I am in no way a racist but I don't agree with what some immigrants want to do to our national anthem. At this time Canada has 2 official languages being English and French. If we ever do adopt a 3rd language then I can see our anthem being sang in that language but only converted word for word not changed altogether.

I will say again I am NOT racist. I know many Hindi-Canadians as it is the largest minority in Canada. This is not intended to offend anyone

The following are quotes not my words.


Our National Anthem - at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics
Please read and forward to as many Canadians you can think of - thank you!

WE ARE PROUD CANADIANS
Bruce Allen is on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Committee and new Canadians (specifically Hindi's/Indian's) want him fired for his recent comments outlined below:
" I am sorry, but after hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Hindi at the 2010 Olympics- enough is enough. Nowhere or at no other time in our Nation's history, did they sing it in Italian, Japanese, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German, Portuguese, Greek, or any other language because of immigration.. It was written in English, adapted into French, and should be sung word for word the way it was written. "

The news broadcasts even gave the Hindi version translation - which was not even close to our National Anthem. I am not the least bit sorry if this offends ANYONE, this is MY COUNTRY; My Grand Dad served in the military, other family members also served, as well as my wife & I served a combined total of 56 years between us. We made many sacrifices for our country and do not feel we should feel obligated to allow invited people we've welcomed with open arms to influence & change our society to better resemble the one they chose to leave to come here!!! - IF YOU AGREE ABOUT THIS GREAT COUNTRY, SPEAK UP BEFORE ITS TOO LATE
-- please pass this along .
I am not against immigration. In fact I believe we need more, my ancestors were immigrants -- just come through like everyone else. Get a sponsor; a place to lay your head; have a job; pay your taxes, live by the Rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and LONG LIVE CANADA!'

It's time we all get behind Bruce Allen, and scrap this Political Correctness His comments were anything but racist, however, there are far too many overly sensitive 'New Canadians' that are attempting to change everything we hold dear.

ARE you PART OF THE PROBLEM ??? Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone, will we still be the Country of Choice and Still be CANADA if we continue to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries who have come to live in CANADA because it is the Country of Choice??????

Think about it!



IMMIGRANTS, NOT CANADIAN'S, MUST ADAPT.

It's Time for CANADIANS to speak up..
If you agree ? Pass this along;
if you don't agree?
Delete it and reap what you sow because of your complacency!!

I'm not Canadian, but I am the son of immigrants. I agree. Immigrants must adapt to their adopted countries. If they can't or have any problems with the culture(s) of where they migrated, they should go back to their countries of origin.

I'm not racist either.

i agree with every word in these quotes... how would anyone in any country feel if their national anthem was altered
thanks for sharing joshua08

The problem here is what is the issue to discuss? You haven't given any indication of your feelings on the content or any personal input or citable facts whatsoever so I'm going to discuss the email itself.

This is a typical right wing spam e-mail, it's propaganda that promotes racism.

There are thousands of versions around of what is essentially the same thing. They all follow a similar text structure although the content may vary slightly. There's some other quality variations here to get you even more fired up about the errosion of your national identity and the fact you'll be speaking in a foreign language or even have a different national flag a few years from now. It's fear mongering by media manipulation

So the content isn't really the issue here, what worries me is how effective these emails are at inciting racial intolerance and weaning people in the direction of the far right nationalist groups. I actually suspect that they're very effective. Even the US government and military have used similar tactics recently in their 'hearts and minds' campaign aimed at Iraqi citizens although bulk SMS or text messaging was the preferred message format in this particular case. The military calls it fourth generation warfare or psychological warfare.

With this type of email they often take a snippet of a news story, usually something sensationalist that has appeared in the local tabloids on a thin news day and repackage it to try to make you supposedly draw your own racist conclusions from what might appear to be just a couple of unbiased facts and a whole lot of genuine concern thrown in by the writer who tries to make out he's just like you...he's not a racist......but you have to draw the line somewhere......not suggesting violence but by way of making yourself heard on this matter why not send this on to a few dozen friends. This serves to add credibility to the propaganda when your friends receive it supposedly as your views on the matter not just the views of some bigoted stranger. Add to that the sheer volume of this type of email which serves to normalise the sensationalist racism they contain and you have a very powerful, effective and dangerous propaganda tool.

Edit Links fixed.

Edit Edit Reworded last paragraph to avoid ambiguity and better convey intended point.

