Geoff Russ: Only clowns call Canadians “settlers”

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The division of this country into modernized factions of cowboys and Indians is fully accepted by public sector unions. However, this practice does not resonate with the average Canadian, far from it, according to the results of a Léger survey published last Friday.

Only 23 percent of Canadians identify as a “settler” or “settler.” About half – 47 percent – ​​reject the label, while 30 percent have no opinion or don’t care.

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Interestingly, Canadians aged 18 to 34 were less likely than any other age group to identify as settlers – with only 20 percent accepting the label – and were the most likely to identify with it. mock, or 39 percent. Among people aged 35 to 54, 25 percent identified as settlers, making them the group most likely to do so. The latter group includes many members of the Millennial generation, who have actively championed decolonial ideas and faculty radicalism.

Most people can guess why most Canadians do not accept the label “settler”, in the same way that most Canadians do not wear clown costumes to work. However, survey results show that one in four of us engage in self-flagellation. There is no scenario in their worldview where “settlers” constitute a positive presence: they will always be invasive species who can only exist as antagonists or allies of indigenous peoples. These racial labelings bear no resemblance to those used in the census or other statistical collections; it is purely political in the most disgusting way.

The children of parents who arrived from Poland in 1991 are not responsible for the violence or displacement that occurred during the colonization of North America. Yet Toronto public school teachers would treat them like they burned down the longhouses and were genetically responsible for residential schools.

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It would be unfair to believe that every person working in public education is an idiot who finds comfort in the “Hutu-and-Tutsi-ification” of Canada. However, these healthier voices are being drowned out by demagogic figures within these unions, such as Fred Hahn, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario.

This is the compromise with the public sector unions. You are given benefits and the power to strike in an attempt to strengthen the government, but you are effectively prevented from speaking out for fear of being ostracized.

Radical voices are always the loudest, even if their opinions are ridiculous and unpopular. Don’t expect change to come from the public sector or academia any time soon, as both have been captured by this noisy and corrosive minority of thinkers, if they can be given that label at all.

In a July report, British Columbia’s chief public health officer, Bonnie Henry, endorsed legalizing almost all medications and making them freely available to the public. Contributors to the report included a number of other gems: one called herself a “third-generation Canadian settler” while another called herself an “English settler,” as if they were extras in The Last of the Mohicans.

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And just last week, news broke that several Toronto schools had chained students to a protest ostensibly supporting the Grassy Narrows First Nation, which has suffered a decades-long water quality crisis – even though this demonstration quickly degenerated into an anti-Israeli demonstration.

While parents were told their children would simply observe the protest, as if they were going to the zoo, videos and eyewitness accounts suggest that students were actively pressured to participate. Students were reportedly asked to wear blue to identify themselves, according to some accounts, as “colonizers.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford tolerates a lot more nonsense than he should in his province, but he was spurred into action and condemned the teachers involved in the event. An investigation into this excursion has been launched and, ideally, those who orchestrated it will be justly punished if they acted inappropriately.

Give it a few more years of progressive, flexible governments and soon the term “settler” will appear on passports. This will not change the fact that it is unacceptable to divide Canadians in this way. The right thing to do is to eliminate this practice, ideally with all the effectiveness of pushing a vampire into the morning sun.

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Unfortunately, even though the Léger poll reveals that nearly 80 percent of Canadians reject or don’t care about the label “settler,” the remaining 23 percent have sunk their claws into our institutions. The result will be more field trips during which “settler” students will have to dress in a way that sets them apart from everyone else present.

For those who hate and despise this direction Canadian society is headed, this does not mean abandoning universities and public education.

Whether conservatives, moderate liberals, or just concerned citizens, this means actively running in school elections with the same vigor and energy as provincial or federal elections. It also means pushing governments to open independent schools, like the Calgary Classical Academy, a tuition-free charter school whose goal is to instill “virtues, knowledge and habits worthy of free citizens” in their students.

It also means staying in higher academia and gradually opposing it, as the radicals managed to do persistently. Most people still need a college degree to succeed, and abandoning the path to leadership positions cedes the field entirely to radicals.

Anyone with the courage and stamina to play an active role in eliminating the new racial categorization of Canadians should take comfort in the fact that despite all the noise, they are not a minority and are not certainly not a “settler”.

National Post

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