And my own pet peeve…….?
The use of he term “visible minorities” which can lead to discriminatory implications. Please see below
Let’s let up on this term.
(Canscene) — I’ve often railed against the indiscriminate use of he term “visible Minorities” and now here comes the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which asks us to reflect further on its use.
To me, the term has always suggested a dividing line — pinkish white skins on one side and those of other pigmentation on the other.
When we say by 2017, the population of Toronto will be more than fifty percent visible minorities, we imply they’ll still be minorities which is untrue. The real visible minority will be white!
To me identification by skin colour is just as offensive. Aren’t we sufficiently aware by now of what might be the physical characteristics of a person named, say, Lin Wong or Ravi Gupta or Marcos Alvarez? If not, we should be.
The challenge is now
Immigrants made up the vast majority of the 1.6 million new Canadians between 2001 and 2006, giving the country the highest population growth rate among G8 countries, new census data released last month suggests.
Canada’s population stands at 31,612,897, with a growth rate of 5.4 per cent during that five-year period. That’s up from the four per cent growth rate in the previous census period between 1996 and 2001.
Roughly 1.2 million new immigrants made up the bulk of the population growth outlined in the latest census, while the country’s native-born population increased by 400,000.
That’s why we need to think inclusively: let’s consider also that to some degree we are all minorities and forget all this silliness about visibility in a country as diversified as Canada and one which isn’t going to change. Let’s help the reluctant accept the inevitable and don’t stir up trouble with terms like “visible minorities.”
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