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So lets say you have a hallway with two rooms. One room has 10 people with one dissenting voice; the other 30 people with 3 dissenting voices. Which room has the greater chance of that voice being heard? Are they not both the same?
Your point about Canada requiring a larger population to have an adequate voice for a particular community is ridiculous. All anyone is asking is for the representation to match the community and that is not happening now. For example is it adequate to have only 1 Black member of Toronto City council when Black people make up almost 10% of Toronto's population? or is it enough to have only 3 Aboriginal member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, while Aboriginals make up 14% of the population? I am sure you will now suggest we need more people to make this happen.
Then hop on that "bandwagon" and speak up about there being not even one member of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia that is of Aboriginal heritage while they make up 5% of the population of your home province. That would be a great place to start.
Once again, the history of the aboriginals in Canada is most comparable to the history of the African Americans. The history of black Canadians is not. The aboriginals were here long before any white or black man stepped onto this land and it is their homeland in the truest sense of the word.
For those who say that the First Nations ought to just get on with it, and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, I say it is hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when your boots have been stolen.
The Canadian black community, many of whom do not even identify themselves first and foremost as black on census forms, but as British or French, etc, unlike the African Americans in the US, mostly came here voluntarily. That is a huge difference. You cannot reasonably compare the US situation to the Canadian situation when our histories are so different.
Since there are so many immigrants, visible and not, in Canada, and in the west, the so-called pioneer times were yesterday when everyone was far too busy surviving to worry about the things you have time to worry about, and the different ethnic groups had to work together in order to survive, I guess the question I would have of voluntary immigrants to Canada is where the responsibility of more recent immigrants, who take for granted all that the immigrants in the not-so-distant past worked for come in?
Instead of jumping on the band wagon for the black community in Canada, you choose to go to the US and lecture from afar.
What you mistake for racism is indifference, and as Bimbam pointed out, an ethnic prejudice. There is such a thing as self-segregation. My people, the Mennonites, practised that for years, as did the French and the Ukrainians around here. I disagree a little bit with Bimbam, in that the primary motive of these people was the continuation of their old world communities and cultures in the new world.
Sometimes people who are looking for a problem find exactly what they are looking for. I could write a lengthy post about the contributions Mennonites have made to the settlement of the west and how poorly they were treated and cite old documents stating they were not good candidates for immigration because of their 'peculiar' ways and habits of not assimilating. I could write about how their right to vote was taken away with the rest of the German community, as could pretty much every other ethnic group that was not Anglo.
Immigrants don't integrate overnight and sit on city councils.
If many in the black community do not even identify themselves primarily as black, it would suggest to me that they do not see a major problem associated with their colour.
I have half-Jamaican and half Mennonite nieces and nephews. For different cultural projects and such at school, they have been there, done that in terms of representing Bob Marley and other aspects of their Jamaican heritage. At a recent school "What don't people know about me" thing, my participating nephew had as his project, "People don't realise I'm half Mennonite."
He is in no way ashamed of his black Jamaican heritage. He knows perfectly well that in the eyes of the world he will always be identified as black. But in his wise-little-boy way, he was pointing out that people are more than they appear to be, and he himself would choose not to lock himself into one identity.
And I have no doubt at all that he can be anything the hell he wants to be in this country.
Then hop on that "bandwagon" and speak up about there being not even one member of Legislative Assembly of British Columbia that is of Aboriginal heritage while they make up 5% of the population of your home province. That would be a great place to start.
British Columbia has the second largest First Nations population in Canada and the BC First Nations people already have their own Assembly and an active and demanding voice that is heard loud and clear in BC governance. Welcome to The BC Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN)
I have no misplaced intentions or presumptions of interfering or getting involved with what they know is best for themselves and are already managing to accomplish for themselves. I have other bandwagons that I'm on that are of much more importance to me .... the racial and cultural discrimination bandwagon is NOT one of them.
I get the feeling that Canadians like to pat themselves on the back for not being racist, which is such a load of horsesh1t. People deal it out in every country, racism is everywhere.
In the USA racism is discussed openly. People know it's out there and there's never any attempt to hide it, which in a way is healthier than trying to pretend it isn't an issue and that it's somehow "wrong" to try and grapple with it in an open forum, that's the Canadian way, ignore it and hopefully it'll go away.
I understand your bolded point, and have mixed feelings about it. At one point in my career I worked for a company in Alberta that had an affirmative action hiring practice. Their goal was to have an equivalent percentage of employees that were Native Canadians as was the population percentage of them in Alberta. Ideology-wise it made sense. In practice? It caused a lot of problems. There were a number of instances in my department alone where the less qualified individuals got the jobs.
Affirmative action hiring also fosters the phenomenon that we currently see in both Canada and the USA called the "straight white male discrimination" phenomenon. If companies are filling quotas (whether they be to hire more women, more LGBT, more of a particular race or language group) then the decision is not based on qualifications / merit. My son is experiencing this right now, trying to get into the RCMP. He'd have a better chance to get in if he had ovaries :
The RCMP plans to make white, male police officers a minority on the force within a generation as it struggles to better reflect the multicultural face of Canada.
Under new hiring benchmarks set this month, senior Mounties say that new classes of recruits should comprise 30 per cent women, 20 per cent visible minorities and 10 per cent aboriginals, The Globe has learned. If the benchmarks are met, it would be the first time “minority” hires would actually represent a majority of RCMP recruits.
