David Suzuki wants Canada to cut immigration

From Immigration Watch Canada's Nov. 27 bulletin:

This bulletin reports on two interviews with David Suzuki. In the first, Suzuki states that "...immigration, which makes up 66% of the population growth (in both Canada and the U.S.)"... "should be decreased". "A growing population makes every environmental problem worse." In the second, Suzuki says, "We're way overpopulated.... Even if you only look at industrialised countries, there are way too many of us."

The big question many Canadians ask is this: Why has Suzuki not made his criticism of immigration a much more public issue?

Suzuki's leadership status both in and out of Canada would provide the weight to make immigration reduction the major issue it deserves to be.

Is it possible that The David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) refuses to criticize immigration because it takes sizeable donations from the Royal Bank and other corporations which want to maintain high immigration levels or increase them? If this is so, is the DSF not undermining its good work on other fronts?

If the DSF is taking money from immigration promoters, then what is the difference between the DSF and the American Sierra Club which adopted a notorious policy of not criticizing immigration in order to continue getting very large donations (over $100 Million) from David Gelbaum, an American philanthropist?

[...]

Read the whole bulletin.

See also:

Thou shalt not criticize immigration even if you are trying to protect the environment

Developer resists provincial greenbelt plan

Daniel Stoffman on the consequences of unchecked immigration

Here's a cultural difference you won't learn about in a government-sponsored diversity class

From an Associated Press article that appeared in the Toronto Star (East African albinos flee murder, dismemberment by Tom Odula, Associated Press, Nov. 29):

The belief that albino body parts have magical powers has driven thousands of Africa's albinos into hiding, fearful of losing their lives and limbs to unscrupulous dealers who can make huge profits selling a complete dismembered set.

Mary Owido, who lacks pigment that gives colour to skin, eyes and hair, says she is comfortable only when at work or at home with her husband and children.

"Wherever I go people start talking about me, saying that my legs and hands can fetch a fortune in Tanzania," said Owido, 36, a mother of six. "This kind of talk scares me. I am afraid of going out alone."

[...]

Since 2007, 44 albinos have been killed in Tanzania and 14 others have been slain in Burundi, sparking widespread fear among albinos in East Africa.

At least 10,000 have been displaced or gone into hiding since the killings began, according to a new report by the International Federation for the Red Cross and Crescent societies.

[...]

Read the whole article

Does Doug Saunders still think Canada needs a million poor African immigrants? Probably. In my experience, the supporters of multiculturalism and open borders aren't too interested in the negative aspects of non-Western cultures.

Does anybody else remember the uproar Pat Buchanan caused when he said English immigrants would assimilate into American culture more easily than Zulus? I realize the Africans in this story aren't Zulus but Buchanan got into a lot of trouble for making the simple point that some cultures are more like ours than others. The fact that the United States was founded by Englishmen carried no weight with Buchanan's critics. (Although I'm writing from Canada, I say 'ours' because American and Canadian culture are essentially the same. Sorry Canadian nationalists, but it's the truth.)

Multiculturalists think of culture in terms of folklore: colourful costumes, interesting music and ethnic restaurants. They don't like to think about the nasty side of non-Western cultures: female genital mutilation, misogyny, witch doctors, sharia law, jihad, caste discrimination. For them the world is one big Folklarama festival. To suggest that some cultures encourage the killing of Albinos because Albino body parts are magical would be racist. That this happens to be true just doesn't matter.

Gypsy refugees put more strain on Toronto's overburdened education system

Louise Brown writes in the Toronto Star (Roma children perplex local educators, Nov. 28):

They are Europe's Least Wanted – reviled for their unorthodox ways, hounded by white supremacists. Now the sudden arrival of Roma "gypsies" in Ontario has teachers here grappling to connect with some of the most perplexing students in the world.

With no English, limited education and an often shaky regard for school, the wave of Roma children give fresh urgency to the term "at-risk." Schools across Toronto and Hamilton, caught largely by surprise, are rushing to educate staff, hire more ESL teachers and find Hungarian and Czech interpreters for everything from report cards to welcome kits.

