In this hectic world, often we don’t have sufficient time to connect the dots between seemingly disconnected stories that flicked their way through our collective consciousness. To help bridge this gap, say hello to Connecting The Dots, where I’ll endeavour to bring together and seemingly disparate stories into a contextualized, cohesive whole. Or I’ll just slap together tangentially related stories and wrap up with some grandiose closing sentence. Either way, let’s go!
Lock up your daughters, the diversity is coming! Yeah, one of the findings of a recent Stats Canada study was that, by 2031, 63% of Toronto’s population will be a “visible minority” meaning, well, they’ll actually be the majority (and hopefully, the painfully fucking awkward “visible minority” euphemism can be done away with for good). In case you’re finding the parlance a little obtuse (and who could blame you?), it means 63% non-white people. Because, y’know, white people are one big, monolithic bloc of people, and non-whites are another big, monolithic blog of people, and our sense of civic identity should be based solely on the balance between these two big, monolithic blocs.
I don’t know much about the “visible minority” population of Sundridge, Ontario (population about 1,000), although the city’s citation-free Wikipedia page claims there are “no self-identified visible minority groups” in the town. However, Ontario Provincial Police officer Vu Pham — who was tragically killed by some gutless old asshole earlier this week — raised his family in Sundridge after emigrating from Vietnam. He’d certainly qualify as a “visible minority” (is there a membership card? do you get half a card if one of your parents is white?)
The news is trickling out that Pham and his alleged killer may have known each other from Sundridge. And being the conspiratorial person I am, I can’t help but think that somehow, some way, racism had something to do with this murder. And although I grew up in Toronto, I’m now also thinking of friends of mine who grew up in small, white-bread communities in Canada, where there may have literally been one “visible minority” family to speak of… and I’m shuddering to think about what intolerance they may have faced (and probably still do face, if they’re still there).
So yeah, it’s all well and good that Toronto is becoming more diverse. But are the binary benchmarks of “white” v.s. “visible minority” accomplishing anything? They’re not helping groups better understand each other and work together within Toronto. And they’re certainly not helping cultural integration in places outside of the city’s major urban centres. There’s no easy answer (yeah, sorry, I know you were waiting for one)… all we can do as individuals is to obey the golden rule and revel in the delicious dining options that diverse immigration patterns afford us.
Oh, and one other thing. A preposterous quote from the above-linked Toronto Star article about the Statistics Canada study. This quote from one of the authors of the study: “[By 2031] Toronto will have 43 per cent of all the diversity of the country.” What the fuck does that mean? Toronto will have 43% of the country’s share of an abstract concept? What percentage of Canada’s compassion will we possess by then? How about justice? Loyalty?
Oh… you mean “non-white people”. Then just fucking say that. If your measure of “diversity” is whether or not someone’s skin is sufficiently pale, then just use the God damned terminology, outdated as it may be.
Ahem. Sorry.
Hello? Oh, it’s for you. It’s Mr. Price-Gouge calling. Thank goodness the CRTC is getting down to business and investigating the ownership structure of those dirty upstart scoundrels at Mobilicity, the country’s newest mobile phone provider. OK, there’s nothing dirty or scoundrelish about them, as far as I know (though Mobilicity owner John Bitove did found the Toronto Raptors, so take that how you will). The CRTC is just checking to make sure the company is sufficiently Canadian-owned to be allowed to compete in the Canadian marketplace.
It’s the same thing they did with WIND Mobile late last year, when the CRTC found that WIND was insufficiently Canadian and told them “stay the hell outta here!” last October. And that lasted about a month, until the federal government stepped in and gave WIND approval anyway, even though questions still linger about its parent company, Globalive. So, really, the outcome of the investigation into Mobilicity shouldn’t mean much, as the feds will probably intervene on Mobilicity’s behalf if they feel sufficient pressure from the Canadian population, clamoring for reasonable rates after years of being gouged by the “big three” telecommunications companies (Bell, Rogers and Telus).
That ongoing gouging seems especially harsh in light of the news that came out a few weeks ago confirming what many of us already suspected: the Internet service provided to Canadians (predominantly by Bell and Rogers) is old and slow compared to the rest of the world. Ah well, at least the profits they rake in will be going to Canadians (already rich ones).
Actually, come to think of it, why is the CRTC even worried about who owns WIND, Mobilicity, et. al.? Those new carriers are banking on low-cost offerings as their ticket into the marketplace; however, any new provider pretty much needs to piggyback on existing wireless networks (the old and slow ones, remember) owned by Bell and Rogers. And pay them for the privilege. And then the cost gets passed on to us, thus negating the new carrier’s attempted competitive advantage. Then the new carrier goes tits-up. But Bell and Rogers still bank some extra coin in the meantime. More profits for already-rich Canadians! Huzzah!
Say what you will about the unregulated free markets (such as, “it led to the cataclysmic economic crash in the USA — and, via ripple effect, across the world — of the past few years”), but when it comes to our telecom companies, this whole heavily-regulated oligopoly doesn’t seem to be working out too well for us as consumers either.