Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
May 11th – “Our Party has raised, and will continue to raise, the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka in the House of Commons. We will continue to demand action by the Canadian government to address the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka.”
May 16th – BREAKING NEWS – LTTE allies Sets Fire to Toronto Buddhist Vihara
h/t andycanuck via FFOF
I missed Jum’s comment on the generation gap. Having four young productive and successful adult children who also understand the problem here, the claim of a generation gap is rubbish. I might also add for the record that they are not white, which explains their lack of liberal white guilt I imagine.
Jum, it is not a matter of mere inconvenience, it is a matter of the rule of law. We either have it apply equally to everyone or it applies to no one.
We either have a country were it is safe to hold a legal protest or we have a country like say Sri Lanka.
If these rules of law are too much for anyone to adhere to, there are many other countries in the world.
By the way it was real nice of them to let the ambulances through. I sure it was appreciated by all concerned.
Jum [Just uninformed mmmm …?] “I don’t see any harm in having ‘Canadians of convenience’, given that most of them pay enough into the economy and social security that we are still immensely prosperous. I, for one, think that we GAIN by the influx of foreign expertise and culture, even if it is fleeting.”
Where does one even begin to address your vacuousness? Most of these two-passport “Canadians” don’t “pay enough into the economy.” Those of us who aren’t “Canadians of convenience” have done most of the paying — often for 30 or 40 or 50 years — with them as the beneficiaries of our hard work and industry. Retired Canadians who have paid into the system for over 30 years are eligible for smaller monthly payments from the government than are two-passport “refugees.”
What makes you think we’re going to continue to be “immensely prosperous” for very much longer? The police estimate that the taxpayer has already put out $14,000,000 for protection for the Tamil Tigers’ demonstrations and suspect that these demonstrations are going to continue into the summer. What gain is THAT?
You didn’t answer my question: Are you paying the bills yet? Probably not. If the hard-earned dollars you would like to expend on your children, your property, your future, were being confiscated by the state to be given to an outlawed terrorist group, many of whom are living off the state, for a battle that is happening in another country I’m not sure you’d be singing such a sunny, Pollyanna tune.
And, what “foreign expertise and culture” are you blubbering about? Do tell. What are they and how are they benefitting Canada and Canadians?
Foreign trained doctors, engineers etc. are the foreign expertise I am talking about. Canada’s immigration services target skilled labourers and whatever other groups are needed by the country at the time. For example, the point system also privileges young immigrants with families due to the low (or negative, I forget) natural growth rate of the Canadian population.
These immigrants bring the same thing to the economy that any other Canadian does, by working and consuming goods and services. We have been immensely successful for the 38 years that multiculturalism has been official government policy, I really don’t think the system is going to collapse spontaneously or it would have already.
I can’t say how large the population of “Canadians for convenience” is, but it is certainly smaller than the population of immigrants who come here and stay here or the population would be shrinking overall.
This isn’t “white guilt” talking, this is reality. Immigrants come to Canada, do whatever they do, cause little fuss (less than the Bread and Circuses people so far) and the country continues to prosper and Toronto continues to be one of the safest cities in North America. To get back to the point, many of these protesters are as Canadian as you or I, and it is unreasonable to expect them to cut all ties to the old country just because you have no attachment to the nation of your own origin.
I have no problem with immigrants coming to Canada who pay their way and fully contribute to our civil life. We are all immigrants — or, at least, we are all descended from immigrants.
I do, however, have difficulty with Canadians of convenience, with immigrants who come to Canada only to take from us, with no intention of giving anything back — and, then, to add insult to injury, to expect Canada to interfere in the political affairs of a sovereign country thousands of miles away.
No country can sustain the level of immigration Canada has in the past 25 years unless these immigrants are fully committed to living here and building our democracy for the future of their and our children. To come to Canada and bring all of the grievances from their country of origin, with no commitment to the well-being of our shared life in this country, is a recipe for disaster.
This is MY country, and I deeply resent interlopers, aka two-passport immigrants, using MY country as a launching pad for their own agenda in a country on the other side of the world and, to add insult to injury, demand that I and my hardworking family foot the bill for their political intrigues.
Enough. It is enough. These immigrants are taking total advantage of Canadians’ hospitality and our desire to be welcoming to immigrants who have come here to build a better life for them and their families. They need to have a much deeper respect for our democracy and to understand that they must contribute to our shared life together, here and now IN CANADA, and not demand that Canada involve itself in grievances from and in their country of origin.
That is not our fight. We have enough on our plates as it is.