As a Canadian I could not be happier to hear that someone other then me has had enough of Canada adapting to everyone else's culture and language. If I went to another country (any country pick one) I would have to learn the language and the cultures to survive in the country why is it different here? When you go to take a drivers license here it can be taken in 20 different languages.....um hello the signs are in english (unless you are in the belle province of Quebec then they are in french). Store front signs are written in whichever language is the proprietors mother tongue. Some of the immigrants refuse to learn our language. I am not a racist nor do I think immigrants are a bad thing, Im only second generation Canadian myself, my ancestry lies in Scotland and Denmark. When my son started school some 14 long years ago he was one of three english speaking kindergartners, how is a teacher supposed to teach numbers and colours if the kid doesnt speak any english? Then if the child has a problem in school how do the teachers/principal help the child if they cannot communicate to the parents? Same goes in the hospital... how can they treat you if they cant find out the problem because they refuse to learn english. Not all immigrants are this way I know many who are not and strive every day to learn the language. The local doctor here is from egypt and came to Canada @ 30 yrs of age, he insists that he should leave behind his culture and adapt what cultures and languages here, he is now over 70. Not too mention the stress the immigrants from countries with next to no health care do to our health care system, they are bleeding it dry as well as reintroducing diseases we have long stamped out, the reoccurrance of TB in the last 10 yrs has shot thru the roof, unfortunately they come here sick and right away hit up our doctors and hospitals (as a Canadian our health care is free for the most part) My long winded point is this is Canada here we speak English or French adapt or begone. Canada love it or leave it.

Badog maybe you should put on your reading glasses and read the first paragraph of my statement again if you think I haven't given any feeling or personal input. I don't know where your from and I don't care. Changing the words to our anthem altogether and sang in a different melody is just plain wrong.

It wasn't until a few decades ago that French was adopted as a second official language in Canada. Prior to that there was a French version of our anthem but it was translated word for word and had the same melody. After French became an official language our anthem is sang three ways. In English, In French and half English half French I think this is a good compromise.

The problem with one of your statements is the Hindi version is not the same thing it is far from it. This is not spam email this is people not sitting back and being compliant. This is not propaganda this is Canadians standing up and stating that they don't want our country to change for the sake of a few. Stating these views is not racism.

If we do sit back and say nothing you are right there will be a different flag flying in this country some day. I recently stated in another thread that if some people are not happy with their country I would be more than happy to have them as neighbors. I support immigration. In my eyes we can use skilled tradesman and professionals. Many of the doctors in this country are from other nations. My doctor is from India. If I was a bigot don't you think I would find another doctor. No he is one of the best in his field. Some of the doctors treating my fiance at Princess Margret Hospital in Toronto are from various nations. If it wasn't for these brilliant people my fiance would probably be still very ill.

I have friends who are Hindi-Canadian and they don't even agree with altering our anthem altogether. If they want to sing it at events geared to them that is fine. Singing our anthem at the up coming Olympic games in a language that is not even an official language is just utterly ridiculous. When the Olympics were held in other countries was their anthem sang in all kinds of languages, no.

Maybe you think it's OK but it's not. I am positive that the majority of Canadians agree with these quotes. If you know anything about Canada you would know that Canada does have a very diverse culture and we are tolerant of others. Otherwise our government would not give them landed immigrant status. We are not talking about illegal aliens but people who have been accepted form many different nations. Canada has one of the fastest growing populations mainly due to our immigration policies. So you should not speak on what you do not know.

You wanted more input you got it.

You are skating on very thin ice referring to me as a bigot. That is borderline flaming my friend.

Sounds like a good time to teach the child a second language don't you think? If all they speak at home is 'the mother tongue', this way they're learning the language of the country that they have emigrated to. I'm not sure how you expec them to BANG learn the language as if it's nothing.


If your country is willing to take immigrants, then it should be willing to care for them. They are not second class citizens, and this attitude you are showing deomnstrates that you think they are. It's plain wrong to open your doors and offer someone support, only to begrudge them health care.
"Give me your poor, your sick and your hungry, but don't let them expect they can use any services that they don't have access to in the place that they're from."
That attitude stinks.


Sub cultures do the same thing. You know what, all those goths, skaters, emos, nerds, jocks, ravers, whatever - they all have their own little quirks of language that are designed to include you if you belong, and to exclude you if you don't. Guess what? Those sub cultures do all that in English (or french). Maybe we should ban sub cultures too! Let's go crazy and say that you can only do what the majority of people feel is normal. That sounds reasonable.
You'll also find that a lot of homeless people leave markings around the place - safe places to sleep, meeting places etc. We should ban them too. They have their own code, that's not allowed.


So two other immigrant languages are OK, just because they've been around longer and were spread by conquerors? Maybe you should learn old viking languages - they were there before the english were.


Let them. They will be worse off for it.


If this is true (in a public health care system I strongly doubt it), then get yourself nice and sick. Go to a hospital and get seen by medical staff who are unable to treat you because they can't speak your language. When you get worse, (have it all documented), take the doctor, the hospital and the government to court. Not only will you effect massive social change but you'll get a silver lining in your pocket.
wait -that won't work, Hopsitals and governments don't really like being held liable for malpractice, so they'll probably stop it by having i don't know, someone speaking your language helping you when you're sick and go in.


