Canadian Values, Immigrant Culture

"Celebration of our diversity has turned into a policy allowing for divisions. Forced and arranged marriages, honour killings, female genital mutilation, teaching of hate toward homosexuals or death warrants against apostates are the result of the lack of discussion around our core values of a liberal democracy and the distorted concept of religious freedom."
Farid Rohani, head, Laurier Institute, Vancouver

"I think there is something fundamentally frightening happening to Canadian society. It shows we're not being vigilant enough."
"Speaking as an immigrant, if we choose Canada as the best place to come and live, then why aren't we following its values? If we want to recreate the society we left behind, why don't we just stay there?"
"It's incumbent upon us newcomers to embrace the whole of society, not just its dollars."
Ujjal Dosanjh, former British Columbia premier, former federal Liberal cabinet minister

"After the teaching [Canada's laws, Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms] is done whether they choose to accept or reject our value system is entirely up to them as long as they do not break the law."
Tung Chan, former head of immigrant services society SUCCESS

There we have it, the considered, experiential opinions of three loyal Canadians, immigrants who view from their own perspectives in full possession of academic, political, social credentials to support their views, a critical issue to all Canadians, but arriving at different positions. Two of these men, one an immigrant from India, another from Iran, support one view and a third from China, yet another entirely different view.

Under some circumstances both have merit. Observing the issue through the lens of upheaval throughout the world caused by religious and cultural fervour ranging from the socially inappropriate to the threats of violence, it seems though the proportion of people engaged in the latter as opposed to the former is relatively minuscule, great damage can be done by those committed to violence on a grand scale to promote their ideology.

Ujjal Dosanjh knows about the violence; his outspoken condemnation of Sikh nationalistic violence earned him a barbaric physical bludgeoning that will forever sear his memory with its lasging impact on his physical essence. In the circles whose values and actions he deplores, he is considered a "heretic", not a loyal and courageous Canadian. He carries the effects with him of that vicious beating.

Messrs. Rohani and Dosanjh speak of issues of cultural-social values that are deeply at odds with Canada's concerns for human rights. A small but significant number of second-generation Canadians have become religious zealots in the extreme, though they have been raised within Canada and have ostensibly had ample exposure to Canadian values. According to reports from the federal government over 100 'honour' killings have occurred in Canada of young men and women living in Muslim and Sikh families.

Sahar Shafia, 15, of Montreal, and her sisters along with their father's first wife who became their 'aunt', were murdered by family members, including their father, in 2009.   Photograph by: HO

A telling number of young men raised as observant Muslims have departed Canada to seek their futures, however brief it turns out to be for some of them, as jihadis, responding to the call to the faithful to sacrifice themselves as martyrs for the greater cause of Islamic conquest.  Those young men have gone off to join the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Algeria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Those who have fought in India and Sri Lanka were equally deluded.

An additional concern for Mr. Dosanjh as it is for another loyal Canadian activist, Tarek Fatah, is that imported culture and religion have combined to add a layer of inequality for women living within patriarchal families, restricting women to a specific gender role disentitling them from freedom of choice and gender equality. The fears of these men have been validated by public opinion regarding these issues.

An Angus Reid survey conducted in 2013 found seven of ten Canadians agree "minorities should do more to fit in with the mainstream in my province". Four in ten Canadians outside Quebec support a ban on religious symbols in the workplace; 62% in English-speaking Canada balk at Muslim women wearing a burka in the workplace. An Environics poll revealed that 81 percent of all Canadians felt "immigrant groups should adapt to mainstream Canadian beliefs about the rights and roles of women", while a far lesser 36 percent of Muslims supported that statement.

These critics of the lack of integration and value uptake of some immigrants migrating to Canada feel all such immigrants should be taught the unequivocal essentials of liberal democracy and equality. Mr. Chan, on the other hand, speaks his opinion in favour of a more laissez-faire social approach claiming it is only "one percent who are maladapted", spurning free choice and equality.

Considering that Canada accepts a quarter-million new immigrants annually, one percent can be significant.

Mr. Rohani, whose family emigrated from Iran, and as a member of national citizenship boards, feels Canadians have "let their guard down", failing to protect the principles of liberal democracy and choice. In his professional life he has come across some of the hundreds of immigrant students from Saudi Arabia on the campus of the University of British Columbia, and has been shocked by their disrespect for the value of individual freedom.

Those young Saudis whose minds are meant to be opened by their exposure to Canadian values while taking advantage of the opportunity to pursue their academic careers in the country, remain subscribed to the theocratic dictates that conversion from Islam to another faith be punished by a death sentence. The proliferation of religious private schools within Canada also troubles Messrs. Rohani and Dosanjh; schools that receive funding from the federal government.

Greater numbers of young Muslims, Sikhs, Catholics, evangelicals and others are being enrolled at these religious schools whose student body is predominantly of immigrant origin. Canadian government agencies are too restrained or "polite" to become too involved as to intrude on the curriculum being taught. The end result is that Canada is gradually turning away from its own cherished values, by a gradual process of 'tolerance'.