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Fresh on the heels of the Bouchard-Taylor commission is a new pledge that the Quebec government will require immigrants to sign. The pledge asserts “Quebec values” including French as an official language, gender equality and the separation of church and state. Link to the cbc.ca story is here.

This pledge doesn’t seem to have any practical application. What do they expect to happen: someone travels all the way here, refuses to sign the pledge, and Quebec manages to keep out those who don’t want to assimilate? Or, conversely, an immigrant signs and we can expect no cultural tension from then on in? The only real effect this pledge appears to have is to offend many and create further divisiveness both in Quebec and throughout Canada.

The comments on the CBC story are, as usual, more disheartening than the story itself: while some criticize the idea of the pledge, many do so while making fun of Quebec; others applaud the move as a good one to “protect Canadian culture.” Are we this insecure about Canadian culture that we think a pledge is going to protect it?

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5IDXVyhu0g&feature=related

We Canadian are fortunate enough to live in one of the most progressive nations on earth. But we too often  forget our racist past and present. Not unlike America or South Africa for that matter, too many of the marginalized in this country suffer an unspeakable existance, a kind of apartheid, I dare say.

First Nations communities come to mind when we think of poverty-stricken minorities and segregation - So many on Canada’s reserves live in third world conditions. But the Video above speaks of a lesser known chapter in Canadian history - that of Africville, a slum where hundreds of Black Canadians called home until the city demolished it in the late 1960’s. This video is a chilling account of life in Africville.