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[Notes By KPA] This letter below is from a correspondent, who describes the Toronto of the 1970s (and into the early 80s).Here is the email/letter:
The history of the Loyalists shows how different Canada and the United States are, which is how it should be despite all this Free Trade lingo, which puts us together with Third World Mexico! The anti-Americanism which the Canadian media (aka CBC), the stooge of the liberals and the Liberal Party, loves to spout is taken on in a healthy way by the ordinary Canadians, who love their flag, their foods (however few there are that are different from the Americans'), their holidays (next week is Canada Day, yes a reaction to Fourth of July, but still celebrated with gusto), and so on.
But, there is a unity with the US when it comes to the European heritage. And I strongly believe that this multicultural fetish is a "white guilt" thing.
He is very astutely observes that this "hate" or rather this identification of difference is projected into Quebec, and the endless wrangles we have with that Province. And I am actually a proponent of "freeing" Quebec. Let them deal with NAFTA, terrorism, the vaccillating currency, maintaining a First World way of life, WITHOUT dipping into the Canadian coffers. Let them do it alone. Cut off ALL the strings. VIVE LE QUEBEC LIBRE!
One more thing.
Question: Who are the HAPBS?!! (Confession: Sin of all Canadian Sins. I don't watch hockey!!)Answer: Habs is an abbreviation of "les habitants," the informal name given to the original settlers of New France, dating back to the 17th Century. So it's a natural fit for the The Montreal Canadiens, established in 1909 and marketed as a French-Canadian hockey team.Yep, even in hockey, there is the Quebec Narrative. So, my correspondent is insightful to view these hockey games as war-like rivalry to release those ancestral tensions.
Dear Kidist,
Good luck with the Hildebrand project. You're doing good work, even (especially) if the thought-police don't approve!
Mississauga really has changed. My father spent the last 10+ years of his career in Toronto (living in the City of Toronto itself from 1972 to 1983), and -- as a landed immigrant, not an illegal alien --I worked a lot of temp jobs in Toronto during school and university days. I got to know greater Toronto pretty well.
At the time Mississauga was a blue-collar to white-collar Canadian suburb, which is the say the inhabitants were Canadians. Friends of ours who lived there had been in Ontario from its beginnings: United Empire Loyalists who went north from New York after the American Revolution made New York an uncomfortable place for loyalists to live. We haven't been in touch with them for many years, but I suspect they have long since white-flown Mississauga for somewhere much farther out.
Toronto proper at that time had immigrant pockets, some (European; I remember particularly a Portuguese enclave) of fairly long standing, but was still preeminently a Canadian city, united by belief in the Leafs and hatred of the Habs. There was, however, a growing West Indian area which, perhaps coincidentally, was considered the most sketchy part of town.
I hope the Canadians wake up in time to salvage some Canadian Canada. But when I look at what Americans are accepting, and remember it was a Canadian government (Trudeau's Liberals from 1968 through the early '80s; not that Mulroney's Tories did anything to undo Liberal sabotage when they got in) that introduced the world to official multiculturalism and mandated racial and sexual diversity, it's hard to be too hopeful. So far, from what I see, Canadians have swallowed almost all of it without a peep, and tell themselves it's all a Good Thing. The only outlet English Canadians allow themselves is to be annoyed at the Quebecois - to go any further would be racist...
Please keep up your good work in the Great no-longer-so-White North!
Best regards.