Christopher Dummitt: Canada’s long-standing tradition of sweeping its British roots under the rug

2025/07/03 Leave a comment

Good reminder of the need for a broader historical understanding:

….Canadian schools got rid of the Lord’s prayer a generation ago. It didn’t fit with a modern diverse Canada. It has been replaced by land acknowledgments.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the school system didn’t operate this way — when Indigenous history and contemporary concerns were not a major focus. There has been a lot of progress to rethink how we approach the Canadian past.

But there’s also the Canadian tradition of turning a good thing into a stupid mess.

These young children know that they need to respect Indigenous cultures — and know that these cultures were sophisticated and fascinating. That’s what they’ve learned.

But what they don’t have are the lessons from an earlier time that would balance out this new appreciation. Instead, their lessons speak against an earlier way of thinking about the country. Without that earlier knowledge, what these kids are getting is the now off-balanced focus on reconciliation, relationships to the land, and inclusivity.

What they lack is the broader story of the settler societies that created Canada — about the dynamism of centuries of progress from the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment to the creation of modern forms of democracy, liberalism, and parliamentary institutions. Yet, this isn’t part of the elementary curriculum.

This isn’t the fault of any individual teacher (many of whom are wonderful).

It is, though, about the excesses of a cultural shift — well-intentioned — but also clueless as to its unintended consequences.

This Canada Day, perhaps it’s time to take a lot of the knowledge that’s baked into those pioneer villages dotted across the country and put it back into the curriculum.

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Canada’s long-standing tradition of sweeping its British roots under the rug

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Lederman: Welcome to the slavery memorial. Enjoy the beautiful view

2025/06/21 Leave a comment

Sadly, all too true:

…The placement of these Orwellian signs follows Donald Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” part of the President’s crusade against wokeness. The new signs also encourage visitors to report any information that fails to “emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” Be complimentary, or else.

Rather than rat out tour guides or wall plaques, visitors are being urged by the NPCA to use their voices to tell the government to stop meddling. And good news: The publication Government Executive reports that almost all of the nearly 200 submissions received in the first few days urged the government not to censor history. 

In Canada, we are learning the value of telling history accurately, in particular the history of Indigenous people. The Truth and Reconciliation process has been bumpy at times, sure, but it has exposed this country’s real history to many Canadians (not just students) who simply didn’t know about the harms of colonialism, including residential schools.

We are seeing this reflected in school curricula, at museums, on the calendar (we mark National Indigenous Peoples Day on Saturday) and, consequently, in the zeitgeist. That’s how it works.

“If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes,” said Ms. Pierno in a news release. Exactly.

What if they did this in, say, Germany – where monuments and museums tell the country’s chilling Nazi history, along with tens of thousands of Stolpersteins (literally “stumbling stones”), small brass plates marking places from which people were deported? (Memorials that speak to the despicable actions of past governments of that period are also prominent in Hungary, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and France.)

Imagine if, in an effort by a hypothetical German government to avoid casting shade upon its history, those sites were watered down. What if Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was renamed to play down the murder part? Any thinking person would be outraged – even much of the MAGA set, too. 

Picture Minidoka, currently billed as “An American Concentration Camp,” instead being described as “a unique visiting experience in the scenic Gem State, along the refreshing waters of Clover Creek with its fine fishing?” What an insult to the memory of all who suffered there. What a disservice to any visitor.

This move to sanitize historic sites is a testament to the idiocy of this U.S. administration – as history, one hopes, will show.

Source: Welcome to the slavery memorial. Enjoy the beautiful view

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Regg Cohn: It’s the right time to unveil Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue

2025/06/14 Leave a comment

Good and thoughtful:

….History is a work in progress — it is always being updated and rewritten with the passage of time. That doesn’t mean we can write the central characters out of history, nor does it mean every politician deserves a place of prominence despite his misdeeds.

Truth and reconciliation is also about reckoning. Protesting, perhaps, but not vandalizing or defacing or decapitating.

It is about learning from history — the good, the bad and the grey. And learning how to debate our history, which comes in all shades for peoples of all colours — rather than splashing pink paint or overwriting with graffiti.

Our legislature is “a place for debate and deliberation on issues that matter in our province,” reads a sign placed beside the statue when it was first vandalized and then vanished for five years.

“Though we cannot change the history we have inherited, we can shape the history we wish to leave behind.”

Not a bad placeholder. It took the legislature a long time to look back and figure out a path forward for the Macdonald bronze, one of many debatable statues on the grounds of Queen’s Park.

After all, did not Queen Victoria, whose likeness sits nearby, preside over Britain’s colonial excesses? Where to end?

All three major party leaders have belatedly endorsed the move to liberate Macdonald, as has the new speaker at Queen’s Park, Donna Skelly. That’s a good start.

As a former journalist, Skelly knows well that journalism is often described as the first draft of history. It is subject to many future revisions and rewrites, depending on who is doing the writing.

“I welcome all Ontarians to express their views — peacefully,” she stressed.

History, like statues, cannot be long covered up. Macdonald was an architect of the residential schools system, which led to 150,000 Indigenous children being uprooted from their homes, many subject to abuse and death.

