If you happen to fly by Air Canada, you won't miss odd instructions in Punjabi.
And in British Columbia, where Punjabis constitute about eight per cent of the province's population of about four million, efforts are under way to seek 'Canadian' status for this language.
And spearheading the campaign is the Punjabi Language Education Association (PLEA) of British Columbia.
"Punjabis have been in Canada for more than 100 years now. If we are accepted as part and parcel of this society, why not our language?" asks PLEA president Balwant Sanghera, who is also a winner of Order of British Columbia and a community leader.
http://www.apnaorg.com/articles/canada/
[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 21, 2006]
Note: http://www.apnaorg.com/...
Diaspora Seeks 'Canadian' Status For Punjabi
Posted on Friday, April 21 at 09:32 by The SaintContributed By
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have two official languages in this country and that's it.
Why stop at Punjabi? Chinese and Spanish are surely more legitimate as world languages. Italian, Ukrainian and Hindi also have large pockets of settlement here. Nobody who isn't from Punjab would ever want to learn that language.
Why would one? Fund your own language programs. Begging for more handouts is what it's all about.
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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden
One of Canada's two official languages happens to be the same language that was/is an official language in the countries that the Punjabi speaking Canadians came from, 100 years ago and even today. So I do not see the need.
In 1985 six Guyanese Sikhs failed to get refugee status in Canada and were ordered deported. Their lawyer, who obviously had the best interests of Canada in mind, used the flawed and redundant Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to argue that they were protected by the Charter because it stated that “everyone” in Canada was protected. Since “everyone” is non specific he argued that even non citizens were protected and deserved all the rights guaranteed by the CHRF since they were in Canada. The courts agreed and this became known as the “Singh decision”. This is why refugees have all the rights of Canadians except the right to vote which is bestowed on citizens only (for now at least). Immigration lawyers cheered as did all those in the immigration industry who feed off the $2-4 billion a year it costs to service an immigration policy with dubious benefits to the nation. Now refugee has been watered down to include those who feel persecuted because of their sexual orientation, their sex, those fleeing spousal abuse, and so on. Now Canada has a backlog of refugee claims, amnesties have been granted, and Canada has the highest refugee acceptance rate of all the industrialized nations. All this because six Sikhs did not feel our immigration laws suited them and therefore took it upon them to change it.
Another example of Sikh respect for Canadian immigration laws is the time in 1987 when a boatload of 174 Sikhs landed in Nova Scotia. They claimed refugee status and wasted no time abusing our new refugee laws. Displaying their ignorance of Canada they asked a gentleman who had approached them to offer assistance if they could get a taxi to Toronto. All but seven were given residency status by the Mulroney government in classic ethnic vote buying fashion and much to the disapproval, anger, and annoyance of Canadians. Nothing was done when it became apparent that this was a conspiracy to commit immigration fraud by Sikhs against Canada. All but one of the refugees were men. They possessed no ID. They claimed direct passage from India yet it was learned they charted the boat in Germany. Under the Geneva Convention asylum seekers are required to seek refuge in the first country of passage and Canada is allowed, by international law, to turn away refugee claimants who fail to do so. Why didn’t they seek asylum in Germany? The answer is obvious: Canada’s refugee system has become the most lax in the world thanks to the Singh decision. Guess these Sikhs were not as ignorant of Canada after all. Canada’s reward for their lies and deceit: citizenship.
Sikh respect for that icon of Canadiana, the RCMP uniform, is infamous and their attack against it still resonates with Canadians today which I find remarkable. Details are not needed but I remember Canadians being furious at the time yet the Mulroney government, catering to the ethnic vote, changed the RCMP dress code to conform to Sikh standards. The Sikh RCMP recruit who spearheaded this attack later resigned with a “mission accomplished” attitude. He was quite frank in stating that his whole purpose was to make the RCMP uniform turban friendly.
Sikhs then took their crusade to the doorsteps of the Royal Canadian Legion. It is customary and traditional to remove head wear when entering a legion hall out of respect for the fallen war dead. Turbans are requisite religious wear for orthodox Sikhs and they felt that they were being discriminated against. They demanded that the legion change its rooted traditions regardless of the fact that Sikhs rarely, if ever, attend a legion hall where the primary social activity, the consumption of alcohol, is in opposition to Sikh standards. The legion refused to pander to their demands despite the incessant attacks against them by spineless newspaper columnists and journalists that make up Canada’s press corps and staff the CBC. They found strength in the majority of Canadians who supported them and thus offered an example when the majority refused to be pushed around by the minority.
The Quebec kirpan case, as it is called, is not unique but the latest in a series of attacks by Sikhs against Canada’s many by-laws against concealed weapons. Conceived for public safety and not as an attack against any religion Sikhs took exception. Taking it all the way to the Supreme Court Sikhs found legal support and precedence to disregard Canadian law.
The electoral fraud perpetrated by Sikhs and supported by Indo-Canadians of all stripes in the election of Usal Dosanjh, a moderate Sikh himself, as leader of the provincial B.C. party and temporary premier of B.C. is appalling. Membership drives specifically targeted NRI’s living in B.C. Some new members could not even speak the language and had to be told where to vote. This is the ethnic way of stuffing the ballot. Non Indian candidates did not stand a chance. The Sikh influence in the Liberal party is disproportionate to their numbers. This is in comparison to blacks who have been in the country longer and have a deeper rooted history in the building of this nation than Indo-Canadians ever did.
Sikhs desire official recognition of their holidays. I once caught a broadcast of the Ontario legislature. A Sikh MPP was tabling a motion for the recognition of Khalsa day. This day marks the founding of the Sikh religion. The legislature was largely absent save for a few glad-handing and flattering MPPs whose short term political goals blind them to the long term consequences of giving special recognition to any religious holidays outside of the traditional ones.
And of course there is the Air India bombing: the largest mass murder in Canadian history. Not only have Sikhs brought their language, customs, and culture with them but they have also brought their conflicts to our streets.
The Sikh contribution to Canada focuses largely on individual accomplishments. As a people their contribution speaks for itself. They have continuously attacked our laws and our culture and now they are attacking our language. They have consistently shown that they have no desire to fully integrate with the rest of Canadian society let alone preserve this country’s culture, customs, and history. Recognition of the Punjabi language as an official language further cements this fact. They want the benefits of being Canadian. They just do not want to be Canadian. If changes are not made in our immigration policy then they will eventually win and others will follow. Canadians will no longer have a county they can call their own. They will just be another people in a multicultural patch work of nations. The Canadian will become extinct.
The U.S. is not the only threat to Canadian sovereignty and culture. There are internal threats as well. The sad part is that we imported it.
<br />
<a href="http://koti.welho.com/pnystro2/videos/welcome_to_sweden.mpg">http://koti.welho.com/pnystro2/videos/welcome_to_sweden.mpg</a><p>---<br>Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority.
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Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority.
We simply don't know how awfully poor, violent a fully multiracial, multicultural nation is like India, Brazil and so forth. We haven't lived through it and connected the dots as to why huge nations like Brazil of 180 million are so weak and inconsequential. The answer isn't western imperialism.
Oh yeah, and the Balkans is a disaster due to the very thing that we have imported--diversity of race, culture and language. Canada could some day break up along ethnic lines like the Soviet Union if we don't stop this. Only the civility of our culture has stopped violence from already occurring.
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Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority.
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Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority.