WINNIPEG – I cannot remember the first time I declared on radio that multiculturalism was a monstrously stupid idea. But I do remember that the declaration was seen by the usual suspects — academics, left-of-centre political activists and the terminally naive — as racist claptrap.
Can I and many others be grateful enough to British Prime Minister David Cameron for his eloquence at a European conference last week when he called for a four-question litmus test to be applied to cultural/ethnic organizations who want to continue receiving funds from the national government?
“Do they believe in universal human rights — including for women and people of other faiths?
“Do they believe in equality of all before the law?
“Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government?
“Do they encourage integration or separatism?”
Would it not be wise in this country to apply the same litmus test to organizations drilling for Canadian tax dollars?
If certain groups in our society want the public to support them, they need to support Canadian values.
If any sane person can find anything racist in the four questions Cameron is asking, I would love to hear it.
In the meantime, if individuals or groups want to continue to impose their ideas on our schools or our courts or our media, we have a choice to make. We can pretend that the character of our country is not being damaged. We can just do a Fido roll-over-and-play-dead. Or we can grow a pair and do a Cameron.
If we love this country, let us share what we treasure and what we are happy to discard. Let’s declare that Canada is not for sale on the corrupt and corrosive altar of multiculturalism. Let us declare the “experiment” has been a monstrous failure.
Just as alchemists have not been able to turn base metals into gold, government-subsidized multiculturalism has not turned diversity into unity. A hoax is a hoax. And it’s time to call BS on the hoax of government-sponsored multiculturalism. It has created division, not unity. It has generated suspicion, not cohesion.
Multiculturalism divides Canadian against Canadian. It gives power to the basest elements in Canada, those who don’t believe in national unity and ultimately those who don’t believe in Canada as we know it.
Does everyone reading this remember why Stephane Dion looked like a dunce when he signed a document to form a coalition government? It wasn’t the fact that his signature shared the same document with Jack Layton’s. That would have only made Dion look like an opportunist, which is to be expected of any pol. What made Dion surrender moral authority was having his signature alongside Gilles Duceppe’s.
You cannot invite a skunk to your picnic without turning it into a stinker.
I am looking forward to seeing Stephen Harper rise in the House of Commons and offer a David Cameron-like speech on multiculturalism. Does anyone doubt that the private Stephen Harper is on the same page as the now public David Cameron?
Maybe the PM should ask Parliament to make Cameron an honorary Canadian. In helping to launch a vitally important national conversation, he has surely earned it.
Charles Adler
Charles Adler is a national radio columnist, whose show runs on the Corus Radio Network. Charles can be heard Monday to Friday online by visiting www.charlesadler.com.
Adler’s column appears on NetNewsledger.com on a regular basis, as a means of offering new ideas, insights and opinion to the region.