Sol Mamakwa, the sole First Nations MPP in the legislature, was one of those unwilling students in the system. Today, he is among those who oppose the return of Macdonald’s statue, calling for it to be relocated to a museum, out of sight of the legislature.

“It’s a statue of oppression, it is a statue of colonialism, it is a statue of Indian residential schools,” he argues.

Mamakwa is a widely respected NDP parliamentarian who has played a pioneering role in the legislature, not least by advancing the place of Indigenous languages. When he rises to speak in the chamber, a hush falls upon the place.

But when all rise, Mamakwa isn’t always among them. As an Indigenous MPP, he pointedly refuses to stand for the national anthem – which is his absolute right.

My point is that Mamakwa has a world view and an Indigenous view that he comes to honestly and viscerally. Not all Canadians share that view, so his perspective cannot easily be transposed or imposed upon all.

It’s worth noting that Mamakwa’s personal likeness also appears on the grounds of the legislature. An official legislative banner celebrating his role as a trail-blazing politician, holding an eagle’s feather, is placed prominently just a stone’s throw away from the Macdonald bronze.

Imagine if those who opposed Mamakwa’s words and actions were to deface his image on the grounds of the legislature. We would be justly outraged, demanding that police and the legislature’s security officers apprehend the perpetrators.

The legislature and its grounds must remain a place to debate, not deface. For there are views of Macdonald’s place in Canadian history that are also hard to ignore — notably that he played a vital role in founding the country and forging a nation despite the gravitational pull of American influence.

He built a railroad that tied the country together, even as he tore Indigenous nations apart. It is a complicated legacy that demands context but also consultation.

All the more reason to replace the original brass plaque at the base of the Macdonald statue. It hails his historical contributions without contextualizing his depredations.

The old plaque is a sign of the times. Time for an updated draft of Macdonald’s full history from another time — black and white and grey.

Source: It’s the right time to unveil Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue

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Bonner: Repairing the fray: Improving immigration and citizenship policy in Canada

2025/05/28 Leave a comment

Hard to understand why a former staffer with exposure to immigration issues, could advance such naive, politically and in some cases, judicially unrealistic proposals in response to some of the legitimate policy concerns and failures that he points out.

Some examples. Government reorganization into a super ministry would result in significant transition processes and distract from substantive issues. Would any international campaign focussed on values discourage those with other values? No country has had success with pro-birth strategies. Differential time requirements for citizenship would be Charter non-compliant:

….Immigration has been a good thing in the past. It should be in the present and future, too.

This study has three main parts: (1) an exposition of the economic and cultural challenges of mass immigration (including a short history of immigration policy in Canada), (2) a comparative analysis of other immigration systems that we can learn from, and (3) a series of policy options for improving the Canadian system.

To repair Canada’s frayed immigration system, this study makes the case for the following recommendations:

1. Lower the annual permanent residency target to a more manageable level (e.g. 200,000).

2. Strengthen the process of deportation for any non-citizen found guilty of violent crime, supporting terrorism, or expressing hatred for Canada.

3. Execute an international campaign to discourage immigration by anyone unwilling or unable to respect our founding cultures and unwilling or unable to integrate.

4. Prioritize international students pursuing courses of study of high importance to our labour market and supply chains.

5. Re-engineer the points system to emphasize language, age, and domestic education.

6. Consolidate all “population” ministries to create the Ministry of Human Resources Canada (MHRC).

7. Make the main mandate of MHRC to ensure that economic immigration serves the national interest.

8. Require MHRC to implement a pro-birth strategy.

9. Lengthen the time requirement for citizenship, except for immigrants from peer English- and French-speaking countries.

10. Phase down and abolish the Temporary Foreign Worker Program permanently.

11. Establish a uniform standard of credential recognition in self-regulating professions and skilled trades.

We have the right and the obligation to raise the value of Canadian citizenship, and to demand more of our citizens. Above all, however, efforts at integration should proceed not from a dislike of other places, but from a love for Canada….

Source: Repairing the fray: Improving immigration and citizenship policy in Canada

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Mooney: I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

2025/03/20 Leave a comment

Horrific example of bureaucracy at work, implementing the cruel and flawed policies of the Trump administration:

There was no explanation, no warning. One minute, I was in an immigration office talking to an officer about my work visa, which had been approved months before and allowed me, a Canadian, to work in the US. The next, I was told to put my hands against the wall, and patted down like a criminal before being sent to an Ice detention center without the chance to talk to a lawyer….

And that’s when I made a decision: I would never allow myself to feel sorry for my situation again. No matter how hard this was, I had to be grateful. Because every woman I met was in an even more difficult position than mine.

There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning.

If someone is a criminal, I agree they should be taken off the streets. But not one of these women had a criminal record. These women acknowledged that they shouldn’t have overstayed and took responsibility for their actions. But their frustration wasn’t about being held accountable; it was about the endless, bureaucratic limbo they had been trapped in.

The real issue was how long it took to get out of the system, with no clear answers, no timeline and no way to move forward. Once deported, many have no choice but to abandon everything they own because the cost of shipping their belongings back is too high.

