The Great Replacement: Can We Finally Talk About It? | Lauren Southern
In early May, Eva Vlaardingerbroek took to the stage at CPAC Hungary to talk about the Great Replacement. Only a few years ago, such a topic would get you banned almost everywhere online, rather than see you get 50 million views. Lauren Southern looks at the radical narrative shifts in politics in recent times.
What is a “Racist”
| Restricting Whites From Employment Becomes “Systemic” In Canada “The federal government also suggested discriminatory race-and gender-based hiring practices could continue regardless of targets.” Brad SalzbergMay 28 READ IN APP ShareAway from the mainstream media spotlight, a critical social issue is festering within the world of Canadian academia:Will Race & Gender-Based Hiring In Universities Continue After Quotas Are Met?As published by independent media outlet True North News, the question strikes at the heart of Canada’s oh-so-sensitive symposium on race-relations. Based on the observation, one can be certain that the nature of the discussion will be held back from public awareness by media.“Universities are continuing to push race- and gender-based hiring practices for jobs associated with a federal government program despite “diversity, equity and inclusion” targets already being met.”“The federal government also suggested discriminatory race-and gender-based hiring practices could continue regardless of targets.” The consequences of continuation should elicit discussion regarding an ominous and potentially dangerous precedent:If(more likely when) DEI employment levels become commensurate with ethnic-religious representation in Canadian academia, and still continue to be maintained, what message is delivered to society?It would be wise to place the circumstances in the context of historical examples of racial priorities promoted by government. In this regard, we speak of the concept of white Canadians being refused employment based on the immutable fact that they are white. “The Canadian Human Rights Act, created in 1977, is designed to ensure equality of opportunity. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, age, sex and a variety of other categories.”But when candidates of Anglo-European heritage are excluded based on race, suddenly it’s permissible? This is the set-up at hand, but not to worry, woke warriors, PM Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government will permit it regardless. Heck, they’re even willing pay for “reverse racism” against our communities.“In the United States, it is illegal discrimination if a person or a company intentionally treats you differently based on your race, ethnicity, or national origin. For example, a landlord violates the law if you apply to rent an apartment and are told that the landlord doesn’t rent to black people.”It’s bad enough that the Feds have put to bed the concept of the “most qualified individual gets the job,” thereby transitioning Canada’s employment standards to a neo-Marxist model. It’s another thing when equilibrium has been accomplished, and race-based hiring continues to proliferate.”The Liberals aren’t this far-along yet in terms of “post-modern” government policies, but in the arena of “woke” politics, Canadians should by now have learned to “never say never.” What we speak of strikes at the heart of society. When governments elevate race, ethnicity, religion to the top of a nation’s socio-political totem pole, trouble eventually comes a’calling.“It has since transformed into a program that promotes DEI ideology through the allure of federal funding. The aim is to have chairs be 50.9% women, 22% visible minorities, 7.5% persons with disabilities, and 4.9% Indigenous by December 2029.“ CAP zero-in on the set-up. After which we do what establishment media are being paid to eschew:In 30 years time, when the Canadian demographic shifts white Canadians to a minority community, what shall transpire? CBC have yet to mention it(they never will), but Anglo-European demography is at present dropping like a bomb.We imagine a future scenario, applying the “percentage of ethnic community relative to employment quotas” imperative to the situation. As whites deplete in population, they are effectively barred from employment– even when constituting a minority community. This is racism, straight-up. This is the social dynamic PM Trudeau and his Liberals are institutionalizing in our country. In this is intimated the true meaning of Trudeau’s “post-modern society” declaration– a euphemism for transition to a socialist society.We challenge the ambiguity of his proclamation. By “post-modern,” our PM envisions a complete socio-political inversion of Canadian society. “Racialized” in the driver’s seat, whitey to the back of the bus. Only in this case– as a result of long-term pre-conceived planning– there shall be no “Rosa Parks” to rescue Anglophones from their fate.In our opinion, Trudeau loves this, and so too New Democratic Party leader, Jagmeet Singh. It’s one of plethora of nefarious future scenarios that our quasi-communist leaders have in store for the future of our country.“After Reconstruction, state and local governments doubled down on these efforts by enacting Jim Crow laws, which codified the role of Black people in the Southern economy and society.” “States such as South Carolina enacted strict ‘Black Codes’ that fined Black people if they worked in any occupation other than farming or domestic servitude.”Perhaps we shouldn’t give the Feds any big ideas. In terms of systemic racial prejudice, there’s many ways to skin-a-cat. Wrapping the prejudice in a coat-of-many-colours doth not change the bottom line.As conservative writer Spencer Fernando commented in a recent article on DEI initiatives, “Racial hiring preferences are discriminatory, because instead of judging someone by their skills and actions, people are judged by their race.”Only this time out the tables have been turned toward white Canadians.Based on the hubris employed by the Liberals, NDP, multicultural industry and academic zealots, the future for Anglophones in Canada looks as shaky a maple leaf in a windstorm. |
Published On: May 1, 2024Tags: Immigration
By Riley Donovan
Swiss novelist Max Frisch, referring to the foreign “guest workers” allowed into Europe after the Second World War, said, “We wanted workers…but we got people instead.”
This one is simple enough: Prices are determined by the relationship between supply and demand. As Canada’s population has grown through large-scale immigration, which reached a rate of nearly 1.3 million in 2023 alone (when including non-permanent residents like foreign workers and international students), both home prices and rents have soared.
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Vancouver, Toronto, and Hamilton are now the three least affordable cities in North America. In his 2010 book Millionaire Migrants, UBC (University of British Columbia) Professor David Ley found a positive correlation coefficient of 0.94 between Vancouver and Toronto house prices and net international migration. For more evidence on the relationship between immigration and housing prices, check out Madeline Weld’s excellent article on the topic: “Blatantly Oblivious to the Blindingly Obvious.”
The result is social chaos and displacement, with younger generations feeling locked out of the housing market and delaying having children, and elderly Canadians on a fixed income returning to work to meet rent or mortgage payments.
This one is also pretty simple: Immigrants need healthcare too! Adding large numbers of future patients from overseas every year is exacerbating the pre-existing problems with our healthcare system.
Though the population has grown by 5 million people in the last ten years alone, Canada has added just 167 medical residencies. In 2023, Canada accepted 471,550 permanent residents, as well as around 800,000 foreign workers and international students. Despite the federal government’s claim that the solution is to bring in doctors and nurses from overseas, in reality, we only accept about 4,000 immigrant healthcare workers per year.
As a result, more than 6 million Canadians and counting do not have access to a family doctor.
Despite having the second-largest landmass in the world, just 4.3% of Canada is arable, and 90% of Canadians live in a winding line of settlements within 160 KM of the U.S. border. Most immigrants settle in this same strip, which drives urban expansion: 15 million acres of farmland have been lost since 1976. Ontario loses 319 acres of farmland every day. Since 2001, Canada has lost the equivalent of seven small farms per day.
This loss of farmland weakens Canada’s food security, forcing us to depend on importing food from other nations—in an increasingly fractious world order. It also fuels urbanization, threatening Canada’s beloved countryside landscapes, and the rural lifestyle many of us are attached to.
Like so many effects of mass immigration, the overcrowding of Canadian schools is a function of the law of supply and demand—which our political elite is apparently unaware of! Simply put: Provinces and school districts are being overwhelmed by large numbers of additional students from newly-settled immigrant families. In Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown and Stratford received 375 newcomer students who were neither predicted nor planned for. Surrey, B.C., is considering putting schools in high rises!
To be sure, school crowding is not the fault of the immigrant families in question. Both immigrant and native-born Canadians alike are the victims of the classroom crowding caused by an out-of-control federal immigration policy.
From the alleged Chinese interference in recent Canadian elections to the assassination of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Surrey temple, Canada is now a hotspot for foreign interference. While politicians of all stripes have denounced the meddling of foreign states in Canadian affairs, none have explicitly linked it to the presence of large foreign diaspora populations on Canadian soil.
The fact is, the presence of large diasporas invites foreign interference. This is especially true of China, which considers all ethnic Chinese to be nationals of China—regardless of their place of residency. For Xi Jinping, overseas Chinese play an irreplaceable role in China’s rise. The link between diaspora populations and foreign interference appears to be an ironclad rule of geopolitics, and has been seen in Europe as well, with Turkish president Erdogan urging Turks in Germany to vote against German Chancellor Merkel after a diplomatic rupture between the countries.
