Respect our values or Leave

[zipperhead_cop]

Heh.  Yeah, I should just turn in my badge now.
At such time as trying to spread common sense is spreading hate, we're all pretty much summed up. 
And you being sick of our time wasting, weakness creating welfare system isn't being racist.  There is WAY too much white trash being a drain on the system to think that it's an ethnic issue.  I think you're okay. 

 

[X-mo-1979]

Heh.  Yeah, I should just turn in my badge now.
At such time as trying to spread common sense is spreading hate, we're all pretty much summed up. 
And you being sick of our time wasting, weakness creating welfare system isn't being racist.  There is WAY too much white trash being a drain on the system to think that it's an ethnic issue.  I think you're okay.

I agree.I don't like where our country or western civilization is heading one bit.I always convince myself I will never read the CBC comments on articles I peruse...yet I do.Which puts me into fits of rage.These people ARE our society.

I have two boys under 5,and honestly I am scared to think what Canada will look like by the time they are my age.

 

[Antoine]

Now, I have started to ask students to speak English during the lab that I am teaching. Many students looked at me as I was coming from another planet.

At least I got the support of one senior professor after a student went to complain to her. However, I doubt that all professors and other of my fellows agree with me. Probably many see me as a racist French Canadian which is not true as I am not asking them to be white, but just to use one of our official language in a public institution which turns out to be also a learning centre (University).

Makes me sad. 

 

[zipperhead_cop]

I agree.I don't like where our country or western civilization is heading one bit.I always convince myself I will never read the CBC comments on articles I peruse...yet I do.Which puts me into fits of rage.These people ARE our society.

I have two boys under 5,and honestly I am scared to think what Canada will look like by the time they are my age.

And on that note, I will shamelessly plug a new thread I started for just this topic. 

 

[mariomike]

I have two boys under 5,and honestly I am scared to think what Canada will look like by the time they are my age.

I think that's all any of us really care about.

 

[mariomike]

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. 

"This is paradise, I'm tellin' ya. This town like a great big puxxy just waitin to get fuxxed." - Tony Montana

 

[Edward Campbell]

We have drifted well off topic because we cannot ask or tell native born Canadians to ‘respect our values of leave,’ but ...

This story is second hand but I am pretty certain it is fairly accurate and distressingly common. It is told by a young woman who is an engineering student in a major Canadian university.

The family– great grandparents with some children, including grandmother - arrived in Canada, from the Caribbean, around 1960. Grandmother was a schoolgirl but she found school more difficult in Canada and she made some poor, but, circa 1965, not uncommon choices. Before the end of the decade grandma was a single mother, twice over and living on welfare, in public housing, in one of those projects Danjanou described, above, because great grandparents, hardworking, conservative, upright people threw her out for quitting school and getting pregnant.*

One of the children was mother who stayed in the public housing and made equally bad choice and was, herself, an undereducated, unwed mother by the mid ‘80s.

One of the handful of mother's children, all sired by different fathers, all living with two welfare dependent adults – three generation under one roof – is the story teller.

Brother, she says, made bad choices too which she expects will lead him to some bad end. One sister is pregnant and will soon join grandmother and mother on eternal welfare and dependency – there will likely be four generations under one roof and grandmother is not, yet, sixty!

The story teller broke free. She made one good choice. She did her school work; she worked at it; she’s ‘free’ in the only meaningful sense of that term in 21st century Canada: she is independent which really mean undependant.

Her siblings, her mother and her grandmother are trapped in a welfare cycle which is not too far removed from a sort of indentured servitude. They cannot escape their poor choices but society’s response of their plight has been to imprison them, in a way.

The storyteller concludes by telling her listener: “I am not stupid because I am black. I am not lazy because I am black. Nor am I smart or industrious just because I am black. All I did was make one good choice in life and that has been enough to get me this far. But the Canadian ‘social safety net’ that aims to help people who are less fortunate ends up awarding lifetime punishments to  those who make one or two bad choices – not criminal choices – in their youth. It is a Canadian (mostly white Canadian) choice to punish the poor by excusing their bad choices and then depriving them of the incentive to ‘correct’ their past errors.

I agree with her!