"We've got major problems with this wave of students and we need help – we've had more than 100 kids show up this fall and our staff are scrambling," said Trustee Irene Atkinson at a recent crash course on Roma culture organized by the Toronto District School Board, one of several this fall in Toronto and Hamilton.

"We need to develop curriculum for Roma teenagers in Grade 10 who are working at a Grade 4 to 6 level," she said.

It's not just about academic catch-up. What sets Roma apart from most immigrants – and has Canadian educators desperate for help – is that many don't seem to care about school. Roma students can seem lukewarm to learning, even suspicious.

Puzzled teachers say many Roma children seem unfamiliar with routines such as the school bell. Some plunge into fist-fights, show little respect for teachers, ignore homework and skip school for days at a time, even in elementary grades.

[...]

Read all of Louise Brown's article.

Stories like this drive me crazy. Why are these children here in the first place? What will it take for Ottawa to reform our broken refugee system?

The Gypsy families mentioned in the article came to Canada from democratic countries. I don't dispute they may have suffered discrimination at home, but Canada can not afford to accept as refugees every person in the world who has been treated badly.

In the past refugee status was reserved for people fleeing political persecution. Broadening the definition of refugee to include people who have experienced discrimination brings in too many people and makes the system unmanageable.

Louise Brown talks about the problems teachers and Roma children face, but she doesn't discuss how treating these problems sucks resources away from Canadian-born children as well as the children of regular immigrants. Toronto schools are already struggling with a violent underclass. The last thing the schools need are more children who don't speak English and who are reluctant to learn.

Obviously I don't blame the children for not speaking English or for coming from a culture that doesn't value education. It's not their fault. I don't necessarily blame their parents either, because I don't know all the reasons Gypsy culture has developed the way it has.

I do, however, blame the Canadian government and the courts for creating a refugee system that isn't sustainable. It's unfortunate that people in other countries are suffering, but if Canadians want to keep their quality of life, they will have to force Ottawa to reform its immigration and refugee policies.

See also:

Toronto school study shows great disparities among cultural groups in academic performance

Toronto schools - "The escalation of guns and violence has made lockdown practices as necessary a routine as recess"

Canada allows homosexuals to claim refugee status. One result: asylum seekers say they're gay when they're not.

It's Saturday night and the guns are blazing, as usual

The Toronto Star reports (Man shot and wounded in Trethewey Dr. apartment, Nov. 28):

A man is in hospital and three suspects are on the loose after a shooting Saturday evening.

Around 5:30 p.m. in the area of Jane St. and Weston Rd., a man was found with a bullet wound in the upper arm on the 11th floor of a high-rise building on 710 Trethewey Dr.

[...]

The first suspect is described as male, black, six-foot in height, medium build, wearing a black shirt; the second as male, black, five-foot-ten, heavy build, wearing jeans; and the third as male, black, wearing a white mask.

Last night, a driver in the Weston Rd. and Lawrence Ave. W., a few blocks away, escaped injury when at least 10 shots were fired at his SUV. Bullets also hit a passing bus and a house.

[...]

For as long as I can remember the media and the political class has been downplaying crime in Toronto. I hate to sound like an old fogey who starts his stories with "when I was a boy", but when I was boy growing up in the 1960s and 70s shootings were rare events that made the front pages. Now stories like this are so common that they are often buried in the middle of the newspaper.

A whole generation of young people is growing up with the idea that guns and gangs are just a normal part of city life. When I tell young people that the Toronto I grew up in didn't have gangs, they don't believe me.

Maybe I need to qualify what I'm saying. Toronto has never been a perfect place. It has always had slums and youth violence is not entirely new. There have always been groups of young people who gave themselves names and called themselves gangs, but they weren't gangs as we know them today. They weren't organized criminal enterprises that consider guns a tool of the trade and who beat people to death because they failed to buy well ... a gun. Gangs in the old days were groups of neighbourhood toughs who caused trouble and generally acted as bullies, but they were not shooting at each other.

