Canada is proudly open to all ethnicities

I took umbrage with the underlying thesis Erna Paris expressed in her Globe and Mail article about our attitude toward Syrian refugees "Let's not cave to fear in 2016." After the shame of None is too Many that embraced Canada during the Holocaust, when Canada's government decreed that one Jew allowed into the country was one too many, Canada and Canadians have opened their hearts and wallets to refugees from around the world. I sent my concerns to the Globe and Mail as an op-ed. And was refused. Not surprised. Paris fears the backlash from "divisive politics" which she ascribes to the previous Harper government. She made specific reference to the niqab controversy. I happen to agree with the previous government that the niqab has no place in Canada Paris wrote the centre cannot hold with divisive politics. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/... And what rough beast, its hour come at last/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? - Yeats, The Second Coming

She's right to express her fear that the centre cannot hold with divisive politics about tolerance. "In well-functioning, ethnically diverse societies, this centre contains a tacit agreement to tolerate otherness. We who live in immigrant-based cultures depend upon this for our well-being." The point that she seems to have missed is that Canadians are not against tolerating other ethnicities. We are against tolerating a culture that is anathema to ours. The centre cannot hold when we, the people, multi-ethnic as we are, are told that we must tolerate practices and values that are diametrically opposed to ours. Prime Minister Trudeau talked about our generosity to others and his hopes for our embracing a new group of refugees. "After all, we share values of love, hope, and compassion. It's what we do and it's who we are." Yes we are generous. We will be spending 1.2 billion over the next six years to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees. But the Prime Minister has confused feelings with values. We may share love, hope and compassion, but we don't share the same values with Islam, the belief held by our new refugees. Sharia Law, political Islam, moderate Islam, teaches values, morals and ethics that don't mesh with ours. There's no middle ground between an ethic that teaches that all people have equal intrinsic value and considers life itself as sacred, with a system that starts with a hierarchy of human value and promotes the concept of martyrdom. We don't share the idea that women are second class. We don't believe in honour killings or the literal interpretation of an eye for an eye, hanging gays, stoning women, the ideal that some people are inherently inferior to others. According to a 2013 Pew Research Survey, 10% (160 million) Muslims worldwide support religiously motivated violence against civilians in certain situations. 70% of Muslims in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa and 18% of European Muslims believe that Sharia law should be official national law. 230 million Muslims believe that execution is justified for apostasy. 340 million Muslims justify killing women who have extramarital sex. Suicide bombings against non-Muslims are supported by 30% of Muslims aged 18-29, in France, Britain and the US. 280 million Muslims support whippings and cutting off hands as punishment for crimes and 280 million are in favour of stoning unfaithful wives. (The truth about islamophobia

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As I wrote in Back to the Ethic: Reclaiming Western Values most of us living in the west have taken for granted the morals, values, and teachings of our culture- which is based on ethical monotheism. We inherited a magnificent gift from our ancestors but then put it in a drawer and forgot about it. The time has come to open the drawer, reclaim the gift, and polish it for the present time. Quoting from the book: "A fundamental requirement of democracy is the acceptance of different beliefs and customs. But we shouldn't feel compelled to tolerate and accept any and all aspects of any and all cultures. Such extreme tolerance would be incredibly foolish and naive. It would not only be like allowing a complete stranger to move into your home where he feels so comfortable that he moves the furniture around; it would be to hand him full ownership rights. "One of the many wonders of our Western societies is that we can and do accept and integrate immigrants from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds: but we don't, nor should we, accept all their cultural practices. We are a multi-ethnic society, tolerant of all ethnicities; we are not--nor is any culture in the world--a truly multicultural society: fully tolerant of all other cultures. That sort of absolute tolerance--multiculturalism--is cultural suicide." We are open to others as Erna Paris wrote, but we have the right to demand of others that they accept our values and leave their oppressive repressive ethic behind. If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.~ John McCrae Flanders Field 1915