Geoff Russ: Canada should follow Britain's lead on immigration
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This is a major challenge to the process of integration, and has led to the importation of old hatreds into new lands. The war in Gaza laid bare this new reality. Terrorists have been inspired to burn down synagogues and shoot at Jewish schools in places like Canada and Australia.
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These barbaric attacks have no place in Canada, but the perpetrators and their cheerleaders do not seem to realize this.
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The recent clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir is another overseas conflict that risks being imported into western societies. Both countries have massive diasporas, and if the conflict escalates, it risks causing violence on the streets of cities like London.
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Political campaigns have already been transformed by this phenomenon. During the 2024 British election, many candidates effectively ran as lobbyists for the Palestinian cause, rather than as champions of their local communities.
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And in last year's byelection in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, the NDP candidate narrowly lost after running on a pro-Gaza platform and decorating his campaign posters with Palestinian, rather than Canadian, flags.
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There is historical precedent for this phenomenon. Large numbers of Irish Catholics migrated to British industrial cities like Liverpool in the 19th century, resulting in major population growth, but also sectarian conflicts with Protestants that lasted for generations.
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In Canada, waves of immigration from Ireland to Ontario imported these same religious tensions. In 1868, Irish-Canadian politician Thomas D'Arcy McGee was assassinated after he took a stand for his adopted country and unambiguously condemned the republican cause in Parliament. Conflicts between the two factions were commonplace on the streets of Toronto well into the 20th century.
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Such violence is still possible in Canada and elsewhere. Last fall the FBI tipped off the RCMP about a Pakistani man who had allegedly planned a mass-shooting in New York. Just last week, British police foiled a terror attack that involved five Iranian nationals who were suspected of targeting the Israeli Embassy.
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We live in a multicultural part of the world, but our fragmenting social harmony is dangerous and cannot continue unabated. Governments have a duty to adapt to our time and the changes it has brought, which includes migration and societal cohesion.
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Quebec is the only Canadian jurisdiction that's attempting to seriously address this challenge. In January, the provincial government tabled Bill 84, an act respecting national integration, which is intended to foster respect for the province's secular and democratic values and teach newcomers French.
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