Large-scale immigration is touted as necessary to Canada’s economic success, but this could not be further from the truth. While Canada’s immigration-driven population growth does grow the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it lowers GDP per capita. In other words, while the economic pie grows, most people’s slice gets smaller!
This process has gotten so bad that the National Bank of Canada released a report warning that Canada is in a “population trap” whereby any increase in living standards is impossible—a problem which usually occurs in emerging economies like India or Sub-Saharan Africa!
The federal government describes immigration in abstract terms: addressing labour shortages, offsetting ageing populations, or growing the GDP. In reality, immigrants are not just workers, they are people—people who need a roof over their heads! To accommodate immigration-driven population growth, a large amount of Canada’s energy and wealth is spent endlessly building both single-family developments and high rises.
The urban sprawl strategy is most visible in places like Calgary, with new cookie-cutter developments being continually built on the surrounding prairie. Alberta saw a population boom of 184,000 in 2023 alone (with international migration accounting for far more than interprovincial migration), so this looks likely to continue. The densification approach is most apparent in British Columbia, which recently abolished single-family zoning in most communities to accommodate immigration-driven population growth.
Social cohesion is a measure of the strength of the bonds linking members of a group to each other—and to the group itself. As ethnic and cultural diversity increases because of large-scale immigration, the number and severity of society’s cultural fault lines increases.
One way in which this is manifesting in Canadian society is brawls between or within diaspora groups. On September 2nd, 2023, about 150 Eritreans clashed in the parking lot of Calgary’s Falconridge Plaza, armed with sticks and pipes. Similar clashes occurred in Edmonton and Toronto. The origin of the disputes was a difference of views about the government in Eritrea. In November of 2023, viral videos emerged of a clash between Hindus and Sikhs on Diwali in Mississauga.
Most of Canada’s immigration now comes from India, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. While culturally rich in their own way, cultures and religions in these regions often hold values diametrically opposed to those of Anglo Canadian and Quebecois society. The result is the import of behaviours incompatible with—or even offensive to—the Canadian way of life, such as:
By 2036, immigrants are projected to make up about 30% of the Canadian population. By 2050, roughly half the country’s population will be non-white. In some areas, these projections have already been reached or surpassed. In Brampton, Ontario, 65% of the population is South Asian. Richmond, British Columbia, became majority Chinese in 2016. In Quebec, the French language is in serious decline because of large-scale immigration.
If immigration targets remain unchanged, there will be a dramatic change in the country’s ethnic, cultural, and linguistic composition. Many citizens, both native-born and immigrants, will be uncomfortable with a change at this rate and scale to the country they know and love. To make matters worse, the successive federal governments, which have overseen Canada’s policy of large-scale immigration, have never consulted Canadians on whether they actually want this kind of change. [Published in Druthers, May, 2024]
What do you think?
Originally published at dominionreview.ca
Also read Riley Donovan’s eye-opening report on the Century Initiative at:
dominionreview.ca/century-initiative-the-lobbyists-that-want-to-raise-canadas-population-to-100-million/
British Author Mike Walsh’s Warning
Jorge Bergoglio, who under the name Francis became the current pretender to St. Peter’s throne when its last occupant, a much sounder theologian than himself, the late Benedict XVI, resigned, gave an interview to 60 Minutes earlier this week. I didn’t see the episode. The last time I watched an episode of 60 Minutes Andy Rooney’s commentary was still the final segment. Rooney was about the only thing that made the show watchable. I have, however, since read transcripts of the interview as it has generated some controversy. This is not surprising. Bergoglio seems to suffer from a gastro-intestinal disorder that manifests itself in emissions from his mouth of gas that ought to be coming out the other end.
Bergoglio was asked about a number of current issues. He gave abominable answers when it came to some matters such as the immigration invasion of the United States, passable if vague answers on certain other matters of international import, a surprisingly good answer on the ecclesiastical matter of the ordination of women, and a very strange have-it-both-ways answer on the Roman Church’s recent ill-advised foray into the world of same-sex blessings.
The interviewer, Norah O’Donnell, concluded her questioning by asking the Western Patriarch who mistakenly thinks he has universal jurisdiction what gives him hope. His answer began with the single word “Everything” and ended with the following:
And people are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.
