The Transformation is Nearly Complete

NDP nearly completed transition into Jacques' Bloc

Federalist NDP supporters across Canada -- especially in the rest of Canada -- should be getting nervous.

Very nervous.

Since arriving as the official opposition on the crest of the infamous orange wave sweeping through Quebec, the NDP is appearing less and less like its former self every day; and more and more like the Bloc Quebecois.

As NDP leader Jack Layton and Quebec lieutenant Thomas Mulcair addressed the Quebec wing of the party, Mulcair adopted the traditional language policy of the Bloc Quebecois: one of lingual supremacy.

This has seeped into the NDP's positions almost to the extent of the traditional BQ hostility to immigrants.

“People who choose Quebec, because an immigrant is not forced to come to Quebec, must understand that they will learn and their children will learn French over and above all,” Mulcair declared.

Mulcair justified this hostility as a means of securing federalism in Quebec.

“As federalists, we have always understood that the best way to preserve Quebec’s place in Canada is to ensure that Quebecers feel secure with their language and culture,” he added.

But securing the French language and culture in Quebec cannot realistically be accomplished by isolating it and promoting it above all others. Nor can Mulcair expect to mandate that every word an immigrant family speaks, or their children learns, be French.

It isn't in this new hostility to immigrant communities that the NDP's transformation lies. The Sherbrooke Declaration also holds that a 50% +1 vote is sufficient to secure sovereignty, and that the clarity act -- ensuring that separatists cannot attempt to win sovereignty on the back of an ambiguous or deceptive qeustion -- should be abolished.

Jack Layton calls it "treating Quebec with respect". The rest of Canada should recognize taht there is a difference between treating Quebec with respect and openly pandering to separatists.

The transformation of the NDP from a federalist party into the Bloc du jours should concern a great many Canadians.

Labour's Immigration Dilemma

Labour Party still self-consciously clueless about immigration policy

It was a defining moment of the 2010 British election: Gordon Brown, after conversing with British everywoman Gillian Duffy, declared her to be "a bigoted woman".

Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter, challenged Brown about his ability to tackle the UK's national debt while demand for welfare continued to be driven by immigration.

"We had it drummed in when I was a child … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable," Duffy had declared. "But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it."

"But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more," Brown argued. "If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months…"

"You can't say anything about the immigrants," Duffy complained. "But all these eastern European that are coming in, where are they flocking from?"

Brown replied that while one million immigrants were arriving from Eastern Europe, one million Britons had emmigrated elsewhere.

In frustration, Brown would later declare Duffy to be "a bigoted woman". He was still wearing a Sky News Microphone and had forgotten about it. It was a defining gaffe of the election for Labour.

The message -- which is still causing deep anxieties within Labour ranks -- was very simple: Britons were not yet prepared to accept multiculturalism as inevitable; at least not with what they had already seen.

As it pertains to multiculturalism, many countries have experienced some growing pains. But it seems that Britain has had it far worse than some other countries.

Britain is one of the only countries in the western world where Sharia courts were actually allowed to take root. The rot has penetrated so deeply that even the Archbishop of Canterbury has described the implementation of Sharia law as "inevitable".

It's on this general note that social patterns such as the troubling upswing in support for organizations like the British National Party have emerged. Many Britons, it seems, no longer recognize their own country when radical Islamists so frequently take to the streets to declare their intentions to bring the totality of British society under their extreme political ideology, which masquerades as Islam.

This is not a challenge that the British government will be able to tackle easily. Before the Labour Party will be ready to return to government, it will need to conquer its Gillian Duffy-related demons, and prepare a vigorous response to the troubled state of British multiculturalism.

Loners, Losers and Canadian Multiculturalism

Speaking via ForaTv, former US President Bill Clinton explains how the adoption of the principle of majority rules in more and more countries around the world has a potential dark side -- the oppression of those who may not readily be considered part of that majority.

Clinton describes them bascially as "losers" and "loners", and says that the litmus test for any true democracy is whether or not a citizen has enough individual rights that they can potentially lose -- politically, economically, socially, culturally or otherwise -- and still be safe from oppression.

At its basest level, there does seem to be a key dilemma between majority rule and respect for the rights of minorities. As we see in many countries less enlightened than our own, in systems wherein majority rule is considered absolute minorities tend to not have many rights.