I met a woman who had been on a road trip with her husband. She said they had 10-year work visas. While driving near the San Diego border, they mistakenly got into a lane leading to Mexico. They stopped and told the agent they didn’t have their passports on them, expecting to be redirected. Instead, they were detained. They are both pastors.

I met a family of three who had been living in the US for 11 years with work authorizations. They paid taxes and were waiting for their green cards. Every year, the mother had to undergo a background check, but this time, she was told to bring her whole family. When they arrived, they were taken into custody and told their status would now be processed from within the detention center.

Another woman from Canada had been living in the US with her husband who was detained after a traffic stop. She admitted she had overstayed her visa and accepted that she would be deported. But she had been stuck in the system for almost six weeks because she hadn’t had her passport. Who runs casual errands with their passport?

One woman had a 10-year visa. When it expired, she moved back to her home country, Venezuela. She admitted she had overstayed by one month before leaving. Later, she returned for a vacation and entered the US without issue. But when she took a domestic flight from Miami to Los Angeles, she was picked up by Ice and detained. She couldn’t be deported because Venezuela wasn’t accepting deportees. She didn’t know when she was getting out.

There was a girl from India who had overstayed her student visa for three days before heading back home. She then came back to the US on a new, valid visa to finish her master’s degree and was handed over to Ice due to the three days she had overstayed on her previous visa.

There were women who had been picked up off the street, from outside their workplaces, from their homes. All of these women told me that they had been detained for time spans ranging from a few weeks to 10 months. One woman’s daughter was outside the detention center protesting for her release….

The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.

Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.

The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.

This is not just my story. It is the story of thousands and thousands of people still trapped in a system that profits from their suffering. I am writing in the hope that someone out there – someone with the power to change any of this – can help do something.

The strength I witnessed in those women, the love they gave despite their suffering, is what gives me faith. Faith that no matter how flawed the system, how cruel the circumstances, humanity will always shine through.

Even in the darkest places, within the most broken systems, humanity persists. Sometimes, it reveals itself in the smallest, most unexpected acts of kindness: a shared meal, a whispered prayer, a hand reaching out in the dark. We are defined by the love we extend, the courage we summon and the truths we are willing to tell.

Source: I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped

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Christopher Dummitt: Canadians need a proud, not guilt-ridden Canada

2025/03/18 Leave a comment

Ongoing arguments for a needed correction:

…The second key element of any national cultural policy ought to be a more realistic approach to pluralism. Canadians live in a country of different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups. We aren’t unified. But the fundamental error of the last decade was to do diversity wrong — to engage in a downward spiral of national subtraction. Out of a well-intentioned, but horribly mistaken desire to protect certain historically marginalized groups, we kept demoting our national heroes out of a belief that they “harmed” people in the present.

A pragmatic pluralism would recognize that one people’s hero will be another’s villain. This absolutely should not mean dishonouring anyone because one group says they are hurt.

Heritage harm is a choice. No one has to be offended when they walk into a school named after someone whom they don’t respect. Conservatives aren’t psychologically damaged when they fly out of Pearson airport. Nor do Liberals suffer when they tour the Diefenbunker. Francophones don’t need to avert their gaze as they drive through Durham region just because Lord Durham once advocated for their assimilation. And a Wendat/Huron Canadian doesn’t need to feel threatened when driving past Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory just because the Mohawk people once wiped out Huronia.

Any Canadian party that wants to be seriously considered as a defender of the nation should promise a pragmatic pluralism which builds up and doesn’t tear down our country. Each group of Canadians should be allowed to keep their historical heroes. Instead of tearing down John A. Macdonald statues, a new federal government should promise to raise statues of figures like Tecumseh or Big Bear. Canada is a diverse country. We can have a diverse set of historical heroes. No one gets a veto. Individual Canadians can choose to be harmed by a name if they want — but our national government needs to be bigger than this — stronger and more resilient.

What’s more, a third key promise ought to be the adoption of a culturally mature notion of diversity. Canada hasn’t always looked the way it does today. People in the past didn’t think the same or act the same. A responsible national government would take pride and celebrate this diversity.

Canada’s prehistory was dominated by Indigenous peoples who have fascinating histories that long-predate the origins of Canada itself. We ought to celebrate these histories. And this shouldn’t mean just pretending that pre-contact Indigenous peoples were benign environmental-loving hippies. We should tell the more accurate and much more fascinating stories of conflict and war and struggle.

From the time of New France up to the 1960s, most Canadians could trace their ancestors back to two places — France and the British Isles. This is just a fact of history and demography. We don’t need to apologize for it. We were an overwhelming white western European colony. We shouldn’t expect our historical figures for much of our history to represent the diversity of multicultural Canada in 2025. They didn’t, and they don’t.

We could instead celebrate the amazing fact of Canadian governments in the 1960s — first under Diefenbaker and then under Lester Pearson — to remove racism from our immigration system. This was an astounding decision. Most groups, for almost all of human history, have wanted homogeneity — to insist on sameness. It’s not odd that Canada was similar before the 1960s, but it is quite amazing that Canada changed its tune. A build-it-up national cultural policy would celebrate this fact, and the Canadians who came before. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Our heritage should be about building up and adding on, not deleting.

