances, see above!

Last 3 presidents have all been re-elected. Why not just have one 8-year term and be done with it? $6 billion weak bucks down the drain and for what...

God rot the pandering politicians, the lot of them. God save the United States of America and this honourable court...

Here the script becomes illegible. If I can decipher more of it, I'll be back. Ed. 

The new oppressed minority

Rednecks. Trailer trash. White trash. Or...a little more gently...poor whites. There's millions of these "ordinary people" out there. I shop with them at Walmart. And I listen to the stories of their pathetic lives every day on Judge Judy. (Yes, yes. I know a lot of the "litigants" on Judge Judy represent the black underclass, but those aren't the ones we're talking about.)

In Britain they have another word for the young, "disadvantaged" louts you see hanging out at the malls and the welfare office. The word is "chav". Here's a picture of the female of the species.

A chav is a stereotype of certain people -- aggressive teenagers, of working class background -- who repeatedly engage in anti-social behaviour such as street drinking, drug abuse, rowdiness and other forms of juvenile delinquency. Although the term is most often used to describe teenagers, today's teen chavs are tomorrow's adult chavs. "Chavhood" is forever, it seems, and represents a huge social problem in today's Britain... and America... and Canada.

What do we do for... or with... the chavs? That's the theme of a new book by Owen Jones: Chavs: the Demonization of the Working Class. Jones says that looking down on, and putting down poor whites has now become completely acceptable to urban liberals. On the other hand, the poor from other ethnic groups are trated with respect, assumed to be the victims of racism, and showered with welfare and special programs to help them become, errr, not chavs.

This phenomenon has interesting political ramifications. The "elite" view of poor whites is one of the reasons for the populist backlash against the liberal parties of the USA, UK and Canada. These parties used to be the champions of the common man, the defenders of the poor, of families, of "ordinary people". Now the liberals have abadoned the white lower classes in favour of hipper minorities. (Hello refugees!)

Will the liberals get away with neglecting the man and woman on the 113 bus? Probably, because no matter how much the Tea Partiers might wish otherwise, the poor white minority doesn't vote.

Canadian values -- only in Québec?

Canadian reaction to British Prime Minister Cameron's "multiculturalism has failed" speech has been strangely muted. The Land of the Maple Leafs [Is this right? Ed.] seems to be the last bastion of political correctness. No politician of any stripe has recognized the vote-gathering potential of standing up for Canadian values. Either that, or they're waiting for someone to define "Canadian values" for them.

Step forward Michael Den Tandt. Writing in the Sun newspapers today, Mr. Den Tandt arguess that the Oath of Citizenship should be amended "to include a vow to uphold values of tolerance, liberty and gender equality."

While I can think of some additions to or subtractions from Mr. DT's list, I agree with the concept. Surely there must be some values which are shared by the majority. Why is it that none of Canada's "leaders" wants to stand up for the things that Canucks hold dear?

Den Tandt accuses the Conservatives of being afraid of alienating communities they're "working hard to woo". He means (amongst others) the Sikhs whose bloc vote controls half a dozen ridings in the western Greater Toronto Area and another three or four in British Columbia's Lower Mainland.

Sikhism requires male believers to wear, along with turbans and special underpants, ceremonial daggers called kirpans. This makes some non-Sikhs nervous, especially when the Sikhs want to wear their kirpans into government chambers in which their rights are being discussed.

You can't bring a weapon into Canada's Parliament Buildings, or the Ontario or British Columbia legislatures. Unless, of course, you're a Sikh. Then it's OK because... errr... no-one wants any vizmins to be offended, lest they fail to vote in the desired way.

Except in Québec. To the chagrin of The Rest of Canada -- especially PM Steve Harpoon -- Québec's Assemblée Nationale voted this week to ban the wearing of kirpans in their building. Voted nem con.* Unanimously too.

Only in Québec, it seems, are people unafraid to stand up and be counted for values shared by the majority, even when they conflict with the "rights" of a minority. Strange, eh!

* nemine contradicente

Take down that offensive Christmas tree!

Following Walt's earlier post urging you to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS, Agent 17 passes on this sad-but-true story from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Ed. has shortened it a bit; you can read the whole horrible thing here.

SOUTHLAKE -- Chase Bank told Texas businessman Antonio Morales to remove the Christmas tree he donated to a local branch because it could offend people.

The tree remained in the lobby from the Monday before Thanksgiving until Tuesday. Morales said the bank manager -- a personal friend -- called him Wednesday to tell him the tree had to go. She later showed him an e-mail from JPMorgan Chase saying that the tree had to be removed because some people were offended by it.

Greg Hassell, a JPMorgan Chase spokesman, said that the company's policy isn't anti-Christmas. "People wish their customers merry Christmas when it's appropriate," he said.
However, to ensure that everyone who visits Chase branches feels welcome and comfortable, the bank's policy is to use only decorations supplied by the company.