This is what has caused all the fuss because the words in bold have been taken to be in conflict with the doctrine of Original Sin. Original Sin is the doctrine that in the sin of our first parents the entire human race fell and became sinful a condition from which we are unable to extract ourselves making us wholly dependent for our salvation on the grace of God and the redemption provided by Jesus Christ. Unlike doctrines proclaimed by papal decree or even by any of the post-Schism councils falsely regarded as ecumenical by the Roman Communion, Original Sin is a truly Catholic doctrine. Its affirmation is implicit in the condemnation of the heresy of Pelagius by the regional Council of Carthage in 418 AD, later ratified by the General Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, that was received as the third ecumenical council by the pre-Schism Catholic Church. It is essential to both Lutheranism and Calvinism and accordingly is emphasized in the confessions of those traditions. In the Anglican formularies it is affirmed in the ninth of the Articles of Religion. While contemporary online Eastern Orthodox apologists sometimes claim that their Church rejects it this is not the case. What the Eastern Orthodox Church rejects is Original Guilt, the idea that human beings inherit not just a fallen nature corrupted by sin from their first parents but also personal culpability for the sinful act that produced the Fall. Original Guilt and Original Sin are related but different concepts that are often confused with each other in both the East and the West. In the East it has often been assumed that Original Guilt is an essential part of the Western idea of Original Sin, for which reason the Eastern Orthodox usually refer to Original Sin sans Original Guilt as ancestral sin. Since, however, what they affirm as ancestral sin is Original Sin as distinguished from Original Guilt, regardless of whether the latter is affirmed or denied, Original Sin is actually affirmed by both East and West. (1)
So, was what Bergoglio said heretical in the Pelagian way and in conflict with Original Sin?
If you take the offending words – the ones I highlighted in bold, which are repeated in his next sentence – alone, the answer is “not necessarily.” If, by saying that people are fundamentally good, Bergoglio meant that sin and evil do not exist in themselves as things or substances in their own right, but only parasitically in things that are good, then he was right. Indeed, if that is what he meant, he was not only right but expressing the essence of the classical Christian theist version of that to which Gottfried Leibniz gave the name theodicy, the vindication of God in the face of the problem of evil. This is not what Bergoglio meant, but let us pursue this thought a little further before considering the banality that he actually intended.
God is good. Indeed, not only is God good, He is Goodness itself at its purest and most perfect. God created everything other than God that exists and everything that He created He created good. Another way of putting it would be to say that in His grace He gave to all that He had made participation in created goodness which is a finite reflection of His own infinite goodness. Every gift that He gave His creatures was a good gift. To rational creatures, such as ourselves, He gave the gift of free choice. As a gift from God, free choice was both good in itself, and the means to a greater good, the good of rational creatures freely choosing to trust, love, and obey God. It is through our misuse of that good gift that evil entered into the world. Evil, not having been created by God, has no substance of its own, no essence. It does not exist in the most proper sense of the word. It has neither form, that which makes a thing the thing that it is rather than some other sort of thing, nor matter, that which makes a thing an actual thing rather than merely the idea of a thing. It is present in things which do exist, in the proper sense of the word, which do have form and matter, in the way a hole exists in a wall, not a hole that is put there by an architect so that a window may be placed in it, but a hole that somebody makes by taking a sledgehammer to it in a fit of anger. It is a hole, in other words, where there is not supposed to be a hole. It is an absence or deficiency. What is absent, in the hole that is evil, is a kind of good. It is not, however, the entirety of the goodness that was bestowed upon the created thing in which evil parasitically resides that is absent, because if the entirety of that goodness were absent, the thing itself would no longer exist, existence being the most basic gift of goodness that God bestows upon His creatures.