Finally, a more mature approach to diversity would acknowledge that Canadians are sophisticated and not bigoted. They don’t have to share the same identity characteristics of our heroes to appreciate Canadian history. That kind of racial in-group thinking is a barrier to true national belonging. You don’t have to be Black to admire Viola Desmond. You certainly don’t need to be white or German-Canadian to be proud of Diefenbaker’s “One Canada vision” and his championing of a Bill of Rights.

Who will offer this proud Canadian vision? Which party will turn its back on the subtraction-heritage distraction of the last decade?

The way ahead ought to be clear: a vision of the country where pride and dignity comes first; a proud pluralism that allows every Canadian group to have its heroes and its stories; and a mature approach to diversity that assumes a resilient Canadian population, one that sees and celebrates our differences over time, and assumes that any Canadian, regardless of their background or when their ancestors arrived here, can share in the story.

Source: Christopher Dummitt: Canadians need a proud, not guilt-ridden Canada

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Wright: Canadians don’t want to be the 51st state – and Americans don’t really want us

2025/03/11 Leave a comment

Another cathartic column for Canadians:

Canadians owe Donald Trump a debt of thanks. His musings about Canada becoming the 51st state have reminded us why we are Canadians in the first place and why we want to remain Canadians.

Still, it’s worth thinking about some of the legal steps to, and political implications of, a possible Canadian statehood.

First, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. To join the United States, it would have to become a republic. While that’s not impossible, it wouldn’t be easy. Amending the Canadian Constitution in relation to the King or Queen requires unanimous provincial consent. When was the last time all 10 provinces agreed on anything?

And what about Indigenous Peoples

Meanwhile, there are 634 First Nations governments – each with their own relationship with Canada or the Crown. Indeed, one of the mandates of the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs is to recognize and implement “treaties concluded between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples.”

If it’s difficult to imagine Indigenous Peoples agreeing to give up their treaty rights, it’s equally difficult to imagine the U.S. negotiating new treaties and nation-to-nation relationships with 634 First Nations.

For its part, Quebec will never agree to give up the substantial power and real sovereignty it has as a province, even if every other province agreed to – which they won’t. In defence of their borders and the French language, Quebecers would likely secede from Canada long before any serious move towards Canadian statehood – and who could blame them?

Of course, this assumes that American lawmakers want a 51st state – and they don’t. Certainly, Republican lawmakers don’t, for the same reason they don’t want Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. to become states.

Each state has two senators and it’s a safe bet that both Canadian senators would be Democrats or be from a separate party that would caucus with the Democrats. The GOP cannot risk becoming a minority in a closely divided Senate.

When Hawaii joined as the 50th state in 1959, there was a lot of handwringing, especially in the Jim Crow South. For example, a Mississippi senator insisted that Hawaii’s admission would mean “two votes for socialized medicine, two votes for government ownership of industry, two votes against all racial segregation and two votes against the South on all social matters.”

Canada: A potential Republican wasteland 

Republican senators have similar arguments against admitting Canada – two votes for universal, single-payer health care, two votes for abortion rights, two votes for LGBTQ+ rights, two votes for multiculturalism, two votes for science, two votes for vaccines, two votes for climate policies and two votes against tax cuts for the wealthy.

Each U.S. state also has members in the House of Representatives, according to its population. If Quebec doesn’t secede, Canada would be the most populous state in the U.S., giving it as many as 55 seats in the House which, with Canada’s admission, would have about 490 seats. If Quebec does secede, Canada would be the second most populous state, giving it as many as 45 seats.

Not all Canadian representatives would be Democrats or from a party that would caucus with them, but the majority would be, providing the Democratic Party with control over the House of Representatives into the foreseeable future.

Finally, the White House: Does anyone really think that Canadians would vote for the Republican Party in its current incarnation? Some would, but the majority wouldn’t.

In the last federal election, about 60 per cent of Canadians voted for the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois or the Green Party – all centre and centre-left parties. Even if Quebec secedes, most Canadian voters still lean centre or centre-left.

In America’s winner-takes-all presidential election, Canada’s roughly 50 electoral college votes would go to the Democratic candidate, not enough to guarantee a Democratic victory when approximately 590 electoral votes would be up for grabs, but enough to permanently narrow the GOP’s path to victory.

If Canada does become part of the United States, it won’t be as a state. It will be as an occupied territory and occupations never end well for the occupier – something Americans understand after 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bottom line: Canadians don’t want to become the 51st state and the Americans don’t want us anyways, which leaves us with Donald Trump, a troll with a large following on social media trying to own the libs and get under our skin.

My advice? Ignore him and get on with the related tasks of peace, order and good government and managing the economic fallout of his tariffs.

Source: Canadians don’t want to be the 51st state – and Americans don’t really want us

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Terry Glavin: B.C. doesn’t need to atone for its origins

2024/08/07 Leave a comment

Useful reminder that history and context have nuance:

…British Columbia’s origins owe little to even the most conventional narrative lines that have explained Canadian history.

While the HBC was a pivotal player in B.C.’s early years, it was never much about beaver pelts and furs. The HBC trade was concentrated in tierces and hogsheads of salted salmon. While the Métis were key players in the HBC brigade trails, a third of the HBC workforce west of the Rockies were Hawaiians.

