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Conditioning: In the context of Canada’s “modern” history (#278)

May 29, 2015 6:11 pm / Leave a comment

In the last post, I spoke about negative consequences (and misunderstood realities) when conditioning provides an incomplete picture of Canada’s bi-cultural and bilingual reality – within the realms of Canada’s two dominant societies:  Francophones and Anglophones.

In this post (and the next few posts), we will look at the “modern” historical context which has played a major role in shaping much of our current conditioning.

There are a number of events in recent history which have shaped our national psyche, which in turn has given rise to a certain “conditioning set”, and thus affects how Francophones and Anglophones view each other (or do not view each other).

For lack of a better term, bluntly stated, this has led to numerous “mental blocks” within Canada’s Two Solitudes.  Such mental blocks provide momentum for a viscous circle, and the continuation of the Two Solitudes.

What in Canada’s recent history “triggered” such mental blocks?

We can re-word the question to ask :

  • “In the past 50 years, what happened to “condition” Canada’s Francophone and Anglophone societies to act in a manner which continues to perpetuate the notion of the Two Solitudes?”

Canada’s history can be divided into major periods:

  • Canada’s “earlier” history and
  • Canada’s “modern” history.

What distinguishes these two histories is that the witnesses, players and decision makers from Canada’s “earlier” history are mostly gone, or will soon pass away.   The witnesses, players and decisions makers in Canada’s “modern” history are often still alive or can still be remembered, and are sometimes still in a position to be able to influence the outcome of the future.

It is a natural emotional response that human beings accord value to “pride and honour”.  Thus it is no surprise that so many people around the globe accord more weight to “earlier” history than they do to “modern” history (that is why we see wars and agendas being fought today on the basis of events which occurred many generations or even centuries ago).

Yet, I have always believed that such weight tends to be misplaced.  We cannot hold people accountable for the actions of past generations.  Past generations lived in a different value system, and frankly in a very different culture (to the extent that people of past eras would be from a completely different planet if they were to be compared to modern generations).   That is why I shake my head when I hear arguments for sovereignty based on past events such as 1914 conscription, the consequences of the patriot riots in the 1800s, or school abolition acts in the 1930s.

The way I reconcile such issues is by asking myself the following two questions:

  1. Would those events be promoted, valued, or exacerbated in our modern society if someone were to attempt to re-create them today?, and
  2. If not, are steps being taken today, at a societal level, to correct mistakes of the past (to the extent that they can be corrected within existing mechanisms and in a modern context)?

As events in and of themselves, Canada’s “earlier” history should be left to history, rather than to the whims of emotional response.

The “modern” history equation:

Owing to the illogical nature of granting greater weight to earlier history than to modern history, we can and should place greater emphasis on our “modern” history.   Yet, there are also dangers in according too much weight to modern history as well.  Modern history is not immune to mistakes or events stemming from misunderstandings.   But modern history affords us the luxury of making corrections to the mistakes of the the recent past before they become etched in society’s collective consciousness.

Our “modern” history is a tale of so many nuances.  Thus, we should view it as many shades of grey, rather than as black and white.

In the most general of terms, more hardcore elements of Québec’s sovereignist movement unfortunately tend to view our modern history as black and white, as do certain entrenched aspects of Canada’s unilingual Anglophone political establishment, headed by certain unilingual Anglophone politicians and community leaders.

For the purposes of this series on conditioning, I will define Canada’s modern history as the period in which many witnesses are still alive, and in which major changes occurred which gave rise to most of our modern value sets.   Therefore, we can say that Canada’s modern history began roughly around the mid-1960s.

View it this way… prior to the mid-1960’s, people lived within a very different value set.   Thus, for the purposes of the next few posts, let us wipe the slate clean from anything prior to 1965, and let’s start to look at things from that point on.

Viewed in this manner, we can say that the first major national Anglophone / Francophone event after 1965 would also be the first major event in the modern story of the Two Solitudes – the point which set the tone for later events.

In the next post I will discuss what I believe is this first major event in the modern story of the Two Solitudes… The Estates-General of French Canada (les États généraux du Canada français).

SERIES:  HOW THE PRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN MODERN HISTORY WHICH HAVE CONDITIONED US ALL REGARDING HOW WE VIEW OUR PLACE IN CANADA (13 POSTS)

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Conditioning; The importance of gestures (#277)

May 29, 2015 4:04 pm / Leave a comment

In the last post, I discussed how “conditioning” can affect our cultural cohesiveness and national psyche – and more importantly, how, in a broad sense, it is not necessarily a bad thing.   In fact, in Canada’s unique context, owing to vast distances and numerous regional differences, “cultural conditioning” (ie: laying the foundations of cultural “expectations” with respect to how Canadian citizens interact with each other) strengthens to our national cohesiveness.

I ended the last post by saying that negative consequences can arise from conditioning if our upbringing has led us to be conditioned (ie: led to expect, or believe) that Canada’s reality is one thing, when in truth it is another — OR if we are only aware of part of the overall picture.