So what? Have you ever tried to learn another language as an adult? Learn Japanese, then move there, and take your licence test while you're at it. You'll be begging for it in english. Learning languages as an adult is actually quite difficult.

Maybe if you truly embrace immigrants then they will feel welcome and that the culture there is something that they can grow with, learn from and contribute to.

I'd be weary of criticising badog on this one [link]

Although i can pretty much guarantee a fake, you have a good point in saying that it isn't acceptable to change the national anthem - barely even to translate it into another language. Same goes with the driving test since it's similar to how it is here. I always thought advanced communication was a main difference between humans and animals but looks like it's just being taken for granted.

[quote name='bettyjunior' date='Aug 18 2009, 09:47 AM' post='1543617']
If this is true (in a public health care system I strongly doubt it), then get yourself nice and sick. Go to a hospital and get seen by medical staff who are unable to treat you because they can't speak your language. When you get worse, (have it all documented), take the doctor, the hospital and the government to court. Not only will you effect massive social change but you'll get a silver lining in your pocket.
wait -that won't work, Hopsitals and governments don't really like being held liable for malpractice, so they'll probably stop it by having i don't know, someone speaking your language helping you when you're sick and go in.

If you read my comment above yours about health care professionals you will see that I stated that some of the best are immigrants.

Toronto being a very multi-cultural city that many staff at the hospitals have a mother tongue that is not English. Every one of those staff do speak English. They may have thick accents but none the less if you listen carefully you have no problem understanding them.

Exactly.
My reposnse was directed at the "Same goes in the hospital... how can they treat you if they cant find out the problem because they refuse to learn english." comment.

I think this thread got One minute your talking about an National anthem sung in a foreign language to the health care system. If somebody wants to sing My countries anthem in another language let them go for it they are still singing to that country not some other one.

Yep, this topic is going way off-topic... The email in the opening post was proven as a spam email by Snopes...

Badog never called anyone a bigot. He was simply stating the fact of these emails and how they are spam with the intent of stirring people up...

Badog pretty much said what I think about these things, spam that should be deleted without a second glance. I really hope that people don't take this seriously... it is not news... it's a f!#@ing chain letter.... come on.

Think about it for a second and then you'll see how likely it is for the Canadian national anthem to be sung in Hindi at the Olympics.... The guy is known for being controversial so having ran out of his usual stuff he made this out to be much more than it really was. (If I looked up the correct Bruce Allen, if not it's still what I think happend.)

First Magnetron this thread did not go This thread is about immigrants and the National anthem. Mentioning the health care professionals has everything to do with my point. I'm saying I'm not against immigration I am against the melody and the words to the anthem being changed altogether. I will state again if the anthem is translated word for word that is a different story. Whether it be sang at the Olympic games or not.

Ferretboy this email is not spam. Snopes only stated some other point of view. Again it doesn't matter whether or not it is sang at the Olypics the anthem should not be changed. And yes if you read Badog's statement again you will see he did refer to being a bigot.

Proff it is only your opinion that it is spam. This should not be deleted. It is news as the quote made by Bruce Allen is fact therefore eliminating the idea of that statement is spam. It is not a ***MOD EDIT*** chain letter. If you don't mind your anthem being sang differently altogether that's your choice. I did read in another thread that you don't speak fluently the language of the country you live in so you are obviously an immigrant to that country so no wonder you wouldn't mind the anthem of that country being sang in your mother tongue. Again it doesn't matter whether the anthem is sang in Hindi at the Olympics or not the point is changing the words and the melody.

Again if any of you are from another country then go ahead and have your anthem sang in every official language of that country. If the Hindi-Canadians want to sing our anthem word for word in Hindi then fine I don't have a problem with that.

If you read the part of Badog's post where the word bigot(ed) appears, he is in no way aiming it a you personally joshua08 - when using the word 'you' he is refering to a hypothetical someone who receives an email and then passes it on - indeed the word bigoted is describing a third party altogether (strangers)

It is not flaming

Okay, reading glasses are on. You made a one line prediction in your first post (If we ever do adopt a 3rd language then I can see our anthem being sang in that language but only converted word for word not changed altogether.) along with stating you aren't a racist twice, followed by a copy/pasted spam e-mail. This didn't give me much to debate you with regarding you views and feelings on the subject.


I disagree, this is a spam e-mail, it fulfills all the components of the dictionary definition of spam (see the link in Harb's post above). It's also most definitely propaganda, the fact you don't see it as such just means it's good and well presented propaganda.


