@MaximeBernier Forgive me for pointing out that the "balkanization"
you fear doesn't actually happen in Canada--precisely because newcomers aren't pushed into ghettos but are welcome to express themselves within the wider Canadian culture that accepts them. While new arrivals do tend to live /1
you fear doesn't actually happen in Canada--precisely because newcomers aren't pushed into ghettos but are welcome to express themselves within the wider Canadian culture that accepts them. While new arrivals do tend to live /1
@MaximeBernier near others of the same origin in poorer neighbourhoods when they first arrive, as they build new lives and prosper, they move on to better, more mixed accommodations. Their children assimilate even faster (which can be hard for parents to accept at first) and the next crop of /2
@MaximeBernier children are Canadians from birth. I know whereof I speak: I came here as a child of foreign parents; I'm a Canadian of non-English, non-French cultural roots, and the "ethnic" stuff never kept me from being comfortable in both official languages with the "old stock" or other/3
@MaximeBernier kinds of new Canadians. Of course, it was easier for me since I'm as white as feta cheese: some Canadians (including yourself perhaps?) have a problem recognizing that skin colour, like food habits, accents, etc. should not be grounds for exclusion from Canadian society since /5
@MaximeBernier anyone who comes here from anywhere just wants -and fully deserves- to be given an equal chance at a decent life here. The Canada that once despised and ghettoized the Irish, Eastern Europeans, Italians and Greeks as "not real Canadians" got over it. Ditto the Lebanese, Iranian/6
@MaximeBernier Vietnamese, East Indian, Chinese, Haitians and others. So I find myself asking "Just who are those people you want to keep out, and what makes you think Canada can't cope with their short period of adjustment?" Our mutual culture has managed well up to now. What's changed?
@MaximeBernier @threadreaderapp unroll please.