A word to Anglophones on the negative consequences which can arise from an incomplete picture arising from certain sets of conditioning

In an Anglophone Canadian context, such negative consequences arise when Anglophones think of their country only in an Anglophone context.  This often leads to charges from Francophones that they are being ignored, misunderstood, or not accounted for in the overall context.   It goes without saying that such conditioning is not the best for national “cohesiveness”.

If you are Anglophone and if you have been following this blog for the last year, you are undoubtedly aware that many of my blog topics cover matters which many people are unaware of.  This is because many Anglophone Canadians (primarily unilingual Anglophone Canadians) have been conditioned (either by way of geographic regionalism / isolation, school, or silence in the media) into not realizing that there is a need to look beyond Anglophone culture to be able to view and understand Canada in its entirety.

It is an unfortunate reality, because frankly speaking, this “is” one the major reasons why Québec’s sovereignty movement exists.

Some of the things unilingual Anglophone Canadians may not be aware of (including unilingual individuals in Canada’s Anglophone media, political and education systems) – but which exacerbate the notion of Two Solitudes — have to do with

  • understanding Québec’s and Canada’s Francophone culture,
  • who is talking about what issues withing French Canada and Québec,
  • how those people’s views are valued and weighted within Québec’s and Canada’s Francophone society,
  • what Québec’s primary societal values are and what weight is accorded to those values,
  • what discussions may be different in Québec than in English Canada,
  • what actions in the rest of Canada can lead to Québec’s collective sense of alienation from the rest of Canada, and finally,
  • what simple things can be done in the rest of Canada to make Francophone Québécois feel more valued, better understood and a more complete part of Canadian society — just as an Anglophone would feel in any part of Anglophone Canada.

I have always said that we need to avoid a situation in which Anglophone Canadians feel perfectly at home and emotionally understood in 80% of their country, but in which Francophones can feel perfectly at home and emotionally understood in only 20% of their country.  I truly do not believe we are at this stage (yet)… but many people in Québec have been conditioned to believe we are at this stage.   Once someone is conditioned into holding preconceived notions with respect to a particular idea, then that person tends to look for signs that the preconceived notions are true; a self-fulfilling prophecy if you will.

I can give you a perfect example of this latter statement.   I have a Francophone friend (originally from Québec) who lives in a small town in Ontario.  He feels that he has been mistreated by a few Anglophones owing to a cultural misunderstanding.  Ever since then, I get the impression he has been “actively” on the lookout for repeated patterns owing to this prior and unfortunate conditioning.   Invariably, any time I talk to him, he always seems to have found a new story of “mistreatment at the hands of Anglophones” to tell me about — despite the fact that I think he is finding issues where issues do not exist.  I’ve been repeatedly pointing out to him that I see other people around him — especially Anglophones — who are experiencing the same things that he is in this smaller community.  I’ve been trying to point out that it is not a Francophone/Anglophone issue, and he just ran into a few bad apples.  But owing to the conditioning stemming from these few experiences, I’m having a tough time getting this point through to him.  His conditioning, owing to these few experiences, has tainted his view and now he believes the issues are deliberate, targeted against him as a Francophone, and it has made him quite unhappy.

Likewise, I have a good Anglophone friend in Montréal who I have known for almost 15 years.  He moved to Montréal four years ago from another part of Canada, before which he immigrated to Canada several years back.  During his first two years in Montréal, he worked in a hostile work environment.   It is important to make the distinction that work environment was Francophone and hostile — not hostile because is was Francophone.  My friend was hired into an English-only high-technology position for which the company could not find Francophones to fill the position    Yet, because my friend was new to Montréal, and because he did not speak French, he was came to the conclusion that he was being harassed because he could not speak English.  As someone looking from the outside in, I could see that he worked in such a toxic workplace that he would have been harassed regardless if he was Francophone or Anglophone.  But his experiences conditioned him into believing the harassment was owing to the fact that he was Anglophone.  His conditioning led him to become so bitter that he refused to learn French out of pure spite.  Needless to say, it is not the most pleasant experience to visit him in Montréal, and I’m actually at the point of urging him to leave Montréal (and Québec) — not only for his own sanity, but for the sanity of those around him (I can see that Francophones around him are now incorrectly holding him up as an incorrect example of what Anglophones are like… It’s just not a good situation all around.  I’m actually surprised to see how it spiraled out of control).

I find it very interesting how both of the two friends above (one Francophone, one Anglophone) believe they are being mistreated at the “hands of the other linguistic group”.  Yet, from the outside looking in, I can see that it is not the case and that these two friends have simply become overly sensitive.   I would love to bring them together to share their experiences and compare notes — precisely so they could see that their emotions are skewing reality (and I might some day).  However, their “conditioning”, which is based on traumatic events, has led them to actively search for reasons to believe that everyone in a particular language group has it out for them.  So they can see that their view of reality is incomplete and skewed, I’m trying to get them both involved in their communities more — to do volunteer work, to join a sports team, or to find a club of people with similar interests.  But it is an uphill battle… especially when emotions are running high.  This is a very poignant example of negative conditioning.

