Every week seems to bring a new episode in the unending TV series that should be called `Canada's Got Stupid!'

I've spent my entire life living beyond a 10,000-kilometre radius of Canada, so you'll have to forgive me if I never cared too much about what you people were up to. But a couple of years ago, my sons started school in Canada and I began to ping Google News Canada (and read the National Post) as avidly as I consumed the media in Goa, the sleepy, tropical beachside state where I live in India. And what I've been reading about Canada has seemed puzzling, to say the least, and often outright absurd.

The most recent item that caught my attention was last week, when the mayor of Vancouver apologized for the brief handcuffing of a Black retired B.C. Supreme Court justice, due to a case of mistaken identity.

Apologizing for a mistake is wonderful. But declaring without investigation that it's clearly the result of “systemic racism” is strange. And then adding the astonishing statement that, “As someone who continues to benefit from colonialism, I recognize my privilege,” boggles the mind.

Canada itself was created out of a colonization of the land. But did Canada ever colonize any country in the world? Nope. And unless I missed a news flash, there is currently no country in the world that's colonized by another, much less Canada (despite what I hear some Quebecois say).

Even if the English team beats India in cricket (which happens very rarely, huh!), none of the half a billion Indian fans whine that it is because the English “continue to benefit from colonialism,” despite our 200-year history of subjugation.

Yet Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart “continues to benefit from colonialism?” This is a man who came from a family that lost their home and went bankrupt, yet still managed to get a degree at Acadia University. He moved from Nova Scotia to British Columbia in 1989 with only $100 in his pocket and worked his way up to become an academic, a member of Parliament and then mayor of one of Canada's largest cities. He appears to have done this through hard work and determination, not by exploiting colonialism or Canada's Indigenous peoples.

Does he even know how he benefits from colonialism? And if so, why doesn't he stop?

I was astonished when, a few years ago, a delightfully warm-hearted woman I've known since she was a teenager — and who immigrated to Canada in her 30s — started complaining about racism in Canada. It was especially perplexing given the fact that she stood for election and is currently an elected representative in a provincial government.

Think about this: she's become a political and social leader in a country she moved to as an adult, had no ethnic connection to, did not belong to the majority religion and did not even have English as her first language growing up.

I'd like to underline that there is absolutely no chance — none whatsoever — that I could get elected in the legislature of the state where I live in India, because my family is originally from a different state.

Reflect on this: no one has any chance of getting elected (which is why no one in the past 20 years has) in my state if she's from another state in the same country; yet this woman — who lived a majority of her life in India — thinks Canada is racist?

I've been increasingly worried that Canadian culture has become a petri dish for such thinking, ever since my sons started school there.

I checked the holiday calendar issued by the Peel District School Board in Ontario and noticed that a remarkable number of days were marked with esoteric religious holidays. The Ninth Day of Ridvan of the Baha'i faith is listed, as is Farvadegan of Zoroastrianism.

Since there are only about 100,000 adherents of Zoroastrianism in the world (of which 70,000 are in India) I'm unsure how many have found their way to Canada. But I can't imagine there's too many of them in Peel Region. Why

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING ABOUT CANADA HAS SEEMED PUZZLING, TO SAY THE LEAST, AND OFTEN OUTRIGHT ABSURD.

do Canadians accept that a public school board in a secular country that's 65 per cent Christian should be commemorating holidays of religions that hardly anyone in the country adheres to?

I didn't plan on sending my sons to Canada for school, as I am very proud of the richness of the 2,000-year-old Indian civilization, including its languages, history, culture, literature and cuisine. But since that's the way the dominoes of fate fell, I became keen in anticipation of what they would learn in Canada.

I'd hoped they would imbibe the rugged sportiness, the quiet sense of civic pride and social service, as well as the cheery optimism that Canadians were rightfully renowned for. All of which I'd seen and loved in Kevin Hawryluk, a Vancouver native who'd helped me kick off one of my first startups.

In short, I was looking forward to my sons becoming more Canadian in Canada. But every week seems to bring a new episode in the unending TV series that should be called “Canada's Got Stupid!” Now I worry that they are distanced from all that is wonderful in India, and instead are immersed in the worst of Canada.