• About

Larry Muffin At Home

~ Remembering that life is a comedy and the world is a small town.

Larry Muffin At Home

Tag Archives: immigration

Climate change

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Canada., Disney, immigration, PEI, Trump, US ambassador

Well we are almost at the end of October and the weather here on PEI is so warm we are busting all manner of records. Everyone is happy with the warm weather 22C today and 24C tomorrow and with the humidex around 30C. It should normally be no more than 12 to 15 C in day time. You see the problem, well most people don’t and I somewhat feel like the passengers on the Titanic, oh look more ice for the bar.

Talking of cruise ships, the Disney ship made its first inaugural visit to Charlottetown PEI yesterday. Hundreds of people lined up the shore to see it arrive at 07:30am. It is a beautiful ship and has the look of the old ocean liners. The two chimney stacks have the Mickey Mouse Logo on them. If was somewhat cloudy and foggy for the arrival but within an hour the sky cleared, blue with loads of sunshine.

22780195_1495566780479755_7938475504769223847_n.jpg

It was quite the event here in town. We had some 50 + ships this past Summer but this one was special for many people.

The departure at 5pm was no less dramatic, the tradition is for the captain of the ship to blow the horn of the ship 3 times as they depart, in a way to say goodbye to the Port of call. The Disney ship horn plays If you wish upon a star, it could be heard all over the downtown area, it put a smile on the face of a lot of people.

22829262_10211841399163954_7616916154714049350_o.jpg

This photo was taken as the ship exited the harbour before turning left and out unto the Strait.

Today I took the car in for servicing and had the winter tires put on, I felt silly about it, the weather being so warm. The forecast for the Maritimes is for an abnormally mild winter this year with next to no snow. In Central Canada heavier snow than normal and in the West extremely cold weather.

The new US Ambassador has arrived in Ottawa and she is a horse breeder from Kentucky, a personal friend of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, 3 times married gold digger who gave millions to Trump and also supported Marco Rubio. Her husband is into coal, her name Kelly Craft, I am not impressed with her at all. She is only here because she gave mucho dollars to Trump. Her speech when she presented her Credentials was full of idiotic statements, i.e. I believe both side of Science in the climate change theories, for and against. or this gem, Canada is the best country in the world, strange thing to say coming from a foreign ambassador. She also believes that both sides are right on NAFTA. She did not mention lollipops and unicorns but I am sure she loves them also.

The census is also out and it shows that most immigrants to Canada come from the Philippines, India and China. They now represent 22% of the make-up of the country. It is predicted that by 2030 immigrants would represent 33% of the total population. Toronto is no longer the magnet it once was, having been replaced by cities like Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta. A reflection of simple economics and changing job markets moving West.

What is interesting is that China use to be no. 1 just a few years ago now has fallen into third place and will probably continue to fall.

cp-census-top-recent-immigrants.png

PEI has had an enormous population growth due to immigration and is leading all the Maritime provinces in this field. The population of the Island in the last 3 years has gone from 145,000 to 152,000 today. Quebec attracts mostly Africans and Muslims immigrants, interesting to note that Quebec unlike all other 9 Canadian provinces, chooses its own immigrants and selects French speaking candidates. Unfortunately the general population is not very open to immigration and is very poorly informed on how the process works, failing to understand that it’s own provincial government has set up this process now since 1962.

The rest of the week looks quiet, a visit to a friend in Belle River and a lunch on Sunday.

22384315_10155731938884431_2686146950190040581_o.jpg

 

 

 

 

Changing Nation

27 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

abortion, Canada., immigration, mexico, Muslims, NAFTA, Ottawa, refugee, Syria, Trudeau, Trump, USA

Contrary to what is happening in the USA and all the negative news this week coming from the White House which cause many to shudder and worry about the future of our little planet now that the Doomsday clock is 2.30 minutes from Midnight, loosing 30 seconds since last Friday. The reasons being lost opportunity to tackle climate change, pollution and nuclear proliferation, President Trump simply add to the toxic mix.

