City
Morning Brew: Protesting Protests, Pearson isn't a Hotel, Skin Colour Matters
Photo: untitled by Amy RL, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):
Missing a flight and having to sit around at Pearson airport for hours on end is rather painful. But a woman, about whom we know very little, was given bus fare and escorted out of the busy international airport after reportedly staying there for a whole month [City]. I guess she found it cheaper to live there than any hotel or hostel in the city.
Based on the massive number of images geotagged on Flickr, Toronto shutterbugs and photoblogging community has helped put our city on the list of "most photographed cities in the world" - joining the ranks of New York, Rome, Paris, etc. [NP] The National Post points readers to some of the most interesting photoblogs but is too web 1.0 to actually link to them. Why make us cut & paste 12 times?
A study by the University of Toronto (which included interviews with over 40,000 immigrant Canadians and their Canadian-born offspring) reveals that skin colour trumps religion and income when it comes to feeling of belonging [Star]. It also suggests that the darker the skin, the greater the feeling of alienation. What I find surprising as well is that second generation (Canadian-born) offspring of immigrants feel less a sense of belonging than their parents do.
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The new Ontario driver's license, which the government hopes will allow Ontarians to access the US without a passport, may pose a serious invasion of privacy risk. The RFID chip within it may be readable by those not intended to have access [CBC].
Our street food and vending laws are so ridiculously strict that construction in the Yonge and Dundas area has cost one well-known hot dog vendor to lose his permit [G&M]. There's so much red tape and regulation that he can't even move a few feet away and continue running his business.
Protests protesting protests are starting to occur. A small group of Pro-Sinhalese protesters hung banners on the DVP and even had a plane carrying a banner reading "Protect Canada! Stop the Tamil Tigers!" pass over Queen's Park yesterday [Sun]. And a group being rallied on Facebook plans to protest the protests on Saturday. I really (really) hope that we don't see any clashes as a result.
Discussion
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So Kyle Rae is the reason I can't get awesome street meat much any more. I'm staring at the construction right now, and can't believe they're treating one of the few vendors like that.
Rubber bullets, beanbags etc?
WOW! Kyle Rae is such a jackass.
If the worst experiences I have as a Canadian are extended transit times as people protest all the crazy stuff that's going down around the world I am one lucky mofo.
RFID security concerns are not new and they never should have went ahead with it in government issue documents or IDs.
Making it bad for us here isn't justified by the fact it's worse there. If it were we should be donating all our resources until third would countries are on par. Unfortunately that's not how the world works.
http://twitter.com/ttcu_community/status/1790650861
One thing to keep in mind is that the Canadian-born offspring of immigrants probably have a much higher standard for what it means to belong than their parents do. Perhaps the study authors found a way to account for this, but until you see the study, I wouldn't read too much into those figures.
You asked why people didn't go to QP to counter-protest. The answer is because of crap like this and the past behaviour of Toronto Police. Violent pro-terrorism protestors get coddled no matter what they do while the friends of civilisation get investigated, arrested, or forcibly moved on. Same thing happens to pro-Israel groups when terrorist front groups intervene.
Our government and officials are on the side of the enemies of civilisation and actively discriminate against people who are supporting our government and its allies. Its regarded as a crime to support law and order and a prima facie case of racism. You'd never guess that we have a Leftist council.
That stand sold one of the best sausages in town. I still remembered cooking myself a sausage when I worked there...
As to the article in the Star about racism, speaking as a 40-something, 4th generation, white, male Canadian, and spouse of an immigrant, I surmise that many established Canadians (and I might even include even some of those of 'color') are simply getting fed up with the fabric - indeed, the foundation of this country being challenge.
When I was a child, my public school in Vancouver was a UN postcard, but the 'Euros' definitely were in the 60-70% majority. Now, in most large urban areas, that simply is not the case. I now live in downtown Toronto, and the 3 schools I pass every day are virtually 'of color.'
Any reasoned person must ask what that is going to do to the future of this country. As Mark Steyn puts it in his book, the newer 'Canadians' do not want to adopt our culture and values any more. The protests of the past 2 weeks are but the tip of the iceberg. 'Established' Canadians are angry and fed up.
I fear for the future of this country. More and more, people I know are moving out of Toronto. We are seeing the same 'white flight' that America went through 40-50 years ago.
It is not a matter of acceptance or intolerance, but rather it's a combination of it being natural to want to be with your own 'kind' (why is it acceptable to ethnic groups to ghetto-ize themselves but not whites?) and feeling like an alien in one's own country.
I never considered myself a racist, but my last experience at Scarborough Town Centre on a Sunday afternoon, when my wife and I were the only 2 whites in the Food Court, startled us both.
Sorry, but this is not my Canada any more.
Thank goodness it's not "YOUR" country anymore - I don't know if any group specifically seeks to "ghettoize" themselves but perhaps becuase of circumstances, unfamiliarity with a new place, cultural connections, and obviously the racial intolerance many many many face at the hands of "established canadians" can you really blame them?
