It wasn’t so long ago that some Canadian high schools were having problems with gangs of youth wearing red shoelaces to proclaim their identity. Other groups signified their pride in gang membership by wearing other shoelace colours. Fights erupted between the different factions. The schools had previously banned the wearing of specific styles of jackets, caps, scarves running shoes etc.; now they banned the coloured shoelace menace.
The school’s authorities recognized that all students must be seen as individuals, and identity groups must be banned, otherwise the peace of the schools would be impaired and progress and learning would be seriously undermined.
Unfortunately, our Canadian governments, federal and provincial, and our Canadian elitist establishment, have not grasped the simple fact that separate tribal identities are a recipe for continual turmoil and ultimately, a failed State. As a consequence, Canadian society is now officially, legally and by means of our flawed Charter of Rights and Freedoms, locked into the horror of national, racial, linguistic and other group identity.
Once Upon a Time - Coloured Shoelaces were a Canadian No, No!
It wasn’t so long ago that the word “ethnic” was only to be found in sociology textbooks. The reason being that “ethnic” was, at that time, an inoffensive and uncommon word that could safely be used to refer to immigrants from non-traditional sources. Socially, it had always been unacceptable to bring race, colour or religion into polite conversation.
Before the early 1960s, not many “ethnics” were around. Immigrants just wanted to become Canadian, work hard, fit in, and build a life for themselves and their family. Canadians tried to avoid racism of any kind. We also knew that in time, the new people would succeed and eventually appreciate the long history of freedom, civil rights, justice and responsible democratic government that they had looked for in Canada.
Our religions were an astounding variety of Christian denominations; variations from high Anglican and Roman Catholic to Holy Rollers and a smattering of non-Christian religions, mostly Jewish adherents. Here again, the majority of Canadians felt religion was a private matter and as a consequence, general peace and an attitude of live and let live, prevailed in Canada. Most Canadians were brought up to accept people as they found them and treat them as they would want to be treated themselves.
Our governments tried not to interfere; following our fundamental historic principle that “every citizen must be the equal of every other citizen before and under the law and that the same laws must be applicable to all, without fear or favour.”
Quebec’s Quiet Revolution – An unnecessary disaster for Canada
The storm clouds however, were gathering. In the early 1960s the French-speakers of the province of Quebec, long dominated educationally and socially by their Roman Catholic Church establishment, began to throw off their submission to that institution and realize that there were other ways to improve their economic and social collectivity.
They also resented the often indifferent, but dominant English-speaking business establishment. Their resentment erupted into what is now known as Quebec’s Quiet Revolution but unfortunately the result, while seeming to help the Quebecoise, fractured all the ancient principles and laws that underlay social peace and justice in Canada.
In truth, the so-called Quiet Revolution wasn’t so quiet. Ask the Canadian Sergeant Major that had his arms blown off trying to defuse one of many letter-box bombs planted by the Front de Liberation du Quebec (FLQ). Or ask the widow and family of Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Labour Minister, who was kidnapped and murdered by that same group. They also kidnapped and threatened to kill British Trade Minister, James Cross.
In the panic that ensued following these crimes, the War Measures Act was invoked by the federal, Quebec and Montreal governments to the consternation of the pundits and the Canadian establishment. Over 3,000 persons filled the Paul Sauve Arena in Montreal, shouting their support of the FLQ aims and their violent methods. The citizens of Montreal had to experience the Canadian Army being sent, armed, into their City to enforce military law and assist in the roundup and arrest of many of their citizens.
Then we heard the guttural roar of the separatists, in response to Charles DeGualle’s impolitic cry of “Vive la Quebec Libre!” Many Canadians knew that sound! They had heard it many times before and immediately recognized it as the same tribal blood-lust response of the Hitler crowds to the violent speeches of the Fuehrer before World War 2.
All this anarchy was strictly about those iconic “coloured shoelaces” yet once again, group identity! Tribalism! The curse of all mankind. These were not individuals banding together to fight for principles of justice and fair play but banding together with hatred in their hearts and prepared to break all the rules they deemed necessary.
Canada’s shame - A land of coloured shoelaces
Lester Pearson, Prime Minister of Canada (1963), was a gentlemanly Nobel Peace prize winner. Unfortunately, he became the lead actor in ‘casting in stone’ the concept of an officially racist Canada. True, he was confronted with the age-old historic problem of Quebec’s “anti-English” biases and wanted to heal those wounds, but as often happens, good intentions frequently lead to bad results.
His first move was to push the concept of the “two founding nations” of Canada; French and English. His second move was to encourage the bilingual use of French and English all across Canada. Instead of bringing the Quebecoise into a new cooperation with their English-speaking fellow citizens, he unwittingly planted the seeds of Canada’s ultimate destruction. Canadians not of French or English-speaking backgrounds reacted unfavourably. These groups now began to clamour for their own special colours of shoelaces to be officially recognized for their input into the creation of Canada.
The next Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1968), took advantage of the opportunity and passed the Multicultural Act of Canada, an Act declaring that all cultures in Canada were the equal of each other. He also opened up Canada to a massive flood of refugees and immigrants, totally unreflective of the existing population. Every new group provided with their own special colour of shoelaces. Henceforth, there was to be no officially recognized Canadian culture.