You've taken this out of context, this was to illustrate other spam along with a link to a collection of other examples of e-mails doing the rounds.


What you're supporting here is highly selective and elitist immigration. Unfortunately immigrants are more than a skill set. They have families and dependents, children, grand parents, they are people with responsibilities. When someone moves to another country this doesn't just go away and it would be unreasonable to expect this. Immigration is a two way street, the immigrant brings skills, pays taxes and contributes to the new country often at the expense of his or her country of origin that gave him his education and experience. It sounds like you're advocating contract workers rather than immigration



If a national anthem is in different languages I wouldn't expect them to be a literal translation of each other, any verse such as this rarely retains it's original meaning and feeling with a word for word translation. Your first post states 'It was written in English, adapted into French, and should be sung word for word the way it was written.' Even this is factually incorrect, the author of the spam letter either isn't as clued up as he makes out or he's distorting facts to suit his own ends. The English version has undergone several alterations and was never even a direct translation from the french original in the first place.

From Wikipedia; 'The song was originally commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Honourable Théodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony. Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French, before it was translated to English in 1906. The English translation of the lyric happened two years before Robert Stanley Weir penned an English version, which is not a translation of the French. Weir's words have been revised twice, taking their present form in 1980, but the French lyrics remain unaltered.'

A substantial part of you argument is based on incorrect 'facts'. If you follow the Wikipedia link you'll see that the official English version has large differences from the French original. Here's another source to show this.


If you cite your sources I'll be happy to discuss this. Many countries have several versions of the National Anthem. My country has eleven official languages and I'm only fluent in three of them There are two widely used national anthems here but numerous others that are used locally.


Please give evidence that the majority of Canadians are in agreement.



At no time did I state or even infer that you are a bigot. If it sounded that way it was not intentional. I was attempting to maintain a neutral tone and debate the issue with you albeit on a different angle than you may have intended. If there's a wording in my post that sounds like I flamed you then please highlight it and I'll try reword it better to achieve my intended tone.

Edit Reworded the bigot reference to hopefully remove any ambiguity.

Badog the part I underlined sounds like you are directing that comment right at me!



Second swollen-nose I thought you told me that editing your post after someone has quoted it is forbidden. The part I underlined doesn't sound to me like he when he said 'you' referring to a hypothetical someone. I took it as being directed right at me.



You can edit that out of my conversation but




This is acceptable though just because he used !#@ this to substitute for letters we all know what they are.

I'm saying that the author of the email is trying to give you what are supposedly a couple of unbiased facts in such a fashion that is encouraging you to come away from reading it with conclusions that are racist.......How do you read that as me implying that you are a racist?....I'm not. I really don't know how else to convey my point.

If you still feel I'm maligning you in some way you can ask again for Mod consensus because this wasn't the part of my post that we all assumed you found offensive. I think that removing this section from my post will detract from my point I am making so I'm going to respectfully decline to edit it further. I hope you can see that flaming and insulting you is not my intention. I'm still hoping to get the thread back on track and debate the original issues you raised with you.

Edit I'm trying to keep up with your numerous edits. If you have an issue about the way a post of yours is moderated or edited by the moderators then it would be better if you took this up by PM. If you do this in the thread it makes it very disjointed and difficult to stay focused on the topic.

Edit Edit Joshua08, you can't have it both ways. You originally complained, and I quote.. 'You are skating on very thin ice referring to me as a bigot.' I rearranged the sentence because even after a Mod's input that clarified it you stated you were not convinced and it was still an issue. Now you're complaining about my editing it after it had been quoted. Then you cite another completely different part of my post as offensive. I can't debate a topic like this without using words like 'racist' and 'bigot', they're not being used to flame you, they're just contextually relevant words.

Sorry to pile it on Josh, but to save you a harsher response from one of the mod team:

From Community guidelines

Mods decisions over what they choose to edit should be discussed through the pm system.

I do not support highly selective and elitist immigration. You took what I said and interpreted it to fit your argument. I was merely saying that immigrants do bring skills that benefit this country. I never once said unskilled immigrants are not welcome. It is utterly ridiculous for you to say that it sounds like I am advocating contract workers and not immigration.

So what if in 1906 our government adopted a French poem and edited it to come up with our national anthem. You also stated that the English version was revised in 1980. Yes you are correct it was. Since all you do is get info on Canada from wikipedia you do not live in this country so don't try to school a Canadian on his own country. If you want why don't you look in wikipedia to find out when our federal government adopted French as a second language.

In 1982 the federal government achieved political independence from Britain. At that time the constitution was brought home from Britain and revised as the Constitution Act,1982. At that time is when Canada adopted French as an official language. Having that act revised in French for the first time.