Peter Lombard explored this at length in the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth distinctions of the second book of his Sentences. The sixth paragraph of the second chapter of the distinction reads “From the aforesaid, it is gathered and inferred that, if there is an evil will and an evil action, insofar as it is, it is good. But does anyone deny that an evil will and an evil action exist? And so an evil will or action, insofar as it is, is a good. And insofar as it is a will or an action, it is similarly a good; but it is evil from this vice; this vice is not from God, nor is it anything.”(2) Lombard is a particularly important authority on this matter as his Sentences are a bridge of sorts between Patristic and Medieval theology. The Scriptures and the Church Fathers, especially St. Augustine were his source material, his Sentences provided the structure for Systematic Theology for centuries to come, being the textbook from which St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, and basically every Western theologian of note from the thirteenth century until the Reformation studied. (3) Also worthy of note in this context are the third paragraph in the fourth chapter of the thirty-fourth distinction:
From this it is gathered that, when man is called evil, nothing else is meant than an evil good. Hence Augustine adds, in the same place: “What is an evil man, if not an evil nature, because man is a nature? Now, if man is a good thing because he is a nature, what else is an evil man, if not an evil good? Yet, when we distinguish between these two things, we find that he is not evil because he is a man, nor is he good because he is iniquitous; but he is called good because he is a man, evil because iniquitous. And so each nature, even if it is defective, insofar as it is a nature, is good; insofar as it is defective, it is evil.” (4)
And the second paragraph of the fifth chapter of the same distinction which paragraph consists entirely of quotes from St. Augustine’s Enchiridion:
“And these two opposites exist at the same time in such a way that, if the good did not exist in which evil might exist, evil could not exist at all, because not only would corruption not have a place to stay, but it would have no source from which to arise, unless there were something that could be corrupted, because corruption is nothing other than the extermination of the good. And so evils have arisen from goods, and cannot exist in anything other than good things.” “Therefore, there was no source at all from which an evil nature could arise, except from the good nature of angel and man, from which the evil will first arose.” (5)
Note that Lombard here is quoting the Church Father who led the battle for orthodoxy regarding Original Sin and the need for grace against the Pelagian heresy. It is also worth noting that these distinctions follow immediately after the section (distinctions thirty to thirty-three) of this book that covers Original Sin and are the segue into the discussion of actual sin, i.e., sinful acts, that closes the book.
Of course, none of this is what Jorge Bergoglio had in mind. He probably doesn’t know the difference between Peter Lombard, Vince Lombardi and Guy Lombardo. I could imagine him, in the unlikely event that somebody were to read this essay to him, asking “Peter Lombard? Wasn’t he an American football coach? Or the guy who used to sing Auld Lang Syne on the radio every New Year’s Eve?” except that I seriously doubt he knows who any of these men were.
No, Bergoglio was just being a liberal, a progressive, a leftist. The third sentence in the quotation confirms that. Here it is again “Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.” That’s that heart about which the prophet Jeremiah said that it “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9) Or about which Jesus said “proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man.” (Matt. 15:19) So no, he was not simply affirming that human nature, as created by God, is a good thing, in which sin/evil is present as a parasitical defect, as orthodox theologians have always taught. He was affirming the liberal/progressive/leftist’s basic idea that the evils from which we suffer are not due to a moral defect in us but from defects in the structure of society. If we could just get rid of economic/social/political disparity, if we could just eliminate poverty, illiteracy, or this-or-that other social ill, then everybody would finally be perfectly happy. This never works because the ultimate cause of human suffering is not to be found in the organization of society, the distribution of its resources, or any of these other things, but in the human heart, in that very defect, Original Sin, which the Church affirms but which liberalism denies. The Church is right and liberalism, including the liberal that the Cardinals of the Roman Communion have placed at the top of their hierarchy in the seat they wrongly claim to be vested with universal jurisdiction, is wrong. The tragic consequence of liberalism’s error is that by denying that the ultimate cause of suffering is a defect in the human heart liberalism treats suffering as being treatable by political, social, and economic engineering, but since the ultimate cause of suffering is that defect in the human heart it is not so treatable and furthermore liberalism’s attempts to treat it by these means inevitably become, despite their denial that the problem is a defect in human nature, attempts to engineer better human beings, which attempts are doomed to fail and to fail in such a way as to increase rather than decrease human suffering.
St Peter in his first epistle advised his readers to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Pet. 3:15) This is precisely what O’Donnell asked Bergoglio. While Bergoglio may have succeeded to St. Peter’s local jurisdiction over the Church in Rome he has sadly not inherited the reason for the Apostle’s hope. St. Peter went on to write:
Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. (1 Pet. 3:16-22)
Bergoglio, in his answer said “everything” and mentioned human goodness. He did not mention Jesus Christ. That tells us everything we need to know about Bergoglio.– Gerry T. Neal
(1) See the section on “Original Sin” in the fifth chapter of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, first published in Russian in 1963, first published in English in 1983 by the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. The section in question can be found on pages 162 to 169 of the current (third) edition of the English translation, and the footnotes by the translator, Fr. Seraphim Rose, on the first and last pages of the section are particularly helpful and to the point, as is the final sentence in the proper text of the section “Thus original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination which has entered into mankind and become its spiritual disease.”
(2) Peter Lombard, The Sentences: Book 2, On Creation, translated by Giulio Silano, (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008, 2013), 176-177.
(3) A commentary on the Sentences was the thesis required for a Masters degree in Western Medieval universities. St. Thomas Aquinas’ became his first published work. Most of the extent writings of John Duns Scotus are his lectures at the universities of Oxford and Paris on the Sentences.
(4) Lombard, op cit., 172-173, his quotation from St. Augustine is from the Enchiridion (Handbook).
(5) Ibid., 173.
Canadian Culture in the Crosshairs: The Immigration Invasion
Failure to integrate caused a nightmare, from peaceful to dangerous. Multiculturalism at its core is an anti-integration strategy and I am scared if we continue down this path our future will be the new hell experienced in Sweden. Their mass immigration overwhelmed their infrastructure and divided their society.
The idea of multiculturalism is based on the belief that diverse cultures can coexist and thrive within a society. However, mass immigration can lead to the destruction of a nation’s culture and cohesion. When large numbers of immigrants come from different cultural backgrounds, it can be challenging for them to integrate into society and to adopt the values and norms of the host country. Or they refuse and bring their mother country’s problems to Canada as seen in some gang violence and other issues that arise.
The perfect storm of Multiculturalism and mass immigration leads to the creation of ethnic enclaves, which can increase social tension and lead to a lack of social cohesion. This is particularly problematic when immigrants do not share the same values and beliefs as the host culture, namely Judeo-Christian values in our case.
We need more of a melting-pot approach that has controlled, merit-based measures because they lead to a more creative and innovative society. Selecting immigrants based on their skills and qualifications, rather than their cultural background, can create a more harmonious and empathetic society. A melting-pot approach promotes social cohesion by encouraging immigrants to adopt the values and norms of the host culture in our case Canada.
The damage is obvious, we see it in inflation, housing costs, and poor healthcare that’s never been designed for the numbers we are seeing and we wonder why so many don’t have family doctors. Not only is the budget a dumpster fire, I am scared that the perfect story of Multiculturalism & mass immigration may be the end of Canadian Culture, and the Canada we grew up in will be lost.
I know our path to victory – we are on it. I also know it will be arduous and not something we can slap together but nothing worthwhile is ever an easy chore. With what’s at stake, there’s no better time than now! — Mike Bator, People’s Party of Canada Candidate, Burlington
The agency is increasingly dedicating itself to the airing of unresolvable historic grievances
Author of the article:
Published May 21, 2024 • 5 minute read
209 Comments
If you happen to be in Kingston, Ont. in the next several months, consider visiting the newly re-opened Bellevue House National Historic Site, John A. Macdonald’s historic home. With careful timing, you might be able to attend the hour-or-so “Unpacking Macdonald” tour about racism, sexism and the first prime minister’s political decisions.
“Bring an open mind and open heart and join the discussion in this safe space,” reads the tour description.
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As diversity initiatives often are, this little tour is just one outcome of Parks Canada’s broader effort to integrate progressive identity politics into its mission. Nearly a decade of Liberal governance has made Canadian heritage a tool to reinforce contemporary multiculturalism, guided by careful demographic tallying augmented by subtle social commentary.
It goes back to at least 2019, when Parks Canada released a new system plan for history and commemoration. The framework set four priorities for the agency to address reconciliation and Canada’s changing demographics, among other things: Indigenous history, environmental history, diversity and “Canada and the world.” These replaced the priorities of the previous plan (Aboriginal history, women’s history and ethnocultural communities’ history) that had been in place since 2000. There is no priority, of course, for just … Canada.
Indeed, the Parks Canada belief seems to be that people are inherently narcissistic, unable to appreciate the past unless every story, every institution, mirrors the identities of today’s Canada.
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By 2020, then-environment minister John Wilkinson launched a series of consultations on how to move Parks Canada onward. The government’s summary of the consultations predictably focused on identity: those who aren’t able-bodied white males “frequently feel excluded from these places” and therefore more change was needed. Suggested solutions included subsidizing transportation to parks for low-income Canadians, valuing all world views equally and ensuring that employees demographically reflect the population.
