Respect our values or Leave

[raymao]

Thank you mainerjohnthomas. This is the way I feel as well. I cannot connect with any other culture than that of a Canadian. I do not fly flags of other nations. I have heard some stories while growing up about my parent's description of what it was for them to grow up, but they made their experiences 'foreign' to me, as they always imparted that our experiences would be different being born in Canada. One thing was always instilled into us. We are Canadians, nothing else. We can tell people about our parents that came from different nations, but our association with those nations are strictly through our parents. Our parents told us, that if we always remember this, then no one, could ever try and claim we are less Canadian. And, trust me, we're not less Canadian in any way.

When I told my parents I was considering a career in the military, they gave me their support. Did they do this, because they are proud their son will become a soldier? Probably not, having preached about peace, and always being kind to your fellow man, I'm sure this is not the reason why. They were supportive because they understand the role that Canadians play on a global scale, and the manner in which the rest of the world look at Canadians. They understand, especially hearing news of late, that there are distinct possibilities I may come in harms way. But they also understand, that Canada would never send their troops into harm's way for a cause that would not be worth fighting for.

In regards to Kirkhill, yes the British are responsible for the core of what Canada has become. Yes they have a great legacy, and I'm sure my parents had been imparted with that knowledge long before they even came to Canada. My father had a British passport in 1964 coming into Canada from Guyana. But, without disrespect for the good they have done, there are plenty of things that the British have done that would rather be forgotten. The Brits' introduced beliefs and institutions into our history, but I'd like to think Canada kept the best qualities and improved on the rest. If you call what we have Canadian, I agree and support. If you mention some other nation in your praise of this nation, I look at you a little differently. This does not mean I don't appreciate the history. But, history is no where as significant as the present.

In regards to nations I can attribute to in my bloodlines with my parents coming from Guyana and the Philippines, there is Holland, India, China, and Spain. My daughter can add Britain, France and Germany to that list. Can you imagine the confusion in allegiance if we didn't associate ourselves as being only Canadian.

p.s. mainerjohnthomas, my mother's side of the family in the Philippines has a few members active in their military. Most notably is my first cousin Jessie Dellosa. You can find his name on Google, in March of 2002 he lead 60 elite Philippine Scout Rangers against 20 members of the Abu Sayyaf group, linked to the international al-Qaida network. He was a Colonel back then, but we have heard that he has now attained the rank of General in the Philippines.

 

[Kirkhill]

raymao:

Canada is Canada and I am a Canadian.  However I cannot forget where I was born nor from who I came.  I admit I am particularly touchy on this issue as, while a great amount of effort has been made to make other newcomers welcome to Canada, I as a Brit in this country was given ample opportunity to reflect on the evils of my ancestors I was given fewer opportunities to appreciate the advantages that they left behind, not least of which was a population that was open to newcomers and tolerant of their beliefs.

 

[raymao]

raymao:
I admit I am particularly touchy on this issue as, while a great amount of effort has been made to make other newcomers welcome to Canada, I as a Brit in this country was given ample opportunity to reflect on the evils of my ancestors I was given fewer opportunities to appreciate the advantages that they left behind, not least of which was a population that was open to newcomers and tolerant of their beliefs.

Since you are a Brit in this country, I am sorry you feel like you were not given an opportunity that allowed you to appreciate the advantages your ancestors left behind. I was born in this country, and when I was 5 years old I remember travelling overseas with my parents. I can remember foreigners associating my Canadian birth with British ties as far back as then. Going to public school in Canada, I remember ample courses on the forging nations that created Canada, and Britain was number one. I look around me today, and I find many of Canada's protected historic landmarks to be filled with British history and influence. The laws we discuss in universities and the business ties we speak of most often are either related with America or the UK, our media's focus on events that occur in Britain on a daily basis. I'm sorry. I just can't see how this could happen with you, nor can I understand newcomers missing these crucial matters when considering Canada as a place they wish to immigrate to. I'm not sure exactly what the process may be for immigration since I was born here and have no desires of immigrating anywhere, but I would imagine, when someone has the desire to leave their country of birth they probably learn a lot about the country they wish to move to. I don't think they simply reach into a hat and leave for that country the next morning.