How is peaceful protesting not showing a deep respect for our democracy?
The fact of the matter is that the world is not as simple as nation-states anymore. It’s entered a transnational period where people have loyalties and communication and connection with friends and family around the world. It is unreasonable to expect immigrants to come here and cut all connections to the homeland. If you moved to America to work, would you stop sending money back to your needy family, and stop funding Canadian charities like Hospital for Sick Kids, and stop caring about Canadian politics? Maybe in the past that was necessary, but air travel is cheap and accessible, and the internet makes keeping in touch easier than ever. What you are suggesting is isolationism, and that just does not work in a globalized world. The world’s affairs ARE Canada’s affairs, and vice versa.
Besides, it’s not as if they’re launching protests over the election results or some petty politics in a foreign country – that would be needlessly disruptive, I agree. These protests are about alleged genocide, which is everyone’s business, especially a country that prides itself on defending human rights.
I understand, Jum, that you’re part of the Kumbaya Nation that’s been spawned by the (dis)education, aka brainwashing, in our schools.
You ask: “If you moved to America to work, would you stop sending money back to your needy family, and stop funding Canadian charities like Hospital for Sick Kids, and stop caring about Canadian politics?”
Yes to the first question, maybe to the second, no to the last. However, if I moved to another country, for my good and the good of my neighbours, I would pitch my tent in my new place of residence and not forever keep one foot in my country of origin and one in my new home. Sending money home to my “needy family” is one thing. Sending money to my homeland to buy arms, the group to which I belong and am sending money to having been outlawed as a terrorist group by my adopted country, is a totally different thing.
That’s the issue you won’t deal with, Jum, the fact that the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) are a terrorist group which has been outlawed in Canada. It’s also an issue our cowardly politicians don’t seem to want to deal with, I suspect because the LTTE are a visible minority and represent hundreds of thousands of votes.
The Tamil Tigers are not sweet, cuddly, pussy cats. Neither are they simply protesting peacefully: They’re blocking main thoroughfares and a major highway. Their demonstrations are costing Canadian/Ontario/Toronto taxpayers millions of dollars, with a police presence at all of their protests — ironically, to protect the protesters and not to look out for the good of all of the citizens of Toronto. They’re sending money they receive as benefits in Canada outside our country for the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka to buy arms.
There’s a difference. I suppose, however, your being part of the Kumbaya Nation means that small, unimportant details like members of a group being terrorists who’ve been outlawed by the government of their adopted country don’t really matter. We’re all just going to link arms and sing It’s a Wonderful World.
Please answer my question: Are you paying your own bills yet? When you someday have a family and are trying to house, clothe, feed, and educate your children, with no handouts from the government, with none of the perks and benefits newly arrived, two-passport, sometime-citizen, Canadians-of-convenience immigrants receive from the Canadian government — and for which your overly taxed income, which won’t stretch indefinitely, is paying — you might, I say might, snap out of your Kumbaya stupor.
One problem with your argument is that the Tamil Tigers are more than mere terrorists. Yes, they use terrorist tactics, but they do so to wage guerrilla war, like Hamas does. This doesn’t excuse assassinations and suicide bombings, but it is important to realise that the Tigers were, for a long time, the only group that Tamils felt were looking out for their rights and interests. They were the only group defending Tamils against whatever oppression they felt they were under due to Sinhalese rule. The reality is much more complicated than a “terrorist/not terrorist” dichotomy.
Refugees and expats often come to another country and continue to fund their interests back home. Many, or most, continue to think of the old country as their real home. I grew up in a school with large Yugoslavian populations, during the Yugoslav Wars. Many of those kids wished they could go home to Bosnia or whatever, but were unable because of the war. I recall reading in either the Toronto Star or Sun that many of these Tamil immigrants have started families here, and many of the protesters were in fact born here. These families are not going to just up and abandon Canada once they get an independent Tamil nation – though some may, the children of many grew up here, and this is the only home they know. It is often the case that first generation immigrants opine for home, and some may never feel quite at home here. It should be obvious by the large and growing East Indian communities in Canada that most immigrants remain here and make a second home. I see no problem with people considering two countries their home – I ask you, if you moved to America, would you stop loving the land you grew up in?
Before you bring it up, yes I think it is perfectly reasonable for second-generation Tamil immigrants to want to visit the homeland they’ve never been to. It is similar to Jewish citizens wanting to visit Israel, or Muslim citizens wanting to go on the Hajj, or Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. It’s important to be in touch with your history and your origins, wouldn’t you agree? A while back, I looked into the special circumstances for relatives of imperial citizens to get British citizenship. Would I be part of the problem if I were a British-Canadian dual citizen?