The westward expansion of the Dominion of Canada involved the establishment of provinces by federal law, but that pattern stopped at the Rockies. B.C.’s story runs mostly north-south, and like Newfoundland, B.C. was a self-governing Crown colony that joined Confederation, for good or ill, on its own.

The story of B.C’s colonial survival against the backdrop of overwhelming American military and population pressure is a story written almost entirely by Douglas’s sheer will and force of personality. Douglas was himself a “coloured” person, the son of Martha Ann Ritchie, a free Creole from Barbados, and John Douglas, a Scottish merchant and planter from Glasgow. James’s wife, Lady Amelia Douglas, was the daughter of a Swampy Cree woman and an Irishman from Lachine, Que.

In 1858, when a war broke out between the Nlaka’pamux people and American miners in the Fraser Canyon, Douglas unilaterally annexed the mainland as a British colony in advance of London’s formal declaration. That’s one of history’s ironies. Far from being about stealing Indigenous land, B.C. was established in order to protect Indigenous people from heavily-armed American marauders and to secure to the Indigenous people of the Fraser River all the rights of British subjects.

In 1859, when an American military regiment occupied one of the Southern Gulf Islands in a clear violation of the boundary provisions in the Oregon Treaty, Douglas told the HBC’s Angus McDonald that if the Americans didn’t stay put, he would mobilize “fifty thousand Indian riflemen at Victoria.”

After the American Civil War broke out in April 1861, Douglas suggested to the colonial office in London that he would be glad to lead an expeditionary force to take back the Columbia territory that had fallen to the Americans 20 years earlier, and to keep on going, all the way to San Francisco Bay.

A great part of the success of British Columbia’s early settlement was owing to Douglas’s largely cordial relations with the Indigenous peoples within the colonial ambit. For one thing, Douglas and the Royal Navy were formidable allies to the Coast Salish people against the slave-raiding tribes from further up the coast. For another thing, the Indigenous leadership was fully aware of what had happened once the Americans moved into what would become Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

There was the Cayuse War, the Klamath War, the Salmon River War, the Yakima War, and the Nisqually War.

In Douglas’s vision of a successful colony, the tribes would be not be disturbed in their customary laws, their villages and enclosed fields would be protected along with their rights to hunt and fish “as formerly,” and there would be no removals to reservations. Indigenous people were to have the same rights as any settler and would be full participants in the emerging economy.

It was only because of the insistence of the Colonial Office in London that funds for treaty-making had to be raised locally that Douglas managed to secure only 14 treaties with First Nations on Southern Vancouver Island. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Victoria and Ottawa secured another treaty — with the Nisga’a people of the Nass Valley. Most of B.C. remains without benefit of treaty even now.

Despite the perilous challenges Douglas faced in his day, for the most part, peace prevailed.

In his articulation of how a proper colony should be managed, Douglas made clear that medical care would be denied no one on the basis of race or status, child labour would not be tolerated, common-law marriages should be recognized and public charity should be encouraged. Importantly, slavery, which was a commonplace Indigenous practice, would not be tolerated.

And so, for a time, a peaceable kingdom prevailed on what was to become Canada’s West Coast. Its multiculturalism emerged organically more than a century before it was conjured in the Canadian imagination as the invention of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, later mutating into the “diversity, equity and inclusion” regime strictly enforced by his son, Justin.

It’s why James and Amelia’s children were baptized in several Christian traditions — Catholic, Anglican and Methodist. It’s why the Congregation Emanu-El on Victoria’s Blanshard Street is the oldest continuously-occupied synagogue in Canada. Its cornerstone was laid in 1863. Many if not most of the synagogue’s original fundraising subscribers were gentiles.

When Lumley Franklin was elected mayor of Victoria in 1865, he became the first Jewish mayor in North America. In 1871, the year B.C. joined Confederation, Victoria voters sent Wharf Street merchant Henry Nathan to Ottawa. He was Canada’s first Jewish member of Parliament.

This is not a history that requires atonement, penitential reflection or some “long overdue reckoning.”

It’s certainly not entirely a happy story. But it’s nothing to be ashamed of, either.

Source: Terry Glavin: B.C. doesn’t need to atone for its origins

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What struck my attention when away

2024/06/18 Leave a comment

Immigration

Century Initiative’s 100 million population goal by year 2100 was meant to be provocative – and isn’t a target – CEO says

Appears to be flailing around given that their fundamental arguments appear to have failed:

Ms. Lalande said the 100 million population goal for 2100 “was meant to be provocative and bold” and to “spark an economic recharge.” The ultimate objective isn’t to see a specific population number by 2100, she said, but for Canada to be strategic and thoughtful in planning for growth.

“We don’t believe that growth should happen at all costs,” she said, saying the 100 million figure “was meant to galvanize the conversation and to spark debate and discussion of what the country could be and how we need to get there.”

But she warned against curtailing immigration, saying “that approach would result in an aging, less-skilled work force, less foreign investment, less diversity and less influence” globally.

Source: Century Initiative’s 100 million population goal by year 2100 was meant to be provocative – and isn’t a target – CEO says

Government criticized for limiting immigration sponsorships to four-year-old list

Never possible to satisfy demand:

Immigrants who came to Canada with the hope that their parents or grandparents could one day join them say they feel cheated after the federal government opened a sponsorship lottery this month drawing from a four-year-old list of applicants.

