As Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, our ally, what was happening in Canada?
In Toronto, the pro-Hamas cabal were firing off smoke grenades downtown. Near Union Station, they celebrated Iran’s act of war.
“Iran has just launched drones towards Israel!” a man shouted over a loudspeaker.
Protesters react to breaking news of Iran launching drones at Israel in retaliatory attack for a strike which killed a top Iranian commander.#cdnpoli #Toronto #Palestine #Israel #Gaza #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/VZHyTcmuZi
And the crowd cheered. Loudly. They applauded. They looked deliriously happy.
Is this what multiculturalism has wrought?
Protesters climb scaffolding to set off red smoke devices above the crowd. #cdnpoli #Toronto #Palestine #Israel #Gaza #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/0XfCA9MixY
For a long time, believing in multiculturalism did not render you a “Libtard” or a “Cultural Marxist” or any of the other things that often get said about those who believe in multiculturalism.
Because this writer’s political home was for many years the Liberal Party of Canada, I was a supporter of multiculturalism.
I believed in it, and I wasn’t alone. Many of us thought multiculturalism was a good thing. For card-carrying Liberals, in particular, multiculturalism was part of the catechism. We even put it in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in section 27.
The word defines itself. “Multiculturalism” is a policy that encourages people to preserve and promote the cultures from whence they come. It’s the opposite of the American “melting pot,” which encourages completely embracing the culture and values that define America, and none other. (Canadians therefore had a tendency to like multiculturalism even more — because it wasn’t American.)
So, newcomers to Canada — whether they be immigrants, refugees or the Canada-born children of immigrants or refugees — were encouraged to preserve their unique cultural traditions here in Canada, wearing a keffiyeh and waving a Palestinian flag, if they wanted to. We were such believers in multiculturalism, in fact, we supported using government money to fund multiculturalism.
For years, we’ve done that, under successive Liberal, NDP and Conservative governments at all levels. Some of the multicultural projects government has funded caused scandals.
The formerly-governing British Columbia Liberals, for example, were caught spending millions on multicultural events that, a leaked document showed, were actually designed to be “quick wins” for the party, and paid for by B.C. taxpayers. And that became the suspicion about multiculturalism, in fact: that it was about politics, not people.
In exchange for supporting multiculturalism — in exchange for funding it, too — the likes of me asked for just one thing in exchange: obey our laws. Be civil. Embrace that most Canadian of principles: peace, order and good government.
The vast majority did. Newcomers did. The bargain was fair, you see: in exchange for Canadian citizenship, you will leave behind those beliefs and behaviours that disturb the peace. Which are probably the things you wanted to escape by coming to Canada in the first place.
All good. Fine. And then, something terrible happened. Something beyond words.
In June 1985, Air India flight 182 was blown out of the sky above the Atlantic Ocean. The plane had started its journey in Canada, in Montreal. And everyone aboard — 329 innocent men, women and children — were slaughtered. They were murdered.
They were murdered, serial investigations concluded, by some madmen who had come to Canada, and brought with them black hate in their hearts. They were Sikhs, but it wouldn’t have actually mattered if they were Catholics, Hindus or Seventh-Day Adventists. All that mattered is that they came to the multicultural paradise that is Canada, and they commenced the process of destroying that very ideal.
Others have followed in their foul wake. Others have come from other places and hacked away at the multicultural dream. By 2023, not much was left of it.
And then, on Oct. 7, multiculturalism breathed its last. As word spread — as we learned that Hamas terrorists had invaded progressive farm communities in Israel, and raped and tortured and killed hundreds of innocents, and kidnapped scores more — something else happened, here in Canada.
In Mississauga, Ont., people — newcomers to Canada, it seemed, but definitely people who do not deserve to call themselves Canadian — celebrated. At the intersection of Ridgeway Dr. and Eglinton Ave. in Mississauga, a large crowd of all ages gathered to celebrate the barbarity of Oct. 7. They honked horns and cheered for Hamas’ mass murder. They waved Palestinian flags. They handed out sweets.
It wasn’t a one-off. It wasn’t an outlier. In the days since, there have been many, many other such displays of inhumanity and cruelty, almost entirely aimed at Canada’s puny Jewish community. There have been crimes, like firebombing of synagogues, and shootings at schools, and attacks on Jews.
But there have been other things, too, which don’t amount to crimes — but are specifically designed to make Jews feel just as unwelcome and isolated and terrified. Marches through their neighbourhoods, epithets screamed at the elderly Jews who live there. Blocking access to hospitals that Jews support, chanting unsubtle calls for genocide and violent revolution. Demanding that references to Jewish traditions erased, and replaced by that of others.
And now, hundreds cheering on Iran’s attack on Israel. Right out in the open. Proudly.
Have these terrible things been done in the name of multiculturalism? No. But multiculturalism was naïve. It let its guard down. It persuaded us that every single newcomer would come here and treat every other culture with dignity and respect.
They didn’t. They haven’t. A minority, hearts of hate beating in their chests, came here to hate some more.
Well, multiculturalism was an experiment, and it was an experiment that hasn’t worked out.
We are, as the saying goes, a country of immigrants. That shouldn’t change.
But the ones who come here to spread hate?
It’s time to kick them out.
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