In 2022, the Liberals moved towards demographically reflective park governance with the tabling of Bill C-23, the historic places of Canada act. The law, which remains in second reading and would replace the current Historic Sites and Monuments Act if passed, would add mandatory Indigenous seats to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. Though, the board is currently diversity-quota-free and has Indigenous members already. The new law would also mandate that “Indigenous knowledge” inform decisions on historical designations — a bizarre affirmation by the government that ethno-epistemology should guide policy.
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These changes to the law were specifically requested by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which, evidently, have been accepted uncritically by the government.
Following the new plans and bills, Parks Canada came out with a new values and ethics code in 2023 that also championed the cause of total diversity. It emphasized the importance of “Indigenous knowledge” once more, as well as the need to tell history in a “socially” responsible way. Unobjectionable on their face — responsible storytelling is always a good thing, and Indigenous input can certainly round out the stories of early Canada — but by invoking ethnicity-based knowledge and the social-justice-adjacent term “social responsibility,” the code takes on a political tone.
Later, on the Parks Canada ethics code outlines the organization’s commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), it regurgitating the familiar list of prioritized groups:
“Being a successful and innovative agency is rooted in our ability to create inclusive spaces…. This also means providing fair and equitable access to opportunities for under-represented people including: Black, Indigenous, people of colour, the Two Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+ (2SLGBTQ+) community and people living with disabilities.”
It is a good thing to accurately depict history. But the outsized focus on small subsets of the population and the insistence to tell “socially responsible” stories that jive with today’s obsession with perfect ethnic representation in every institution is unlikely to accurately portray the past, as Canada was not as diverse back then as it is today.
In practice, Parks Canada has set a number of practical goals to achieve total diversity. According to its 2023 departmental plan, an in-the-works DEI strategy would pilot an employee sponsorship program for anyone who is not white, able-bodied and straight.
As far as the telling of history goes, Parks Canada’s transformation is best illustrated by its newest changes. The agency is currently reviewing 210 historical designations for colonial assumptions, problematic terminology, controversial beliefs and behaviours, and the absence of “a significant layer of history.” These sites, which often acknowledge historical figures of note, may have their plaques edited — or removed entirely. While editing might be in order for some, the prospect of removal is chilling.
An update to Parks Canada’s management plan for Anne of Green Gables-related sites on Prince Edward Island now seeks to “share more inclusive histories and seek to advance reconciliation” — even though the Indigenous presence on the island when Lucy Maud Montgomery lived was likely low.
And most recently, the agency animated its strategic priority of “diversity” at last weekend’s opening event for Bellevue House. Reporting from the function, Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington quoted Jarred Picher, a director at Parks Canada, telling the crowd that Macdonald’s “prime ministership has left deep harms that continue to be felt over 150 years later” — an ominous message to inspire shame in the nation’s founding.
Another speaker, Channon Oyeniran, a vice-president of the Ontario Black History Society with a very limited list of publications, told the Bellevue House crowd that Macdonald is remembered for his role in building the nation — but “he is also remembered for his harmful, discriminatory and exclusionary views and policies toward various racialized groups of people, including Indigenous Peoples, Chinese Canadians, Black Canadians and many more.” She claimed that Canada was “steeped in racism, colonialism, white supremacy and other legacies of enslavement.”
Another speaker, Amy Go, president of the Chinese Canadian National Council For Social Justice, claimed that racist occurrences towards Asian Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic “can in many ways be traced back to the time when John A. Macdonald and other politicians of the day” because they had “portrayed Chinese as foreigners.”
Forget Macdonald’s architecting of the Canadian state, his vaccination and famine relief programs, his belief in law and order and the protection of Indigenous subjects from violent Americans to the south.
I haven’t taken the “Unpacking Macdonald” tour at Bellevue House; when I asked Parks Canada for details about its content Friday, a representative offered to simply provide me (or a local Postmedia reporter) the tour. So, being in Alberta and thus unable to capitalize on the invitation, I can’t rule out that Parks Canada includes nuanced and fair social context when recounting Macdonald’s life. However, given the agency’s big-picture plans, and the fact that the site’s opening was clouded by community representatives airing their unresolvable historic grievances, I suspect it’s unlikely.
Parks Canada wants to tell a story that demoralizes the nation by painting its founder as a Hitlerian figure; proper context wouldn’t allow for that.
Emergency
