We must learn from our past, honour diversity

Drop term ‘immigrant’; guard against white nationalism

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump once more raised the bar on racism in the United States and it looks like that approach will be a major part of his re-election campaign.

Telling four women of colour to go back where they came from is just the beginning.

His white base loves it and, in today’s America, racism makes good politics.

What is most disturbing is the switch from racism to the slippery slope of white nationalism. White nationalism is what brought us apartheid in South Africa, segregation in the southern U.S. and Nazism in Germany.

It should be obvious now that Trump will direct immigration policy, law making and international politics and trade agreements in that direction. It’s times like this that Canadians like to think they’re morally superior. I would suggest they get off that high horse and take a look at the history of our country.

We learned in school that Canada was founded by “two founding nations” — the British and the French. The First Nations that helped them survive are not considered a founding nation.

In Australia, they use the doctrine of “terries nullis,” or an empty land, to describe Australia before the British arrived.

In Canada, the plains were cleared of the original people to accommodate white settlement. At first, British and German settlers were favoured, but after it became clear that the plains were so large they could accommodate many more settlers, the doors were opened to settlers from eastern Europe. Still, people of colour were few and far between. A Chinese head tax was implemented to prevent Chinese railway workers from bringing over their families.

In 1951, Indian Act amendments were legislated that granted Canadian citizenship to First Nations. I recall as a kid that Indian Affairs was a branch of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Finally, in 1960, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker extended the right to vote federally to the First Nations. A few years later, we were given the right to vote provincially.

Today, Canadians pride themselves for living in a multicultural nation that is open to people from all over the world. While this is true subliminally, Canada is still seen as a white nation.

Do you ever notice that people with a hyphenated classification are people of colour such Indo-canadian, Chinese-canadian and Aboriginal-canadian? Nobody says European-canadian.

People of colour are asked where they came from. This is not asked of white people.

First Nations people are still told to go back to the reserve and I have been asked where I came from. When I replied that I was Canadian I was asked, “Before that?”

I have some friends from Nova Scotia. Their ancestors came to Nova Scotia in 1776 — before there was a Canada. Some were brought as slaves by loyalists, others were given their freedom for fighting on the side of the British. Today, they are called Indigenous blacks because they were the first to arrive as opposed to those who came later from the Underground Railroad, the Caribbean or Africa.

Nobody calls people who come from Loyalist stock Indigenous whites, but somehow people of colour are different. Instead, there is the disturbing term of “old-stock Canadians” or the Quebec equivalent of “pure Laine” to describe the early settlers who, by extension, are the bedrock of the nation.

A European Canadian could be a recent immigrant or second generation and nobody questions their origins.

Under Trump, the U.S. is heading toward a dark place of intolerance and selective citizenship. The idea that if you don’t like it you can leave conjures up images of deportations and revoking of citizenship.

Canadians must guard against the dangers of white nationalism and the slippery slope of intolerance that will follow.

Instead, let us maintain our open-door policy and celebrate our diversity. We can’t have oldstock Canadians or pure Laine occupying positions of privilege while the First Canadians and people of colour are considered something else.

We need to recognize our history, turn the page and drop the term “immigrant” in favour of Canadians.