Today in Canada several articles gives Canadians hope, one being that the  Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that they will set up a special fund and work with The Netherlands to offer support and services in reproductive rights to women who may loose out because of the Trump decision to cut funding on abortion. In Canada abortion is available under our Health Care system to all women from Sea to shining Sea and this for the last 35 years, in other words that battle has been over for a long time in our Dominion. This plan would extend aid to women in third world countries.

The other news also goes a long way to show how Canadians have governed themselves very differently if compared to the USA. In 1990 the Government of Canada at the time under a Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the author of NAFTA, decided to open the flood gates of Immigration to all. Canada has always been a country of immigration, in fact the very first government department to be created by the new Federal Government after Confederation in 1867 was the Department of Immigration. The Prime Minister at the time Sir John A. Macdonald believed that a country as vast as Canada had to increase its population which stood at a few million people. Most immigrant then came from Eastern and Southern Europe. Number of immigrants from Europe started to dwindle seriously in the 1970’s, so a solution had to be found. Today on any given year 40% of our immigrants come from the Philippine, China and India, the balance come from Africa, South America and some from Europe. Many senior Ministers in Provincial and Federal Governments are themselves immigrants, the current Minister of Immigration was a Muslim refugee from Somalia. Our Minister of National Defence is a soldier who served in Afghanistan and Sikh immigrant from the Punjab in India. Others are from Afghanistan, Iran, Chile, etc, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc. Quite the mix of population and the same applies to Mayors of major Canadian cities, Canadians don’t care about your background as long as you have that popular appeal. We can understand the alarm and disapproval in Canada when we see how Mexico is being treated, our NAFTA partner. Close to one million Canadians live permanently in Mexico and another million visit each Winter.

mexico-canada-flags-e1428943885937.jpg

The latest statistics from the Federal Government shows that by 2036 in 19 years Canada will have a population mix of 50% brown and 50% white. One third of Canadians will have been born abroad, another 20% will have at least one parent who will be an immigrant. Every large city in Canada will have 33% of its population born abroad.

Canada is officially bilingual, French and English, however by 2036 only 18% will actually have French as a first language and around 53% will have English, the rest will have another language which is not French or English. Already it is fairly common in schools to have upwards of 40 languages being spoken by students.

Canada is losing its old-time religion. Ninety per cent of Canadians identified as Christians in 1970. Today, it’s 66%, and will be just over one 50% by 2036. Christianity is not being displaced by other religions – only 7 per cent, at most, will identify as Muslim by 2036 – but by no religion at all. A quarter of all Canadians today identify with no faith, and that number could reach 33% by 2036.  Religion simply does not play much in our Society and not at all in Politics.

CcaTKLJUcAAlFHW.jpg

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcoming a group of Muslim women in Parliament

The fact that Canada has deliberately transformed the makeup of its population in a way no other country has managed, or even attempted, speaks to the tolerant, diverse society in which we live.

As for Canadian politicians who think they can exploit the Nativist trend like in the USA to get elected, this is very unlikely to work. There is no future courting the angry white vote in Canada. There just aren’t enough angry white voters.

Lastly on the Democracy index compiled by Economic Intelligence groups Canada ranks at #6 in the world in terms of the quality of its democracy and openness in governance. The other five countries ahead of us are the Scandinavians. The USA has dropped at #21 and is no longer considered a full democracy.

This news on the 150th Anniversary of our Confederation is great to hear and makes me happy as a Canadian. It is truly something to celebrate.

cday_crowd_11_parl_dusk_stage-_0.jpg

Canadians on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Canada Day!

On China and Emigration

13 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Canada., China, communist party, conflict, contradiction, Deng Xiao Ping, education, Emigration, immigration, rural, urban, Xi Jinping

Emigration is probably a phenomenon as old as humanity, humans have always had a need for one reason or another to move where the grass is greener. Canada is built on immigration and the oldest Federal government department is that of Immigration. It was created by Prime Minister Sir John A.Macdonald in order to populate this vast new country of Canada in 1873. Populating Canada has always been since 1608 the no.1 task of Royal Governors and various administrators. If one looks at the original 13 colonies of what would become one day the USA, one can see from the beginning a large influx of Europeans, mostly at the beginning Dutch and German with some English in the lot. The first two groups were so prominent in 1776 when the USA was created, German was considered as a possible official language of the new country. Canada was a very different story.