Multicultural societies should likely be considered less prone to this kind of absolutism. As Satya Das notes, because of the broad cultural variety of Canadian society Canadians have had to set aside our differences and respect the rights of groups that, if judged by a standard of ethnic -- as opposed to civil -- nationalism would themselves be minorities.

If Canadians continued to discriminate against groups such as Icelandic, Ukrainian or Irish Canadians there would be no shortage of people for those prone to such behaviour to discriminate against. What there would end up being a shortage of is Canadians among the so-called "majority".

This is one of the best reasons for Canadians who may not yet have come around to the idea of multiculturalism to acclimate themselves to it. Within the next thirty years caucasian Canadians will be a numeric minority in Canada. Those accustomed to enjoying a privileged position within Canada on account of being part of this so-called majority will find themselves in a rather uncomfortable position at that point.

But one also has to remember that there can also be a dark side to the group rights promoted by multiculturalism as well. As Benjamin Barber points out group rights -- particularly within minority groups -- can lead to a communitarian ethos in which minority groups demand absolute solidarity from its members, to the extent that members are forced to surrender individual rights in order to remain part of their community what eventually emerges is not a society that is more democratic, but in fact less.

Mixing the notions of majority rule with an overwhelmingly communitarian ethos leads to situations were people are not free, to the extent to which they are very literally enslaved by their communities.

Canada has, for the most part, passed the test of protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Whether Canada has succeeded in protecting the majority from what Preston Manning termed "the tyranny of the minority" is another matter entirely.

Some would argue that legalizing same-sex marriage over what they deemed to be the opposition of the majority -- which was actually the agreement of a minority coupled with the comparable indifference of the majority of Canadians -- empowered same-sex couples at the expense of the majority of Canadians. Many Canadians -- including this author -- would disagree with them, but this case is nonetheless argued.

The case that individuals are subjected to the tyranny of community is much stronger. Consider the case of aboriginal women denied rights granted by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- and, through it, Canada's Constitution -- because political elites within the aboriginal community oppose it.

These are merely two examples in which Canadian democracy has either failed, or is argued to fail, to amply balance the rights of majorities and minorities, and communities and individuals.

Although Canada has performed this balancing act better than many other countries, it's certainly been far from perfect, and there are many improvements that could be made.

More to Immigration Than Importing Labour

Small-minded views on immigration threaten Canadian identity

Of the many things Canadians take in pride in about their country, multiculturalism is generally one of them.

Naturally, not everyone agrees with multicultural policy. In particular, many conservative-minded Canadians oppose multiculturalism because they feel it undermines the traditional Canadian identity -- one these particular individuals view as predominantly European and white.

Meanwhile for many Canadians multiculturalism seems to be largely irrelevant. Instead, they view immigration simply as an economic tool -- one in which they can find extra bodies to fill jobs.

Speaking alongside Leon Benoit in Lloydminster, Jason Kenney notes that he expects the current economic climate in Canada to reduce levels of immigration. Regardless of this expectation, the Conservative government is working on ways to streamline the immigration process in order to admit more workers to Canada.

Kenney and Benoit were in Lloydminster to discuss precisely that initiative.

"It’s a chance to meet people who are key in the community and figure out what the federal government can do to help them make sure the economy stays strong in this region," Kenney said. "Across Western Canada, we’re talking about tens of thousands of jobs that would go unfilled, businesses that would go down and bankrupt if they could not find temporary workers."

"Immigration is the sort of thing you just don’t want to do a short term knee-jerk reaction, you want to plan for the medium term, and that’s what we’re doing," Kenney explained. "We consulted industry and all of the provinces just a couple months ago and they all said we should probably keep levels about where they’re at now."

Of course, there's a serious problem with treating immigration mainly as an economic tool.

While it is a reality that immigration needs to be economically sustainable, acting recklessly upon some of the other preferences reportedly expressed -- toughening refugee policies and reducing government funding for groups serving minority communities -- would imperil multiculturalism in Canada.

Toughening refugee policies too much could result in refugees who deserve to be allowed into Canada based on merit being turned away. Reducing the funding for groups that serve minority communities would make it harder for new arrivals to adjust to Canadian society -- ironically, one of the concerns Kenney raised while in Lloydminster.