Remember, I support many of the ideas of protecting what is Canadian. I simply wanted you to identify what being a Canadian is all about. Just this morning I was joking with one of my roomates, I told him he could use the ladle for the soup that I had left on the counter. He looked at me funny, and said, "ladle?" and I responded, "yes, ladle... what do you call it?" He replied back with a surprising answer, "I just call it what I call it in my own language." I started laughing, and in my best East Indian accent I responded, "welcome to Canada."

There is nothing wrong with not forgetting where you 'come' from. It is a different story all together when you think where you came from has more significance than where someone else came from. Your origins may have had greater contributions than the origins of others but in no way reflects your 'own' contribution. This takes on an entirely different role for those that wear a uniform that represents our national mandate. For all of those that serve in the armed forces, they no longer represent individuals, instead they represent a nation of people. This is entirely different. All people have to respect what is Canadian. Let me be the first one to tell any new newcomer... they can go back to wherever they came from if they feel any different. Just make sure your concept of what is Canadian, truly reflects our country.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I am resurrecting a very old thread because I think this opinion piece, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, fits better here than in newer threads:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/why-are-islamic-extremists-obsessed-with-female-bodies/article1341218/

Why are Islamic extremists obsessed with female bodies?
Fanatics view women as objects - of pleasure, temptation and sin - and use strictness toward them as an easy form of religious struggle

Alaa Al Aswany

The Shabaab movement in Somalia controls large parts of the south and centre of the country, and because officials in this movement embrace the Wahhabi ideology, they have imposed their views on Somalis by force and have issued strict decrees banning films, plays, dancing at weddings, football matches and all forms of music, even the ring tones on mobile phones.

Some days ago, these Islamic extremists carried out a strange operation: They arrested a Somali woman and whipped her in public because she was wearing a bra. They announced clearly that wearing bras was un-Islamic because it is a form of fraud and deception.

We may well ask what wearing bras has to do with religion, why they would consider them to be a form of fraud and deception and how they managed to arrest the woman wearing the bra when all Somali women go around with their bodies completely covered. Did they appoint a special female officer to inspect the breasts of women passing by in the street?

One Somali woman called Halima told the Reuters news agency: "Al-Shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts. ... They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women's chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat."

EXCESSIVE INTEREST

In fact, this excessive interest in covering up women's bodies is not confined to the extremists in Somalia.

In Sudan, the police examine women's clothing with extreme vigilance and arrest any woman who is wearing trousers. They force her to make a public apology for what she has done and then they whip her in public as an example to other women.

Some weeks ago, Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein insisted on wearing trousers and refused to make the public apology. When she refused to submit to flogging, she was referred to a real trial and the farce reached its climax when the judge summoned three witnesses and asked them if they had been able to detect the shape of the accused's underwear when she was wearing the trousers.

When one of the witnesses hesitated in answering, the judge asked him directly: "Did you see Lubna's stomach when she was wearing the trousers?"

The witness gravely replied: "To some extent."

Ms. Hussein said she was wearing a modest pair of trousers and that the scandalous pair she was accused of wearing would not suit her at all because she is plump and would need to lose 20 kilograms in order to put them on.

The judge convicted her anyway and fined her 500 pounds or a month in prison.

In Egypt, too, extremists continue to take an excessive interest in women's bodies and in trying to cover them up entirely. They advocate not only that women wear the niqab, but also that they wear gloves, believing they will ensure that no passions are aroused when men and women shake hands.

We really do face a phenomenon that deserves consideration: Why are Islamic extremists so obsessed with women's bodies?

POSSIBLE ANSWERS

Some ideas might help us answer this question.

First, the extremist view of women is that they are only bodies and instruments for either legitimate pleasure or temptation, as well as factories for producing children. This view strips women of their human nature.

Accusing the Somali woman of fraud and deception because she was wearing a bra is the same charge of commercial fraud that the law holds against a merchant who conceals the defects of his goods and makes false claims about their qualities in order to sell them at a higher price. The idea here is that a woman who accentuates her breasts by using a bra gives a false impression of the goods (her body), which is seen as fraud and deception of the buyer (the man) who might buy (marry) her for her ample breasts and later discover that they were ample because of the bra and not by nature.

It would be fair to remember that treating women's bodies as commodities is not something found only in extremist ideologies, but often happens in Western societies, too. The use of women's naked bodies to market commercial products in the West is merely another application of the idea that women are commodities. Anyone who visits the red-light district in Amsterdam can see for himself how wretched prostitutes, completely naked, are lined up behind glass windows so that passersby can inspect their charms before agreeing on the price. Isn't that a modern-day slave market, where women's bodies are on sale to anyone willing to pay?

Second, the extremists believe women to be the source of temptation and the prime cause of sin. This view, which is prevalent in all primitive societies, is unfair and inhuman, because men and women commit sin together and the responsibility is shared and equal. If a beautiful woman arouses and tempts men, then a handsome man also arouses and tempts women. But the extremist ideology is biased in favour of the man and hostile to the woman, and considers that she alone is primarily responsible for all sins.

Third, being strict about covering up women's bodies is an easy and effortless form of religious struggle. In Egypt, we see dozens of Wahhabi sheiks who enthusiastically advocate covering up women's bodies, but do not utter a single word against despotism, corruption, fraud or torture because they know very well that serious opposition to the despotic regime (which should really be their first duty) would inevitably lead to their arrest, torture and the destruction of their lives. Their strictness on things related to women's bodies enables them to operate as evangelists without any real costs.

Somalia is a wretched country in the grip of famine and chaos, but officials there are distracted from that by inspecting bras. The Sudanese regime is implicated in crimes of murder, torture and raping thousands of innocents in Darfur, but that does not stop it from putting on trial a woman who insisted on wearing trousers.

It is women rather than men who always pay the price for despotism, corruption and religious hypocrisy.

Fourth, the extremist ideology assumes that humans are a group of wild beasts who are incapable of controlling their instincts, that it is enough for a man to see a bare piece of female flesh for him to pounce on her and have intercourse. This assumption is incorrect, because humans, unlike animals, always have the power to control their instincts by willpower and ethics. An ordinary man, if he is sane, cannot have his instincts aroused by his mother, sister, daughter or even the wife of a friend, because his sense of honour and morality transcends his desires and neutralizes their effect.

So virtue will never come about through bans, repression and pursuing women in the street, but rather through giving children a good upbringing, propagating morality and refining character.

According to official statistics, societies that impose segregation between men and women (as in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia) do not have lower rates of sexual crimes than other societies. The rates there may even be higher.

HUMANE VIEW

We favour and advocate modesty for women, but first we advocate a humane view of women, a view that respects their abilities, their wishes and their thinking.

What is really saddening is that the Wahhabi extremism that is spreading throughout the world with oil money and gives Muslims a bad image is as far as can be from the real teachings of Islam. Anyone who reads the history of Islam fairly has to be impressed by the high status it accords to women, because from the time of the Prophet Mohammed until the fall of Andalusia, Muslim women mixed with men, were educated, worked and traded, fought, and had financial responsibilities separately from their fathers or husbands. They had the right to choose the husband they loved and the right to divorce if they wanted. Western civilization gave women these rights many centuries after Islam.

Finally, let me say that religious extremism is the other face of political despotism. We cannot get rid of the extremism before we end the despotism. Democracy is the solution.

Alaa Al Aswany is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Yacoubian Building and Chicago, and is a regular contributor to the Egyptian newspaper Al Shorouk.

I’m not sure that I agree with  Alaa that this is all ” Wahhabi extremism”. I believe many of these values, which predate Islam itself, are part and parcel of modern Arab/Persian/West Asian culture.

Reuters/Intellasia.net
You will see many veiled women in Malaysia and Indonesia, but ...

Malaysia Airlines
Not all women, not even all Muslim women, are veiled all the time.

(I understand that the pressures, from Arabist Islamic ‘scholars’ is forcing more and more Asian women into hijabs, and worse, but this is because Asian men fail to stand up for their women in the face of an alien, less enlightened culture.)

The other point where I disagree with Al Aswany is that ”religious extremism is the other face of political despotism. We cannot get rid of the extremism before we end the despotism. Democracy is the solution.” That’s wishful thinking. I agree that religious extremism finds fertile grounds is despotic countries but, as we can see in Asia, it can spread in democracies, like Malaysia, too. In fact the reverse might be true: religious extremism might rise in a weak democracy and, left to their own devices, people who are true believers might do away with democracy in favour of a theocracy – that was the apprehended result of the Algerian elections in 1992. Only a military coup restored electoral democracy.

But, my point, going back to my entry into this thread some three and a half years ago, is that one of our Values is equality. While we accept Islam and we tolerate many Arabic/Persian/West Asian cultural norms, customs, some, like requiring women to wear head to toe burkas, are antithetical to our basic, core, liberal values because they reek of inequality and worse: they suggest that women are property – slaves.

The problem is not Islam, it is, partially, some interpretations of Islam that are based on Arab/Persian cultural customs that we abandoned, almost completely, in the middle ages.

 

[The Bread Guy]

...in a statement issued by the Muslim Canadian Congress, "a grassroots organization that provides a voice to Muslims who are not represented by existing organizations; organizations that are either sectarian or ethnocentric, largely authoritarian, and influenced by a fear of modernity and an aversion to joy":

The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) is asking Ottawa to introduce legislation to ban the wearing of masks, niqabs and the burka in all public dealings.

In a statement, the MCC said, not only is the wearing of a face-mask a security hazard and has led to a number of bank heists in Canada and overseas, the burka or niqab are political symbols of Saudi inspired Islamic extremism.

The MCC dismissed the argument that wearing of a face-mask by Muslim women is protected by the Charter's guarantee of religious freedom. The MCC said, there is no requirement in the Quran for Muslim women to cover their faces. Invoking religious freedom to conceal one's identity and promote a political ideology, is disingenuous.

The MCC pointed to the the recent decision by Egypt's highest Muslim authority, Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, who said he will issue a Fatwa (religious edict) against the niqab and burka.

The Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yom quoted Sheikh Tantawi as saying the niqab was merely a cultural tradition and had no connection to religion or the Quran. (link to National Public Radio story on same issue)

The MCC said if there is any doubt about the religiosity of the burka, one should take a look at the holiest place for Muslims — the grand mosque in Mecca. For over 1,400 years, Muslim men and women have prayed in what we believe is the House of God, and for all these centuries, female visitors have been explicitly prohibited from covering their faces.

Farzana Hassan, communications director of the MCC said, "Islamists are defending the burka as if it was the central pillar of Islam. They consider Muslim women who do not cover their heads and faces--the vast majority -- as sinners or lesser Muslims.

"It is of utmost importance that the Canadian government take the lead and end this medieval misogynist practise once and for all," Ms. Hassan added.

The MCC statement regretted that while the rest of the world is moving toward the goal of gender equality, right here in Canada Islamists are pushing back the clock, convincing educated Muslim women, they are no more than sexual objects and a source of sin, if they reveal their faces in public.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This isn’t about extremist groups or ideology, as such, but it is about civic nationalism or, perhaps, about civilization itself. Every time we tell ourselves that we are trying to bring something or other to Afghanistan we should read this article, by Christie Blatchford, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, which tells us that the ‘something or other’ is needed here, too:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-brutal-death-and-the-silence-that-follows/article1349095/

A brutal death, and the silence that follows 
The headline in the print edition is:
Horrific killing of teen mid-town Toronto was a scene out of Kandahar

Christie Blatchford

Tuesday, Nov. 03, 2009

cblatchford@globeandmail.com

When Omar Wellington was killed in the summer of 2006, I was in Afghanistan; I didn't even hear about the case.

When I did learn about it, shortly before the judge-alone trial of five young men began in Ontario Superior Court yesterday, the story was so awful it seemed to me that it could have happened in Kandahar, where life is so cheap, the violence so ordinary and spectacular both.

Yet Omar's slaying occurred in what is due to the sprawl of Toronto now considered mid-town, in an area called Flemingdon Park in the Don Mills Road-Eglinton Avenue East part of the city. It is just a little east and south of the Ontario Science Centre, mecca for tourists and schoolchildren alike.

It was in a subsidized housing development there on July 14 three years ago that the 17-year-old was beaten, humiliated and essentially tortured before being knifed to death. At autopsy, his battered body revealed 31 stab wounds - including a penetrating injury to the jugular vein on the right side of his neck - and 39 associated cuts to his face, neck and torso. That doesn't count a multitude of other kinds of lacerations and abrasions to his upper body and face.

Omar also had been stripped to his boxer shorts and, bloodied, paraded about as one caller to Crime Stoppers later reported he had been told, like a hostage. The ordeal had begun about 5 p.m. and lasted at least 4½ hours.

At the time, Toronto Police estimated as many as 100 people may have seen or heard parts of the protracted beating. No one, including a private security officer employed at the complex who saw Omar in his boxers at one point or a woman who saw part of the assault and returned a second time and saw that now people were throwing bottles at Omar or a man who gathered his own youngsters close and took them home when he saw what was going on, phoned 911.

Police ran smack into a wall of silence, what trial Judge Brian Trafford described, in a lengthy pre-trial ruling, as "a culture of fear, based upon intimidation and threats of death or serious bodily harm." Judge Trafford noted that at least three of the witnesses in the case had been told to "close their mouths, watch what they say and mind their business" or otherwise threatened.

After four months of getting nowhere, police obtained a judicial authorization for wiretaps on 22 people, and ultimately six young men, who ranged in age at the time from 13 to 16, were charged.

One was eventually discharged after a preliminary hearing, one committed to trial on first-degree murder, and four committed on charges of second-degree murder. Another young man has since been charged with first-degree, but if committed to trial, will be tried separately.

Because they were all under the age of 18 at the time, their identities and street nicknames are protected by the usual Youth Criminal Justice Act publication ban; only their initials may be used.

Like Omar, they are all black. Like Omar, they were all allegedly members of the Little Rascalz, a kiddie version of the adult gangs which prosecutor Anna Tenhouse said yesterday "sprinkle" the Flemingdon Park area: Nice to know mentoring is alive and well in the world of gangsters.

The case is a bit of a dog's breakfast, to put it mildly. As the investigation consisted of the necessity of wiretaps, anonymous Crime Stoppers tips and information from confidential informants too frightened to ever take the witness box, the prosecution is largely reliant upon circumstantial evidence and witnesses considered legally frail.

Key among the latter is the 23-year-old man who was sworn in yesterday. Diagnosed as a schizophrenic about a year after Omar's slaying, when he phoned 911 in a panic to confess to the murder himself (he later admitted he didn't kill Omar but had information about his death), he is a big young man with a round face and a permanently sorrowful expression.

And no wonder: One of the accused young men is his brother, two others are his cousins, and sitting in court yesterday was none other than his grandmother, as well as other alleged gang members. The witness, who didn't complete Grade 10, appeared lucid, but shaky.

Though I lost count of the number of times he said "I don't remember," the young man did manage to tell Ms. Tenhouse that he was with the group that day, and that "I was told that Omar, he got beaten up...like I was told they had him under the tunnel [probably an underground garage]." He said he thought it was his brother who told him this, and that the gang believed Omar had set them up - he'd apparently accepted $1,500 to get them a gun from his cousin, and failed to deliver.

He said Omar was there, leaning over, holding his puffy and bloody face. "He got beaten pretty badly," the young man said, rating the beating 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

He said the last time he saw Omar, he was walking away with two of the defendants, including the boy charged here with first-degree. The boy's body was discovered the next evening in a nearby ravine by a man walking his dog.

The young man said that later, he talked over the murder with his brother, the gist of the conversation that Omar "had messed up and how he died, he shouldna died like that, you know?"

The young man gave his evidence in a nearly empty courtroom. You might imagine, with one boy dead and five others on trial, that the place would be packed with parents. But aside from the grandmother, there were only a couple of mothers and only one male adult, whose relationship, if any, to any of the defendants wasn't clear.

In such remarkable absences are some boys mentored by older gangsters, and others, like Omar Wellington, paraded about in their underwear before death.

It appears to me that in (many? some? just a few?) parts of urban Canada we have a new, transplanted, culture that rejects ‘law and order’ and the value of work and civic nationalism, itself, and embraces violent, dog-eat-dog, beggar take the hindmost ethics - which is tolerated excused by the ‘mainstream’ because the perpetrators and most victims are from minority ‘communities.’