Also - for the recond - this was never "YOUR" (as in multiple generation European settler) Canada - you stole it from indigenous people who also face extreme oppression and social isolation so YOU can feel comfortable around fellow white people. I don't care how tolerant you think you are - your comments completely betray whatever supperficial multicultural/diversity PC garble you have been forced to take on. Go back to where you (or your ancestors) came from and do us all a favour.
Assumptions that non-whites come from a non-western background also play a part in 2nd generation non-white Canadians feeling inauthentically Canadian; the British and other European nations have colonized many non-white countries such that their language, customs, values, religious practices, tastes, and morals are not much, if at all, different from those of white Canadians. Contrary to popular belief, it is these factors that play a greater part, rather than parental influence. If anything, wouldn't the parents of these Candians WANT their children to be integrated as Canadians in our society, rather than suffer the prejudicecs, exclusions, and workplace/school bullying that they had endure in the 60's upon arriving in this country? I know that we can't ignore certain non-white ethnic groups who choose to ghetto-ize themselves, but we can't reason falsely that non-white skin is an indicator of someone's wish to exclude themselves with Canadian culture.
Anyhow, intolerance is intolerance. I think it will always manifest itself. In Ireland, where I used to live, the EU promotes free movement of European workers. Since these Eastern Europeans are predominantly white, people can't discriminate against skin colour, so they point to their accents, their fashions, their spending customs!!!! They say that these people should "learn" to integrate, and they should stop moving into the neighbourhoods in droves, they say it's a "problem". The "other" will always exist no matter what the factor is, so long as people want to project their own cultures flaws and financial problems onto someone else.
I hardly think that any progressive, useful, rational, compassionate, white Canadian would leave Toronto because they feel like it's not "their" Toronto anymore. If ignoramuses like yourself want to leave, then good, we don't need you tarnishing Toronto's globally compassionate, progressive name.
I'm not sorry for getting in a huff about all this - if you just posted to piss people off, well, it's not funny. You have been born with a sense of entitlement and have no idea what it is to be devalued because of WHAT you ARE and cannot control. Sometimes I just get so sick of this attitude, and THAT is why non-white Canadians feel non-Canadian. It's people like you who won't allow them to be.
I know I am wasting my breath on a blog site like this, but if people are ignoring the truth all around them, that is their perogative. Sincerely, I hope I am wrong, but having lived in this city for 30 years, the blight is all around us. Rexdale, Crescent Town, Thorncliffe Park - all beautiful places to live 25 years ago: all cesspools now. Let's see what the $300m in Regent Park buys us!
The 'white flight' has already happened. As I said, Scarborough Town Center is an example. Not that I have to answer to anyone here, but I did live with a 'person of color' for 4 years in the '80s. I don't give a rat's ass about color. I am more concerned about preserving the cultural values that created this country - and the fact that those are a result of Judeo-Christian values, and largely as a result of the 'conquest' of the Indigenous peoples (not that they were doing much with the land anyway) and then the British over the French - well, really, how far back do you want to go? History is history. We both have to live with that. The trick is not to repeat the same mistakes.
And, please do not drag out the 'birthright lottery' BS - that book made me laugh so hard I could cry. Nothing social liberals like more than to blame everyone else for their troubles! At the rate we are going, Canada will 'accomodate' itself right into Third World status within a generation. It's happening now. We cannot afford all these accomodations: the educational/infrastructural foundations that made this country one of the most powerful on Earth only a couple decades ago are now bankrupt. The money is being poured into 'touch-feely' issues, which only serves to make us more of an attraction (and laughingstock) to those peoples who are looking for a free ride.
As French philospher Jean-Francois Revel wrote,"Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself."
At the core of multi-culturalism is an assumption that a non-Western culture is somehow primal and immutable but that an advanced nation is no more than the sum of its parts. At the heart of multi-culturalism is a central lie: that somehow all cultures are equally valid. History, I think, would prove otherwise. Even Nature would demonstrate that - or can a Wildebeast negotiate with a Lion?
Of course, all of this plays into the recent, modern concept that if we all just hold hands and sing campfire songs we will all get along - as long as someone else builds the fire and pays for the logs.
So, we are all to pay for the sins of our great-great grandparents, eh? Well, that sort of extortion costs the government billions every year to the Native peoples industry, to name one. Now all the 'disadvantaged' have figured that one out and are all piling on at a lawyer near you. We are being laughed at in many circles - the same circles that covet our land and our wealth, mind!
You can whine about what atrocities were commited 200 years ago (and we could ultimately descend into a Czheklosovakian nightmare), but the glaring facts are that people would not be flocking here if things weren't 'better,' and if they don't respect the reasons Canada is (was?) better, then we will all end up in the same black pit of economic stagnation, recrimination and racial hatred that the very people arriving here supposedly are leaving!
I am not alone in being fed up that more and more, External Affairs is embroiled in interventions in foreign lands (like the $100 million Beirut rescue of 2 years ago) that we have no business (or can afford) being involved in.
If you possess a Canadian passport - great, but expect to live here and pay taxes here; otherwise, give it back. Too often we are a passport of convenience.