This post seems to contradict the other post you had on the same page in this thread. The article you discuss says the Mounties are recruiting based on sex and race, but then... that's illegal according to:
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunshineleith
Nobody knows what race you are when you apply. Religion and race are not questions that are permissible in Canada on application forms (on job applications you are also not permitted to ask someone's age, race, marital status. Nor are you allowed to ask them such questions in interviews - not allowed to ask whether they have children or if they plan to have children, etc.
So, are they illegal criteria or not (I remember reading the "protected classes" thing before in many places so my impression is that it would be not allowed, but the Globe and Mail article about the Mounties implies that it's allowed?
Or perhaps rules have changed? Or it doesn't apply to some jobs?
I get the feeling that Canadians like to pat themselves on the back for not being racist, which is such a load of horsesh1t. People deal it out in every country, racism is everywhere.
In the USA racism is discussed openly. People know it's out there and there's never any attempt to hide it, which in a way is healthier than trying to pretend it isn't an issue and that it's somehow "wrong" to try and grapple with it in an open forum, that's the Canadian way, ignore it and hopefully it'll go away.
rubbish...of course racism exists in all countries, it's human nature...a relative issue...Canada is LESS racist than just about any country on earth..notice i didn't say it doesn't exist....just less than anywhere else (any country that is not homogeneous, ie Finland)...we openly support multiculturalism (mosaic, not a melting pot) and immigration...no other country does this to the degree we do....racism isn't openly discussed as much here b/c it isn't AS MUCH of a problem as other countries....i have lived in downtown TO for many yrs and there are people from all over the world here, all colours, all languages and we seem to get along pretty well...far from perfect, but BETTER than just about anywhere else
This post seems to contradict the other post you had on the same page in this thread. The article you discuss says the Mounties are recruiting based on sex and race, but then... that's illegal according to:
So, are they illegal criteria or not (I remember reading the "protected classes" thing before in many places so my impression is that it would be not allowed, but the Globe and Mail article about the Mounties implies that it's allowed?
Or perhaps rules have changed? Or it doesn't apply to some jobs?
The female applicants they know are female, as gender is indicated on the form, but I think they get around the legality of it with something that they do on numerous government application forms that I have seen which is a question posed something like: "Do you wish to voluntarily self-identify as visually or hearing impaired, physically challenged, a member of a visible minority" etc- something to that effect - in which case, if you do qualify for any of those designation, you DO want to put what you've got/are as with the affirmative action hiring you actually bump yourself up the ladder!!! Let me see if I can find some examples. I definitely saw it when I applied for government jobs!!
Diversity and employment equity
The Public Service ensures inclusive and representative hiring practices to respond to the constantly changing fabric of Canadian society. Employment equity in the Public Service means eliminating barriers to employment for four designated groups: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities.
So again, if you are a healthy white Canadian male, you are simply sh-t out of luck for many government jobs.
Last edited by sunshineleith; 05-03-2012 at 03:54 AM..
The female applicants they know are female, as gender is indicated on the form, but I think they get around the legality of it with something that they do on numerous government application forms that I have seen which is a question posed something like: "Do you wish to voluntarily self-identify as visually or hearing impaired, physically challenged, a member of a visible minority" etc- something to that effect - in which case, if you do qualify for any of those designation, you DO want to put what you've got/are as with the affirmative action hiring you actually bump yourself up the ladder!!! Let me see if I can find some examples. I definitely saw it when I applied for government jobs!!
Diversity and employment equity The Public Service ensures inclusive and representative hiring practices to respond to the constantly changing fabric of Canadian society. Employment equity in the Public Service means eliminating barriers to employment for four designated groups: women, Aboriginal peoples, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities.
So again, if you are a healthy white Canadian male, you are simply sh-t out of luck for many government jobs.
So, the Canadian government is obsessed with race??
That wouldn't be my conclusion. Is that yours from the information provided?
The point made by many non-Americans on C-D is that Americans are a people obsessed with race, and they point to the voluntary questions on application forms as an example. You just provided us with an example of a Canadian government form asking similar questions. I'm merely turning the tables.
rubbish...of course racism exists in all countries, it's human nature...a relative issue...Canada is LESS racist than just about any country on earth.....we openly support multiculturalism (mosaic, not a melting pot) and immigration...no other country does this to the degree we do....racism isn't openly discussed as much here b/c it isn't AS MUCH of a problem as other countries....
This is what I'd call rubbish - so called "mosaic" and endless comparisons with American concept of "melting pot". Both concepts don't exist in real life, and surely, saying Canada is a "mosaic" or a "rainbow" is pure rubbish, blah blah blah.
In reality, immigrant groups in each coutry co-exist, but never completely blend with each other, which is fine.
In addition, governments in both coutries are interested that immigrants integrate with local culture and economy as much as possible and promote such integration. After all, you want immigrants to feel at home and to relate to the host country and not to feel foreigners for the rest of their lives, although many of them do.
Although, Canadians like to differentiate the concept of "mosaic" from the concept of "melting pot", I think, it's a bogus, a need to say: Look, we are different from the US and we have a totally different approach and it works better. In reality, in both countries, people of the same origin tend to stick to each other and process of integration and assimilation is basically the same, if any.
Last edited by movingwiththewind; 05-03-2012 at 11:13 AM..
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