Yes, I am paying my own way.
Jum, though I appreciate your civilized replies to my comments, you never quite answer the questions I have asked or deal with the points I have made.
Of course, ” … people [often] consider … two countries their home” and it is very natural “for second-generation Tamil immigrants [or any immigrant] to want to visit the homeland.” I wasn’t objecting to the Tamils’ affection for their homeland of Sri Lanka.
I was objecting to the fact that an outlawed terrorist group in Canada is free to clog our main arteries and cost the taxpayers of this country million$ for a police presence at their demonstrations, not to mention lost revenue to businesses on the thoroughfares on which they are demonstrating. You haven’t addressed this concern.
Our democracy allows for our government to outlaw certain groups whose activities promote terrorism. For the the Tamil Tigers to flagrantly dismiss what our democratic governance has decreed — and for our law enforcement agencies to PROTECT terrorists — reveals a contempt and disdain for our democracy and the majority of Canadians. Many Canadians are truly fed up with the contempt with which we are obviously held by Tamil Tigers who continue to demonstrate in our streets and by their being protected by our law enforcement agencies.
I’m pretty sure that if I decided to block major arteries in Toronto, with like-minded Torontonians, the politicians and police wouldn’t stand for it. We’d be told to leave, and if we didn’t, I’m sure we’d be arrested, charged, and quite possibly, put in jail — even though we’re not “outlaws.” Due process has not happened when the Tamil Tigers have demonstrated in a number of Canadian cities, disrupting the flow of traffic and commerce — and have been given a green light to do so.
One-passport Canadians, many of us whose families have been living in Canada for five or six generations and whose ancestors helped to build this country into a democracy the envy of the world, have fewer “rights” than new, sometime-citizen, Canadians of convenience.
I don’t like it. It’s not just. “Equality” in Canada has come to mean inequality, one law for visible minorities (should we, G*d forbid, offend them) and one law for the rest of us. “Multiculturalism” in Canada has come to mean championing every culture but the founding Christian, British-European culture whose principles and values have been the foundation of every one of our democratic institutions.
The tree is being cut down at the root, and soon there will be no more sheltering branches, no more nourishing fruit to sustain us. I mourn this destruction.
BTW, ‘glad to hear your paying your own way. You don’t mind your tax dollars going to pay the police million$ to protect Tamil Tiger demonstrations? Are you a Tamil yourself?
Do you have a family whose housing, food, clothing, and education you have to provide, WITHOUT any government benefits which are available to recent immigrants to Canada? If so, what do you think of the inequity?
If not, perhaps one day you’ll be able to recognize the unjust nature of what’s going on here. Take off the Kumbaya Nation Sunglasses, stop drinking the Kumbaya Kool-Aid, and join a bunch of us in the real world of multicultural, unequal, unjust Canada. From this perspective, it’s hard to rejoice in what Canada has become: a hotel for Canadians of convenience where the rest of us are expected to provide the amenities and hospitality.
I thought I had addressed your main point. The Tamil protesters are not members of the LTTE, although they may sympathise with and support them financially or politically. The Tigers are a military group and had a conventional army, if the protesters were part of the LTTE then they would be fighting as part of the Tigers’ army, or they would be under investigation by the government for being part of Tiger terrorist cells. I really do not believe there are thousands of terrorists marching around in plain daylight, unarmed, where the police and army could sweep them up.
Sympathizing with the Tigers isn’t necessarily supporting terrorism, either, at least not politically. As I said, the Tigers are seen by many (or most) Tamils as the only legitimate government of the Tamils, and the only ones looking out for their protection and interests. It’s similar to the French Resistance in the war, or the Confederate rebels in the US civil war. They’re fighting for an independent nation, and as their situation becomes more desperate they use more desperate weapons, like suicide bombers. It’s not as cut-and-dry as “they are terrorists and the protesters are terrorist sympathizers”. The Tigers could very fairly be said to be freedom fighters, and that isn’t just bleeding-heart liberalism. Now, I do not know enough about the conflict to lecture you on it, but I know enough to say that “they are terrorists The End” is an oversimplification.
So, I don’t agree that the protesters are terrorists, and I don’t agree that the police should arrest them because they give moral support to a group labeled terrorist. Most of them are Canadian citizens and have a right to peaceful protest, and given the dire situation (possibly genocide) I think they have the moral duty to make as much noise as they can. So far, it seems to have succeeded. Before these protests, I knew nothing about the conflict, and now it’s plastered all over the headlines with informative stories on the history of the LTTE.