Our decision to excuse ‘bad choices’ when they are made by e.g. visible minorities does not help. In fact, it contributes to the continuing infantilization of selected minorities which is a counter-productive process for them and “us.” Having excused and even ‘rewarded’ bad choices we then fail to provide a way out. Welfare, as currently constructed in most provinces, as far as I know, enforces continual dependency by punishing paid work. There is an old saying that when one is in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. But what "we" do with welfare is to keep tossing down more shovels.

One other ‘observation:’ a few days ago while I was on the campus of one of our major universities I wandered down to one of its centres, grabbed a bench, and watched and counted. I counted until I had seen 300 people who looked like students – it didn’t take long in the afternoon. Most, barely, appeared to be white, but (possibly because I was near one of the major applied science because) there were very nearly as many who appeared  to be East or South Asians; there were quite a few who appeared to be of Middle Eastern ethnicity. In all these groups (whites, Asians, Middle Easterners) there seemed to be about an even split between young men and women. There were quite a few black people, too, more than their fair share based on recent census data (2.5% of people self-identified as ‘black’ in the 2006 census). But there was one startling difference: they were almost all young women – maybe by a ration of 4:1. I discussed with an acquaintance who is a professor at that university and he guesstimated that my unscientific sample was about right – but his classes are in a humanities faculty so he reckons he sees more whites because, he guesses, they either self-select out of or are less competitive in the science and engineering faculties because the work is much more intensive.

 
--------------------
* An old girlfriend – back in the days of this story and when the pill was new – used to say that “any pill, even an aspirin,  will keep a girl our of ‘trouble’ – as long as she keeps it clasped, firmly, between here knees!” Girls she said “don’t just get pregnant, as if by magic; they make a choice.”


Edit: typo

Edit: forgot a whole damned word!   :-[

 

[mariomike]

* An old girlfriend – back in the days of this story and when the pill was new – used to say that “any pill, even an aspirin,  will keep a girl our of ‘trouble’ – as long as keeps it clasped, firmly, between here knees!” Girls she said “don’t just get pregnant, as if by magic; they make a choice.”

I remember that story. Also the one about teenage daughters replacing Mom's birth control pills with baby aspirins!  ;D

 

[Edward Campbell]

The problem with saying "respect our values or leave" is that we – the big Canadian “we” – do not know what our values are, and we – the much smaller, traditional Canadian “we” – do not want to open the issue lest we are accused of being some sort of an unpleasant ist.

But we – a large, multi-ethnic Canadian “we” – DO have some values:

First: We are peoples of the enlightenments and the two three great gifts of the enlightenment are –

• Classical English liberalism – which requires the state and the sovereign to protect the sovereign individual from the depredations of all collectives including churches, mosques, temples and synagogues and the state itself;

•  Confucian conservatism from which we learn the value of filial responsibility, respect for achievement and for community rather than collective values; and

• Responsible and representative democracy – which is managed through universal suffrage.

Second: We are a secular society. While we respect religious beliefs and while we tolerate most religious practices – with some sensible limitations – we believe that religion is an entirely private matter between each individual and his god.

Third: We have a history of our own. It is the history of this place and of all those who came here and shaped and reshaped it, and all of those who left here (so many in military uniforms) to shape and reshape the world. It is not aboriginal or French or English or any other history – it is the history of Canada. It is not particularist: aboriginals did not contribute more than did, say, the Scots factors or the Chinese labourers; men did not do more than women; whites did not do more than aboriginals – Canadians made this place what it is and then they helped remake the world. And they still go on reshaping Canada. We know that the history of Iran is just as great as that of Britain but we are not concerned with either, except as background.

Fourth: We are a multicultural society. We play bagpipes at small town curling bonspiels and we play banjis when a new Sikh temple is opened. We march down our streets with make-believe dragons and cymbals at the lunar New Year, pretending to be Irish every March, and then we follow along behind the draught horses to the  beer tents in September – for the Oktoberfest.  We rejoice in our folk customs but not in the ‘troubles’ of the lands of our ancestors. We send good will and money to the ‘old countries’ but we leave their problems there.

