Time to Grow Up
Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 8:46AM Let me get this right. The National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC) wants a meeting with CSIS head Richard Fadden to seek an apology for comments he didn’t make. They feel he cast a cloud over the Chinese Canadian community and they want to discuss possible “corrective action” again for comments he didn’t make.
My understanding is that it was the media that referenced the Chinese community, not Fadden. At no time did he suggest that the politicians were Chinese Canadians either. If the NCCC feels ill done by, they should be demanding an apology from the media instead of CSIS.
The recent arrests in the United States have shown that there are other nations, besides China with active intelligence organizations operating in North America. We have a large multicultural population in Canada which offers us many benefits in both a cultural and economic sense. However, we have to be honest and admit that on occasion some communities bring the problems of their homelands here with them. One example would be the Tamil Tigers who both recruited and raised funds within the Canadian Tamil community for years. Those funds financed a bloody civil war that included the use of child soldiers and suicide bombers.
It would be quite normal for a foreign government to want to know what is going on in Canada, who is raising funds to support groups opposed to that government or who might be able to influence new trading opportunities or regulations. Politicians are a logical target. Take a look at the number of junkets politicians from all three levels of government take that are paid for by foreign governments or foreign organizations. Do you honestly think they do this because they are trying to increase tourism? They hope to impress you, give you a better understanding of their country, their political situation and perhaps open up new lines of communications over here.
It’s no surprise that some Canadian politicians jumped on the wagon and criticized Fadden. After all this isn’t about being honest and admitting that other countries spy on us, this is also about winning votes at election time.
Unfortunately in Canada we always have to be politically correct and even when someone doesn’t say something about one of our multicultural groups, he is still expected to apologize to them. Only in Canada could that happen.
Hogwash! Time to grow up Canada!
Reader Comments (5)
chinese canadians should simply be canadian.
When you have chinese politicians in BC commissioning a statue of Mao in Richmond I'm guessing some chinese politicians are in the pocket of the commmunists, that and the fact we know the chinese have spys here.
Me thinks they protest to much and know full well who's in who's pocket.
Only born in Canada non-hyphenated canadians should be able to run for office!
Isn't it strange how closely hyphenated Canadians associate themselves with their former home countries? Canada is never referred to as "home" or "my country". Yet if we suddenly went to war with the country they came from, and decided to round up a particular bunch of hyphenated Canadians and say put them in detention camps, just how quickly would they cut the homeland loose and conveniently become just plain old Canadians?
Me thinks thou dost protest too much..one of the ways Fadden says these countries operate is to enact policy change through political influence..what better way to enact policy change in your favour (especially when you are under the microscope) than to force the head of the spy agency in the country you are spying in to give an apology and cease looking in your direction?
“Any man who says he is a Canadian, but something else also, isn’t a Canadian at all.” - Sir Wilfred Laurier