We as English speaking Canadians had the right to choose their own anthem even if it was snippits from of a French poem. Even if the anthem was revised in 1980, it happened 2 years before French even became an official language. These days if you go to a hockey game in our nation's capital the anthem is sang partly in English and partly in French which I think is more than a reasonable compromise. Yet if you go to a hockey game in Montreal the anthem is only sang in French. Does that sound like compromise to you?

The province of Quebec doesn't even recognize English as an official language. Food labels in that province are in French only. So are street signs. While the rest of Canada has to have food labels and street signs in both languages to accomidate everyone.

Quebec politicians even tried to get a bill passed giving that province distinct society status. We had a national referendum that squashed that idea. Even 50% of Quebec said no to this legislation. That is because there is a large minority of English speaking people in that province. Try to get a Francophone to speak English to you in a large part of Quebec. Even though they know the language they will answer you in French even though they know that someone doesn't know a word of French. Now doesn't that sound rude! Why should one province in this country be given distinct society status and not every province in this country which has 10 provinces and 3 territories.

Canada was purposely built with a strong central government to avoid this kind of problem. Since the sixties Separatists have been trying to get Quebec to brake away from the rest of Canada and form a separate country. While the rest of Canada and a large part of Quebecois don't want this. Do you know what would happen to this country if that happened From Ontario west would be separated from the eastern part of the country with some other nation in between.

Now go read wikipedia so you can rebut.


If this is true RV,do you not think I should have been PM'd? I did this in the forum because it was posted in the forum.


Badog the other part of your quote I took as directed at me you edited so I could not underline it after you edited it.

1. Signs are international. the only English sign on the road is "All way"

2. I am first generation, and did whatever was possible to blend and assimilate in Canada.

3. You have no idea why people leave their country and what hell they go through.

4. Reocurrance of TB is not because the immigrants bring it to Canada but because the TB mutated and does not respond to the treatment. It occur in every country and all the time.

5. Maybe Canada's health care would not bleed if the rules for letting the doctors from other countries practice here, were different.

6. I live in this country for over 19 years and I am still surprised when I read something like that.

Yes people should learn English but How can older Vietnamese learn language? I worked with them and they are great people and hard workers...they just do not speak fluent English...
Should they be forbidden to come here?... To build this country....
Without immigration Canada still would be behind all the world...

i have tried to resist contributing to this thread but i cant.

i and my family are now immigrants of canada.
i have been subjected to remarks on other forums and in real life
which would be considered offensive.
i am too thick skinned to take any notice of these
sort of bigots who live in this land.

canada is a newly formed country made up of
immigrants,poeple seem to forget this.

just who are the 'true' canadians.
is it the 'whites' or the 'natives'???


a lot of people have ignored the fact(not on this forum/thread)
but canada was the first country to introduce
apartheid and get away with it.

You live in this country and you don't see that our stop signs say STOP and ARRETE.

In Quebec Stop signs only say ARRETE.

If street signs are international why is this the case?

Besides shouldn't you be addressing the issue about the national anthem?

No disrespect to the immigrants but get the f*@&% over yourself and learn to respect our rules. We can't just let anyone come in and change what we have faught to have. If your willing to stand by and live by our rules then fine, come in and enjoy what we have to offer, otherwise don't come to change us because it aint gonna happen.

What did you fought for?

That was nasty



Stop is stop in most languages.
I do not think that "stop" is an English word, but I could be wrong..
ups I live in English spoken province.



I did


I think you understood my post perfectly.

LOL LOL OMG LOL. You are an idiot. Canada faught for freedom and "stop" is obviously an english word.

Stop in a few languages:

French: arrêter
Italian: fermare
Russian: остановка
Filipino: tumigil
Turkish: durdurmak
Spanish: parar
etc.

Please read up on your country before speaking, k thanks.

I started to wonder if they put the word "stop" on signs?
thank you for complementing me. I would love to see you starting in a new country and learning the rules without the google it.

I learned English and I would not put in writing "english word" but I would "English word"
That's what you "faught" for?

I lived two years in Spain and I had only seen white letters "stop" on red background no "parar"

If you could read then you would have understood the reason why I said " english word." There was no reason to put a capital on the E.

thats a bit choice.
could i make the wild assumption you are a white canadian.

do you think the 'first nation' are saying the same about
the 'white canadians'

“Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
Abraham J.Heshel.

There has been talk of flaming in this thread and Eplexx there is no doubt in my mind you just flamed Dahila. Please read up on your rules before speaking. Especially Rule 3. This rule was once pointed out to me for using that exact word. Now you are going to learn the hard way just like I did. You never ridicule another member. Especially on of her status. I was with you all the way until you did this.

I quoted you so even if you edit it is immortalized. Sorry chum.

