How are they going to become Canadians…

31 Replies to “How are they going to become Canadians…”

1. How are they going to become Canadians…
   …or Americans–including immigrants’ progeny–when they are in constant contact with their home culture?
   Or, you might add, when they live on welfare once they get here? Holding a job, the need to get along with others at work, is an important step in joining the new culture. Welfare encourages ethnic ghettoes which are completely separate from society.

2. How many channels on cable, actually, promote Canadian culture here?

3. This is why the fallacy of Canadian programming has to be thrown out along with the CRTC. Canadians are paying to finance all the foreign channels via packaging and Canadian Content rules..If you want history Channel with their watered down PC junk you have to take APTN, 13 versions of CBC in both languages and 25 foreign channel programs. When will Canadians grow up if ever. Maybe now that the dollar is at par it is time to go for US satellite again. Anybody recommend a good company…

4. Wow, people still pay for cable TV? If I find a show I like, I’ll watch it online.

5. This is a problem, although one automatically gets called a racist for mentioning it.
   I have had several Chinese nationals working for me. Some of them have had poor English, and this was certainly an impediment to their work.
   And one can see why their English is poor. Except for their work, they deal in Chinese at home, listening to the radio and TV, and in books, magazines, and even newspapers.

6. Hilarious.
   Like someone has posted above, most programming on Canadian TV is American. So what – does watching American shows make me American? Should I stop doing that and start watching only Canadian-made TV? Is this another case of promoting Canadian content?
   Bizzarely enough, I quite prefer British TV to most of this American/Canadian junk. Does that make me too British? Or is that different from watching Viet TV/whatever.
   Truthbetold, I dont see any difference between watching a TV from another country and reading a book from another country. Going to start restricting books now too? Theres something unnervingly familiar about these arguments.
   The logic is baffling.

7. They won’t.

8. They should have to speak at least one of our national languages before they arrive here, for a start.

9. Odd
   Your argument is what is ‘hilarious’ or more acurately ridiculous. Both of the examples you sight are anglo-saxon countries having in general terms the same cultural and shared history as Canada. Asia and the middle east are radically different cultures, and in some cases, a mirror image of the Western world and our values.
   As an example, I would like to direct your attention to France as an example of what happens when immigrants refuse to integrate and/or bring their ‘culture’ into their new homeland. the real question here is: Why would a person move to a different country if they did not intend to integrate into the new culture, why bother in the first place?
   As for the banning books ‘thing’, this is a concoction of your active imagination, and a strawman argument. No one has suggested banning anything.

10. Here we go with the anglo-saxon values. Which, of course, conveniently ignores the plight of the Ukrainian and Jewish communities pre-1960s. What next – watching a Hebrew or Orthodox channel/maintaining a Hebrew or Ukrainian school is antithetical to being Canadian? They tried that already, and it didn’t work.
    Call it what it is – absurd. The US doesn’t really have a problem with the integration of most of the people from the regions associated with the list above. Theres no problem with the integrations of Indians or Asians, both of whom are performing better than the ‘average’ American in economic terms – they re both in higher income groups than the average american. The problem there is with the Hispanics, who, of course, subscribe to the Judeo-Christian values (presumably your next trump card).
    Which all goes to prove that the very basis of this thread – and your response – is based on the absurd assumption that watching Viet TV will make people more Viet. Or that a Bollywood movie will hinder integration. I watch more than enough international movies. Does that make me less Canadian?
    Theres 18 ‘Hindi’ channels listed up there. Some of them do nothing more than broadcast cricket with english commentary. Thats as anglo-saxon as it comes. Or is it?
    And with regard to books – watching Indian TV in Hindi or reading an Indian book written in Hindi, effectively have the same effect with regard to how much someone integrates. The underlying notion in this thread is that we are providing too much choice (which, of course, flies in the face of any sane mans economic beliefs). It isn’t a stretch to suggest that this thread is implicitly advocating ‘limiting’ choice. I m sure you ll disagree for the sake of disagreeing, but you know exactly what I mean.

11. Odd, is not just “odd” but he is an Odd libertarian, which is as bad as a “progressive’ conservative. Today I had to shout at a young Chinese fellow to use his hankie, as he was putting his finger to the side of his nostril (both) and blowing. This was inside a grocery supermarket. I suspect he was an immigrant because he had to ask, what? or Huh?, or some such. I have never seen a Canadian ever do such a filthy thing. Of course, I live in Burnaby, near Vancouver, where the city fathers are busy changing the numerical designations of residences and buildings (even heritage buildings) in order to make them more salable on the real estate market if it has a “lucky” #.