Like I said earlier, once someone is conditioned into holding preconceived notions with respect to a particular idea, then that person tends to look for signs that the preconceived notions are true.   The sovereignty movement would not exist if a critical mass of people did not have these types of conditioned sentiments, regardless if I or you believe such sentiments are baseless or not.  You can argue facts, but it is impossible to argue emotions.  Thus it is impossible to tell someone their emotions are “wrong”.

That is why gestures are so important.   Gestures and overtures are what influence emotions.

A word to Francophones on the negative consequences which arise from an incomplete picture arising from certain sets of conditioning

This leads me to the next point…

Likewise, in a Francophone Québec context, negative consequences can arise when conditioning prevents Francophones from being aware of the realities, context, changes, evolution and nuances of what is happening elsewhere in Canada.   This often results in many Québécois unnecessarily (and often unintentionally, but sometimes intentionally) erecting emotional walls between themselves and the rest of Canada.

It is unfortunate when this occurs, because it can often be based on inaccurate pretexts and preconceptions (false “conditioning”).  It leads to a sense of being more and more detached from the rest of Canada.  The problem is that this sense of isolation is as much to do with (or even more to do with) Québec’s own “wall building” as it is with any unilingual Canadian’s disconnect from Francophone culture.

This blog is primarily for Anglophone Canadians.   But I am told that more and more Francophones have been reading it over the last several months.  If you are Francophone, and you have been following this blog over the past year, you perhaps have become aware of various things about the rest of Canada you were not aware of (things not mentioned in school, in Francophone media, and certainly not by politicians and interest groups interested who seek to score political points by way of playing the nationalist card).

Perhaps some of the things you have probably learned are that there are quite vibrant underpinnings of Francophone society outside Québec and across Canada.  They are vibrant because they continue to evolve and adapt to a changing world.   Francophone society across Canada is increasingly shifting to the online digital world (making it so that a Francophone’s community is available at the touch of a button in any village, town or city across Canada).

Francophone society across Canada is indeed seeing proportional challenges arising from increased Anglophone immigration, but Francophones have been adapting.  In many cases, Francophone immigration is breathing new life into areas where Francophone society was struggling only 20 years ago (Southern Alberta and the Edmonton area are prime examples of regions where Francophone communities have grown by large numbers over the past 15 years owing to international and inter-provincial immigration).

You perhaps have learned from this blog that Francophone society in other regions of Canada comes in many different sizes, colours, and accents – different from one province to another.  You have read how Francophones are working with their local governments (provincial and municipal) to build infrastructure and greater service networks within their communities and across the country (including schools, universities, health and other government services).

One of the more poignant things you perhaps have learned from this blog is the tremendous change in openness which is occurring on the part of millions of Anglophones towards Canada’s French fact.   I have been citing many of my own observations, experiences, as well as many statistics on this topic.  One such example is Canada’s immersion program — a truly ground-breaking program by any global measure.   Other countries are now looking at Anglophone Canada’s grass-roots immersion movement which is transforming a nation.   In absolute numbers, bilingualism is on the uptick and it is “sensitizing” politicians, governments, and the Canadian population as a whole.   Changes are being made across the country.  Courts are recognizing these changes and are providing extra “nudges” in areas where there has been some “slacking off”.   If “conditioning” were to come in the form of a reset button, it is an understatement to say that more than a few Anglophones have pressed it in the past two decades.

In the next post we will look at the “modern” historical context which has shaped much of our current conditioning.

SERIES:  HOW THE PRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN MODERN HISTORY WHICH HAVE CONDITIONED US ALL REGARDING HOW WE VIEW OUR PLACE IN CANADA (13 POSTS)

“Conditioning”: and its affect on our cultural cohesiveness and national psyche (#276)

May 27, 2015 7:26 am / Leave a comment

In the last post we looked at what conditioning is, and how it can affect how people relate to one another in various contexts.

In this post, we’ll look at how conditioning plays a role in Canada’s own national and cultural story.

Human conditioning affects how we view the world and others around us.  In the case of the Two Solitudes, if affects how we relate to our own country, and view our country.   It can have the unfortunate effect of giving us (Anglophones or Francophones) only part of the picture – an incomplete picture.  It often results in us making decisions with respect to our societal interactions which do not necessarily take our entire national context into consideration.

Breaking the cycle of the negative side of conditioning is extremely difficult, but very necessary if we’re going to break the cycle of the Two Solitudes.  I do not believe anyone holds any expectations that the wall which forms the Two Solitudes can simply crumble with one big strike of a hammer.  However, breaking it down – little-by-little, one brick at time – is possible, and it is happening on many fronts.

There are signs we have been moving in this direction for quite some time (with Canada’s immersion programs, readily available information from the internet age, various provincial government initiatives across Canada, and others).  But there is still a very long way to go.