"We appreciate the thoughtful gesture from Mr. Morales," Hassell said. "Unfortunately, we're unable to keep it [the tree] on display for the remainder of the holiday season." JPMorgan Chase ensures that decorations are "something everyone is comfortable with, regardless of how they celebrate the season," Hassell said.

But others see the tree as a symbol of the season. A spokeswoman at Trinity Bank in Fort Worth said it has had a tree in its lobby since the Friday after Thanksgiving.

"I've been in this business more than 30 years, and every place I've worked we've put up a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving," said Linda Robertson, assistant vice president.

Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the American Family Association, called Chase's decision absurd.
"According to Advertising Age, 91 percent of American people celebrate Christmas," Fischer said. "That means that the single most inoffensive thing you can do at this time of year is wish someone a merry Christmas."

Fischer said that companies that have gotten away from acknowledging Christmas claim that they do it because they want to be inclusive.
"The most inclusive thing you can do is wish someone merry Christmas," he said. "This means that Chase is running the risk of offending far more people by disrespecting Christmas than they are by honoring it."

Agent 17's comment: This will frost your privates as it did mine. 91% of Americans celebrate Christmas and the minority dictates what we do!

Walt sez: Political correctness triumphs again! In the land of the free and home of the brave, minority "rights" trump majority opinion every time.

Multiculturalism: a failed experiment?

Let's start with the provocative quote: two paragraphs from "When multiculturalism doesn't work", a long but worthwhile article by Ingrid Peritz and Joe Friesen, in today's Globe and Mail.

As the first generation of Canadians raised under the banner of multiculturalism graduates to positions of power, fissures are emerging in the Canadian mosaic. The proposed law to ban niqabs for those seeking public services in Quebec, the controversy surrounding the so-called honour killing of Muslim teenager Aqsa Parvez, the backlash against Tamil asylum seekers, the arrest of a Canadian-born doctor and Canadian Idol contestant in an alleged Islamist terror plot – all of these raise questions about Canada's nurturing of cultural difference. Even one of Canada's most prominent visible-minority politicians, Ujjal Dosanjh, accuses multiculturalism of allowing Sikh extremism to take root here.

[All of these stories have been mentioned in Walt's blog. Use the search feature to find my comments.]

Our European allies call multiculturalism a failed experiment. Germany, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and even our Commonwealth cousin Australia have all, to differing degrees, blamed multiculturalism for separating peoples, weakening national cohesion and encouraging Islamic extremism.

Now some observations. Niqabs, hijabs and honour killings have get a lot of press, but there are other serious problems with multiculturalism as found in Canada and (to a lesser degree) the USA.

Item: Most Chinese immigrants hang onto their Chinese or Hong Kong passports. (According to Chinese law, dual citizenship is not allowed, but Chinese law is, shall we say, less than uniformly applied. Westerners dealing with China and the Chinese had better learn at least one word -- guanxi.)

Item: Recent arrivals from non-European countries show a distinct lack of enthusiasm for learning English (or French). And why should they? Everything from ATMs to the police to automated answering machines serve them in their own languages. Cities like Toronto have become modern-day Babels. There are parts of the Greater Toronto Area where an English-speaker can't even read the signs. But at least a linguist can figure out which ghetto he's in.

Item: Speaking of ghettos, ethno-racial segregation is now commonplace. Most North American cities have long had their Chinatowns, Greektowns and Little Italies. But now we have Little Indias being further subdivided into the Tamil village, the Punjabi quarter (hello Sikhdale!) and the commercial section where everyone's name is Patel.

Item: Speaking of the Indian communities (note the plural), let's not ignore "ethnic protection", now becoming evident in such sectors as trucking and transport, which are largely controlled by Punjabi gangs.

Item: Politicians of cities with large "minority" populations have long known the benefits of ethnic segregation. How can a "McCarthy" get elected in an Italian neighbourhood? (Answer: probably better than a "Smythe-Jones".) Would a "Khan" ever be elected in a Sikh ghetto? (Answer: he'd have a Chinaman's chance!)

Item: Segregation continues even in death. A large part of Calgary's Queen's Park Cemetery is now a "Chinese [only] Section". And Toronto has its own Chinese cemeteries. Which just goes to prove that segregation by race, ethnicity, even religion is voluntary.

Since the beginning, we've had separate cemeteries for Catholics and non-Catholics, and separate school systems too in some places. So what? It seems to me the natural human condition to want to be with people who are "like us", even in death. Multiculturalism, especially when enforced, goes against our natural human "hard wiring".

Conclusion: Multiculturalism is not a recipe for long-term socio-political stability. It is an experiment in social engineering whose all too apparent failure is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.