I don’t think it is too much to ask anyone who wants to stay here to adopt these simple, easy ‘values.’ You can be a good Muslim or Sikh in a wholly secular state. You can be a social conservative or a totally hedonistic gay activist and still be a good Canadian – so long as you do not try to intrude on the privacy of any other Canadian by attempting to make your social values into our laws. You can have strong ties to the place from whence your grandparents came but you cannot fight their wars on our streets. Finally you have to want to make history, Canadian history, through your own work and talent.

If that’s too hard: move to the USA.


Edit: I forgot to include an important value from the other, 2,500 year, old enlightenment

 

[Kirkhill]

We have drifted well off topic because we cannot ask or tell native born Canadians to ‘respect our values of leave,’ but ...

Raises an interesting point - when exactly was exile removed from the law books as a legitimate form of punishment?  And why is a native-born terrorist granted a free-pass when foreign-born terrorists that also happen to be Canadians can be exiled?

All of this is to set aside the moral question of dumping our garbage on the unsuspecting outside our borders.

 

[kratz]

[off topic] There have been some threads recently that have discussed the value of rating each other, the value of people debating controversial topics, and the yearly reminder that CF members should “keep their yap shut”, in the old vernacular. [/off topic]

I would like to take this time to thank E.R. Campbell and others (who I can not find the names I am looking for). Normally I acknowledge your erudite concise comments agreeing with my own thoughts. IAW site rules, I do not bother posting to adding to what has so eloquently been posted. As has been expressed before, this forum is a wealth of knowledge, experience and opinion. I subscribe to the phrase, “surround yourself by those who you wish to emulate”.

Thank you for posting and keep it up.

 

[gcclarke]

Raises an interesting point - when exactly was exile removed from the law books as a legitimate form of punishment?  And why is a native-born terrorist granted a free-pass when foreign-born terrorists that also happen to be Canadians can be exiled?

All of this is to set aside the moral question of dumping our garbage on the unsuspecting outside our borders.

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, in article 15:

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

And the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that:

6.  (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.

Thus we cannot exile anyone who was born as a Canadian citizen of their citizenry, and by virtue of said citizenry, they have the right to remain in Canada should they so choose. At best we can strip citizenship from those who have obtained it after birth, and then subsequently deport (not exile!) them.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

The whole thrust of Canadian immigration has changed.  Many years back most of the people of non-European descent I knew were well educated and productive at a high level.  At some point it was decided to import large amounts of poorly skilled people to keep Canadian labour costs down.  That there would be problems that are common with poorly paid, low status individuals should surprise absolutely no-one.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The whole thrust of Canadian immigration has changed.  Many years back most of the people of non-European descent I knew were well educated and productive at a high level.  At some point it was decided to import large amounts of poorly skilled people to keep Canadian labour costs down.  That there would be problems that are common with poorly paid, low status individuals should surprise absolutely no-one.

I tend to think it was the Liebral party's attempt to increase their voting base.

 

[mariomike]

I tend to think it was the Liebral party's attempt to increase their voting base.

I believe that to be true also.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The whole thrust of Canadian immigration has changed.  Many years back most of the people of non-European descent I knew were well educated and productive at a high level.  At some point it was decided to import large amounts of poorly skilled people to keep Canadian labour costs down.  That there would be problems that are common with poorly paid, low status individuals should surprise absolutely no-one.

I would be interested in seeing any data that suggests that, either:

1. Immigrants from Europe were in any meaningful way "well educated;" or

2. Non-European immigrants who came in the '50s and '60s from, say, the Caribbean, were "well educated;" or

3. 21st century Immigrants from Asia are less well educated.

Our greatest single immigration 'project' (late 19th/early 20th century was aimed,squarely, at Eastern European peasants - strong backs and durability were what "we" were after when my grandmother came here with her family. She helper her 2nd Scots husband bust the prairie sod and she raised eight children in the process. She never learned to read much - wasn't required, either.

We do have educational points, now, for immigrants - something we never applied in the '40s and '50s and '60s to waves of European or West Indian immigrants. In fairness to your point every immigrant with an education is, quickly, entitled to bring in Mom and Dad and Grandma too - and they do. But I have never seen any evidence that immigrants in the early 21st century are not, in every respect, more productive than those of the early 20th century.

I think you are referring to refugees - which is a whole different matter.