Media and pop-culture platforms as major factors of personal conditioning

Due to the vast geographic nature of Canada, it would be unrealistic for most Canadians to break the constraints of conditioning through physical exposure alone.

One cannot expect an Anglophone mother from Yellowknife (NWT) to spent three months in Victoriaville, Québec to learn about certain pillars of Francophone culture.

One cannot expect a Francophone high school graduate from Rivière-du-Loup (Qc), who is about to enter a very intense university program in journalism, to spend three months in Saskatoon to learn about pillars of Anglophone culture.

That’s not to say these things couldn’t happen, but reality and statistics simply tell us that in the vast majority of cases, such physical exchanges do not occur.   The country is just too big, personal finances are always a factor, and everyone has their own lives to worry about (let alone having to worry about a different linguistic group’s cultural tid-bits, especially when the nuances can take a lifetime of exposure to fully understand).

Thus, in a country like Canada, media and pop-culture platforms become our major (and often only) possibilities to break the cycle of unilingual cultural conditioning.  Therefore, media and pop-culture platforms are most Canadian’s only major tool with which to begin to tear down the Two Solitudes.

Owing to the sheer size of Canada, for Anglophones, it is our media and pop-culture platforms which more-often-than-not give a sense of “one-country” and of a united “Anglophone Canadian culture”.   The following are some very simple examples.

Without media or pop-culture platforms:

  • a person from Quesnel, BC would have never known Shania Twain (from Timmins, ON) or any other such singer which promotes our Canadian styles of country music.
  • those with an interest in Canadian history in Cornerbrook (NL), or Thunder Bay (ON) may have never known the late Pierre Burton (who regularly appeared on television) and how he taught two generations of Canadians about our nation-building history.
  • a whole generation of children across the country would not have known The Friendly Giant, Pokadot Door, or Mr. Dress-up (which remains a bonding point of reference of a 20 year spread of Canadians who are now in their late 20s to late 40s).  On this point, I can remember children’s programs I used to watch in BC and Alberta which were often filmed around the unique “Toronto-styled” brick-faced “corner stores” (the type with all the flowers sold outside the doorstep in older Toronto neighbourhoods).  Thus, even though I had never set foot in Toronto until I was 20, in my mind these corner stores were already a familiar part of “my” culture, even before I ever first saw my first “Toronto-style” corner store in person.
  • people from coast to coast would not have known David Suzuki, issues he champions, and matters he has brought to the fore through his television programs and radio appearances over the past 40 years (all of which have helped to shape our collective psyche on the environmental front).

I could write a book of such examples.  Little-by-little all of these have added to a sense of our collective national psyche… to a sense of Anglophone Canadians being able to share the same experiences and reference points — be it with our neighbour, our employer, our politicians, or our compatriots on the other end of the country.

Just the other day here in Toronto, I (from Alberta) had a conversation with my secretary (from Nova Scotia), and an acquaintance from Toronto.  The conversation made numerous references to things we used to do as kids – and much of it had to do with points of reference we all experienced from shows we saw on television, songs we used to sing as kids, or other matters conveyed to us as kids through Canadian media.   The experiences we were referring to were uniquely Canadian, and involved having acted out, as children, things we saw on Canadian children’s programs.  Here we were, from three different parts of the country (West, Central, and East), a distance spanning more than 5000 kms – but yet our Anglophone childhood experiences were the same, filled with uniquely Anglophone Canadian reference points, owing to shared cultural experiences stemming from Canadian television programs we watched as kids.

This is a perfect example of just how powerful media and pop-culture platforms are with respect to forging national identity.  But even more important is that we all had the pre-conceived expectations that all of us would have these share experiences, even if we had not spoken about them.  The expectation component is called conditioning.

As you can see, conditioning is not necessarily a bad thing.   It’s all about expectations – and those expectations can be very important (and powerful) when we hold the expectation that our compatriots can (and will) be able to culturally relate to us.

In the above example, the three of us were “conditioned” to believe we would share certain childhood experiences (even if we had not spoken about them) by virtue of simply haven grown up in Canada (in an Anglophone Canadian settings).  We were “conditioned” to believe that those experiences had played a role in shaping our lives – from coast to coast, and that they remain major factors in our collective Canadian experience… pieces of what makes us culturally Canadian.  And thus it was natural and logical that we would have a conversation about many of the little things we had in common as children, despite 5000 kilometres of separation in three different provinces.

As an aside, you might ask how immigrants can fit into this shared Canadian experience — after all, more recent immigrants may not have these same shared Canadian experiences.  Does it make them any less “Canadian”?.  That is a legitimate and very good question to ask.   It comprises a whole other topic, but I can briefly say this:  Immigrants tend to first adapt to a Canadian value set before they will (or are able to) adapt more intricate and time-based shared cultural references.  However, with respect to “shared cultural experiences” immigrants “pick-up from where they jump in”.

This means that even if they may not share cultural reference points from the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s, they will nonetheless begin to share in cultural reference points occurring from the moment they land in Canada, and they will build on those shared experiences, little-by-little from that point on.