And while we love to crow about the 'information age' and the power of the internet, what favors are we doing these people by not insisting they learn the very language that links the world to Canada - English? At my wife's landing ceremony (which easily takes a minimun of 2-3 years), more than half the attendees required interpreters. My wife had zero English when she arrived here. Truly, my heart goes out to these people with 4 brats in tow, driving a taxi for 16 hours to make ends meet - who has time to learn English, but that is not my problem. Our embassies are lying to these people and our government is doing nobody a favor by opening the door, saying "c'mon in," and then everyone wonders why 20 years later they still don't speak the language!
(But then ask any banker why they won't lend money to taxi drivers and you will really get your eyes opened!) Ah, but I digress.
Before you all-foam at the mouth and play the 'racist' card (oops, too late - you did!), read "Who Gets In," by Daniel Stoffman. And for Gawd's sake - read a book and get off the internet. You might learn something.
And on closing, once the usual self-interest groups have succeeded in turning Canada into the cesspool that they fled, these people are free to go back to their homeland because (of course) they are dual-citizens. I, on the other hand, will be stuck here because I only have one passport.
http://tamilprotests.ca
You said that you and your wife felt uncomfortable when you were the only white people in a multiracial environment, which used to be predominantly white. You assumed, I guess, that everyone was an immigrant, or from an incompatible culture. You assumed this because you saw skin colours. Your wife is an immigrant, but she does not count as someone who would be turning this country into a 3rd world. And she's white.
You say you don't care bout skin colour, but it's obvious that you do. And you know, I used to live in Scarborough and go to that mall all the time - maybe you felt uncomfortable because the kids looked rough? You do realize that this is not so much a race issue than it is an issue wit socio-economic status. There are plenty of rough, poor white people who could make you feel just as uncomfortable. They hang out at STC too. Immigration appears to contribute nothing to their poverty attitude and mannerism.
You say that immigrants should abide by our Judeo-Christian morals; the Carribean, South America, India, The Philippines, Africa, are but a few countries with very high percentages of Christians, where the majority population are not white. There are many more.
IT must be very hard for refugees to come to this country. I mean, imagine how BAD things have to be if one is willing to leave their job, their educational background, their beautiful weather, their beloved relatives, everything they know and is familiar to them, the place where they once felt they belonged, to take their entire family out of same, to move to a cold country where they don't know anyone, they don't know the language, it's cold, unfamiliar and quite possibly, scary, in order to start over? Have you no compassion? No, of course you do, but I'm sure it bothers you that such injustices and harsh realities exist in the world, and that you may never be part of any viable solution. It is much more comforting to think that these nations brought their troubles on themselves and that it's not as bad as they make it out to be. That it's not your problem and it shouldn't be your country's. A little voice in your head says, "but we all live on the same planet, and we are all human beings, right?". However, understandably, you have other responsibilities in your life which keep you up at night than to worry about these too.
You go on to say that colonisation was justifiable because the First Nations "weren't doing much with [Canada] in the first place"? But I digress. The argument is not about the sins of the father. It is the fact that actual Canadians don't feel Canadian and skin colour was the mitigating factor.
And the birthrite exists, whether you want to accept it or not. It has it's varying levels: being born middle-class in a rich country regardless of colour or gender is a good one; being born middle-class in a rich country as a white man is better. It is called cognitive dissonance when it bothers you to know that being a middle-class white man in Canada is a big societal advantage, when you would like to think that all of your hard work and intellect alone contributed to your success. There are hard-working non-white Canadians who are just as successful, but it is hard to think that they had to work harder on their character in order to dispel negative stereotypes that unconsciously exist in the minds of their colleagues, who would help them on the way to success.
The reason you start foaming at the mouth and accuse others of doing so and resort to calling them "liberals" is because you know you don't know what you are talking about; you know that you feel uncomfortable around STRANGERS who are of non-white ethnic groups. You know that the country is facing many economic and social problems that are not the fault of legal immigrants and non-white Canadians, but that it's easier to project Canada's problems onto them.
You KNOW that your reasoning is inherently flawed, so you resort to reading biased literature of a propagandic nature, claiming to come from an authority on the subject, to reinforce your beliefs so you, as a GOOD person, don't have to feel like a bad one. What you read and choose to extract and believe make you feel like you don't have to change for the better of society; they make you feel like you are in the right and you feel better about yourself.
You are a walking contradiction. I know you said you lived with non-white people, you have non-white friends, but they aren't strangers; you had to get to know them before you accepted them. If they were all strangers, in a room with you s the only white person, are you sure you "wouldn't give a damn about skin colour"?
I don't think you are a bad person, I think your intentions are good, I think you hate Toronto's crime, gang warfare, social problems, economic problems, as much as anyone else of ANY colour who reside here. But the way you think and reason about non-whites is inherently flawed and to a degree, you know this - this is why you feel attacked and get so angry.
Call me "liberal" as a nasty name if you want, but I don't think money and business and capital gain should come before a person's right to live a a decent life. No matter which country they come from.