Remember that the police can only do so much without resorting to extreme force. The single reason they haven’t done anything so far, even when provoked on the Gardiner, is because they can’t attack a crowd of several thousand angry protesters with fifty cops. Unless they had riot gear, they would have suffered more than the protesters. I recall (last year I think) a rally at University and Queen for poverty. It may have been organized by the troublemakers who threw bricks at Queen’s Park, but whoever they were, they were watched by the same number of cops in riot gear that were patrolling the Tamil protests. I really do not think there is a special police preference for minorities (remember the racial profiling scandals of recent years), it’s just more visible when minorities make a stink about something. In this case, I really do not think the police can do anything without resorting to more violence than is justifiable. This isn’t France or Algeria, our protesters don’t usually chuck rocks at cops!
No, I do not really mind a few millions going to the police over this. My government has spent much more money on much dumber things before, like Chretien canceling the helicopter deal when he came to power, or Miller canceling the island bridge. It’s better the police do nothing and it costs us $14 million than they resort to violence and get sued for $100 million.
I don’t know enough about any inequity to comment on it, or even say there is one (I’m not saying there’s not either).
I really do not think Canada has changed much in the past 30 years, except on the surface. There are more brown and black and yellow and green people than there used to be, and they talk all kinds of funny languages, and they go to mosque instead of church, but it’s still basically the same. First generation immigrants stick to ethnic communities, just like the Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Irish etc immigrants of the past. Second generation immigrants integrate into the mainstream, just like Olivia Chow and Ignatieff’s forebears etc. All we are seeing with these protests is young Canadians with a new cause to champion in the streets, like they’ve always done for poverty or indian rights or whatever is in vogue. It’s just easier to single these ones out as outsiders because they’re 1st, 2nd, maybe 3rd generation immigrants.
So, I really do not think that these protests are un-Canadian in any sense. They’re peaceful democratic demonstrations by Tamil-Canadians that are arguing for self-determination and the defense of human rights.
P.S. remember the Greeks when you talk about where democracy came from!
P.P.S. sorry for the long post, I prefer to be exhaustive when I respond.
P.P.P.S. I was at the very first protest that clogged Front and Bay, and I saw a lot of people there handing out flyers who weren’t young at all, they were middle-aged Tamils handing out flyers in perfect english, and they were obviously not the ones who organized it. They were too stand-offish compared to the younger people, and their flyers were in perfect English and obviously designed by someone with computer design skills. It seems to me that the younger generation is showing their parents how to achieve things through democratic action.
It would be one thing for Tamil supporters who are Canadian citizens to demonstrate in support of Tamils in Sri Lanka. It is something else, entirely, for many thousands of Tamils protesting in our streets, demanding that the Canadian government intervene in a sovereign nation half a world away, and WAVING THOUSANDS OF TAMIL TIGER FLAGS, waving the flag of an outlawed terrorist group. You may call the LTTE “freedom fighters,” and that’s your opinion, but you’re not the Canadian government.
It just so happens that our duly and democratically elected government does not call them freedom fighters but terrorists. So, where is your respect for democracy, Jum? It’s OK, as far as you’re concerned, for a group that our democratically elected government has deemed terrorists (and they have access to intelligence that we don’t) to march in our streets and totally disrupt traffic and daily commerce?
I don’t think they’re terrorists just because our government says so. The government is made up of people who can make as many oversimplifications as anyone else. Just because they say something doesn’t make it so. Even the most cursory glance at the history of the conflict will show that it is not this simple.
Jum: “Just because they say something doesn’t make it so.”
As I said earlier, that’s your opinion. The government’s designating the Tamil Tigers as an outlawed terrorist group in Canada has legal implications — or, at least, should — for the safety and security of Canadians.
You have no idea what our intelligence, and that of the U.S. (for, surely, Canada and the U.S. share a lot of theirs) knows about the Tamil Tigers and their activities here and in Sri Lanka.
There’s something arrogant and juvenile about your easy dismissal of our government’s authority.
The designation of the Tigers as a terrorist group doesn’t affect these protesters, since they are not members, or at least not terrorists themselves (maybe a handful are, who knows hat people get up to in their spare time). Them declaring support for the Tigers does not make them wrong just because the government calls the LTTE terrorists. The protesters are not advocating terrorism, they’re supporting the LTTE for its non-terrorist functions. So, I think the government calling the LTTE a terrorist group does oversimplify the matter, at least when we’re talking about the protesters and what they are talking about.