They therefore move forward with all the rest of us (just as earlier generations of immigrants have – be it German, Irish, or Ukrainian migrants 80-100 years ago, Italian and Greek immigrants 50-60 years ago, Vietmanese immigrants 35 years ago, or Hong Kong immigrants 20 to 30 years ago).   Over time, everyone eventually shares the same experiences and cultural reference points, and the country continues to culturally build upon itself.

The next post

Three paragraphs above, I mentioned that conditioning is not necessarily a bad thing.

But it can have negative consequences in Canada’s national context if it gives Canadian the expectation they are culturally all from the same cloth without taking Canada’s bilingual/bi-cultural context into account (and I say this notwithstanding Canada’s multicultural nuances — but it is not necessarily to discuss multiculturalism in this context because the expectation is that multicultural communities very much operate within Canada’s two Anglophone and Francophone dominant spheres).

Just as conditioning can form a sense of collective cohesiveness through the expectation that we have shared cultural experiences, conditioning can also cause major problems in national cohesiveness if it only provides one half of Canada’s entire cultural picture.

If our conditioning gives Anglophones culturally shared experiences from only an Anglo-dominant sphere, or if conditioning gives Francophones culturally shared experiences from only a Franco-dominant sphere, problems then arise when both groups, as a consequence, begin to culturally diverge.   Because each linguistic group may not know what is being experienced in each other’s respective cultural spheres, a chasm results.  We call this chasm the Two Solitudes.

In the next post, we will look at simplified examples of how “incomplete national conditioning” (and perhaps “incorrect national conditioning”) can result in reinforcing the notion of the Two Solitudes.

SERIES:  HOW THE PRESENTATION OF EVENTS IN MODERN HISTORY WHICH HAVE CONDITIONED US ALL REGARDING HOW WE VIEW OUR PLACE IN CANADA (13 POSTS)

A building public debate concerning foreign investment in Canadian real-estate (#233)

April 9, 2015 9:14 pm / Leave a comment

The last three of posts and this post relate to how Canada and Québec consistently exchange issues which mutually influence their collective psyches and give rise to a symbiotic relationship.

This post will provide the last of three such examples.  This one is a bit different from the last post.  I’ll write about a “sensitive” and “controversial” issue being discussed more and more in English Canada, but which has not yet fully made it into the arena of public debate (both politically or across the country).  However, there are increasing signs which point to it soon becoming a full-blown public matter of debate.

If it does continue to build more steam in English Canada, it very much has the potential to make the leap into Québec’s arena of public debate.

The matter relates to foreign investment in Canadian real-estate, and how it may be affecting (and misaligning) the affordability of housing for “average” Canadians.

It is a debate which primarily involves Toronto and Vancouver, but which is not exclusive to these two cities.

Anecdotally speaking, from my own observations, there appears to be a growing belief among residents of Vancouver and Toronto that massive foreign investment may be flowing into the real-estate markets of these two markets, primarily from China, but also from other countries.  I consistently hear people say they believe this to be a major factor as to why the average home price in Toronto is now over $1,000,000, and over $1,500,000 in Vancouver (now rated as the second most expensive real-estate market in the world after Hong Kong).

The argument goes that foreign investors (who do not have immigration status in Canada) “park” their money in Canadian real-estate for investment purposes, and then rent the properties out at very high rents – all the while shutting out hundreds of thousands of local residents from their own real-estate market.

Up front, I want to make myself perfectly clear that I do not know if such allegations are accurate or not.  I have yet to see any major studies on the issue.

I also want to be very categorical in stating that even if this were to be a factor in rising real-estate prices, it would likely be only one of several reasons.

I have searched high and low, but I cannot find any in-depth studies regarding this matter.   However there are numerous “incidental” studies out there which perhaps lend credence to the above public beliefs.  For example, there are studies which show that power consumption rates during peak hours indicate that up to 40% of many “high sales” neighbourhoods demonstrate properties to be vacant, or that driver’s license holders tied to many single-family home neighbourhoods have low Canadian permanent residence or citizenship rates.

This clearly indicates the need for urgent and comprehensive studies to be conducted to determine if such anecdotal or observation-based evidence is indeed correct or not.

Australia conducted studies and found their cities did have a serious enough problem with foreign investment (primarily from mainland China) in their housing markets to warrant Australia imposing residency requirements in order to purchase Australian real-estate in order to correct disproportionately priced real-estate markets.

There may be reasons in Canada why we are not seeing such studies conducted.  City governments may fear the results may indeed show a problem exists.  They may then fear losing property tax revenue if housing restrictions are imposed.  In this sense, this debate may become highly political.

Some of my own anecdotal observations which lead me to advocate for objective studies to be conducted:

Here are some reasons, from my own anecdotal observations, as to why I believe there should be objective and independent studies into this issue.