And I'll let you in on a little secret the word English starts with a capital as do all languages. You ridicule her English and as an English speaking person you do not notice this. Didn't you see a little red line under it?

So what? Are you serious? Can you smell the hypocrisy as it pours out of you?

"It's ok for english speaking people to edit an anthem (and change the words) into their own anthem, but it's not ok for non english speaking people to do it"

Oh that's right, it sounds all sanitised to you, because your government "adopted it".

I don't know why you are bothering. That email's a fake, it's not an accurate representation of what was said by Robert Allen, yet you keep dragging the horse to water. you keep ramming a point home about an issue that has been fabricated.

Did you see that Frodo has to walk all the way to Mount Doom by himself? They could have at least given him a horse! Let's get angry about it!

So what if some dudes want to sing it in their own language? Let them. Let them hop across the road blindfodled if they want. they're not asking you to do it.

Try living in europe. You have to learn other languages there.

You're complacent because you've had it easy with one language for so long.

The rules:



I'm beginning to wonder where this thread is going, or even if it will see out the day. Folks I ask that you are familiar with the Community guidelines before posting. This has the potential to be an interesting thread that has obviously touched a political nerve in many people and I would hate to see it closed for multiple rule violations.

On topic, I am not familiar with the situation in Canada, but here in the UK it is becoming a little silly. I have no problem with genuine immigration or those who seek asylum but things are getting ridiculous here.

I read in the education press that a teacher has taken his school to tribunal because he was fired for challenging children's view of christianity (which was negative). He taught in a school where only 10% spoke english as a first language.

Isn't it just a little strange that there should be a school where only 10% of the students speak english as a first language? In England?

Not if England claims to be a multi cultural society.

It's one thing to say that a place is multicultural, it's another to actually have it actually happen and have people be tolerant of other cultures.

You can;t pay lip service to multi culturalism. You have it or you don't.

there is an old saying:

"when your in rome, be like a roman."

so its just like that.... we should adopt wherever we go...

That's only because if you weren't like the romans they would throw you to the lions.

Countries that claim to be multicultural aren't like that.

If what you're saying was truly the case, then no one would complain about sharia law in muslim countries, but we hear that all the time.

Joshua, what else could it be besides my opinion? And I never meant the thread should be deleted but emails of this nature. As I have my opinions, so does Bruce Allen. I can consider them useless and/or spam if that is what I wish to do.



Come on.....

Basing your opinion of me on really the only thing you know about me is, well not the best argument you've made. I never said I wouldn't mind my countries anthem sung in a different language or with different words.

My point was that the anthem shouldn't be sung in Hindi and in most likely hood won't be because the thought is plainly ridiculous and only used to stir up arguments over something, again, very trivial.

If you are not open to others opinions on the matter then perhaps you shouldn't have posted this here. I really hope you weren't thinking everyone would share your view and blatantly agree over everything?

A flame is a Flame in any ones language...I think an apology is In order here to Dahila.Every one Here at Darkside RG Has the right to post without the fear of ridicule and being told we are idiots because our opinions differ..I understand for you this is a touchy subject but that comment was way below the belt and It would`nt supprise me if you are put on Mod review for it..OUT OF ORDER !



The reason Why Dahila put a Capital "E" is because England is a place name and as such to be gramatically correct neds to be Capitolised to infer that it is a name..Again Inferance that Dahila can`t read because she dissagrees with what you are saying will be looked down upon..
As RequiemValorum Has already quoted the rules for you to read I would strongly suggest that you do so, before you find the wrath of the Adminons coming down on you like a ton of bricks...

I would like to point out an interesting quandary I've been thinking about regarding national anthems.

The UK is made up of 3 constituent nations and 1 province that each have their own national anthem in conjunction with 'God save the Queen' (Aside from England which only uses 'God Save the Queen')

I live in the nation of Wales who's national anthem is 'Mae Hen Wlad fy Nhadau' or 'Land of My Fathers' in English.

It is traditionally sung in welsh and almost all welsh people know all the words in welsh and will belt them out at any given opportunity.

However, very few people here speak welsh and if you ask them what the words mean in english they haven't a clue.

So what we have here is a nation of welsh people, who sing their national anthem with pride, but don't have a clue about what it means.

Just something to ponder.

Alright, I have to admit that I've said a few bad things but I just get really angry over this subject. I'm sorry.

Someone once said to me that if you can speak another language, then you have a window into another soul



That sounds exactly like the sort of response from someone whom I don't want to discuss things with on this forum. It's rude, unnecessary, and I'm sure you would be angry if the shoe was on the other foot.

At least Dahlia had the ability to be humble.

I've said an apology and thats that. We are obviously getting off topic and thats against the rules also...

The national anthem should not change as its traditional.