If the USA and Canada are not to be still further fragmented, our diverse peoples increasingly alienated from one another, we must discard the multicultural model imposed on us by the liberal elites. It's time to revisit the old concept of the melting pot, where people try to become unhyphenated Americans and Canadians.

As for immigration -- now that debate on the subject seems to have been initiated -- let's close the doors to all but those who are ready, willing and able to fit into our society, rather than expecting us to reshape our society to accomodate them.

Cuckoo clocks and chocolate, but no minarets, please

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a minaret is a tower built into at least one corner of a Muslim mosque. Think CN Tower attached to a Walmart. It is from the minaret that the muzzein calls the Muslim faithful to prayer, five times a day, with the aid of a pwerful amplifier.

In non-Muslim countries this annoys the neighbours. But it's not just the noise. Some see the minaret as "a political symbol of Islamization … a symbol of political victory.” Minarets are sprouting up all over Europe and in many areas of North America. Look outside. Can you see a strange tower that wasn't there yesterday?

Even though only 4 of Switzerland's 160 mosques (160! In Switzerland!) have minarets, the right-wing Swiss People's Party decided they were fed up and weren't going to take it any more.
They called for -- and won! -- a referendum on a constitutional ban on the construction of new minarets. Four of the nation’s 160 mosques currently have minarets-- the spires from which Muslims are traditionally called to prayer.

Turnout was high at 53%, as was the margin of victory. In spite of the opposition of the oh-so-politically-correct Swiss government and the Roman Catholic church, nearly 58% of voters approved the initiative.

Why? What does this mean? It means that the tolerant and fair-minded Swiss are getting up on their hind feet to oppose the Islamization of the West! The Swiss public, in spite of their wealth, education and traditional civility, has come to believe that minarets are symbols of fundamentalism.

They believe, it seems, that the Muslims in their midst harbour extreme beliefs and practices. And they complain, rightly, that Christians in Muslim countries would not be free to build churches and otherwise make their faith visible, as are Muslims in so-called Christian countries.

Reaction has been swift and predictable. The Vatican, which of late has never heard of a heathen religion it couldn't live with, released a statement saying that the Swiss voters' decision was a setback for religious freedom and for the cause of coexistence among peoples. An international boycott of Swiss goods and an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights are under discussion. Seems to me it's all part of the liberal humanist deathwish for the Christian West.
The nation of 7.5 million is 44% Catholic and 4% Muslim.

Wild West Uyghurs

AP and Reuters report that violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China's volatile western Xinjiang region in decades. Chinese officials today said the death toll was expected to rise.

The cause of the "unrest" is the Communist government's policy of colonizing the hitherto sparsely populated province with millions of Han Chinese. (The Han comprise roughly 1.2 billion of China's population of 1.3 billion.) "Volunteers", prisoners and political exiles are forced to work in labour camps and encouraged to remain in Xinjiang forever. Muslim Uighurs make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but not in the capital of Urumqi. The city of 2.3 million is now about overwhelmingly Chinese — a source of frustration for native Uighurs.

There has always been tension -- even before the Chinese occupation of what the Uighurs call East Turkistan -- between the Muslim Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese. Militant Uighurs have waged a sporadic and often violent separatist campaign for centuries. A good history of the region can be found in Wild West China: the Untold Story of a Frontier Land, by Christian Tyler (2003, London, John Murray).

The Chinese government's Xinhua news agency quoted regional Police Chief Liu Yaohua as saying several hundred people had been arrested in connection with the riot and police were searching for about 90 other “key suspects.” Reports from Xinhua typically refer to agitators for independence and freedom from Chinese colonization as "splittists" and "separatists".

Uighurs living outside of China have condemned the crackdown and are organizing protests in a number of cities, including Toronto.

“We are extremely saddened by the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces against the peaceful demonstrators,” said Alim Seytoff, vice president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association. “We ask the international community to condemn China's killing of innocent Uighurs. This is a very dark day in the history of the Uighur people.”

Here we see yet another example of the Communist Chinese contempt for human rights, even though their constitution purports to guarantee minority rights and freedom of religion. The pious statements of of their constitution are worse than meaningless. They are huge lies!

Yet western governments, including that of Canada, choose to look the other way, and believe the fiction that there is no oppression in China, that human rights is not an issue to be discussed in meetings with Chinese leaders. Why? Look at the trade statistics and you'll see the reasons. The devil offers us a huge Chinese banquet of cheap manufactured goods and investment in our struggling economy. We want to eat as much as we can (even though we might feel hungry again an hour later), but we should remember that he who sups with the devil had better bring a long spoon!

Note: Agent 88 in a city which is not Beijing reports that this blog has already been blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Apparently Communist Chinese censors don't like the phrase "human rights". It's not hard to understand why!