Canada: Whose Rights Are Really Being Trampled? - Christie Blatchford

May 16, 2009

Torontonians feel they're being asked to suck up without complaint the complexities of an issue they're expected to accept on faith
By Christie Blatchford

The truth is, no one really knows how many Tamils are in Toronto, or Canada. There was an astonishing piece in the Toronto Star earlier this spring trying - in vain, it should be noted - to make sense of the most recent Statistics Canada numbers (29,435 Tamils in the Greater Toronto Area) and the estimates of other studies (which suggest the number may be in excess of 200,000).

This is what Torontonians are wrestling with, not rage about traffic snarls, not racism, not a failure to understand the complexities of the civil war in Sri Lanka or its attendant loss of life. We live in a country where we don't even know how many of our fellows are Tamils from Sri Lanka, but are simultaneously asked to accept on faith that they are properly and legally here and to extend to them every privilege conferred by Canadian citizenship - and to suck it up without complaint.


The Globe and Mail (Toronto)


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