Whoda thunk it? Canadians, always so smug about being tolerant and inclusive, celebrating diversity and all that BS, secretly dislike certain minority groups. That would include those they can recognize by their religious headgear and facial shrubbery.
After the Parti Québecois got the "conversation" started by proposing a Charter of Québec Values, it was inevitable that the public opinion pollsters would ask people -- in both la Belle Province and TROC -- how they felt about the accommodation of religious and ethnic minority cultures. That's what the fuss is all about -- whether it's time for the multiculti tail to stop wagging the Québec and/or Canadian dogs.
Today's National Post reports the results of a Forum poll on multiculturalism. The results may be dismaying to the "progressive thinkers" who dominate Canadian media and politics, but should hardly come as a surprise to anyone who listens to the conversations at Tim Horton's.
Turns out that about half of Bloc Québecois and Parti Québecois supporters think that Muslims and Jews have too much influence in their province, while nearly a third of British Columbians think the same of "Sikhs and Asians". [Aren't Sikhs Asians? Or do they mean Chinese? I'm confused! Ed.]
That sentiment is particularly pronounced in Québec -- exactly what Pauline Marois is counting on -- but the rest of Canada (TROC) isn't far behind, with about a third of Canadians saying Muslims have too much influence in their home provinces. Hey, Steve Harper! Hey, Jason Kenney! Are you listening? See? It's not just a few rednecks in Mississauga or Surrey.
Forum Research president Lorne Bozinoff told the Post, “If the Charter of Quebec Values is an example of the Parti Québecois practising dog whistle politics...it appears there are plenty of ears tuned to that particular frequency for the message to fall on.”
Speaking of Jews, while less than a fifth of Canadians say that Jews have too much influence, about 32% of Quebeckers think they are too powerful. Canada's largest and strongest community of orthodox Jews is to be found in Montréal. Not long ago a Jewish school in that city was successful in getting the neighbouring YMCA to paint over its windows so the innocent Jewish kids would be spared the sight of scantily clad goyim playing basketball.
In Ontario, it's the francophones -- French speakers, to non-Canadian readers -- who are on the merdeux end of the stick, with 26% of respondents saying the Frenchies [Good job on avoiding the other "Fr" word. Ed] are too powerful. You certainly don't hear the language of Molière much in places like Kingston and Kitchener.
The poll was conducted by Interactive Voice Response on September 16th and 17th among a randomly selected sample of 1527 Canadians 18 years of age and older. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%, 19 times out of 20. Walt guesses you could call the poll a cross section of Canadian public opinion. No hyphen.
Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism are religions not races. So that part of the poll reflects how comfortable people are with the values that these religions spout not the colour of the adherent's skin.
ReplyDeleteSecularism is actually the most important thing has held Canada together as the world's most stable, peaceful democracy.
The second thing wrong with poll is that it doesn't mention backgrounds of those polled.
Surely there are tons of immigrants who have brought their old world conflicts with them from abroad.
I bet there are plenty of Muslims who think that Jews have too much influence in Canada and Sikhs who feel ill will toward Hindus.
Walt is well aware of the difference between race and religion. What I didn't know was that secularism was responsible for Canada's peace and stability. Here all this time I was thinking it was the Christian values in which the majority of Canadians used to believe!
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph is right though... dead right.