as riots continue to sweep France for a third week, speculation has been raised as to whether these types of actions will ever take place in multicultural Canada. although predictions of this nature can never be 100 per cent accurate, the likelihood that Canada will see large gangs of marauding youths setting fires to vehicles and throwing rocks at police, who are attempting to maintain law and order, is extremely remote.
There are two reasons why the scenarios that have spread out from the suburbs of Paris won't take place in Canada. Immigrants and their often times Canadian-born children, who live in poor economic circumstances, are better off than those that live in France. Canada's unemployment rate is nowhere near the French level and anyone, regardless of race, can find employment if they are willing to take some initiative. The notion that people cannot get jobs in Canada because of their race or country of nationality is more perception than reality. While it is true that many doctors, lawyers and Ph.D's are driving taxis, at least they are working and not hanging around the streets making Molotov cocktails.
Cities such as Toronto do not have the poor, immigrant or otherwise, living in ghettos. Years ago the city of Toronto made the decision not to concentrate its subsidized housing in one area, but rather spread the housing developments around the downtown core and suburban areas. This makes not only for more interaction between those residents and their neighbours but puts those who live in such housing closer to jobs and other resources that they can access. and the conditions in these housing developments are not nearly as bad as those that the French in the suburbs of Paris have to cope with, such as living constantly with no heat or other requirements.
While those in the racism and poverty business constantly bemoan the conditions that poor immigrants are forced to endure, the reality is that Canada's immigrants do not have any reason to riot. Our massive social spending programs at all levels of government, while encouraging dependency upon the state that leads to continued poverty at least ameliorates the harsh conditions that these people would otherwise be in.
While the youth in France wouldn't be spending all of their time torching cars and attacking police if they were employed, it is too simplistic to blame the riots solely on poverty. That's an insult to poor people everywhere who lead law abiding lives despite their limited means. If poverty was a direct cause of or justification for rioting, Canadian aboriginals would have been rioting for years. There's more to the problem than just lack of money or lack of employment.
The major reason for the carnage in France is a cultural one. Locked away in immigrant ghettos, the people, especially the youth, feel that they are excluded from mainstream France. This is the main difference between France and Canada; immigrants and their descendents are not excluded from Canadian culture--they are Canadian culture.
Ever since Canada has adopted multiculturalism, not just as a policy but as the policy that defines who we are, whatever it meant to be a Canadian has vanished. We don't have a Canadian culture--our culture is everybody else's culture. If anyone in this country is made to feel that they don't fit in, it is those that have their roots in England and other Western European countries.
Immigrants who come to Canada from the Caribbean, asia or africa and try to become good Canadians are simply told to practice the culture that they came from. While they should not be prohibited from partaking of cultural events and practices from their country of origin, they are not encouraged to learn about Canada. This is particularly true of their children, who attend Canadian schools and spend more time attending multicultural festivities and learning about diversity than they do learning about Canada and its history. While an amount of racism does exist in Canada as it does everywhere else, the feeling of exclusion from the mainstream is missing here.
anything can happen. But it is highly unlikely that Canada will see the type of violence that is taking place in France in the near future.