Canada First Immigration Reform Committee

Martin Collacott, Old School Canadian, Facts and Analysis

David Atkinson’s article, “White supremacists ideas revived in Collacott oped,” spews out one defamatory label after another against Martin Collacott’s June 5 editorial, “Canada replacing its population a case of wilful ignorance, greed, excess political correctness,” without caring to offer one single fact-based, analytically constructed argument.

Collacot effectively condensed in his article the following empirically oriented claims:

1. that according to professor Eric Kaufmann, “almost seven out of 10 Vancouver residents will be visible minorities within two generations and 80 per cent of the Canadian population (compared to 20 per cent today) will be non-white in less than century.”
2. that the cost of mass immigration “is huge — with latest estimates indicating taxpayers have to underwrite recent arrivals to the tune of around $30 billion annually.”
3. that Vancouverites have been “crowded out of the housing market by sky-high prices caused largely by the ceaseless flow of new arrivals.”
4. that “the quality of life of most residents is negatively affected by increased traffic and commute times, along with congestion and pressure on the health care and education systems.”
5. that “we are not facing looming labour shortages that we can’t meet with our existing workforce and educational infrastructure. Immigration, moreover, does not provide a realistic means of dealing with the costs associated with the aging of our population.”
6. that we should consider the fact that those who advocate mass immigration may be doing so for their own personal or political benefits rather than Canada’s economic and cultural well being. The “benefit from continued high immigration include leaders of political parties bent on expanding their political base.” 
7. that these beneficiaries also include “leaders of immigrant organizations eager to expand their support base and influence,” as well as “developers who want an endless supply of new homebuyers and are major funders of politicians and parties — particularly at the municipal level”.
8. that Canada did benefit in the past from periods of high levels of immigration, and that “a moderate degree of diversity can make society more vibrant” [but] — “it is quite a different matter when it develops to a level where it overwhelms and largely replaces the existing population”
9. that “many will bring with them values and traditions that may differ in key respects from those of most Canadians, such as gender equality and concern for protection of the environment.”
10. that “Canadians deserve a full and informed public debate on the extent to which immigration policy will determine the future of the country. This should form the basis for a sensible public policy based on the long-term interests of the existing population, rather than those of special interest groups.”

Atkinson, who is an academic at Purdue University, does not tackle a single one of these empirically oriented claims, but instead unleashes one vitriolic claim after another, starting with the title which identifies Collacott as a “white supremacist.” The first sentence then calls Collacott’s argument “chauvinistic” and “white supremacist” again. The second sentence says that Collacott’s argument is nothing but a “thinly veiled invocation of ‘Yellow Peril’ rhetoric”. The third sentence dismisses all the claims by Collacott as “antiquated racial ideas”. The fourth and fifth sentences accuse Collacott of reviving arguments for a “White Canada” in the manner of the “anti-Asian exclusion movement in B.C. (and elsewhere) during the early 20th century.”

The sixth sentence equates Collacott’s argument with those who warned in the early 1900s of a “rising tide of oriental immigration.” In each of the next three sentences all we find are the phrases “widespread fear of impending white elimination,” “the irrational fear of an overwhelming Asian influx,” ” Komagata Maru.” The tenth sentence brings up again the word the never heard phrase “white supremacists,” and the eleventh sentence accuses Collacott of using a label, “white genocide,” “derived from the writings of convicted murderer David Lane”. The same eleventh sentence claims that Collacott is merely trafficking in “alt-right… simplistic meme-driven distortions of history, ethnicity, and identity.”

Cultural Marxist School Canadian: Facts and Analysis don’t matter; only defamatory labels do.

Professor Atkinson, how about one argument against the claims of Collacott? Well, in the twelfth sentence he finally brings up one argument  (#9 above), but only to dismiss it as the “same kind of disingenuousness favoured by alt-right activists.” The next sentence accuses, again, Collacott of echoing “his predecessors and the modern alt-right in blaming” those who benefit from mass immigration.

Strange yet true: academics today don’t like it when you blame political leaders, bureaucrats, developers, and special interest groups. Atkinson, it should be noted, has made a a career out of promoting immigration and calling anyone who disagrees with him a “racist.” His “forthcoming book” is entitled The Burdens of White Supremacy: Containing Asian Labor Migration in the British Empire and the United States.

The last three paragraphs of his article more or less repeat the same labels while identifying Collacott with the “white supremacist” exclusionary activists of a century ago, “defending the whiteness of British Columbia.” His conclusion is more of the same: “in reality, Collacott’s commentary squarely reiterates these previous champions of white supremacy.”

There you have it, ladies and gentleman, this is the trash that passes for scholarship among leftist professors who can’t think for themselves, who can’t engage in analysis, in open inquiry, but only in accusations and defamatory statements.

The little bit that can be categorized as historically minded in Atkinson’s article is fundamentally wrong. Essentially, what Atkinson tries to do is equate any objections with immigration today with objections a century ago, which is rather odd for a supposed historian to do, since one of the cardinal lessons in the historical profession is to learn how to judge each historical period on its own terms, to be aware that history is not static, and that immigration patterns, and cultural settings, over a hundred years ago cannot be equated with immigration realities today. Collacott distinctly makes this distinction, stating that he understands that Canada has benefited from immigration in the past. Collacott is only asking for our elites to take seriously the 10 points outlined above. He knows that Canadians are not being allowed to debate this issue openly.

It is truly a disgrace that a professor who is supposed to be a firm believer in freedom of expression and critical thinking, has decided to close off all debate with the extremist use of one defamatory label after another.

Atkinson writes that “Collacott nostalgically yearns for an imagined homogenous past that only ever existed in the minds of the province’s most obstinate white supremacists.” This criticism is common among our poorly educated academics. It is flat out wrong, as late as 1971, Canada was over 96 percent White! Deceiving your students is not a good thing. Let’s have an open debate based on historical facts and empirically verifiable statements, rather than rely on trashy labels.