Toronto used to pride itself on being better than American cities. We were the city that worked. Others used to see us that way too. Peter Ustinov once described Toronto as New York run by the Swiss. I don't think that ever was true, but Toronto used to be a safer, cleaner city. Some Americans are still under the illusion that Toronto is a multicultural paradise. Hogtown certainly is multicultural but as for paradise, why not ask the parents of Jane Creba or Vivi Leimonis? You might also want to speak to the parents of Andrew Stewart, Jordan Manners and Ephraim Brown.

Anybody who thinks Toronto has become a better place in the last few decades is living in a fantasy land and sooner or later reality is going to catch up to them.

Is it Martyrs' Day already? Where does the time fly?

Anthony Reinhart writes in the Globe and Mail (Toronto-area Tamils observe 'Martyrs Day', Nov. 28):

Their keynote speaker's ejection from Canada amounted to barely a hiccup for Toronto-area Tamils, thousands of whom flocked to an annual "Martyrs' Day" commemoration of Tamil Tiger fighters who died in Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war.

The day-long event at a sprawling banquet hall in Brampton went smoothly yesterday despite the arrest of Sebastian Seeman, a firebrand Tiger sympathizer brought from India earlier in the week.

[...]

Officials said Mr. Seeman was arrested and sent home because he was inadmissible to Canada, not for his remarks at Wednesday's rally. His speech reportedly included a call for revenge on the Sinhalese, who form the majority in Sri Lanka and are blamed for decades of Tamil oppression in the South Asian island country.

In the predawn hours yesterday, a wooden porch was set on fire at a Buddhist temple in Scarborough where Sinhalese Sri Lankans are known to worship. It was the second such fire since May, when the Tigers were defeated in their 26-year conflict with the Sri Lankan government.

[...]

Read all of Anthony Reinhart's article

When you read stories like this, always remember that most Canadian Tamils are here because of our broken refugee system - a system that the Tamil Tigers exploited. Sri Lanka is next door to India, which claims to be the world's largest democracy. Why didn't the Tamils go there? Why did they come to Canada? Just across the water from Sri Lanka is the Indian province of Tamil Nadu where Sri Lankan Tamils can find millions of Indian Tamils who share their language and culture. Why would they choose to go to an alien country thousands of miles away instead of the one next door? They came here because we are a rich country with a well-developed welfare state.

Police stopped Caledonia protesters from flying the Canadian flag

Christie Blatchford writes in the Globe and Mail (Two protests, two different OPP responses, Nov. 27):

About six weeks after the OPP refused to allow a Caledonia residents group to march down the town's main street carrying a Canadian flag and even arrested one man for doing it, the same police force gave a respectful, lights-flashing escort to native protesters who did precisely the same thing while carrying flags of the Mohawk Warriors.

The jarring and undeniable contrast in the force's approach to policing the two marches is evident in videotapes played yesterday at the lawsuit of Dave Brown and Dana Chatwell now being heard before Mr. Justice Thomas Bielby of Ontario Superior Court.

The judge has already heard that one senior OPP officer involved in the Caledonia crisis describes the Warriors as an organization akin to the Hells Angels, whose members are usually armed.

Mr. Brown and his family, whose home is bordered on two sides by the former Douglas Creek Estates development seized by Six Nations protesters almost four years ago, are suing the OPP and the Ontario government for a total of $7-million.

Ironically given the tale of the tapes, a central allegation of the lawsuit is that though natives routinely behaved with criminal recklessness that sometimes turned violent, the OPP refused to police them in any recognizable fashion, leaving Mr. Brown and his family essentially on their own.

[...]

Read all of Christie Blatchford's report. At the bottom of the article, you will find links to more articles about the events in Caledonia.

This isn't an immigration story but it does show what happens to whites in Canada when their rights get in the way of a government-approved minority. The government's kowtowing to aboriginals reflects the same mindset that gave us multiculturalism and racial quotas in hiring. No matter what the situation, whites are presumed guilty.

Sinhalese Buddhist temple set on fire for second time in Scarborough

Alexander Posadzki and John Rieti write in the Toronto Star (Arson suspected in latest Scarborough Buddhist temple fire, Nov. 27):

A Sinhalese Buddhist temple in Scarborough torched in May was set ablaze again in a fire police are calling arson.

