The Subtlety Of Words: Are You Canadian Or Canadian-Born?

Good question, Mr. Fisk. Antonia Zerbisias is a brave unstoppable media critic for Canada's best and biggest paper, the Toronto Star. She took issue with a columnist named Christie Blatchford, who was objecting to the police statement that the accused men came from "a variety of backgrounds," for writing the following in a front-page column in the Globe and Mail: "The accused men are mostly young and mostly bearded in the Taliban fashion. They have first names like Mohamed, middle names like Mohamed and last names like Mohamed. Some of their female relatives at the Brampton courthouse who were there in their support wore black head-to-toe burkas … which is not a getup I have ever seen on anyone but Muslim women." Despite Blatchford's comments favourable to the majority of Canadian Muslims, I find the quoted material horrifying. The Globe and Mail is known, rightly, as a civilized paper. Many readers were horrified (a few were pleased) as the Globe letters page showed the next day. 'Some things … you can never forgive' http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_mallick/20060616.html [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 19, 2006]

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