I'd like to start this column with an apology to Kerry Starchuk. I still don't agree with her point of view on bringing in a bylaw requiring English on all signs in Richmond, but I didn't anticipate or intend to cause a public shaming either.
In my own defense, I had removed her name from the Vancouver Sun quote that led off my column in the final draft that I sent to the News for publication. Unfortunately, an earlier draft found its way into the paper instead.
Ms. Starchuk said that people told her the column had painted her as delusional or racist. I said neither. What I did say was that when people feel that their culture or way of life is under threat, perceptual filters that can exaggerate the problem kick in.
But when Ms. Starchuk told me that it was natural for me to take the side of immigrants because I'm an immigration consultant and it's good for business, it was my turn to take offence - not that I'm surprised that she might think that.
People who know me will tell you that long before I became an immigration consultant, I was an expert in cross-cultural communication, both professionally and as an academic. That's the perspective I bring to these columns.
So when I defend immigrants' right to decide what language to put on their signs, it's not because it's good for business, it's because I believe that Canadian culture is a dynamic and evolving organism and that the people who live in it - including immigrants - continually shape and change it simply by living their day-to-day lives.
Anyone who thinks they ought to have the final word on what's acceptable in Canadian culture because they were "here first" needs to ask themselves what the First Nations might have to say about that. And that goes for the "if you don't like it here, you can go back where you came from" crowd as well.
What I have been saying all along, is that immigration is not a one-way street because we invite immigrants to come to Canada. Sure, they apply, but we have the final say on who we accept and the vast majority don't make the cut. And those we invite are not only "immigrants", but also people. People who have values, people who have families and people who change Canadian culture with their very presence.
Regularly readers will also know that I am not an apologist for or defender of cultural practices that are antithetical to bedrock Canadian values.
But, as I said in my column condemning mercy killings and other heinous cultural practices, we ought to save our heavy ammunition for issues that are of real importance because Canadian culture is strong enough to take care of the minor stuff.
I don't think it's racism that is the real underlying issue. Some people are feeling uncomfortable with the pace of change in Richmond - from sleepy semi-rural suburb to one of the most dynamic multicultural communities in Canada in just a couple of decades. Some people are uncomfortable with change itself, no matter what the pace. And some people are uncomfortable with the substance of the changes.
The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, a theory that I work with in my academic and professional lives, says that we need to go through a stage of defensiveness about cultural difference before we can make a real breakthrough to seeing difference as a positive force - variety being the spice of life, and all that.
Some people see that as less a breakthrough than a surrender, but I respectfully disagree.
I think that if some of us have the right to express our cultures then all of us (immigrants included) do. Cultural clashes are all around us - newcomers vs. old-timers, young vs. old, men vs. women - and we all need to work together to negotiate how we'll live together in this miraculous place. I don't think "my way or the highway" is the Canadian way.
What do you think?
Dr. Joe Greenholtz is a regulated Canadian immigration consultant (RCIC) and a director of the Premier Canadian Immigration Co-op. He also sits on the Richmond Intercultural Advisory Committee and can be reached at joe@premiercic. com.
