Facebook you Frustrate me

Here I am again. Again facing this apparently growing sentiment that the world is not welcome in Canada. That if you are not of the majority you can stay where you are, my home is not your home. And the source of this confrontation, a group a colleague joined on Facebook. It may just be time for me to leave that monstrosity of a creation. It's a useful tool for networking and communication, but there is no order to it, you can say what you want and not have to care not what other's think about it, but the reality it creates for others.

The group is called Let's Keep Canada Canadian. And is supports and propagates the idea that to be Canadian you must speak one of the two languages. You must not cost social security a nickle. You should not feel you can proudly display your religion unless it is of Christian roots. You should not proudly share your cultural heritage, unless its the food and its favourable to our Canadian palate. You should not expect the help of the government in settling, or of the community. You should not settle with others of similar culture/history/heritage unless you are a WASP (or former WASP), otherwise you are ghettoizing our country.

I am afraid of this growing community of Canadians who have this vision of Canada as an anglo-saxon pseudo christian nation that doesn't change. And yet if this is so, many of their complaints are actually cries for change.

Some of the complaints on this group: Canadians should speak the language of the land;immigrants must adapt; new Canadians should not expect handout from the government; new Canadians should not be a burden. When our colonizing forefathers never adapted, they didn't learn the language of the land nor the customs and beliefs of the people whose lands the emigrated to. Or when the government used to offer all sorts of incentives and bonuses to new settlers from cheap land to cash and food allowances. When it was their "burden" to come and settle and civilize the new world.

But lets think about the true implications of the person who we would all readily recognize as a new Canadian and how they behave in their new country. I'm talking about an infant born on Canadian soil. Infants don't speak the language of the land. It takes several years of immersion and constant education before they learn the language. There are numerous handouts and benefits and tax breaks for these non contributing new Canadians, and yet we never balk or brawn over paying for them, because we know they are an investment in the future of our country. Not only do these new Canadians not contribute economically often for 20 (even 30 in my generation) years (living off family and society), they are an enormous burden to the system requiring billions (probably 10s or 100s or billions) of dollars in education, childcare and social support. Yet, we have no problem making that investment for an infant, why? And why is it different for a new Canadian who experienced infancy elsewhere?

What more, who are these immigrants hurting? Are your taxes too high? You can't survive on what little the government leaves to you because of this hulking burden to our society? You can afford to surround yourself with pure luxury and stuff and stuff and more stuff. I don't understand this ongoing and ever growing aggression directed at the new guy. Get over it people. The fact that your grandfather established your family though hard work and sacrifice 50 years ago, doesn't give you any right to balk at this woman or that man who is working hard and sacrificing so that his grandchildren will be equally establish IN TIME!!!

And this is the greatest piss off about these opinions and voices that balk at the new guy. They don't even take the time to realize in the first generation their family was in Canada, their family too was a burden. Didn't know how to get education, work, food, money. Needed help from their neighbours and from yes even the government.