As you may be aware, I lived in mainland China for over a decade.  The Chinese currency is not a freely traded currency on world markets.  Mainland China’s population does not have access to the diversity of investment opportunities as us in Canada.   They don’t have a free and developed mutual, bonds, RRSP, REP, securities or derivatives market.  Where such opportunities do exist, they come with excessive risk, little return, or they may be highly restricted.   Therefore, for most of China’s 1.3 billion people, the only options for investment are (1) housing, (2) domestic stocks, and (3) gold.   Yet housing purchases in China are restricted to one property per person, Chinese stocks have not performed for years, and gold yields little return.

For many (perhaps most) mainland Chinese, the only “safe” and “secure” investment is overseas real-estate.  Canada, the US, and Australia are the preferred markets.  When I resided in China, I met many Chinese (often middle-class Chinese, earning a middle-class income between CAD $50,000 – $80,000) who owned property in Canada or who had friends/relatives who owned property in Canada.  Yet they did not reside in Canada.

Statistically, China has five to six times Canada’s population which has just as large a personal net worth as five to six times Canada’s population.  If only one tenth (the equivalent of half of Canada’s population) were to “park” their money in Canada’s “safe-haven” real-estate, the repercussions to Canada could be enormous.  If the Canadian market were to turn sour, and the money was pulled back to China in a knee-jerk reaction, the repercussions to Canada’s real-estate market (and thus its economy) could be devastating.   This is yet another urgent reason for serious, independent studies.

Another anecdotal story pertains to farmland.   A few weeks ago I was in Saskatchewan.  While waiting for my luggage at Regina’s airport, I noticed the following sign above the luggage carrousel.

rg.apt.1

The company is a company which facilitates Saskatchewan farm purchases (it is written in simplified Chinese, and thus quite possibly targets Chinese with a mainland education).   Such a company must operate within Canadian laws, so in no way am I insinuating it is doing anything illegal.

Incidentally, while waiting for my luggage, there was a group of approximately 15 Chinese nationals also waiting for their luggage.   I speak fluent Chinese.  Out of curiosity, I asked one of the gentleman what brought them from China to Saskatchewan.  When mainland Chinese find out I speak Mandarin, they generally open up much more to me than what they would to other people.   He responded that they all came from China to purchase farmland.

I told him I was a bit “confused” because I was under the belief that Saskatchewan had a Canadian citizenship requirement for those who purchase farmland.  The man told me that there are always ways around this.  A second man in the same delegation overheard our conversation and he said he sent his daughter to the University of Regina, instead of a US university, specifically to be able to get around these rules (perhaps she forged Canadian connections through which to fraudulently funnel such investments?).

My uncle and cousin own large tracts of farmland in Southern Saskatchewan.  I mentioned to my family what I was told at Regina’s airport, and I also mentioned the sign I saw at the airport.   I was told that within the previous four months, my uncle had three mainland Chinese delegations knock on his door, unsolicited, asking to purchase his farmland.

Throughout the same week I spent in Southern Saskatchewan, I also heard numerous times that many people are becoming quite frustrated with the situation because foreign farmland investment has pushed Prairie farmland to unaffordable limits for most local residents.  Because land is so expensive, and because it would take new farmers so long to pay off their land purchase, banks will no longer grant loans to start-up farmers for fear that it would take too long for famers to see profitable return on their land purchases.

Several times I was told by different individuals in Saskatchewan that the best new farmers could hope for would be to become tenants on Chinese-owned farmland in the Prairies.

I do not know if these anecdotal stories are founded or not.  Regardless, I can find no studies to either prove or debunk the possibility.  That in itself is of great concern.

An example of how public perception appears to be turning into public anger:

On 27 March, 2014, CBC news reported that a Vancouver bungalow sold for $567,000 above the asking price of $1.6 million, for a final sale price of $2.2 million.

You can read the CBC article BY CLICKING HERE. 

This quickly resulted in 830 comments (which is an unusually high comment count for any CBC article).  Most comments appear to be from Vancouver residents, and the vast majority are scathing remarks towards Chinese investment.  I have rarely ever seen such public anger expressed in the comments section of any CBC article.

There appears to be serious public resentment lying just below the surface.  It leaves me wondering if there will soon be a breaking point (and thus a turning point) with respect to how people channel their frustration, and the direction this debate will take in Canada.

I will say this:  It will NOT be good if public frustration begins to be vented on our local Chinese Canadians (local Chinese Canadians are not the “foreign” investors who park cash in Canada without residing in Canada).  This is yet another reason why very urgent studies are required to paint an accurate portrait of the situation.

Because I do speak Chinese, I have had numerous discussions with local Chinese Canadians in Toronto.   The people I have spoken with are also becoming very frustrated with what they also perceive to be unsustainable levels of mostly “foreign” Chinese investment in the Canadian real-estate market.  Chinese Canadians I have spoken with also believe such investment is tipping Canadian housing to unaffordable levels.

Of equal concern, they are concerned that Canada’s general public will confuse Chinese Canadians and Chinese “foreign” investors.   Some feel that the general public is already beginning to take frustrations out on Chinese Canadians (who are not the cause of this issue).   This is very serious, and it should be of great concern to all politicians.