I'm glad you decided to edit your original response.

The national anthem was not in danger of changing. Fear mongering was jumping around all over the shop on that fake email, and all it did was bring people's fear of change to the surface, which was then directed at an ethnic minority.

All your examples of acceptable immigrants were highly qualified professionals.


The crux of your argument was based on incorrect facts. Opening your reply with 'so what if' and suggesting I shouldn't try to school a Canadian on his own country doesn't change this or produce further evidence toward your original argument. I think Wikipedia was an adequate source to obtain my info and considerably more credible than the source of the spam e-mail that you originally quoted at great lengths.



This is a great narrative on Canadian history and current affairs but it's nothing to do with your original argument of not allowing minorities to have a Canadian national anthem that wasn't a word for word translation of the original. You're talking about the official language of Quebec, Francophone stereotypes, the district status of the provinces, and the possible future breakaway of Quebec. If you think these points are relevent to your original arguement you're going to have to go back and fill in some of the gaps to connect all this. Unfortunately as it stands you're either off topic or you're trying some kind of smoke and mirrors trick.... or both.


If I reply to this I'll also get dragged down to the level of flaming.


All this is off topic. Your topic was about 'immigrants, not Canadians must adapt.' You're talking about Canadians only in this quote not immigrants.



How can you start a reply like this with 'No disrespect'? This reply was blatantly disrespectful. The forum is there to debate your views with people rather than ordering people to do things according to your personal rules.



This is blatant flaming, the mods here will warn and ban for flaming. It's also got nothing to do with immigrants adapting therefore off topic. There's going to be spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar on an international forum board, try to look past them at the point being made instead of making examples of them.



The original topic had lots of merit for debate without going wildly off topic please try to stay with it or at least mostly relevent.
If the thread breaks down into flaming please don't get drawn in to a slanging match, use the report button on the offending post.

I have to say this thread has been an eye opener to say the least,so what if they want to sing the national anthem in a different language as long as it is the national anthem of the host country ,the national anthem is meant to draw people together around one united front not divide them.
I see this as more the fear of secularism not loss of national identity.
And as for the dispute over the bad grammar and spelling ,its usually the indigenous people of the country that bastardise the language as most migrants are better educated and tend to speak and write the host language far better than the locals .
Its a sign of decadence when a country allows its people to fall by the wayside on skills and education and have to rely on migrant workers to fill the gap.

In this country children must be able to speak english when they begin the school year.Our valuable resources available to teachers are being used up and how is the teacher teach english, when they dont speak th childs language? Our government offers ESL free (english as a second language) to anyone who wants to take it.



When they arrive in this country they are sent out to see a doctor to have chest xrays to look for tb and tests for other communicable diseases, no one is saying not to help them but they should be tested BEFORE they are out in the community, and given proper care upon arrival. I agree they are not second class citizens but my mother born and raised and tax paying in this country cannot get her cancer meds because she cannot afford the 5K a month for them, while someone new to this country can be cared for. There was a large scandal here that lead to having our photo on our health cards here in Ontario from immigrants abusing our OHIP system, many people using the same OHIP card for care. A forged OHIP card is worth almost as much as a forged passport here.


It should be written in English as well, the other sub-cultures you speak of skaters, goths etc, their signs are all in English, it may be slang but it still remains that it is English. Skaters and goths have been ostracized from society for years and are just now being accepted into society.


The two offical languages in this country are French and English, which means services and help will be readily available in these languages if the official language was an old viking language then that is what we would speak.

Imagine this as a woman I move to a country where it is required I wear a burka and I say well thats not my culture so Im going to go walk around in shorts and a tank top, how do you think I would be treated even though this is not my culture? I would have to adapt and learn the language and culture of this country to live there. Before immigrating to another country I would defiantly at least start learning the language and cultures of the country before moving there, heck I do this before I travel for vacation anywhere.
I very much enjoy learning of other cultures and customs, its one of the reasons why I like forums so much, I have the opportunity to chat with people from all around the world.
Toronto is a very multi cultural city and I lived there for 30 yrs, (im just wondering how many of you who think those of us expressing concern are out-there-like-pluto have been there...) I have been in the hospital and some of the best care I have received has been from multi cultural people, they ALL spoke english.


Couldn't have said it better.


On a side note Bombardier Inc said they would leave Quebec if they did that as it would add so much paper work for selling of Aircraft, Trains, Snowmobiles, ATV's and jetskiis.

EDIT I notice those of you posting as immigrants to this country are posting in english...
and our street signs are written in english or french in Quebec not any other language.

Topic temporarily closed while all the Rule breaking is dealt with

We are not amused


Edit: re-opened

All the posts that transgress the Board Rules up to this point have been dealt with.


