How come the institutional memory fails the right wing so badly in modern politics? Did all these soldiers, women as well as men, die for Canada and its allies so that people like Don Cherry and his chums should force their descendants to wear poppies?

Robert Fisk
Toronto
@indyvoices

Canada’s “diversity” is famous – or a bit infamous for the redneckers in a country larger than the US who still cannot quite accept that this is an immigrant nation.

On a Toronto tram, I’ve often found myself the only Anglo-Saxon aboard. But I don’t find this odd. I am not a Canadian, but my Canadian fellow travellers are clearly from Pakistan, China, Egypt, eastern Europe, Iran, India, Syria, you name it. Some came as refugees – just as Jews tried (often vainly) to come before the Second World War; turned away by an antisemitic prime minister. Others were born in Canada. It works.

Sure, there are gang fights involving immigrant groups, a few “honour killings” – how I hate that expression – among Muslim families who have not understood that they live in a new world where the cruel fiefdom of tribal ignorance has no place. But yes, Canada is a real country with a history and a population which votes with an impartiality, a liberalism and a moderation that puts Trump’s America to shame – not that this would be difficult.

read more here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/remembrance-poppy-ron-cherry-immigrants-populism-first-world-war-canada-a9221421.html