Dear Editor,
After reading Matthew Claxton’s column in Friday’s paper [Painful Truth: Sun’s apology rings hollow, Langley Advance Times, Sept. 13], I had to find the original Mark Hecht column to see what all the fuss was about. After reading the original column I must say that I think the criticism is somewhat overblown. We may not agree with Professor Hecht’s conclusions but much of what he says makes a lot of sense.
His main point is that diversity the way it is promoted in Canada appears to harm the countries social trust, and in so doing, harms our overall economic well-being.
Canadians (except First Nations) all come from immigrant ancestors. Most of our ancestors came to Canada to get away from some problem in their homeland and their intention was to “become Canadian.”
Professor Hecht’s premise is that since Canada started to promote diversity, we have had more immigrants coming to Canada but bringing their home country problems and biases with them, and having no intention of integrating into Canadian society.
Professor Hecht points to the Scandinavian countries as countries that have shunned diversity and have always ranked as the best places to live while countries like Canada who promote diversity are dropping in the rankings.
The fact that social trust is very important to a successful democracy is obvious. If citizens do not hold similar values then it will be very difficult for them to work together and trust each other. We may not like this fact, but it is rather obvious even if it leads to what appears to be a racist conclusion.
Professor Hecht’s idea that we would be better off with ethnic enclaves sounds weird, but if you think about Vancouver in the ’50s that is what we had. We had: Chinatown, Greek town, and Little Italy as well as other ethnic enclaves and yet as a city we got on quite well.
I strongly disagree with the professor’s conclusion that we should do away with diversity, tolerance and inclusion, but I do think we need to find ways to build social trust or our democracy will fail. You can just look south of the border to see a failing democracy where the citizens have lost their trust in each other. Professor Hecht’s views may not be politically correct, but they should be published openly so we can have this valuable conversation.
David Nielsen, Walnut Grove