The new minority groups then began to demand special laws to protect them from the majority of Canadians (shades of the demands of the Quebecoise), that they claimed were discriminating against them; “marginalized” they said. As any reader of this column knows, every new immigrant will tell you how he or she was discriminated against after coming to Canada. Immigrating to a new country is always very difficult.
When the “two founding nations” blunder failed, Canada was then mooted to be a “Mosaic” of cultures; each culture being a different colour of tile (coloured shoelaces weren’t “in” back then). The popular sales pitch was all about the wonderful cultural contributions of the new exotic immigrant groups; highlighting costumes, dances, foods, feathers, the beating of drums etc. Of course, every cultural group, their celebrations and activities, delightful as they might be, were liberally funded by government grants!
Trudeau and his coterie from Quebec jumped on this opportunity to use the office of Prime Minister to further divide the English-speakers of the nine other provinces into a fractious multicultural society thereby leaving Quebec as the largest intact, minority group. The Quebecoise MPs and their duped Anglo MP associates would now become the natural governing establishment of Canada!
Money began to flow like water to Quebec. French language groups and minority groups of every colour of shoelaces now had their pockets filled with cash. The national debt skyrocketed! The Trudeau regime inherited a stable national debt in 1968 of just $30 billion. That quickly ballooned to $340 billion by the time Quebecoise sycophant, PM. Brian Mulroney took charge (1984) and he then pushed the debt to over $540 billion by 1993; it then coasted to an all time humungous high of $590 billion by 1998.
Much worse than out of control spending, were the many damaging changes made to our fundamental principles of law and justice; most pushed into place minority group and Francophone leadership pressures. Once minorities were massively funded, it became difficult to ignore their pleadings for more money and more favours, especially when their cultural group expenditures weren’t monitored and governments realized that minority votes could be bought by multicultural and French language funding.
Quebec and the Rest of Canada
The Quebec government did not buy into the new open door immigration and multicultural policies of separate identity for the province of Quebec. They were determined to keep their cultural and language dominance in Quebec. Trudeau rewarded them with control over their own sources of immigration, as well as substantial powers over immigration into the English-speaking provinces. UK and European immigration was severely curtailed and massive non-traditional immigration was forced on the rest of Canada, largely to placate minority groups. Complaints from the majority were ignored.
Quebec further protected their “culture” by declaring the province unilingual French and passing a series of anti-English language laws that drove over half a million English-speakers and hundreds of businesses out of Quebec. Our Members of Parliament simply refused to intercede and call the shot on the illegality and injustice of such laws; all subsequently condemned by the United Nations. The spin was, as always, the supposed need to keep Quebec in Canada.
Our Anglo population in the rest of Canada simply ignored the implications of it all and went about their daily business, not realizing that they were now in the process of losing their very freedoms. They failed to understand that their government’s toleration of massive anti-English language injustice in Quebec meant that they, our own citizens, were giving any Canadian government a free hand to put through any other unjust laws they wished.
Our governments, from Prime Minister Trudeau until today’s Stephen Harper, seeing our weakness, now realize they can breech any principle of justice; grant any legal or other advantage to any identifiable group; and curb any citizen of Canada who raises a voice of protest. That is precisely what they have regularly proceeded to do. Who is to stop them?
Our governments have forced through; The Multicultural Act of Canada; The Employment Equity Act of Canada; The Official Languages Act; The Human Rights Act of Canada (with its abhorrent tribunal system) and then, in 1982, the disastrous Charter of Rights and Freedoms (described by a Joe Armstrong, an award winning and well respected Canadian author, as “The Charter of Fights and Fiefdoms”). Most provinces have their own versions of the Canadian Human Rights Act and their vicious tribunals, as well as Employment Equity Acts (racial preferences) and other minority special laws and programs, all permitted by the Charter.
All the above laws and programs and hundreds of enforcing regulations have been sold to unsuspecting Canadians as great blessings, whereas in actuality, all are special laws for special groups of people and designed to control and silence any troublesome citizens daring to raise their voices in resistance to the establishment’s seizure of untrammeled power. Not only are we all now forced to sport coloured shoelaces, but we are being quickly bound by the ropes of subservience and ultimately, the chains of slavery.
Canada’s reputation as a respected “Land of the Free,” is dying
Slowly the word is finding its way around the outside world. Canada has lost its way. The internet has made it impossible to keep secret Canada’s lack of respect for individual freedom. The world is beginning to know that we talk a good game, but the facts show otherwise. Canada’s tolerance of injustice, curtailment of free speech and Canada’s breech of the great principle of individual equality before and under the law is there for all to see.
Is it not time we demand that our governments and our politicians look into their mirrors every morning, then down at their shoes, and ask themselves if they really want to pay attention to the colour of shoelaces they need to wear that day, in order to win a particular constituent’s or special interest group’s vote? Are there any politicians left with the guts to stand for Canada’s long held freedoms?
Why must we forever fight to persuade our own Canadian leaders and the establishment, including the mass media, that Canada is an increasingly sick society and cannot get better until they repeal these fractious laws, these laws of group preference, this huge and arrogant abuse of our tax dollars? Will it be necessary to commence our own “Quiet Revolution” to force a return to the laws and principles of justice upon which all Canada, including Quebec, was founded?