They are upset because Ottawa decided to allow around 30,000 sponsorships this year, but excluded applicants from joining the program if they had not registered an interest in 2020.

Some told The Globe and Mail that if they can’t successfully sponsor their relatives at some point, they may have to leave this country themselves to take care of them.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is sending out 35,700 randomly selected invitations to Canadian citizens and permanent residents to apply for the Parents and Grandparents Program (PGP).

The invitations are drawn from a list of 200,000 people who expressed an interest in sponsoring their relatives in 2020.

Not everyone who receives an invitation to apply will submit a PGP application; however, IRCC said it ultimately expects around 32,000 grandparents and parents to qualify for permanent residence….

Source: Government criticized for limiting immigration sponsorships to four-year-old list

Caregivers from abroad to be given permanent residence on arrival under new pilot programs

Of note, addressing some past concerns:

The pilots, which are enhanced versions of two programs set to expire on June 17, will put qualified nannies, child-care and home-support workers on a fast track to settling in Canada.

Caregivers working for organizations that provide temporary or part-time care for people who are semi-independent or recovering from an injury or illness will also qualify under the new programs, which Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said will later become permanent.

Canada will admit more than 15,000 caregivers as permanent residents in the next two years, as part of Canada’s overall immigration targets, according to IRCC.

“Caregivers play a critical role in supporting Canadian families, and our programs need to reflect their invaluable contributions,” Mr. Miller said in a statement….

Source: Caregivers from abroad to be given permanent residence on arrival under new pilot programs

Canada needs an Immigrant Bill of Rights

Hard to see how adding another layer will necessarily improve processing and client service compared to addressing systemic issues:

This is why in a new report entitled Let’s Clean Up Our Act, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA) encourages the federal government to introduce an Immigrant Bill of Rights to provide newcomers with greater protection and an enhanced experience. 

We also believe the Immigrant Bill of Rights should be complemented by introducing an Ombudsperson for Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). 

These recommendations are far from novel or controversial.  

Numerous federal departments and agencies already have a bill of rights and/or ombudspersons.  

Source: Canada needs an Immigrant Bill of Rights

Tasha Kheiriddin: Brace for a possible tsunami of illegal migrants if Trump is re-elected

So almost a dedicated stream and pathway to citizenship? But that would require Canadian residency for at least three years, not “just being on our side:”

So what can Canada do that is positive? Apart from planning for these specific eventualities, Heyman suggests that we process as many Americans as possible for the equivalent of an American H1 Visa to Canada — not necessarily to live here, but to have a Canadian passport in their pocket and advocate for our country south of the border. “You’ve got a generational opportunity to get the top talent, people with means and skills, on your side — and possibly into your country,” Heyman said. A silver lining, perhaps, but the tsunami still looms.

Source: Tasha Kheiriddin: Brace for a possible tsunami of illegal migrants if Trump is re-elected

Rioux | «It’s the immigration, stupid!»

On the results and aftermath of the European Parliament elections and the political shakeout in France:

Son coup de tête a déjà provoqué le rassemblement de la gauche autour de son aile la plus radicale (La France insoumise) qui se complaît dans une forme de romantisme révolutionnaire flirtant avec l’antisémitisme et les appels à la violence. À droite, il a accéléré l’éclatement des Républicains, dont les jours étaient comptés, au profit d’un RN portant certes des revendications partagées par la majorité des Français, mais sans expérience ni cadres chevronnés et dont le programme économique est pour le moins boiteux.

Derrière l’apparence du combat des extrêmes, ne serions-nous pas en train de découvrir le nouveau visage de ce que sont tout simplement devenues, après une période d’effacement, la gauche et la droite ? Pour le dire simplement, la nouvelle gauche est aujourd’hui plutôt multiculturelle, wokiste et décoloniale. La nouvelle droite, plutôt nationaliste, souverainiste et conservatrice.

Dans la fureur et le chaos, nous assistons non seulement au retour de l’opposition entre droite et gauche, mais peut-être aussi de l’alternance sans laquelle aucune démocratie ne saurait survivre.

Source: Chronique | «It’s the immigration, stupid!»

Antisemitism, Israel Hamas war

Abella: What happened to the legacy of Nuremberg and the liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect?

Well worth reading:

To paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc of the moral universe may be long, but it does not always bend towards justice. And that means that too many children will never get to grow up, period – let alone in a moral universe that bends toward justice and the just rule of law.

I used to see the arc of my own life bending assertively from Nuremberg to ever-widening spheres of justice, but in this unrelenting climate of hate, I feel the hopeful arc turning into a menacing circle.

We need to stop yelling at each other and start listening, so that we can reclaim ownership of the compassionate liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect, and to put humanity back in charge by replacing global hate with global hope.

My life started in a country where there had been no democracy, no rights, no justice. It instilled a passionate belief in me that those of us lucky enough to be alive and free have a particular duty to our children to do everything possible to make the world safer for them than it was for their parents and grandparents, so that all children, regardless of race, religion or gender, can wear their identities with pride, in dignity, and in peace.