The USA population has always been 10 times greater than that of Canada, and the development of the 13 original colonies was much more robust and faster than that of New France and then after 1763 of Canada as a whole. Even in 1890 the fastest way to travel was often by river transport between major cities and then the train became the main highway to move people and goods. The USA already had a good road system and more infrastructure simply because they had a greater population than us. Per example in 1890 the total population of Canada was about 5 million people, whereas the USA had a population of 63 million people. So it is not difficult to understand why a strong immigration policy was necessary to allow for quick growth of the National Population in Canada.

Since 1873 Canada has been actively seeking and recruiting immigrants to populate the country. At first immigrants were mostly Europeans and this continued until about 1976 when the government of the time decided to focus more on other regions of the globe and focus less and less on Europe. Today the vast majority of immigrants to Canada come from India and China. From India it is mostly from one province alone the Punjab, this explains the visibility of this community and its presence in Parliament and in the current Federal Cabinet. It is a community which has integrated well on the whole and has been successful.

The Chinese started to arrive in large numbers in Canada as 1997 loomed, the return of the British Territory of Hong Kong to Communist China created a panic among the Cantonese speaking population of the British Colony and many thousand chose to come and live on the West Coast of Canada, Vancouver being the destination. In more recent years they in turn have been replaced by economic migrants from mainland China who are Mandarin speaking and seek economic advantages in Canada which they cannot have in China or wish to hide ill gotten loot, Canadian Courts have been busy in the last 20 years with notorious cases which endangered our diplomatic relations with China.

Many up to 40% per year come to Canada as immigrants only to disappear after obtaining Permanent Resident Status, it is believed that they end up in the USA where taxes are less than in Canada and salaries are much higher. This group of Chinese immigrants do not integrate well, living in closed ghettos amongst other Mandarin speaking Chinese, they shun Canadian society or anyone who is not from their Han, Mandarin speaking group. Their main goal is having a base in Canada through ownership of real estate. This in turn has created enormous social problems in British Columbia in and around Vancouver and in greater Toronto area, less so in Montreal, PEI appears to be the next target.

One problem which has alarmed financial circles, the IMF and now the Governor of the Bank of Canada is the unsustainable real estate speculation in many Canadian cities fuelled by the Chinese buyers. The news media has carried reports that in Vancouver alone house prices could appreciate by 75% in 2017 and by 50% in Toronto. This makes no logical sense and shows that speculation is the root of this phenomenon.  Another theory which circulates in Financial circles is that China could undermine a national economy with excessive speculation in various markets in the hope of fostering its own dominance. In Latin America and in Africa, China has displaced the USA as an investor.  A form of economic war which is not unknown in the long history of China with its neighbours in Asia.  Because of this aggressive policy, China has tense and difficult relations with India, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The speculative bubble burst in Shanghai 6 years ago after massive speculation by home buyers and the deflation that ensued ruined many. This was due to some Party bosses corrupt practices and lack of regulations within the internal Chinese market.

Canadians also have another serious problem in individual personal debt currently at 167% per person. Yes Canadians are living well beyond their means. Any increase in interest rates which could happen next year could create a crisis here.

Having said this then what fuels the move out of China for so many are the unresolved contradictions the 1949 Communist takeover have not resolved within China and the constant rivalries between urban coastal communities and the vast rural areas of inner China. The revolution was to give the peasant class preeminence in Chinese Society and the Cities were to be marginalized, or so said Communist ideology, that is not what happened. Mao himself an uneducated peasant played the peasant rule all card against other Party bosses and was able to eliminate many of them between 1967-1976. However his luxurious life style and personality cult did nothing to resolve internal social contradictions between city and country.

An article in the New York Times of this past weekend presented the current problem of too rapid growth can create for a country like China and its unwieldy population. One of the main realization of the Communist Party in 1994 was to eradicate for the first time ever famine in Chinese history. The Party has also created consumer wealth with large infrastructure programs in the coastal area of the country benefitting about 500 million Chinese, however in the rest of the country where the other 900 million live, progress has been extremely slow and discontent is ripe. The challenges for the Party is an enormous one and authoritarian response by over using the riot police to quell dissent has not worked well.