Of course we should not excuse or even tolerate what goes on; it is not civilized – the level of barbarism may not be as high as Kandahar but that’s not the point. The point is that barbarism ought must not be allowed to take root in Canada, at all. We all, governments, police, and ordinary Canadians like you and me should be outraged but I fear we will shrug and go on to the next page of the paper. That’s how barbarism takes root and thrives.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Sorry Edward, but barbarism is already here and it's  bad, and like you yourself said in another thread when I suggested we need dirt bags like this to "disappear ", that the notion of doing that "upsets your sensibilities".

Outrage all you want but........

 

[mariomike]

We all, governments, police, and ordinary Canadians like you and me should be outraged but I fear we will shrug and go on to the next page of the paper. That’s how barbarism takes root and thrives.

Perhaps sheeple figure as long as it's one group of recidivists killing each other? What was it Martin Niemöller said?
This took place on Grenoble Drive. Not sure if you are familiar with the vicinity.

 

[Danjanou]

For those who don’t live in the Centre of the Universe, the street is located in Flemingdon Park an lovely  nest of public housing hi-rises and cul de sacs off the Don River.

http://www.google.ca/mapdata?CxUOC5sCHa2HRfsgIQwtDgubAjWth0X7QI4CSLkBUgJDQZABAsoBAmVu

Some lovely stats form the City’s own website for you to digest

http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf/priority2006/area_flemingdon_full.pdf

I draw your attention to the youth unemployment numbers, the numbers of single patent families, the percentage of the total population under 30 in the area, and the percentage of recent arrivals and/or visible minorities. Not that any of this is of course related. Everything here is just peachy so says our esteemed leader.  :

 

[Shec]

Not saying this should be excused however neither is it a new phenomenon.  Every 1st generation immigrant group has experienced this over the years, it's a characteristic of the immigrant experience.  Perhaps the most profound illustration of this is the Broadway hit from the 50's & 60's West Side Story.

Perhaps what is needed, among other things,  is an education system rooted in a singular, integrated, unified Canadian culture and a return to the study of Canada's history; not that of whichever sh**hole you or your parents fled.  More proof that multi-culturalism is a failed policy.

 

[a_majoor]

Not saying this should be excused however neither is it a new phenomenon.  Every 1st generation immigrant group has experienced this over the years, it's a characteristic of the immigrant experience.  Perhaps the most profound illustration of this is the Broadway hit from the 50's & 60's West Side Story.

Shakespeare had many profound insights into the human condition, but "Romeo and Juliette" (the basis for "West Side Story") probably isn't the one to go to for that.

Perhaps what is needed, among other things,  is an education system rooted in a singular, integrated, unified Canadian culture and a return to the study of Canada's history; not that of whichever sh**hole you or your parents fled.  More proof that multi-culturalism is a failed policy.

Hear Hear!

 

[Edward Campbell]

Looking back at the Christie Blatchford story and then at the City of Toronto data Danjanou posted, I'm guessing that 10% of the district population is the problem - this problem, anyway.

the cultural values of the majority are, probably, 'good' - about what we expect from recent immigrants who want to get ahead. But 10% pf the population - one, but only one of the visible minority groups - has 'poor,' indeed unacceptable cultural values.

While I still remain opposed to draconian methods I do agree that we need to:

1. Reform the education system so that it instills a set of common, national cultural values;

2. Stop excusing bad behavious and bad socio-economic choices;

3. Stop rewarding those bad choices; and

4. Punish ALL bad conduct in an exemplary manner.

 

[Danjanou]

Yup 10-20% and that appears to be the norm in every ]high rise ghetto, er excuse me high density public housing project in the GTA. Those numbers BTW are probably jigged a bit to present a more positive spin on things. :

First hand experience shows me that the majority of our newer citizens irregardless of where they come from are often just trying to get on with their lives and build something better for their children. Not too different than your or my ancestors who came over from the old country(s) for whatever reason. To be honest not all specific groups are equal in that 20/80 or 10/90 split mind.

The vocal minority whiter it be the above noted thugs or those who demand our generous safety net but refuse to embrace and enhance our mosaic and spend there energy on creating little government sanctioned and sponsored middle class liberal guilt driven mini apartheid's (often for their own benefit) are the problem.

In the case of the thugs, its easy for them to bully and intimidate their elderly neighbours, isolated by language, culture, and unfortunately used to being threatened, intimidated, and extorted, because that was the norm in whatever place it was they fled from.

The same often applies to the "self appointed" community leaders, although their weapons are a bit more subtle.