The fire started before 2 a.m. Friday on the wooden porch that encircles the Kingston Rd. temple, near Beechgrove Dr.

The porch was lined with bottles of flammable liquid meant to help the flames spread quickly, thus making arson likely, said Toronto fire.

[...]

Police are again looking into the possibility that the conflict in Sri Lanka motivated those behind the arson.

May's fire occurred at the peak of the civil war in Sri Lanka and the protests by Toronto's Tamil community.

Police treated the incident back in May as a hate crime due to the threats the temple received from Tamils several days before the fire.

[...]

Read the whole Star article.

In 2005 there were major riots in the heavily Muslim suburbs of Paris. Some Canadians dared to ask whether such riots could ever happen here. In general the response was smug. Nothing like this would ever happen in Canada because we have a policy of official multiculturalism that promotes tolerance and understanding. I, however, strongly disagreed with the idea that Canada is somehow immune from racial violence.

Ethnic and racial diversity always contains the potential for violence. For a government to go out of its away to promote that diversity is insanity. Democracies can only be stable where citizens share a common identity. Canada already had enough problems coping with Quebec without making things worse by introducing multiculturalism. Mass immigration combined with a policy of celebrating cultural differences is a recipe for disaster.

Tamil Tiger supporter deported after speaking at rally

Stewart Bell writes in the National Post (Tamil Tiger supporter deported after speaking at rally, Nov. 26)

TORONTO -- Canadian immigration officials arrested an Indian man in Toronto on Thursday after he gave a fiery speech at an event where the flag of the outlawed Tamil Tigers rebels was flown.

Sebastian Seeman, who was in Canada on a speaking tour, was taken into custody by Canada Border Services Agency officers and questioned before agreeing to leave the country immediately.

A CBSA spokeswoman, Patricia Giolti, confirmed the arrest, and his lawyer Hadayt Nazami said immigration officials had intended to deport him on security grounds unless he left voluntarily.

He departed Canada on Thursday night.

[...]

A film director from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Seeman is known for his hardline speeches in support of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers rebels and their fight for independence.

[...]

He was also targeted by the Indian press after photos surfaced showing him smiling and posing with the late leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran.

[...]

Read all of Stewart Bell's article.

"If you think that there are organized youth gangs out there and that they are out of control, I would say no," - Toronto police detective, 1992

I have been going through back issues of the Toronto Star because I am researching the history of Toronto's gang problem. A quick review of headlines from as recently as the 1990s reveals how quickly this problem has developed. When the police and media started noticing gangs, there was concern, but there was also a tendency to downplay their danger.

Take, for example, an event that occurred in the early 1990s. On June 1, 1992 there was a huge brawl involving youth gangs on Toronto Centre Island. According to a story (Teen brawl shuts island, June 2, 1992) that appeared on the front page of the Star the next day, "at least eight people were arrested and eight more injured." After this violence the media was filled with the usual hand-wringing about causes. The opinions expressed at the time make for interesting reading.

Here's an excerpt from an article (Police, students agree gangs started Centre Island brawls, Toronto Star, June 3, 1992) that I found particularly telling:

Metro police and Toronto high school students agree that the Centre Island brawls this week were the work of gangs, possibly fighting a grudge match.

But they disagree on how well-organized the gangs are - and whether there's more violence ahead.

"It's definitely not over," said a student at a school in the west end, where gangs have fought. "Between these guys, it's never over."

But Detective John Muise, who waded into the thick of Monday's youth warfare on Centre Island, said the fights were "silly little juvenile macho things."

"We don't know what the summer is going to bring," he said.

"These kids are thumping each other," not the public, said Muise, an undercover officer with the street crime unit which deals with young people.

"If you think that there are organized youth gangs out there and that they are out of control, I would say no," he said.

[...]

Back in 1992 Det. John Muise's opinion may have been reasonable, but no police officer could say that today with a straight face. Toronto is a city where gang members shooting at each other has become so routine that people barely think about it any more. Thanks to bad immigration policy, the city now has a violent underclass. The social problems caused by Ottawa's reckless policies are not going to disappear any time. In fact, since there are no plans to reform immigration in a responsible way, Toronto's underclass will just continue to grow.