Herouxville Follow-up

Allright that was a huge gap between posts, here's hoping posting occurs more frequently from here on out.

So there was some good reaction to the post. I do plan to delve more into the urban/rural divide in the future. It was mentioned that thinking along the lines that immigrants need to be 'accomodated' puts us on a slippery slope towards becoming more like the US/UK, where assimilation is emphasized. This is true to a certain degree, but the Charter itself talks about 'reasonable accomodations' for immigrants. The point of my previous post was to highlight a few instances where I feel we went beyond reasonable. Siyam mentioned that these instances aren't 'earth shattering,' and I agree, but I feel that crossing 'reasonable' barrier puts us on a slippery slope towards losing the core values that makes Canada a Western democracy. The post was more about getting debate started as opposed to sounding a hysterical alarm.

Mezba commented as well: "...small town rural part of the province. As such, they would be a typical hick town, comparable to many in the American south."
This is a completely baseless assertion. Painting a place you know nothing about as a 'hick town' is just as tasteless as the town's declaration painting Muslims in a bad light. If one is to read the Macleans piece I linked to, the town actually WANTS immigrants to settle there. Like myself, they were alarmed by instances where excessive demands from immigrants were met. I'll quote from Macleans: "The five-page document that the Hérouxville town council adopted on Jan. 25, purporting, somewhat naively, to inform immigrants of what to expect if they choose to set up shop in this corner of Quebec's snowy heartland (an occurrence that has yet to happen) has become a worldwide embarrassment." So, they wanted to let immigrants know what to expect if they were to settle in this town. Good intentions, good idea, horribly executed. Some of the points in their declaration are actually very similar to the Canadian Government's "A Newcomer's Introduction to Canada."


One of my biggest pet peeves is the racism accusations that fly whenever someone exhibits anti-muslim sentiments/behaviour. Muslims, above all should know this: Muslims are not a race. They follow a religion. There are white, black, brown, and arab muslims. So please, call them islamophobic, call them anti-islamic, call them whatever, but do NOT call them racists.

One of the biggest problems with any debate concerning immigration is that any criticism of policies that benefit certain groups is always countered with cries of racism. Being an immigrant turned citizen myself, I feel I have more of an opportunity to analyze and criticize topics like this.

More on immigration to follow, but there are many other topics to discuss.