The new party leader Xi JinPing is aware that to stay in power the Party has to focus more and more efforts on the vast rural areas and try to offer similar access to education and prosperity.  Ten years ago when I was in China the crisis of urban against rural came to a head, this was coupled with the Chinese migrant workers who came to the cities by the millions to work for peanuts so that the urban centres could look more modern or ”Western” with poorly built buildings. The peasant workers are exploited shamelessly by the Chinese entrepreneurs who often forgot to pay them and the Central Government who would not allow them to live in the cities beyond the terms of their work contracts, with a complex system of internal passports and visas to travel between cities, all of it controlled by the Police.

The Party is very anxious that the Western World think of China as a great nation. Vis-a-vis Europe and North America the Communist Party have a huge inferiority complex and a grudge. Official Propaganda called us Bourgeois Imperialist Paper Tigers while Mao was alive, after his death in 1976, the new leadership went on to copy the Capitalist model under Deng Xiao Ping and his program of accelerated consumerism with pseudo Marxist framework. Realizing that Mao’s Policies where about keeping him in power, bringing the death of millions through failed policies 1959-1961 and not advancing China, the Party had to re-invent itself.

Now Xi JinPing is offering more university seats to rural students in big city universities. He has modified the education program to copy the former Imperial Mandarin Education program which educated the elite who worked for the Emperor. Parents of students in cities like Beijing and Shanghai have been protesting this government decision to offer more placements to rural students who often have no chance at entering a prestigious university. They claim that they spent years preparing their children for the University entrance exams and will not allow peasants to take their place. In the countryside schools and universities are sub par and the education level is poor. There is none of the prosperity or affluence you see in cities and coastal areas, this despite years of efforts to bring up standards to those of urban centres. Systemic corruption of Communist Officials has also played its part in delaying progress in rural areas.

For those who can afford it there is always an education abroad in colleges and universities in Canada or the USA. However this is very expensive and not a guarantee of success since many Chinese students return to China to find out that their foreign degrees are rejected by Chinese employers on the basis that it is foreign thus not acceptable. English language skills are also very important in China if you wish to work for one of the big State Enterprises. Again many Chinese students returning from years in Canada or the USA are barely able to speak English, many lived in Chinese ghettos abroad finding it less challenging culturally.  Is this new policy of the Chinese Leadership like so many other a cosmetic attempt at solving an old Chinese problem, most probably and it will be said to work through official propaganda and decrees. The other solution of the Party is to make it easy for Chinese citizens to emigrate abroad while remaining loyal to the Party. This explains the constant presence of Senior Chinese Diplomats at any function given by Chinese business groups in Canada. This way the Communist Party reminds all that they may be living abroad but the Party is watching and monitors behaviour.

Despite more than 60 years of Communism and great upheavals, China remains a class society, where Communist Party affiliation, money and family name weighs in on your chance for advancement. It is a dictatorship and a Police State with allures of consumerism, no one should be fooled by this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You know the old saying.

12 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Canada., elecions, fascist, God, Greece, Harper, immigration, Jesus, Kurdi, nazis, refugees, shame, Turkey

Some sayings are repeated ad nauseam to the point where no one really knows what it actually means. One such saying is ” Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. In other words learn from the past and avoid mistakes in the future. Who said this first, I have no idea and frankly I dislike this saying profoundly simply because it is trite and totally untrue.

In today’s world not only we do not know our history (the past) or any history or past event for that matter but we are repeating the same mistakes over and over again, all the while saying Those who cannot remember the past are blah blah blah.

In Canada we do not learn from the mistakes of our predecessors if current political events are a guide. During this National Electoral Campaign period the longest since 1892 many issues have come up all important and indicative of the problems beseeching Canada today. One particularly emotional event was the photo of the little drowned child Alan Kurdi dead on a beach in Turkey. The story was of fleeing families from the four year old Civil War in Syria. So far 11 million Syrians of all confessions have fled, those who remain live in fear amongst the ruins, half a million are dead.

The family of this child, some of whom are living in Canada claimed that the Canadian Government had failed to accept them within its refugee program for resettlement. It should be said at this point that as a former Immigration Officer of the Canadian Foreign Service the issues of refugees and people seeking resettlement is well known to me. For many years I worked in Northern Africa and the Middle East and am well acquainted with the movement of population and the work of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugee questions are governed by well established rules and procedures in Conventions written in part by Canada as a founding member of the UNHCR and the UN after the Second World War.