Source: What happened to the legacy of Nuremberg and the liberal democratic values we fought the Second World War to protect?

Regg Cohn: Doug Ford isn’t the only one who has fumbled on antisemitism

Also well worth reading by those who have no answers to these questions:

To be sure, critics of Israel — of which I am one — are not necessarily anti-Israeli (or anti-Jewish). But a good many are so adamantly opposed to the existence of the state of Israel, for reasons of history or bigotry, that you have to ask:

Where would those millions of Jews go? Back to Poland, as some like to taunt? Here to Canada, where they feel increasingly besieged? Stay where they are in a single state where “Palestine shall be free, from the river to the sea,” subsuming and consuming the Jewish state?

Israel is guilty of many sins during its long decades of occupation, although neither side is blameless about missed opportunities. After the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 Jews and the taking of hostages, Israel’s overreaction and overreach transformed a just war of defence into a war without justifiable limits.

Source: Doug Ford isn’t the only one who has fumbled on antisemitism

Lederman: The banning of an Israeli-American graphic novelist shows how some arts organizations are rushing to judgment

Exclusion is not the answer except in extreme cases where it crosses into hate speech:

With Israel and Hamas at war, there has been so much screaming at one another, across a widening divide. What could be accomplished by having actual conversations?

This isn’t the only instance of selective targeting of Israeli, Jewish or Palestinian artists by arts organizations. With festival and awards season approaching in the fall, there is reason to fear more exclusions to come.

Source: The banning of an Israeli-American graphic novelist shows how some arts organizations are rushing to judgment

Citizenship

Mansour: Citizenship in the Multicultural State

Interesting evolution by Mansour compared to his earlier writings:

In conclusion, it might be said that the generation of 1968 was a pioneer generation in the making of a new political agenda that goes beyond the attachment to the state of which a citizen is a member. Canada has contributed to this agenda, internationalist and multicultural, through the social changes that have occurred in the years since its centenary anniversary. As a result, Canadians are in the midst of emerging new sensibilities that are more open to the world, more receptive of other cultures, more inclined to accepting international law and adjusting domestic statutes to that requirement. These changes render older political arrangements less meaningful in the twenty-first century.

Source: Citizenship in the Multicultural State

Foreign interference

Three article of interest of foreign interference and the shameful “witting” involvement of some MPs

‘Witting’ involvement changes the nature of foreign interference

NSICOP doesn’t name the parliamentarians who are witting participants in foreign interference. It raises a question about parliamentarians. It calls on the government to brief MPs about interference – and warns MPs to “reduce their vulnerabilities.”

And once again, it is another report telling the public that the Canadian government has not done enough to counter the threat of foreign interference. If anything, those warnings have grown louder.

This time, what a committee of parliamentarians has told us in clearer terms than ever is that the threat of interference from abroad includes participants here in Canada, inside Parliament, who have something to gain from dealing with foreign actors.

Source: ‘Witting’ involvement changes the nature of foreign interference

Coyne: We need to know the names of the traitor MPs, but don’t count on any of the parties to give them up

The Liberals’ tactic of deny, delay and deflect – first denying the allegations, then, when they can no longer be denied, denying they matter – has proved largely successful. Polls show that foreign interference ranks low on the public’s list of important issues. The Opposition is likely to take the hint. It was to their advantage to demand a public inquiry, so long as the government refused – and so long as they could be assured its findings would only stick to the government. But now? What’s in it for them?

For that matter, the same might apply to certain sections of the media: The report refers to Chinese officials “interfering with Canadian media content via direct engagement with Canadian media executives and journalists,” while a redacted passage cites “examples of the PRC paying to publish media articles without attribution.”

So if none of the parties is keen on turning over this rock, if law enforcement are unwilling and the media nervous – Mr. Dong’s lawsuit against Global News will have had a useful chilling effect – then the betting proposition has to be that nothing will happen. None of the MPs involved will be prosecuted, or named, or face consequences of any kind. And the public will shrug. Experience has taught them that, in this country, nobody ever faces consequences for this kind of thing.

Unless … unless a lone MP stands up in the House and names the names.

Source: We need to know the names of the traitor MPs, but don’t count on any of the parties to give them up

Yakabuski | L’ingérence étrangère et l’indifférence libérale

Tout au plus, la vice-première ministre, Chrystia Freeland, a-t-elle promis que les libéraux effectueraient « un suivi interne » dans la foulée du rapport. Comme son collègue à la Sécurité publique, elle n’a pas semblé désireuse d’aller au fond des choses. Est-ce parce que le caucus libéral compte beaucoup de députés issus des communautés culturelles qui entretiennent des relations étroites avec les représentants au Canada des gouvernements de leurs pays d’origine ? Certains de ces députés craignent, avec ou sans raison, une chasse aux sorcières dans la foulée du rapport McGuinty.

« La garantie que je peux donner aux Canadiens est que notre gouvernement prend très, très au sérieux l’ingérence étrangère », a réitéré cette semaine Mme Freeland. Or, la réaction du gouvernement au dernier rapport laisse, encore une fois, une impression contraire.

