McMartin: How long must I live in Canada before I am no longer a colonist or settler?

2025/11/18 1 Comment

Valid concern. I am always amused by op-eds or articles by new arrivals who adopt this language, apparently not considering some of the hypocrisy involved:

…In the modern context — in the context in which William’s history and, by association, my history are now being refigured — William’s emigration to Canada was not the stuff of dire need, or daring in the face of events beyond his control, or the stuff of nation-building. There is no recognition, appreciation or accounting of William as an individual dealing with forces greater than himself.

But there is government-sanctioned shame and remorse.

And the indelible stain of trespass.

And the attendant name-calling of “colonialist,” “occupier,” and “settler” — all meant not only to demonize William’s and my history, but to delegitimize it. There are the performative apologies that, while purporting to recognize that this stage play or children’s Christmas concert is taking place on the unceded territory of the local First Nation, they really serve to remind us that all non-Indigenous history is one of thievery.

And I get it.

And to a great degree I agree, because the fury and anger of the Indigenous Peoples in Canada is justified. The history is undeniable. The deaths, displacement and Eurocentric supremacist racism suffered by the Indigenous Peoples took place, and is still taking place. And I cannot deny the fact that my family prospered under the rule of successive colonial and post-Confederation governments while those governments marginalized Indigenous populations.

But.

While enlightened initiatives like truth and reconciliation speak well of Canada’s attempt to heal long-standing wounds, there is the real danger here that reconciliation can quickly become resentment and retrenchment, as we have seen in the U.S. and in Europe, where hard-right political parties, fighting race and cultural wars, have ridden popular resentment to the top of the polls and formed governments….

Source: Opinion: How long must I live in Canada before I am no longer a colonist or settler?

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Vancouver: Is racism part of the housing issue? Of course it is

2016/07/12 1 Comment

Not sure really what Pete McMartin really wants to say here beyond that yes, part of the reaction has racist overtones, but that does not diminish the underlying economic issues and concerns regarding the affordability of housing:

But what this most recent offering by the government has done, and the critics’ and public reaction to it, is bring us closer to a truth of a different kind. Finally, we’re getting to the crux of the matter. It’s about the nature of the remedy to our housing “crisis” as the critics and many members of the public see it. It’s not a vacancy tax they want, or a tax on foreign ownership, neither of which would do much to cool the market, anyway. They want to rewrite the rules of immigration and tax law, and close the door. (Or as they put it: It’s Chinese money, not Chinese immigrants, that has created this market. Which makes me wonder exactly how they would go about separating the two.)

Is that racist? 

Of course it’s racist. And if it didn’t begin as racist, as housing and real estate critics insist it did not, that it was purely an economic issue, that it’s not the colour of the homebuyers’ skin that mattered but the colour of their money, then the prolonged and lop-sided take on the matter in the media and in public opinion has made it racist.

It speaks for itself that we regard this huge infusion of capital into Metro Vancouver’s real estate market as a disaster rather than an unprecedented creation of wealth for British Columbians and the B.C. economy — which is now, not coincidentally, the best-performing in Canada. We have cultivated an Us Against Them dynamic — Them being the devious, dirty-monied, tax-avoiding, Maserati-driving, heritage-home-destroying, self-ghettoizing Chinese who steal into Canada through our immigration loopholes, outbid us for our housing, and abuse the social welfare state that we have created. We, of course, cast ourselves as innocent bystanders in all this rather than accomplices, despite the fact that not 20 or 30 years ago we were doing everything we could to attract Asian money to B.C. because of our hope to become world-class and globally competitive, and to lift us out of the cycles of boom and bust that British Columbians had suffered. How soon we conveniently forget. What did we think Expo 86 was, if not a door swung wide open?

Now? It’s no longer a matter of housing. It’s a matter of culture and race in an increasing climate of mutual resentment — or perhaps you haven’t noticed the flood of spittle-flecked comments at the end of media stories about how we’ve been selling Canada off to the Chinese. And the remedy — one that is finally beginning to coalesce and make itself clear — is one not unlike the Chinese head tax of 1885. It’s the head tax stood on its head. In 1885, we wanted to keep the Chinese out because they were too poor and too numerous and would steal our jobs. Now, we want to keep them out because they are too rich and too numerous and would steal our homes.

We should admit to that. We should own up to that racially tinged resentment. I certainly will. I’ve felt resentment when I see an 18-year-old Chinese kid driving a Ferrari down the street with an “N” on its back bumper, and I’ve felt resentment at the thought of wealthy immigrants living in Point Grey mansions who declare incomes low enough to qualify for GAIN payments. 

But then, I’ve also felt resentment at the many born-in-Canada professionals who, long before the wealthy Chinese got here, avoided paying taxes by incorporating themselves or by hiding their money offshore, while I ended up owing more taxes at the end of the year. And I’ve felt resentment, too, for an old-stock wealthy class which in the past didn’t give a damn whether or not I could afford to live in Vancouver until they saw their own neighbourhoods besieged by an even wealthier class.

Small of me? You bet. But I’m trying to honest here.

Source: Is racism part of the housing issue? Of course it is | Vancouver Sun

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