While I was on my last post and working in Athens I often met with Syrians who had been in Greece under difficult circumstances in some cases for 20 years. The Greek authorities considered them simply as transient and did not have to do anything to help them under the UN Refugee Conventions. Turkey created its own problems for anyone arriving on its territory and trying to claim refugee status. Turkey is a land bridge to Europe and the transit of thousands of people through its territory is problematic. Coupled with that the well established criminal gangs which procure passports and other documents in exchange for large sums of money to anyone who can pay. The same gangs are also involved in transporting people to other European destination like Italy. This traffic is well established, profitable and brings large profits in the millions to such criminals who exploit the poor and those who have no were to turn. This traffic victimize people who are feeling for their lives in this case the Syrians.

Governments are very well aware of this situation and it is very well documented, including the routes taken and who is involved. Sometimes a crackdown will happen and some corrupt Government Official will be arrested, but that is rare.

The people travelling can be separated into two groups, the first are young men under 25 years of age who are economic migrants, they seek to find work in a Western country so they can support their families back home mostly in Africa. The other group are families like the Kurdi who may have relatives in countries in Europe or in North America, in this case Canada. Our Canadian Immigration Act is more welcoming or was prior to 2006, since the Harper Regime has made many changes including closing of Immigration Offices in our Embassies abroad, not hiring Officers for many years in a row, creating a staffing crisis where we have insufficient numbers of people able to do the specialized work required in processing refugee claimants abroad and not funding properly the existing program. In Fiscal Year 2014, some 350 million dollars went unspent and was returned to the Treasury, this is unheard of in this time of tight budgets. This was achieve my the Minister refusing to grant authorization to spend budgets despite the need to.

With the closing of our Canadian Embassy in Damascus four years ago and at the same time the closing of the largest Immigration program in the Levant, suddenly the much smaller Immigration Offices in Beirut and Amman and the one in Ankara had to take up the work. This created enormous chaos with a war in Afghanistan and Irak, since those Offices already had a full work load for their area, one example Amman in Jordan covers Palestine and Irak, now they would be also responsible for part of the Syrian program and the refugees who are in Jordan while also keeping Irak in the loop. They had to manage without any extra staff meaning that the programs grind to a halt.

The Harper Regime is fully aware of the problems in the Middle East and the crisis at hand, however this crisis is being exploited for political ends. We saw it in the case of the Kurdi family drowned at sea. The Prime Minister claims that a war in Syria to eliminate ISIS is the solution to this crisis, what are the civilian population to do, that as he says is not his concern. He also claims that we cannot take refugees from Syria because of security concerns. He mentions the danger of terrorism, of the need to be vigilant, he takes a tone of voice which is paternalistic trying to convince people that he cannot do anything at all. This is all too reminiscent of Europe in the 1930’s and the failed response of Canada then.

What has happened here is an abdication of our International Treaty obligations, we are signatory to treaties which requires that we take action. Yes Canada had until 2006 the most generous refugee program per capita in the world. I remember going to International Conferences where other countries would seek our advice on crisis and follow our example. That no longer happens, in fact countries now pretend we are not in the room at such meetings, we have become an embarrassment. Just last week our Finance Minister Joe Oliver was in Turkey and he boasted to the Media in Canada that he was there to tell the Turks how to fix their financial problems, if only they listened to us they would not be in the mess they are now. Such arrogance and all of it to get a few votes from the extreme Right Wing in Canada, Harper’s base. Me, Joe Oliver the White guy speaking to the little people, a tone which is the trademark of the Harper Regime.

After the unfortunate events of 22 October 2014 in Ottawa, when a soldier was shot at the National War Memorial by a drunk and mentally ill man, who was quickly deemed a terrorist, our PM has been fanning the flames of intolerance, prejudice, racism and xenophobia under the guise of security. It works because he uses the lowest common denominator and fear is a powerful weapon. Mr Harper has made no secret that he hates Arabs and Muslims, in his speeches he constantly equates Islam with terror. He has made numerous speeches about Islamists and Islamiscist a word he likes to use a lot. Even ordinary citizens have been stressed about the topic to the point many believe that terrorists are everywhere in Canada. The world is a dangerous place says Harper so we must be vigilant.

