DrCaleb DrCaleb:
I still don't get that you have to recognize 'culture'.
![[huh]](./images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif "huh?")
To me, culture is something you practice. I have things that I was brought up with, and do. Someone else may do something else. It doesn't need me to recognize it. It seems silly to make laws to protect it, if you aren't going to practice it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to participate.
There was an Indigenous market for the first time in Edmonton this weekend, and the freeway turn off had a 10 minute backup trying to exit to the market.
So I guess I am not the only one.
"Culture" in this sense is at least as much about things like the common language people use when communicating with each other, especially outside their own cultural groups, as well as the legal system we use. That's why you have the controversy in places like Richmond, B.C. about apartment buildings that were conducting their business in Mandarin and excluding people who only spoke English. Similarly, our political and legal systems are based on the British parliamentary and common law systems (and the French civil law in Quebec) and there should be room made for Indigenous legal and political systems for their own communities too.
English, French and (ideally) Indigenous languages have a historical basis for their use in Canada that other languages like German, Swahili or Arabic do not. That's the basis for English and French being our official languages, and it's why places like the Northwest Territories legislatively provide for the use of Indigenous languages in certain venues, just as the provinces often do for their official language minorities (Anglo in Quebec, Franco in the others).
But at the same time people have individual rights that are important to their identities, like religious faith. Sikhs don't harm anyone by wearing their turbans, just as Muslim women don't harm anyone by wearing their head and/or face scarves. As long as they're using English and/or French to communicate with people outside their own group, and respect the secular nature of our general legal system, it's all good.
Small-scale actions can also be done to balance individual rights and the larger political framework. Muslim women elected to office could take their oaths of office on the Qu'ran instead of the Bible, for instance. When it came to the controversy over Muslim women getting their pictures taken, they indicated they were fine with showing their faces to female immigration officials in private. That way, they complied with national citizenship laws in a way that also adhered to their religious beliefs.
CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:
Sorry, but no. People
choose to come here, and in coming here they must integrate and become part of Canadian society, not the other way around. Newcomers want to keep their language and traditions to a certain extent, that's fine so as long as in doing so it doesn't change laws or levy a suddenly uneven playing field.
Take this time of year, for example. Some cultures don't celebrate Christmas, and that's fine and I respect it. Problem is, most companies/institutions/levels of government are taking it from behind to 'respect' these same cultures while damaging our as a whole, and trying to cancel out what we believe in. This is NOT right.
You can be Canadian and unique at the same time, but most people can't seem to see this and accept it. We are all supposed to be equal in this country and have the same rights and freedoms, but we don't. Some cultures get special treatment at the behest of throwing racial/ethic tantrums because they played the victim card to get what they want.
A lot of newcomers get here and immediately go into clusters of their own people. Some don't, as I've worked with some immigrants that were happy to become Canadian and live somewhere they could contribute to and, "be able to live their lives without persecution or excess laws" and the like. Yes, they kept their language that they spoke at home, but had always asked me to better their pronunciations of the English language.
(Funny note, the one man, Aldrin, said this of French: "English I can do, but no French, I'm not going to touch that shit even after my citizenship!"
)
-J.
A lot of what you're talking about is what interculturalism tries to address by reminding new arrivals that they have their own responsibilities to integrate into the majority culture. It doesn't mean that accommodations can't be made where possible, as I cited with the Sikh and Muslim examples above, but it does mean that the decisions of religious authorities like imams and rabbinical courts have no legal standing here and are strictly voluntary, and that it's a new arrival's responsibility to learn English and/or French, not the existing population's responsibility to learn the language of every new person that comes here.
CKA Uber 
