What is Canada becoming? Is Canada's tolerance misplaced?

Mahfooz Kanwar, PHD, Is A Sociologist And An Instructor Emeritus at Mount Royal College
By Mahfooz Kanwar, For The Calgary Herald, March 30, 2009 -Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald


Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is getting flak from the usual
suspects, but he deserves praise instead.

Recently, Kenney pointed out that while at a meeting in Toronto, members of
Canada's Pakistani community called on him to make Punjabi one of Canada's
official languages. It makes me angry that such an idea would enter the minds
of my fellow and former countrymen, let alone express them to a Minister of
the Crown.

A few months ago, I was dismayed to learn that Erik Millett, the principal of
Belleisle School in Springfield, N.B., limited playing our national anthem
because the families of a couple of his students objected to it.

As a social scientist, I oppose this kind of political correctness, lack of
assimilation of new immigrants to mainstream Canada, hyphenated-Canadian
identity, and the lack of patriotism in our great nation.

Increasingly, Canadians feel restricted in doing things the Canadian way lest
we offend minorities. We cannot even say Merry Christmas without fear of
causing offence. It is amazing that 77 per cent of the Canadian majority are
scared of offending 23 per cent of minorities. We have become so timid that
the majority cannot assert its own freedom of expression. We cannot publicly
question certain foreign social customs, traditions and values that do not fit
into the Canadian ethos of equality. Rather than encouraging new immigrants to
adjust to Canada, we tolerate peculiar ways of doing things. We do not remind
them that they are in Canada, not in their original homelands.

In a multicultural society, it is the responsibility of minorities to adjust
to the majority. It does not mean that minorities have to totally amalgamate
with the majority. They can practice some of their cultural traditions within
their homes -- their backstage behavior. However, when outside of their homes,
their front stage behavior should resemble mainstream Canadian behavior.
Whoever comes to Canada must learn the limits of our system. We do not kill
our daughters or other female members of our families who refuse to wear
hijab, niqab or burka which are not mandated by the Qur'an anyway. We do not
kill our daughters if they date the "wrong" men. A 17-year-old Sikh girl
should not have been killed in British Columbia by her father because she was
caught dating a Caucasian man.

We do not practice the dowry system in Canada, and do not kill our brides
because they did not bring enough dowry. Millions of female fetuses are
aborted every year in India, and millions of female infants have been killed
by their parents in India and China. Thousands of brides in India are burned
to death in their kitchens because they did not bring enough dowry into a
marriage. Some 30,000 Sikhs living abroad took the dowries but abandoned their
brides in India in 2005. This is not accepted in Canada.

In some countries, thousands of women are murdered every year for family or
religious honour. We should not hide behind political correctness and we
should expose the cultural and religious background of these heinous crimes,
especially if it happens in Canada. We should also expose those who bring
their cultural baggage containing the social custom of female circumcision. I
was shocked when I learned about two cases of this barbaric custom practiced
in St. Catharines , Ont. A few years ago.

I have said it on radio and television, have written in my columns in the
Calgary Herald, and I have written in my latest book, Journey to Success, that
I do not agree with the hyphenated identity in Canada because it divides our
loyalties. My argument is that people are not forced to come to Canada and
they are not forced to stay here. Those who come here of their own volition
and stay here must be truly patriotic Canadians or go back.

I am a first-generation Canadian from Pakistan. I left Pakistan 45 years ago.
I cannot ignore Pakistan, because it is the homeland of my folks, but my first
loyalty should be and is to Canada. I am, therefore, a proud Canadian, no
longer a Pakistani-Canadian. I am a Canadian Muslim, not a Muslim Canadian.

I do not agree with those Canadians who engage in their fight against the
system in their original countries on Canadian soil. They should go back and
fight from within. For example, some of the Sikhs, Tamil Tigers, Armenians and
others have disturbed the peace in Canada because of their problems back home.
Recently, a low-level leader of MQM, the
Mafia of Pakistan, came to Canada as a refugee and started to organize public
rallies to collect funds for their cause in Pakistan. On July 18, 2007, the
Federal Court of Canada ruled that MQM is a terrorist group led by
London-based Altaf Hussain, their godfather. As a member in the coalition
government of Pakistan, this terrorist group is currently collaborating with
the Taliban in Pakistan. That refugee was deported back to Pakistan.
Similarly, I disagree with newcomers who bring their religious baggage here.
For example, Muslims are less than two per cent of the Canadian population,
yet in 2004 and 2005, a fraction of them, the fundamentalists, wanted to bring
Sharia law to Canada. If they really want to live under Shara, they should go
to the prison-like countries where Sharia is practiced.

I once supported multiculturalism in Canada because I believed it gave us a
sense of pluralism and diversity. However, I have observed and experienced
that official multiculturalism has encouraged convolution of the values that
make Canada the kind of place people want to immigrate to in the first place.

Here, we stand on guard for Canada, not for countries we came from. Like it or
not, take it or leave it, standing on guard only for Canada is our national
maxim. Remember, O Canada is our national anthem which must not be disregarded
by anybody, including the teacher in Springfield, N. B.

Mahfooz Kanwar, PHD, Is A Sociologist And An Instructor Emeritus at Mount Royal College.