By Dick Field
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
There are already 640 or so aboriginal tribes now called "Nations" in Canada. Moves are already under way to write their nationhood into the Constitution. So what's one more? They've got special laws which apply only to them but not to the rest of Canada. So what's the fuss about calling our French speaking brothers and sisters from La Belle Province the 641st (or thereabouts) "Nation?"
The answer is everything and yet nothing in the context of the mess that has been made of Canada by the Liberals and Conservatives since the Pearson-Trudeau era.
Our laws say, "We are all equal citizens before and under the law" but we haven't been equal since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced to Canadians in 1982 (most Canadians have never read it). In racist Canada the laws applying to you depend on the skin colour, ethnic, racial or sexual group to which you belong.
In Canada we have two official languages, either of which has equal status across Canada, but not in Quebec where the Quebecoise "National assembly" has declared the Province unilingual French. a conundrum our political masters accept in the name of unity, unfair though it may be.
Prime Minister Harper says Canada is a bilingual country. That is an outright fabrication. There is no requirement in our Constitution requiring fluency in both languages. Either language may be used, anywhere, except in Quebec which does not recognize our Constitution (except when it is to their advantage).
again, in today's Canada no citizen, English or French speaking, may rise above the rank of Major in the military unless they are fully bilingual (especially English speakers). No Canadian can participate in the civil service of Canada unless they are fully bilingual and today, even senior long term executives are being fired if they can't learn French.
Ninety-five percent of English-only Canadian speakers cannot therefore get any job or promotion in the federal civil service, crown corporations and increasing numbers of private and authorized government operations. French speakers in Canada represent about 23% of Canada's population but in the Federal civil service they now represent some 44% of all employees. Not exactly a fair distribution of employment.
Whole non-Quebec cities turn officially bilingual on the outcry of minimal numbers of Francophones which means Francophones are increasingly in control of the rest of Canada. This is nothing but untrammeled racism, all in aid of keeping the Quebecoise in Canada, so we are told.
Every Canadian-born English-speaking person over the age of 40 knows very well that the appeasement game played by French speakers and their English speaking political co-conspirators is never-ending. They demand more and more, and get it, all to the detriment of the rest of us all across Canada.
Our English speaking sell-outs even have a cute phrase for the unfairness they participate in. It's called asymmetrical Governance. asymmetrical means one set of rules for us and another different set for them. Example: The National Capital Commission is an area in Ottawa, Ontario and Hull, Quebec designated for government offices yet only in the Ontario portion is the area promoted as bilingual. In Quebec, English is proscribed at every turn and insulted everywhere by discriminatory language laws and petty enforcement officials.
Why do our English speaking politicians play this game? The answer is twofold; (1) they need the out-of-proportion Quebec MPs and votes to form a government and (2) because they are in politics it behooves them to learn French. They will then tell you that anyone can learn French, because see, "I did!" Ninety-nine percent of us are not professional politicians nor do we aspire to be and we have little chance of ever learning French, even if we wanted to. We are thus declared second class citizens. No jobs, no promotions in any government related service.
Now, by creating another tribal ,"Nation" class based on language and ethnicity the door is thrown wide open to an even more massive shake-down of Canadians of the non-Quebecoise tribe.
Our "First Nations" aboriginal citizens have been shaking the governments of Canada down for years. approximately $78,000.00 yearly is paid out by the Federal government to every aboriginal man, women and child and yet many still live in poverty and in miserable unsustainable reservations with no economic base. However, their leaders plead for more and more land and money while at the same time trying to retain what little is left of their antiquated culture.
Their leaders know the answer is bringing their uneconomic populations into the mainstream of Canadian life. Yet they too, like the Quebecoise, plead and beg for money power and hand-outs, all in the name of racial and ethnic division. Isn't it about time all this break-up and break-down into racial and ethnic divides was halted?
Mr. Harper stated that the Quebecoise settled this country from coast to coast as another justification for declaring them a "Nation." This is yet another lie of historical revisionism. The French settled only some of the Maritimes and the lower St. Lawrence River basin. They were not allowed by their mother country, France, to settle elsewhere except for a few farms around some of the major Forts such as Detroit.
It was the English, Irish and Scots that after the american Revolutionary War principally opened up Canada both in southern Quebec and west of the Ottawa River until the turn of the 20th century when other ethnic groups were encouraged to settle in Canada.
It was the British and then the Loyalists, as they were then, that gave the French their freedoms. Where are our monuments to these people? It was the British people in Canada that established our laws and parliamentary system and the British General Wolfe that kicked the corrupt French monarchy out of North america.
Where is their "Nation" status?
Where are the monuments on Parliament Hill to the United Empire Loyalists and even to just one of the tens of thousands of British soldiers who up until 1870, garrisoned Canada and kept our independence safe from military incursions by the USa? Why are we sacrificing our history in this appeasement game?
Nation Status is a recipe for the end of Canada!
It is about time we began to seriously demand the equality of all Canadian citizens and if that cannot be achieved with Quebec in Canada then let us work to remove them from all our Parliamentary Councils. Let them become independent and become our good neighbours next door. Let the bilingualists become our goodwill ambassadors!
Let us tell our English speaking politicians to stop pandering and cease and desist from assuming the supine position whenever the "Quebecois" squawk.
appeasement is a mugs game. another word for it is "Blackmail" and it must stop soon or Canada is going to break up into many parts, not just Quebec and the Rest of Canada but into sections, regions, ethnic groups, linguistic groups or perhaps even, horrors of horrors, States of that great friend and neighbour of ours to the South.