Source: Chronique | L’ingérence étrangère et l’indifférence libérale

Other

Hindutva ideology proved costly for India’s Narendra Modi

Of note:

The decade-long entrenchment of far-right ideologies in India, an over-focus on dividing Hindus and Muslims and on wealth generation for the rich eroded the country’s human rights record, judicial autonomy and press freedom.

That people with the least individual power were able to collectively push back against plans of the most powerful has rekindled the flame of democracy domestically and fanned hopes of resistance against tyranny globally.

Source: Hindutva ideology proved costly for India’s Narendra Modi

A Plea for Depth Over Dismissal

Agree:

To be clear, this article is not a plea for a return to scorecard history. Scorecard history is not a sound approach either. For, in the end, history is a qualitative discipline. Ranking prime ministers, or anyone else for that matter, is a silly exercise. Good deeds and bad deeds cannot be weighted and tallied up so that some final score can be determined. For that matter, categorizing deeds as good or bad in the first place flattens a great deal of complexity, like intentionality or unforeseen consequences, and it is precisely in that great universe of gray that real insights can be found. Insights into continuities between past and present, into how politics work in practice, and into the most accurate assessments of legacy. For the legacy of most leaders, much like the legacy of the policy of multiculturalism, will be neither entirely beneficial nor detrimental. But through a rigorous, nuanced, and deep examination of the lives and legacies of politicians and their policies, we stand to learn much about our country’s past – and its present too.

Daniel R. Meister is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick. He is the author of The Racial Mosaic (MQUP 2021).

Source: A Plea for Depth Over Dismissal

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Lynn McDonald: A new museum to reclaim our history from those who want to topple it

2023/06/08 Leave a comment

The appropriate counter reaction?

Winnipeg is justly proud of its Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which opened in 2014, but we need a new museum in Canada to flag current concerns: a Canadian Museum of Misinformation, or possibly the Canadian Propaganda Museum. Whatever the title, Toronto deserves to have it.

The statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in front of the provincial legislature, Queen’s Park, is currently boarded up. Of the nine other Macdonald statues in the country, only the one on Parliament Hill is still in view. The others were put into storage, often after being defaced or, as with statue in Montreal, beheaded.

Toronto can also boast about beheading the statue of Egerton Ryerson, who brought us free public  schools and free public libraries. The misinformation on him amounts to reversing his pro-Indigenous work — he was named a “brother” by an Ojibway chief and given an Ojibway name for his support. Yet at what was then known as Ryerson University, he was condemned as being responsible for the Indian residential school system.

Toronto’s other great trump card in the misinformation game is Dundas Street, which was named after Henry Dundas, whose work as a lawyer led to the abolition of slavery in Scotland in 1778. Yet his Toronto detractors — thousands signed a petition against him — make him responsible for delaying the abolition of the slave trade in 1792.

His supposed offence was to get an amendment adopted in the British House of Commons to make abolition gradual. A motion tabled in the previous year, 1791, for immediate abolition failed miserably, 163-88. And, as a statement of opinion, rather than a law, it would have had no effect.

Detractors, however, like to have a culprit to blame, as opposed to the many economic and political circumstances at play, in this case the French Revolutionary Wars, which meant that the Royal Navy had to be on guard against invasion from two pro-slavery countries — France and Spain.

Dundas understood, as other well-meaning advocates for abolition did not, that the slave trade could not be ended by passing a law in one country. Slave owners in the West Indies could simply buy new enslaved people from ships carrying false papers and a false flag — Spain, Portugal and France all continued their slave-trading businesses.

Yet in 2021, Toronto city council adopted a motion to rename Dundas Street, without even holding the public inquiry promised by both council and the mayor.

What to put in the museum? A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald is a must, and the one taken down in Victoria would be ideal. The mayor of Victoria at the time had it removed to prevent it from being vandalized.

A particularly fine statue, it was commissioned by the Sir John A. Macdonald Historical Society and given to the city. The society is now looking for a home for it in Glasgow, Scotland, where Macdonald was born. Toronto should speak up before it’s too late.

The new museum should also display the Ryerson statue, either in its parts (oh the shame) or put together again. For educational purposes, the plaque placed next to it at the university should be displayed at the museum.

It makes the accusation that Ryerson was “instrumental in the design and implementation of the residential school system,” when he had nothing to do with either — rather, he supported the voluntary, bilingual day schools that Indigenous parents and leaders wanted.

The task force that recommended dropping the Ryerson name from the university and permanently removing his statue did so on the basis that he was “associated” with the residential schools. It provided no evidence for such a charge, nor is any available. His lack of responsibility for residential schools was confirmed at a meeting of the university’s senate on Oct. 5, 2021, after the board of governors announced the name change.

It would be important for the museum to set out the sequence of accusations, who made them and any evidence for or against them. It would be highly desirable, as well, for the museum to reveal the university’s concerted efforts to prevent any information getting out about what communications it received for and against the name change.

Otherwise, we have to take it on faith, just as on Chinese interference in Canadian elections, and without even a former governor general to assure us that we can believe what we are told

Lynn McDonald is a former member of Parliament and a fellow with the Royal Historical Society.

Source: Lynn McDonald: A new museum to reclaim our history from those who want to topple it

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

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