We must avoid a “witch-hunt” and “run-away” anecdotal public conclusions at all costs.

Yet, you may say I am talking from both sides of the mouth.  You may say to yourself that I am contributing to such anecdotal conclusions by what I have just written.

Understand that my point in writing this post is not to say this is “definately what is happening”.  Rather it is in part to demonstrate that if I, as a member of te public, believe there may be possible problematic issues, even in the absence of proof, then many others also may be thinking in then same vein.

The difference is that I am more than willing to accept that my own percsptions may indeed be wrong in the absence of objective studies.

The problem lies in the fact that other people may not accept the possibility that their own conclusions may be wrong.  Their own frustrations may turn into a public witch-hunt, and innocent Chinese Canadians or permanent residents may bear thee brunt of frustrated public sentiment.

That’s the danger, and that’s why we need stufies to figure out precisely what is (or what is not) happening in our real-estate maket (be it government sponsored or government endorsed independent studies).

Do you see the difference?

How this debate may eventually find its way into Québec’s arena of public debate:

This debate has not yet become a major political debate in English Canada, but I believe it is moving in that direction.   However, Québec’s population does not yet seem to be aware of this debate in English Canada.

With this being said, I still believe this “English Canada debate” does have the potential to jump from English Canada to Québec.

In January, I was in Montréal accompanying a friend as she was condo shopping.  We looked at five separate condo complexes.  In two of the complexes there were delegations of mainland Chinese investors looking at condos at the same time as us.   They all averaged 3 to 4 couples (6 to 8 individuals).  Again, I spoke to them in Chinese.  I asked what happen to “bring them to Canada”.  All lived in China, and all made the trip to Montréal on a condo-investing mission.   They told me Canadian real-estate investments are more lucrative and safer than Chinese domestic investments – particularly for retirement capital.

After my friend and I finished looking at condos, I asked the condo sales representatives if “mainland Chinese sales” constitute a common type of sale for them.   They responded about 40% of their sales inquiries are from Chinese buyers, and about half of those are for to purchase a condo for their children temporarily study in Montréal (with the intention to renting out the condo after their children graduate).  Yet, the remaining half are simply for an investment property which may, or may not be rented out.   (Note: they did not tell me what percent of their “sales” were to foreign Chinese nationals, but their responses regarding “inquiries” are quite telling).

This appears to demonstrate that real-estate investment concerns which exist in English Canada may also exist in Québec.   The major difference is that Québec’s population has not yet began to debate the issue, whereas we’re starting to see potential signs of a very heated (and intolerant) debate in English Canada.

If the debate in English Canada becomes emotionally adversarial, I would not be surprised if it triggers a similar debate in Québec.

In the meantime, I just hope that people don’t confuse the issues and incorrectly take their frustrations out on Chinese Canadians who are struggling with high home prices just as much as other Canadians.

I strongly urge our politicians in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal to conduct impartial, in depth studies into this matter as quickly as possible, so as to either prove or disprove what many Canadians perceive to be a major problem.

———————————————–

This concludes the four-part mini-blog series on how public policy and public debate can cross back and forth between English Canada and Québec.  I hope I provided some concrete examples which show how both side’s issues can mutually affect how all sides view the world, how they evolve and how they develop together… to the extent that both sides often think more along the same lines than not.

The “reasonable accommodations” debate makes the leap from Québec to the rest of Canada (#232)

April 7, 2015 9:35 am / Leave a comment

The last couple of posts, and this and the next post relate to how Canada and Québec’s issues, politics, societal concerns, and social spheres mutually effect each other.  This is why we very much share a collective psyche in so many spheres (more which is shared than not).  It is a symbiotic relationship.

The following is the second example of three where Québec and Canada are mutually, and currently (right now) influencing and shaping each other’s societal views and collective psyche (an “averaging out” and “melding” of the two, if you will).

This example examines a debate going on right now which involves reasonable accommodations.  I have already sufficiently blogged on the question of reasonable accommodations, so there is little need for me to delve into the details of it again.  If you wish to read up on the details, you can refer to a few past posts:

SERIES:  MULTICULTURALISM AND INTERCULTURALISM (8 POSTS)

The latest public debate regarding reasonable accommodations pertains to the wearing of Niqabs in public, or during the participation in / exercise of official government bureaucracy.

H.dr.s1

The debate started in Québec before it took off in the rest of Canada.  The debate took flight in Québec in 2012 with issues surrounding the Chartes des valeurs..

Now that we’re in “unofficial” election mode for the 2015 Federal election, the debate has recently made the leap from Québec into the overall Canadian arena in the last few months (since the end of 2014).   However, I do not believe the debate would have become mediatized or political elsewhere in Canada had the matters not already been issues in Québec.   Federal pan-Canadian politicians, desirous of votes in Québec and elsewhere in Canada, have brought the debate into the full public Canadian arena (which perhaps would not have happened had certain high-profile federal politicians not got their fingers in it).

