Category Archives: Canada

According to Lancee and Dronkers, the more ethnically diverse a neighbourhood is, the less trust exists among neighbours. “Policies aiming at promoting ethnically diverse neighbourhoods in order to promote ethnic integration at the societal level might have an unintended inverse affect of decreasing individual trust,” they concluded.

A plague of friendlessness is epidemic in many cities. A high proportion of city dwellers confirm making friends is a chronic, pervasive and uphill struggle.

But the resulting withdrawal and seclusion from mainstream life is at its worst in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, accumulating evidence shows.

The situation in Vancouver is so serious that a mayor’s task force has been set up to discover why so many residents report they are socially isolated. Data confirms one-third of residents of Greater Vancouver report they have trouble making friends. More than one-quarter say they are lonely; most have little interaction with their neighbours and a majority are withdrawing from community life.

Vancouver’s problems with regard to fractured social interrelationships are shared with many other large cities, particularly those with substantial ethnic populations.

“Ethnic diversity in the neighbourhood negatively affects individual social trust, both for immigrants and native residents,” says Robert Putman at Harvard University.

According to a new study by Bram Lancee and Jaap Dronkers at the European University Institute, “Ethnic diversity tends to reduce solidarity and social capital: In ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, residents of all ethnicities tend to ‘hunker down.’ ”

Under such circumstances, the researchers reported, “Trust (even in one’s own ethnic group) is lower, altruism and community co-operation is more rare, friends fewer.”

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MAKING AN IMMIGRANT NATION: The Fall of British Vancouver and the Rise of ‘Pacific’ Canada. Multiculturalism calls upon Canadians to ‘never again view Canada as a white [or] a British country’.

Ever since Canada was officially designated a multicultural nation during the prime ministership of Pierre Elliot Trudeau in the 1970s the age-old British character of this nation has been under relentless assaults. Multiculturalism promulgates the equality of all races, religions and cultures; accordingly, it demands a Canada in which no particular ethnic group has a privileged position in the nation’s history and culture. Will Kymlicka, the most prominent scholar and salesperson of Canadian multiculturalism, sums up succinctly what it all entails: ‘Adopting multiculturalism is a way for Canadians to say that never again will we view Canada as a “white”’ country … as a “British” country (and hence compel non-British immigrants to relinquish or hide their ethnic identity).’ Non-British immigrants can retain and affirm their ethnic identity; they have a ‘distinctive group identity’, which must be protected ‘from the impact’ of the ‘dominant’ white culture.

Of course, multiculturalism is always presented to the public through rose-tinted glasses as a pluralistic philosophy dedicated to the prevention of discriminatory acts and xenophobic feelings. Immigrants should have the opportunity to celebrate their heritages and religious beliefs as well as being encouraged to see themselves as members of a wider liberal-democratic culture. But multiculturalism contains a negation within its very essence. It protects the group rights of non-Western peoples while simultaneously denying the host (Western) nation any group rights of its own. The host culture is seen as a neutral site characterized by its provision of individual rights, which apply to everyone, and of group rights, which apply only to non-whites. The Anglo-French founders are mandated to be ethnically neutral and historically disinterested; representatives of certain deracinated values that belong to ‘humanity.’ While multicultural ideologues implicitly recognize that minorities have deep attachment to their ethnic backgrounds, and, in this vein, recognize that humans do have a natural love of their own heritage and ethnicity; they call upon whites to practice historical amnesia and pretend they were not the creators of Canada’s institutions, parliamentary traditions, and common law. The historical fact that Canada was built as a nation state around a founding ethnic core must be discarded and hidden from students.

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