A few days ago, I wrote, "My rule of thumb is that an immigrant will always behave like an immigrants", by which I meant that immigrants in general will support a multicultural Canada with high immigration intakes. Although I do find this to be true almost all the time, I have given this rule of thumb a small margin of error (maybe 0.001%?). In any case, in another stellar panel discussion (the topic and the questions, not necessarily the actual panel itself) by Steve Paiken on TVO, this time a debate on Canadian citizenship, provided that lone voice of an immigrant who doesn't behave like an immigrant.
Mahfooz Kanwar, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal College, was making sane, measured and honest statements about his observations on immigrants in Canada, and how they should behave as Canadian citizens. He was clearly against multiculturalism, which he thinks divides loyalties and puts people in ethnic ghettos. His counterpoint, Avvy Go, a "clinic director" at the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic - which I presume means she is a lawyer - was loud and aggressive.
The funny thing was that Steve Paiken was paying more attention to her, and accepting her horrendous statements, such as Canadians shouldn't be too smug about their history, tainted as it is with the conquest and oppression of the native Indian peoples, not to mention the Chinese head taxes set at the latter part of the 18th century. The quieter Mr. Kanwar was getting slightly ridiculed by our esteemed host.
Now, I don't think it is anything in Steve Paikin's personality which made him behave like that towards Mr. Kanwar. I think aggressive anti-Canadian statements seem to have a strange attraction for Canadians. Maybe it is a lack of confidence in their country, maybe it is decades (now) of beatings they got from blacks, Chinese, Indians about their oh so heinous crimes, but in any case, the more aggressive and rude an immigrant is, the more Canadians will accept the "beating" and acquiesce to their demands.
The video is worth watching only for the impassioned remarks made by the sole, brave voice of Mr. Kanwar.