A mix of Middle-Eastern politics, current events and religious fundamentalism (which in my view should never have been mixed into the Niqab debate) has been capitalized upon by opportunistic politicians – and these completely unrelated matters have now somehow ended up being tied to a discussion regarding the wearing of the Niqab by the narrowest of minorities in Canada (perhaps involving only a few hundred individuals across the entire country).

Three posts ago, you saw how this debate is now entering the realm of federal political attack advertisements – in a very high-profile manner to say the least (click HERE to see one such ad against the Niqab, but be aware that there are others out there as well).

Generally speaking, for many Canadians, this is the first time they have come face-to-face with this specific debate.   Thus, for many in the country, they are still in the learning stage regarding the issue at hand (many, perhaps most, did not even know what a Niqab was until certain politicians decided this would be an election issue).  This has therefore left a huge “public understanding gap” which a number of politicians are capitalizing on.  These politicians have insinuated to the public that current (violent) Middle-Eastern events and / or “anti-Canadian values” can be tied to wearing the Niqab in a Canadian context, and thus they have filled the public misunderstanding gap with an emotional “plug” (regarding citizenship ceremonies, appropriate dress at court, what is “comfortable” clothing in a public space, what symbols are to be associated with radicalization, and even terrorism [Yikes! Seriously??], etc.).

A few provincial Québec politicians and parties (four parties in Québec to be precise;  1 federal party (the BQ), 3 provincial parties in Québec (the PQ, QS &ON) have been flogging the Niqab issue for three years.   It was only because some Federal politicians only recently saw that this was a debate upon which could be capitalized on (following Québec’s example), that this was brought into the Canadian arena as a whole — primarily by the Conservative party

(Note:  I am not making a political statement as to whether or not I support the Conservative party overall… I am merely stating that it is a fact that the Conservative Party has brought this issue into the public arena).

The Conservatives have tried their hand at this debate with the rest of Canada, they have crafted their own messaging, and it is now dividing aspects of the Canadian population, and perhaps is paying political dividends (big sigh).

I also know that this issue is dividing certain Conservatives and even Liberals within their own respective parties — right across the country (I have friends in both parties, and people in both parties seem to be torn over the issue, and how it has been politicized).  This division within each respective party was perhaps an unintended and unexpected by-product of the debate.   But it is also a division which is very present in Québec as well.   It is being talked about across the country, and it has now become a Canadian debate in this respect, rather than just a Québec debate (regardless if one is Francophone or Anglophone).

However… my personal feeling is that most Canadians feel that this should not be a public debate, and are rather indifferent to the issue (even if they vote Conservative), despite the attention it is garnering.   A perfect indication of this:  An election was called in Alberta today for later in May (Canada’s most big “C” Conservative province, and the province where I grew up, and in which much of my family still lives)… and this appears to NOT to be a matter which any Alberta provincial politician wishes to capitalize upon as an election issue (be it Progressive Conservative, Liberal, NDP or Wildrose).  I think that says a lot (and I also know many people in Québec who had wished this issue never surfaced in Québec either).

Nonetheless, on the Federal scene, I’m guessing this one debate alone has occupied 15%-20% of the Federal election-issue debate for the first third of 2015 (perhaps even 25% or higher).  I personally feel that this is quite sad if these numbers are anywhere close to being accurate; what a waste of precious electoral debate time, especially when there are way more important issues to debate.   On the other hand, perhaps it is a good thing that this is being debated… if for nothing else, than to get this debate over with as quickly as possible, and to bury this issue once and for all as a question of public debate; both provincially in Québec, and Federally across Canada.  Time will tell what the outcome will be.

If you have never “met” someone who wears a Niqab, I strongly urge you to have a look at the following 25 minute video interview in the CBC article below.

It is an interview with a very well educated businesswoman / entrepreneur who wears the Niqab (does that in itself peak your curiosity??).   This interview might help you to understand this Niqab issue better (I wish we saw many more video interviews like this, especially in French and in Québec… where I have so far seen no interviews of this nature to date).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/niqab-a-choice-that-doesn-t-limit-us-ottawa-s-mahwash-fatima-says-1.3019347

Within the first 24 hours, the above CBC article and interview garnered 2500 comments.  I personally cannot remember the last time that I have ever seen a CBC website article accumulate 2500 comments in such a short period of time (I have been reading the CBC news online on an almost daily basis for over a decade, and I have actually never ever seen any of their articles garner 2500 comments).  I think that shows just how strongly people across the country feel about the issue — either in support of the person in the video, or against the wearing of the Niqab under certain conditions.

That is precisely why certain political parties are so quick to capitalize on the question, and turn this into an election issue; a perfect example of how Québec’s political and societal debates and sphere also affects the rest of Canada – coast-to-coast.

The next post will provide an example of a public debate which is just starting to gain momentum in English Canada, which has the potential to become a significant issue, and which has the potential to make a jump from English Canada to Québec.

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