Reducing immigration to a mere economic tool is a formula for a more insular, parochial Canadian society -- one of the absolute last things Canada needs.

It seems that Jason Kenney and Leon Benoit may not fully understand this.

"People were asking about serious issues … and problems that need to be solved," Benoit added. "We have accomplished a high percentage of things that I recommended as critic, things I saw were wrong."

"Does that mean there’s nothing to do? Well you heard tonight: there is."

While Canadian immigration policies are far from perfect, the government needs to be very careful regarding which reforms it chooses to pursue.

Jane Junn, Russel Peters and the Ridiculousness of Race

In an interesting video via Fora TV, Rutgers University associate professor of political science Jane Junn makes it pretty apparent that more and more Americans are discovering Canada's own Russel Peters.

In the course of a speech about race and politics Junn notes that the fastest growing demographic in the United States is those Americans who describe themselves as multiracial.

Junn gushes about Russel Peters' comedic genius while quoting one of his jokes about the mixing of race.

"He says 'what if you mix together a Jamaican and an Italian what do you get'?" she recites. "A pastafarian."

"What about a woman from Iceland and a man from Cuba you get Ice Cubes," she continues. "And a woman from the Phillipines and a man from Holland you get a Hollapino."

Peters doesn't stop with hilarious send-ups of the kind of jokes that six-year-olds tend to tell their parents.

Performing for the Def Jam Comedy Jam, for example, Peters quips about brown being the new black. This would provide an interesting new way to look at Barack Obama's election as President: if a black president is fascinating to you, just imagine a Muslim president!

It shouldn't be imagined that race is set to disappear from the United States -- or from countries such as Canada -- overnight, or even within the next hundred years. Or ever.

But the rapidly-growing category of multiracial Americans has obvious implications for both racism and race. The United States has clearly come a long way from the days when interracial mating, dating and marrying was considered miscegenation and was illegal.

In the near future race may not only be considered to be irrelevant, but it may eventually even come to be seen for what it is: absolutely ridiculous.

That is the genius of Peters' comedy. As a member of a visible minority himself, he certainly recieves a special dispensation -- consider it something of a "never, ever go to jail" card -- as it pertains to race.

He embraces this license to indulge in racial humour and ultimately uses it to make the very notion of race -- or at least the social need to label people on account of race -- seem more and more ridiculous. After all, if our societies really have a deeply-rooted need to label people according to race, the time is not far off when we would need to come up with jumbled labels such as the type that Peters proposes.

This was certainly an ingenious stroke shared by the writers of the movie Domino, an action-verite film that featured a scene in which one of the black characters goes on Jerry Springer and proposes new labels such as "blacktino" and "chinegro".

The hostile reaction Lateesha Rodrigues faces from an audience member serves as a reminder that society may not be ready to abandon it's old socially-entrenched labels just yet.

But the inevitability that such lables do not apply to increasing numbers of people makes their obselescence inevitable. This shouldn't be mistaken to mean that racism will cease to exist. Racism will likely adapt to racially-mixed norms, although some people will certainly cling to modern notions of racism just like some people cling to their old computers and television sets. (You mean like that ancient RCA you're watching TMZ on right now? -ed)

As modern notions of race become less and less relevant, modern racism will likely become retro. Maybe it'll even die like disco -- which, whether anyone cares to admit it or not, has never died entirely.

Like many great comics, Russel Peters may well be ahead of his time, and Jane Junn knows it.

Parvez Murder Becomes a Battleground for Multiculturalism

Barbara Kay suggests Aqsa Parvez case a black eye for Multiculturalism

In the wake of the murder of Aqsa Pervez, a 16-year-old Muslim girl who was strangled by her father for refusing to wear a Hijab, many commentators have pointed the finger of blame at Multiculturalism, and, more specifically, Islam.

Her 26-year-old brother has also been charged with obstruction of justice.

In a National Post Full Comment op/ed piece, Barbara Kay argues that Parvez's murder is proof of the failings of Multiculturalism and Feminism, as demands that we respect cultural differences force people to bend over backward in order to accomodate the most brutal practices of other cultures.

"...The alliance of feminism with multiculturalism has created a two-tier sisterhood.

