but given the percentage of the Canadian population that lives in Toronto, I think it’s safe to say that a good chunk of that ~40% who are immigrants are also White, correct?

Incorrect. In the 2001 census, 43% of the population was visible minority (including 2.2% Latino). It’s grown higher. The 2006 Census data isn’t complete and published yet, but it’s higher, with 2012 predicted as the crossover when the “white” population becomes the minority in the city.

In 2001, Vancouver was 49% visible minority (which it’s safe to assume they’ve passed by now). Montreal was the lowest of the Big Three at 23%. Of other major cities, Ottawa was at 15%, Calgary 21%, Edmonton 24%, Winnipeg 13.4%, Quebec City is scraping the bottom of the barrel at 1.6%, Halifax at 7% and so on.

Again, I reiterate the point isn’t to say anything about how good or bad things are, merely to point out that the myth of a lily-white Canada is just that: a myth. The main difference between us and the US is who the are the parties involved in racial problems that get most of the press: in Canada the black or Latino populations don’t dominate such stories as they do in the US. Right now the big press is First Nations, Inuit and Metis. The Sikhs also tend to get a lot of press, and so on.

We might of course, also recall that the british mostly abolished slavery because when they lost their American colonies, they no longer benefitted from it. There were indeed some domestic slaves in what is now Canada prior to that.

Our jails are filled with native people and recent immigrants, we have a “security certificates” law that’s not wildly different from the US Patriot act. Police brutality is widespread and unchallenged. Neo-Nazis get away with organizing in places like Caledonia, where Native people have tried to take back their land.

In recent protests at Montebello, the police tried to infiltrate the Black Bloc to provoke violence so they could delegitimize the case against the SPP.

In Quebec city, they shot teargas indescriminitely throughout the city, and ignored the charter rights of those who chose to oppose corporate globalization.

In Vancouver, housing protesters are routinely pepper sprayed and beaten up, for the simple crime of interupting that city’s Olympic fervour with a reminder that the olympic development has been at the cost of affordable housing.

Back in 91, during the Oka Crisis, Quebeckers pelted rocks at the cars of women, children and seniors attempting to evacuate Kahnawake. One man died of a heart attack. The Police who were supposed to be protecting this people stood by. Over the past couple decades federal and provincial police have murdered a fair number of native people, some of them protesters, some of them just unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Montreal and Oka, Neo-Nazis joined white demonstrators and effigies of “Indians” were burned.

Keith, I’m going to ask you politely, as a fellow Canadian, to stop trying to praise Canada and start trying to fix it. In so many ways Canada is much more fucked up than the United States, and while I (like you) am concerned about the situation there and occasionally flabbergasted at the problems the US experiences, there is no excuse for the superior attitude you’ve chosen to take.

I’m afraid I don’t have time while at work to investigate some of the numbers you gave regarding percentage of immigrants, but given the percentage of the Canadian population that lives in Toronto, I think it’s safe to say that a good chunk of that ~40% who are immigrants are also White, correct?

That was the point of my comment: Racially heterogenous Western societies are more liberal in their welfare policies than racially diverse ones. Perhaps Canada can buck that trend, but we simply don’t know yet. The US doesn’t have that choice: It must find a way to accept true diversity.

So while there are definitely racial issues, they’re somewhat different issues than the ones we have in the States.

There’s plenty of foreign policies that can be objected to for moral reasons, but to be fearful of action because of the enemies it might produce is just so…DLC.

Operation Barbarossa, anyone?

Point taken. I’d like to amend my comment as follows:

To be fearful of action because it might produce any enemies at all is just so…DLC.

That was the jist of my original comment, in juxtaposition to what Wright/Chomsky/Sontag have implied, which is that we could have avoided 9/11 if we hadn’t created enemies. Sure, there are ways we could have created fewer enemies (though to end the calculus there is, IMHO, naive), but to imply that we could have not created enemies at all is also naive.

Canadian politics is a tad more diverse than the “white male” stereotype that was being thrown around earlier.

Even in Alberta? (kidding)

Also, from what I understand the Governor General is appointed by the Queen, not elected, right?

Sort of. While the GG is officially the representative of the Crown and thus an appointee of the reigning monarch, in all the countries where the Queen is still officially the head of state (and there are GG’s), it’s the national government that nominates the GG, which is automatically approved by the Queen.

Consider it like the Electoral College: officially it’s the electors who chose the president, and they don’t necessarily have to vote in line with the way they were selected (however the state chooses them), but everyone knows on election night…with some exceptions…how they will be voting and thus what the results will be.

In any case, other data: 20% of members of parliament are women (compared to around 16% in Congress), 12% are immigrants, and while she may have been in a short time, Kim Campbell was prime minister. The fact she was in only four months had much less to do with her than it did with her party and predecessor: Brian Mulroney was so despised that the Tories were obliterated in the next election. No one could have saved them.

Once again, not claiming that we’re a paradise by any means (and we still have a long way to go), but Canadian politics is a tad more diverse than the “white male” stereotype that was being thrown around earlier.

Except that, since we don’t have a parliamentary system in the U.S., our head of government and head of state are the same person. How often has your head of government — your prime minister — been a woman or a person of color?