Multiculturalism's Failures

Canada needs immigrants. Emigrants need Canada. A match made in heaven. But it's not. Partly Canada's fault, partly not.

It seems, increasingly, that the visa- and immigration-screening process to ensure suitability of would-be visitors and immigrants could use a little re-designing. Because it has become abundantly clear over the past decade or so that Canada has admitted some citizenship candidates who should have undergone screening with a finer tooth-comb to ascertain suitability.

People with an investment in ongoing friction between various groups, imported from the country of origin, would not seem to represent the makings of a future Canadian interested in joining a society of immigrants; fundamentally a pluralist society based on equality of opportunity and egalitarianism under the law enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Basically, all Canadians have a right to personal security and an exchange of respect and tolerance.

We have freedoms that make us comfortable with our place in the country as individuals and as members of a larger society. We should also have great expectations that those who transfer their selves and their families to Canada will also be prepared to transfer their allegiance to the country and markedly to the overall social values of the country, its customs and traditions.

Official Canada is at fault, however, for encouraging immigrants to believe that they need not adapt themselves to the country's rules and regulations and social customs and values. Encouraging them instead to think of Canada as merely an extension of the country they have left. To feel free to live within religious and ethnic, cultural and heritage enclaves, excluding the larger society.

Which is fine, to a point. The fine point in all of this is that extremists, living amongst the moderates of any given immigrant group setting themselves apart from the greater community, conspire to evoke in their compatriots values inimical to Canada and even to their ethnic groups' security. From ehtnic Sri Lankan Tamils supporting the Tamil Tigers terror group, to Sikh fundamentalists raging about secessionist "Khalistan"; violence is the unifying ticket.

Sikhs eager and willing to visit violence on others who decry their penchant for violence and wish to live peaceful lives as Canadians, sully their ethnic group and present as an intolerable problem for Canada to solve. Somalian families who fled that war-torn country who now find their children undisciplined and easy recruits for foreign jihad or dealing drugs must exert a firmer grip on their young.

Muslim extremists who bring their vibrant brand of tribal antipathy toward non-Muslims and above all, the Jewish State of Israel for its purported intolerable presence in the Middle East, and fomenting to violence and incessant hateful slander in Canada, do violence to the normative expectations of Canadians by spewing and spreading campaigns based on hatred.

When a community can be terrorized by a Sri Lankan terror group's affiliates in Canada demanding 'donations' to fund the activities of a listed terror group, multiculturalism has failed. When a group of Canadian Sikh separatist fanatics can conspire to blow up an airliner and murder hundreds of Canadians, multiculturalism has failed.

When a long-established ethnic group within Canada begins to fear a recurrence of bigotry and racism because of the introduction of another, opposing ethnic group, multiculturalism has failed. Canada is a huge, underpopulated country, with great natural resources and huge opportunities to advance peoples' aspirations.

Canada is not a country to be used as a convenient spring-board for launching hate campaigns, threats of violence and parochial extensions of incendiary slanders leading to violence echoing situations in countries far from our shores.