The top tier, western women, have achieved full equality rights. Any and all male aggression against a top tier woman triggers a public outcry and a million lit candles. The second tier women — those from other cultures — are not so fortunate. Feminists exploit multiculturalism to justify their moral abandonment of the women who most need them: girl victims of dysfunctional or socially unevolved cultures."

Partially, Barbara Kay has it right. Certainly, there are some people who have become so enamoured with Multiculturalism that they have allowed various groups a "free pass", even within the borders of our own country, to do as their culture would allow, regardless of whether or not it violates the rules and laws of Canadian society.

This, however, is not a failing of Multiculturalism in and of itself. Rather, it's a failing of Multiculturalism as a political ideology. The use of Multiculturalism as a political ideology demands that it be rigid and uncompromising. It's under conditions such as this that the detail that a crime has been committed can easily be swept under a rug and forgotten.

Multiculturalism should not be so highly enshrined in the Canadian identity that it can allow for cultural values to be used as an excuse for murder.

To people such as Kay, however, the Parvez case has become more than merely a question of whether or not Multiculturalism should allow "honour killings" to be tolerated in Canadian society (although the answer to that question is obvious). They want to treat the Parvez case as a trial for the Hijab itself:

"Sixteen-year old Mississauga teenager Aqsa Parvez died on Tuesday of wounds suffered in an attack on her Monday — allegedly by her father. (A brother is also charged with the crime of obstruction.) Friends of Aqsa painted a picture of a young girl eager to integrate into Canadian society, in ongoing conflict with her conservative Pakistani father who insisted she wear the hijab, the Muslim symbol of sexual modesty.

Multiculturalists would have us believe that the hijab is merely a religious symbol, like the Sikh kirpan or the Christian cross, freely embraced by the girls wearing them. It isn’t, as many Muslim commentators, including Tarek Fatah in these pages yesterday, have frequently explained. The hijab is rather a public sign of supervised sexual modesty, and marks those wearing it as chattel, leashed to their fathers and brothers as surely as if they were wearing a dog collar.

But you’ll never hear a feminist murmur a word of complaint about these girls’ lack of autonomy, for the same reasons the judge in Australia couldn’t imagine that an aboriginal girl should be treated with the same dignity and respect as her own daughter.

I have argued before in these pages that the hijab, however benign-seeming, is still one end of a female-submissive spectrum that ends in the burqa, a garment virtually all Canadians find antithetical to our values. If public schools, which are supposedly secular, had banned hijabs as France did, along with all other religious paraphernalia, in order to create a level social Canadian playing field, Aqsa would have had Canada on her side."

To many Canadians, Kay's remarks would seem spot-on. Ignoring for a few moments that the Burqa holds different meanings for differing groups of Muslims (some of whom reject the practice altogether), many see the Burqa as an example of suppression of women at worst, and female submissiveness at best. Under either condition, they argue, the Burqa should be seen as anathema to Canadian values.

At first glimpse, they'd seem to be correct.

Yet the fact is that, at the end of the day, Canada is either a free society or it is not.

Anti-Hijab and anti-Burqa activists need to come to grips with the fact that religious freedom must also entail the right for Muslim women to choose either of these garments, if they do so of their own accord. However, Canadian Muslims, if they expect to benefit from the freedom of religion Canada offers, must also accept those freedoms will apply to their wives and daughters as well. Honour killings will absolutely not be tolerated.

Muhammad Parvez should be made an example of what the Canadian justice system holds in store for those who commit such foul acts.

However, banning all religious paraphenalia from schools, as Barbara Kay suggests, would only entrench religious intolerance in Canada, as the increasing fervour surrounding secularism and its religious counterpart, atheism, begins to demand that all religions be suppressed in the public eye.

Whether or not France (time and time again proven to be less tolerant than they pretend to be) has done this is immaterial. People used to agree that religious intolerance is bad, and in the wake of Aqsa Parvez's "honour killing" -- arguably a result of religious intolerance within her own home, as her father refused to respect her differing beliefs -- what is needed is more religious tolerance, not less.

We don't have to respect cultural values that allow for "honour killings". We do, however, have to respect that cultural values may lead people to dress differently than we may otherwise like them to.

To refuse to do so is nothing short of intolerance. We used to agree that was a bad thing.