Your ideas on dealing with it are sound, sadly I don't see it happening.

Besides to use the Afghanistan model again and paraphrase Bruce, before you send in the social workers and teachers you need to make the area safe first. We don't send in the PRTs CIMIC, assorted NGOS and aid workers into the wilds of Kandahar or Helmond before we send the in the boys whose job it is to “close with and destroy the enemy.”

 

[Larkvall]

Flemington Park is a prime example of poor city planning. Unfortunately, it is not the only screwup in Toronto.

 

[mariomike]

4. Punish ALL bad conduct in an exemplary manner.

Up to, and including, with Extreme Prejudice.

 

[mariomike]

Flemington Park is a prime example of poor city planning. Unfortunately, it is not the only screwup in Toronto.

I guess they all started out with good intentions. Regent Park was considered to be Canada's public housing model back in the 1950's. There was always controversy with Flemingdon Park. Take a look at St James Town, downtown. Certainly the most densely populated community in Canada, and perhaps North America.

 

[Danjanou]

Actually Jamestown ranks as the second most densly populated area in the world after some areas of Hong Kong/Kowloon. I think it may lead if only public housing is the only criteria.

It was built to replace "Regent" (planed and built in the 1940's BTW) in the 1960's along with similar later projects in the 1970's such as Flemingdon, Jane/Finch, Cresent Town, Little Mogadishu in Etobicoke etc. Just as in Regent they failed to get it right again, and now add in 40-50 year old poorly designed cheaply built buildings with minimal maintenace and no funds to repair/replace.

These of course replaced the 19th early 20th century "slums" of Kennsington, Cabbagetown, and Corktown, seen the house prices there now?

The only neighbourhood that seems to have worked is St Lawrence. They're trying to recreate that with the mulit billion dollar decades long Regent Park Development project. So far it's woring but I have confidence some high priced moron at Havana on Queen St will upgefuck it soon.

 

[mariomike]

Little Mogadishu in Etobicoke

320, 330 and 340 Dixon Rd.
Gosh how I miss being sent into those places. Not!  :rofl:

 

[zipperhead_cop]

While I still remain opposed to draconian methods I do agree that we need to:

1. Reform the education system so that it instills a set of common, national cultural values;

2. Stop excusing bad behavious and bad socio-economic choices;

3. Stop rewarding those bad choices; and

4. Punish ALL bad conduct in an exemplary manner.

Capital ideas.  And how do you propose those given the other massive failed social experiment, The Charter, precludes everyone in the country from being responsible for their actions?  How does one manage society when legions of liberal judges allow all manner of atrocities to occur?  How does one get a national identity when the multiculturalism act allows some of the animals to be a little more equal? 

And before we get too wrapped up trying to help these "communites in crisis" let's bear in mind that (especially in the GTA) this is what they worked for.  Clayton Ruby and his band of asses WORKED VERY HARD for a lawless society.  Who are we to liberate them from it?  HUNDREDS of people saw that kid get mauled and did NOTHING! They are just as culpable for what happened as the ones who killed him.  You want police to help sort out your idiot lives?  Call us.  Talk to us.  Cooperate with us.  Show up to court.  Or piss of and solve your own problems.  But spare us the Grade 8 grad photo for the paper and think that any of the rest of us gives two flying shits that your gang banger wanna-be got whacked being a gangsta apprentice. 

This country, vis-a-vis Western culture, is doomed.  If we can't manage one massive national collective rectal/cranial inversion correction, we are screwed.  People better get a little scared about where things are going and realize we get the society we deserve.  This nice guy bullshit isn't getting us anywhere, and there are massive swaths of arseholes that just see this country as a bunch of suckers. 
Wake the hell up people. 
[/rant]

 

[X-mo-1979]

Well said.
Unfortunately you are now spreading hate,and as a police officer you will most likely lose your job once the CHRC tracks you down.

However the rest of average Canada agree's with you.Which doesnt matter,as a liberal lawyer is getting his pay check defending this as a way of life or something.

These people also dont care about bringing life into the world in poor conditions.You know how we sit and question the finances for the future if we have baby number two?They just see 200 bucks a month check to support babies.

Hence why we lose a solid safe way of life in the long run.

I think I'm classified as a racist now too....