12. Immigrants still adhering to the customs/language (s) of their former land do so here without encumbrances and are, in a way, maintaining a kind of cultural chauvinism. I don’t have a problem with people privately adhering to various cultural or linguistic ties but there must exist a point where they embrace their new country, even if their new country is lazy in its expectations and placing the impetus on being a part of the community.

13. Sorry bud, but I am just a liberatarian.
    I don’t see the issue here. My own experience with immigrants is that all these ‘chauvinistic’ traits – these attachments to language and TV shows from home countries – die out within two generations. The first generation can obviously empathise with the imagery and projected messages of the TV show. Its more alien to the second, Canadian-born generation, who don’t have a reference point to place these TV shows within – ie if you haven’t grown up in a village in Guyana, a TV show about a guyanese village probably won’t resonate with you. It ll be as alien as Gilligan’s Island was to the first generation.
    Therefore, I fail to see the issue with first-generation folk watching their own TV shows. Sure they won’t master the language but is it really about the short term reality of immigration, or the long-term one. In the long term, they will integrate over generations. This fixation with the here-and-now is a case of hitting the target and missing the point. CHanging countries isnt easy – might as well make it a little more comfortable for the first generations. If they want to watch TV shows from back home to find comfort in familiarity (which frankly is what this is all about, just like a cup of Tim Hortons on Haymarket in central London), what do I care? Will their kids watch the same shows? Probably not – how much can they identify with them?
    And impact on integration? In the US, there are far more ethnic channels available. And their minority groups seem to be doing just fine.
    Much ado about nothing.

14. Odd, perhaps the reason why these “attachments” die out after a few generations is because the distance between the former culture and the newer generation and the surrounding environment which expects a universal cultural behaviour. I don’t think generations down the line will change if the past generation still sticks to the old ways and expects them to do the same.

15. Does latent immigrant-bashing (not-so-latent at SDA) amongst conservatives have anything to do with the poor performance of Tim Hudak in the Greater Toronto Area?

16. ‘Asians work like dogs.”
    Rob Ford, Toronto Mayor

17. Osumashi,
    How exactly are TV shows going to reinforce culture any more than books? Books have been available to other ‘problem’ communities – (Jewish/East European) before. If anything, they integrated into Canada even more strongly once restrictions on them were removed. History tells its own tale.
    Nor is there anything particularly anti-Canadian about most of this program. Its a bit of a fallacy to assume that depriving people of the comfort associated with familiarity will make them integrate faster. The second generation will be exposed to Canadian values from the get go. And they will make their choices. Whatever their choices, it will have precious little to do with programming available to them. After all, there are no number of ‘anglo-saxon’ Canadians who become commies and fascists, despite their parents being bonafide Canadians.
    Its all a bit ridiculous. What do you propose? That we don’t make channels available just because they don’t fit in with whatever vision of Canada that we have? Thats like giving the liberals carte blanche to ban Sun TV and Fox News.
    Ultimately, democracy is a market place of ideas, and us liberatarains would rather have all the ideas out there in public, than have them fester underground among impressionable people. That, after all, is the main strenght of freedom of speech. Of course immigrants will have their own cultures and ideas. And of course they will try to stick to them just like our dear lady’s apparent obession with a royal family thats done precious little for us (go to Heathrow sometime and see the special treatment they mete out to us vis-a-vis the Germans who bombed their country to pulp just 60 years ago).
    Whatever works, right. I don’t care much for any of this, but if theres a market for these programs, then more power to the corporations to cater to them. And if theres anti-Canadian ideas in these channels, I d rather they be available to the entire Canadian public, who are better placed to address them, than only to people accessing them through a black market.
    As for past generations maintaining control and trying to keep the old way going – thats got pretty close to nothing to do with TV packages. It does have a lot to do with how the government addresses ghettoes, but those ghettoes would exist regardless of what Rogers offers.

18. No, Rizwan, pertinent political discussion occurs all the time here. You should know that.
    Odd, I don’t have a problem with people speaking their native language at home or watching what you call familiar programming. That wouldn’t pose a problem to the greater community IF the community had higher expectations of the immigrant population and if Canadian values (in this case) were stressed at every turn. Without those things, what should be a former culture would thrive and only serve to isolate a segment of the population.

19. odd: “Therefore, I fail to see the issue with first-generation folk watching their own TV shows.”
    There is, of course, an obvious and parsimonious explanation for why a guest blogger on this particular blog would think nothing of trying to link cellphones, Skype, and the Rogers cable TV ethnocultural channel selection with the stereotype of the “unassimilable” visible minority immigrant, but it’s really only obvious if one lives outside the echo chamber.

20. Osumashi
    I think you hit the nail on the head. Perhaps Canadians are the problem.
    Odd
    I guess the medium in this case is not the message.

21. “but it’s really only obvious if one lives outside the echo chamber.”
    It must be lonely up there on your pedestal Davenport, sheesh, what douche.

22. “(T)he average income of immigrants who had been in Canada more than 15 years prior to the 2006 census was, in fact, higher than the average income of persons born in Canada. These immigrants would, therefore, be paying more taxes than the average Canadian-born person. This turns the Fraser Institute’s analysis on its head and suggests that immigrants are net contributors to government revenues if their entire working life is considered.”
    Canada West Foundation
    http://cwf.ca/_webapp_3929587/Fraser_Institute’s_View_of_Immigration_Too_Narrow

23. @Odd: you’ll find the xenophobes here want to believe the immigrant hordes are coming to destroy us and that they are on welfare even though it is demonstrably false. Canada’s easier immigration system is one reason we’re doing better than America economically.
    If you want a real world example of idiot nativism wrecking economies, see Alabama. They have 10% unemployment and produce is rotting on the ground because of a draconian immigration law.

24. Canada just needs a short term break. Cut immigration to almost nothing for five years and then resume.

25. I moved south in 1992 for greener pastures. I remain in the southern part of the continent for many reasons, a few of which are family, job, and freer access to the tools which preserve the freedom to think and speak.
    I have never thought of myself as either xenophile or xenophobe. I get along and respect other peoples choices. But one of the things that drove me south was the failed experiment in multiculturalism that was begun by Trudeau, and supported by nearly every party since the 1960’s.
    Trudeau was a brilliant man whose experiment was intended to create an alternative for English Canadians to focus their frustrations upon.
    Unfortunately for Canada it just created second, and third, and fourth minorities who clamor for ever more special attention and government money.
    Canada, which was once a vibrant, two-cultured society, is now a viper’s pit of resentment. The once tolerant English speaking majority are becoming less tolerant as they are robbed of their taxes by the screeching victims of their largesse.
    And the worst of it is that Canada has become a society where speaking the truth of what has happened is considered hate speech – if you are of the English speaking majority.
    I see the same happening in my new home south of the 49th. But at least here the majority still has the tools to prevent complete surrender of their freedoms. That too may change – I hope not – but that day, if it comes is still a long way off.

26. I have to side more with the dissenters on this issue. Any supposed problems here are a result of technological advances that were enabled by freedom. Any solutions will lie neither in hindering the technology nor in restricting freedom. Freedom generally provides its own solutions.

27. If specialty ethnic channels prove to be a lucrative enterprise with promise of expansion, it makes a statement about self-imposed apartheid of Multicult preventing a social cohesiveness as opposed to the homogeneous power of melting pot policy. It is still a very relevant maxim, that a nation divided cannot endure and Multicult has been the most socially divisive, socially destructive policy ever.

28. I is not a matter of only speaking the old language at home or over the phone to the old folks; we can all understand that, after all, we are all immigrants of a sort. However, when traveling on a bus or rapid transit, and you have a group of young people screaming at one another in Korean, or using a telephone like it is a megaphone; you get a bit p*ssed off! No they are not all like that, but few of them, especially Asians, make any effort to learn the tongue of their host country. There are people who have lived here for 50 years and still don’t know the language because they don’t need to, as our government insists on giving them everything, including street signs, and changing addresses to suit their beliefs that certain numbers are bad omens. Where will the madness end?

29. Western Democracies used to be able to count on one another to stand up to tyranny, the problem now is that we no longer have national identities based upon the core values of democracy (freedom of speech, religion …) Not so much anymore.

30. I suppose the alleged “progressive-minded” who troll here have forgotten that their audience is a contemporary one filled with well-versed, well-educated professionals, some of whom are immigrants, but why should that stop them from the tired old standbys of “racism” or its more sophisticated alternative “xenophobia”?

31. I’m not concerned.
    My wife is Japanese by birth, American by citizenship, and has lived here now for over half her life. She likes to watch Japanese TV shows and read for pleasure in Japanese.
    She took her written test for her driver’s license in English, and probably goes for months without speaking Japanese at all. She never used Japanese with the kids for fear of confusing them. I think that was a mistake. She only uses English at work – this area is no Mecca for Japanese.
    If you’ve ever been somewhere where you didn’t know the language very well, you’d understand just how mentally exhausting it can be to struggle to understand. There are cultural and linguistic differences that just don’t translate at all. Ask somebody fluent in Japanese about the book “Snow Country” then read it in translation for yourself. You won’t be able to believe it is literature. The Japanese will just tell you that English lacks the words. You might as well describe the Mona Lisa to a blind man.
    Total immersion might help more people learn English faster, but it has a psychological cost. I don’t think there is a problem unless people demand to vote in a foreign language (uh, you had to know English to become a citizen, and you have to be a citizen to vote.)