 

[Kirkhill]

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, in article 15:

And the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that:

Thus we cannot exile anyone who was born as a Canadian citizen of their citizenry, and by virtue of said citizenry, they have the right to remain in Canada should they so choose. At best we can strip citizenship from those who have obtained it after birth, and then subsequently deport (not exile!) them.

Thanks GCC  -  I appreciate the information.

Doesn't it leave open as many questions as answers though?

For instance - the UN declares that everyone has a RIGHT to a nationality (one of Edward's Positive Rights) and then goes on to declare that that RIGHT can be withdrawn with cause (not ARBITRARILY but only through ARBITRATION by a licenced ARBITER presumably).  So it is a RIGHT until it is not a RIGHT and duly accredited Government presumably can strip you of that RIGHT.  Begs the question what the UN perceives a RIGHT is - It appears that it is something that is in the GIFT of Government and thus not a RIGHT at all.


As to the CCRF - "Every Citizen" has the RIGHT to remain, enter and leave but the award of Citizenship is again in the GIFT of Government.

I applied for  and was Given my Certificate of Citizenship after I met certain criteria and agreed to certain conditions. There was nothing automatic about my citizenship.  There was no assumption of a RIGHT to citizenship.  In fact just the opposite - a contributing factor to my decision to choosing to become a Canadian Citizen was that Trudeau had just changed the rules whereby, previously, Brits and other members of the Commonwealth were automatically granted the RIGHT to vote in Canadian elections after meeting a residency requirement. 

Now, for the purpose of the argument, if it were possible for a "Johnny-come-lately Citizen" like me or that fella that was sent back to Syria for "coffee and conversation" to be stripped of their Canadian Citizenship then surely there would be no legal basis for preventing Native Born Canadians from being treated equally under the Charter?

So back to my point - Why can't we exile people?  Assuming that we can find a place to send them.


Some straw men for consideration.

 

[mariomike]

So back to my point - Why can't we exile people?  Assuming that we can find a place to send them.

Siberia and Devil's Island are out. So is modern Australia. Criminals would clamor to be exiled there. The way of life would be anything but an exile. 

 

[gcclarke]

Well, the way that I read it is that everyone has the right to A nationality. That is to say, at least according to the UN, they can't be stripped of citizenship if they are not citizens of at least two nations. In practice, I believe this is interpreted to mean that a state can only strip someone of a citizenship that has been granted after their birth. Or, at the very least, from the point of view of this particular armchair lawyer, by Canada at least, I am unsure about how other nations deal with this issue.

The core RIGHT is to be a citizen of the country of your birth. Along with that, you have a secondary right not to be arbitrarily stripped of citizenship of any other country which you subsequently become a citizen of.

And this particular 2ndary right is very likely one of the reasons that it is so difficult to become a citizen of Canada. Because if the government makes a mistake and grants citizenship to the "wrong" person, then we're stuck with them for quite some time. Simply becoming a criminal after the fact is, if I recall correctly, not enough justification to strip an immigrant of their citizenship. You have to prove that said citizenship was obtained under "false pretenses". For example, this article (http://www.rickdykstra.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=446&Itemid=51&date=2009-11-01) outlines the story of two men who were stripped of their citizenship after it was proven that they lied about their past as SS Concentration Camp Guards during WWII when they were applying to become citizens. You can rest assured that quite a lot of money was spent on their cases.

So, yeah. I can't say whether or not there's some hideous undiscovered crime lurking in your past that threatens to strip you of your Canadian citizenship, but I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that you're probably safe. As for Mr. Arar, he also still retains his Canadian citizenship. Yes, he was deported to Syria, and underwent a rather unpleasant time as a result. But the key is that he was deported to Syria by the Americans, from America. They could have also simply deported him back to Canada as well. As for the fact that this was done partially based on information provided by our government, but then again, our courts have decided rather decisively that this was an error on our part as well.


So yeah. To sum up, only place you can exile Canadians to is prisons within our borders.

 

[Jungle]

So yeah. To sum up, only place you can exile Canadians to is prisons within our borders.

Then let's build a huge compound on Baffin Island, a kind of "Guantananorth", where we could send all the riff-raff...