Exactly

I live in a place where less than 20% of the children entering the school system speak English which is the language they will be predominantly taught in. One of the justifications under the old apartheid administration for whites and blacks only schools was the 'language barrier'. The language problem in education has been addressed at great lengths since then and a framework has been developed for educators to assist them in overcoming the problems. This and the speed at which children learn languages means there little or no barrier to a students learning ability after the first year.


What you are saying here about immigrants arriving with TB appears to be completely untrue according to the Canadian government's immigration website. It states;

'4.2 What are the health requirements?........Applicants' and their dependents' medical condition should not be a danger to public health and should not be excessive burden on the Canadian public health or social systems. The factors considered during the medical assessment include whether or not hospitalization or medical, social or institutional care are required and whether potential employability or productivity could be affected.'

It also goes on to say that examinations must be carried out by nominated doctors only. This seems a pretty good assurance to me that the only immigrants entering Canada are healthy ones. I'm not sure how you can conclude that the lack of availability of medication is an immigrant problem. If they were getting preferential treatment why would they need to be abusing the OHIP system?



I agree that it's their loss if they don't become fluent in at least one of the official languages. I still don't see why immigrants having a Canadian national anthem in another language is such a big issue if it's their preferred way of expressing their affection for Canada. I also don't see the importance of it being a word for word translation, especially as the two existing national anthems aren't even close to being the same.


You're not comparing eggs with eggs here. If you were to parade around a Muslim country in the attire you describe then you would be breaking the law of that country. In a Muslim country you don't need to conform to the local dress culture, only the law....there's a critical difference. The traditional dress of the immigrants in Canada may not be fashionable in your eyes but it does not break the law.


This is the same point I just made, the law on Darkside is English only. There's no law in Canada about having a conversation in another language. Roadsigns are also very easy to understand whatever the language due to them being mostly pictures and shapes oriented. The roadsigns between European countries, the USA and Canada vary slightly but the residents in any of these places are legally allowed to drive in any other place without needing to re-learn roadsigns for this reason.

Edit. I don't see how you can tie the 'breakaway of Quebec' issue and the pulling out of manufacturing companies to this topic so I'm not going to reply about it here. It's cropped up a couple of times so it's obviously an issue, you can open a new topic if you want to debate it in some way.

back to the original email that was posted.
why doesnt it get reported to the ISP and get that account
shutdown
since the majority of folk on here believe its racist.

this does break all ISP's T&C's.

as for the immigrant medical examinations for canada
of which i have recently undertaken.
no test was done for TB.
the procedure is how badog has posted above.

edited for really bad spelling mistakes

Hi Izzy, Hope you're enjoying your new home.

Reporting these emails does little good unless they can track the source in which case they may be able to prevent future variants being started (at least for a short while). It's down to people not recognising them as spam and NOT promoting their credibility and exponential growth in numbers by forwarding them to dozens of other people. Reporting them isn't going to prevent this.

Like I said in an earlier post this type of spam is designed to make people draw their own racist conclusions and incite people to blame soft targets such as minority groups for any number of existing social issues. You've only got to look at how quickly this particular topic firstly went off topic by people getting riled up on other unconnected social issues and secondly the speed the it descended into personal flaming fueled by high emotions, to see how effective they are at doing this.

One of the root issues here is the uncensored freedom afforded by the internet and email system. It will always by vulnerable to this type of abuse where people are used to living in a sterilised news environment where they don't need to look so far beyond the text to see the real issues. Traditional news sources like TV channels and newspapers, whilst not necessarily being accurate and unbiased, were and still are nonetheless governed by laws that are enforceable. The internet and email system, for better, or in this particular case for worse, is not.

We're still at a time where the majority of users of email and internet are not as clued up about the medium and its vulnerabilities as they should be. Maybe the younger generations such as our children will be a lot more savvy about this having grown up with these systems and hopefully having been taught about them.


As for you not having been tested for TB. To quote from the link I gave 2 posts above;

4.6 Will the results be available to me?

The results of the medical examination are never available to the applicant. They are property of the Canadian government. However, the applicant will be advised in writing if there is a problem with the examination results.

4.7 Where can I check out the list of diseases?

There is no list of diseases that can represent a reason for refusal on medical grounds. When assessing health condition, the medical officer checks not only for certain diseases but also evaluates the medical condition of the applicant and dependents at the time of the examination.

They are basically saying that they can and will test for any disease they feel might be relevant. So in a middle aged Western male they might concentrate more on heart disease, but for an African immigrant they may feel like HIV or TB could be more of a concern....who knows? They are also making it pretty clear that they won't discuss their testing policies, and any inequalities that may exist in them, under any circumstances. I suspect that we'll never know more about this, other than speculation, unless there's someone here with inside information.