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 Editorials | Opinions | April 2007 
Happy Easter - While It Still Exists
 Bill Rowe - The Western Star
I read a racist joke about President Bush in a reputable journal recently, just after our provincial government launched its new immigration strategy.
Bush flies to Mexico to meet with the Mexican president. Driving in from the airport in the limousine, Bush looks through the window at all the Mexican men, women and children going about their business outside.
He turns to the Mexican president beside him and says, "I thought we had a problem with illegal aliens in the States but, jeez, they're all over the place down here."
Vicious and offensive, yes, but it certainly made me laugh. Why? Because it brought instant recognition of an unthinking human foible among many in our prosperous, white-bread, Anglo-Saxon countries - that knee-jerk negative reaction to other people whose skin colour, dress, behaviour, religion, and customs differ from our own. Seldom is it as absurd as in that joke, but often a feeling is definitely present: they don't fit in; they're taking jobs away; they shouldn't be allowed to wear that. Well, anyone whose feelings tend that way had better get over it fast. And be prepared for other culture shocks ahead.
The low Canadian birth rate means that nearly all population growth in Canada will come from immigration, a quarter million new people every year. And most of that immigration will not flow from European countries where appearance and customs are similar to ours, but from Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries where skin colour, clothes, religion, and traditions are different from the vast majority here.
The level of immigration to Newfoundland and Labrador is pathetic: 450 immigrants a year, one tenth of what we should be attracting, according to our population, compared with the rest of Canada. And only about a third of those actually stay here.
So it's high time our government brought in this first provincial immigration strategy to broaden and diversify our little population beyond its current, much too homogeneous nature. But there are severe challenges for current citizens and newcomers alike.
As we encourage immigrants to Canada and to this province, we must insist on something important. Our ancestors shed blood, their own and that of tyrants, to develop the system of laws and democracy that prevail here today.
So, whatever the laws and customs of countries of origin, Canada must resist any attempt by anyone to erode or circumvent our rule of law, freedom of expression, equality of men and women.
The minister of Finance in Australia, Peter Costello, recently proclaimed that if the laws of his country do not accord with the values of certain would-be immigrants, if such immigrants want a country that is subject to the law of sharia, then Australia is not for them.
He was criticized, of course, by some "liberals" as a narrow-minded bigot. But, frankly, I don't see how he could have been more honest and on the mark.
On the other hand, those of us already here should go out of our way to accommodate the differences of newcomers that do not violate our fundamental democratic and legal principles.
Surely we should insist that our country protect the right to different modes of dress and the exercise of diverse religions and traditions that do not endanger or detract from the rights of others.
And we must be ready for the fact that fairness and equality under our rule of law will cut both ways. It's only a matter of time before the courts of Canada not only absolutely ban Christian prayer on state occasions but also disallow state-sanctioned religious holidays with names like Christmas and Easter because such practices discriminate against persons whose religion is outside our historic Christian traditions.
Get ready for it: No more Happy Easter holiday, but Happy Spring break. Such may be the price of tolerance and equality under a full, democratic separation of church and state.
Bill Rowe is the host of Backtalk with Bill Rowe, a provincewide phone-in show on the VOCM and CFCB networks. He can be reached by e-mail at letters@thetelegram.com. |
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