While other countries are developing plans with Germany leading the pack by accepting 800,000 Syrian refugees, we in Canada cannot accept Syrian refugees because they could be terrorists.

Mr Harper has promised complex and lengthy security vetting before anyone is accepted. As if we did not have such procedures now and in the past.  Anyone who is considered for immigration to Canada or as a refugee is vetted for Health and Security it is standard procedure and has always been thus. Even in emergency cases where lives are at risk, a security assessment is made by the Officer at post.

But leave it to Harper to invent new complicated procedures that are needless and unhelpful. His base loves him for it, he is going to save us, they claim, you also hear now from people in his own Caucus how Harper is like Jesus Christ, doing the same work, teaching by example. Oh my, we are ruled by a god, are we far from the North Korean model, I wonder.

Today in an open letter a former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, the one who gave us the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, wrote that Harper had shamed Canada. Yes he has shamed us, we are not the country we were prior to 2006. Harper did say that when he was finished with Canada we would not recognize the country. Well he has succeeded. This debacle with the Refugee Case of the Kurdi family is a clear indication of what is happening. Terry Galvin in an article in the Ottawa Citizen investigated the ministerial paper trail and clearly shows that the Minister of Immigration knew all along about this family and the difficulty they were encountering in trying to claim refugee status. Minister Alexander did nothing, he shamed us. By reading the article I saw what happened and can well imagine how all this could have been avoided, lives saved.

What I find especially painful and very difficult to read is the callous and hateful comments of the bigots who loudly support the action of the Harper Regime. They have no shame, they are motivated by the speeches and ideology of Harper and feel justified in expressing their hatred openly. Some go so far as to lift word for word, phrases and expressions from Nazi ideology, advocating shooting them before they get here, mocking the dead for trying to flee and so on, these people vote for Stephen Harper. What has become of Canada? What have we become, a country of nasty little people. When the current situation is compared to Europe prior to the Second World War and what happened to the Jews and many others who did not fit in the Nazi ideology, these same Harper supporters claim that this is not true. Those saying such things attack their leader Harper and are leftist, liberals or terrorists sympathizers and choose many other violent insults to attack and denigrate opponents.

I dare to hope that Harper and his people will go away come October 19, that we can reclaim our country from such fanatics and reactionary elements. The Leader of the Green Party Elizabeth May said that she is willing to go to the Governor General if Harper is re-elected and ask that he use his Royal Prerogative so a coalition government could be formed. According to the latest polls, the results will be very tight because 3 parties are splitting the vote. However a coalition could prevent Harper from continuing his misrule.  Let’s hope for a better day so that we can reclaim our reputation as a honest broker, peace keeper, an example of stability and social peace in the world.

After the sad events of today in Paris #Je suis Charlie

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by larrymuffin in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

charlie hebdo, France, immigration, integration, islam, ismalists, massacre, Muslisms, Paris, terror, terrorists, values

Like many people I was shocked to hear of the criminal and barbaric act committed at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper which is part of a long tradition in France. The four cartoonists who were assassinated, were not young men, many had long careers behind them. Charlie Hebdo is an old newspaper and it is one where humanist values where upheld. They made fun at the absurdities of life and in the case of religion, attacked the narrow minded. The 3 men who committed this crime, in my mind, are not Muslims, they may want to wrap themselves in the cloak of Islam but I am not buying it.

The comment below will appear tomorrow as an Editorial in the London Times (08-01-2015) I think it is about time our politicians face reality and start thinking about what immigration of masses of people with whom we share little in common really means and their lack of integration into our Society means in everyday life for all of us.

Living in a Western Society is a social contract, this is how our society is built.

David Aaronovitch wrote:

“The problem is, you may think, that even though the vast majority of Muslims would no more kill a cartoonist than a Methodist would, they still don’t quite get our commitment to freedom of speech. When they complain about insults and say they’re angry about this or that being published and want it banned, then they create the permissive fluid in which the violent zealot swims.
So we need to be clear, for everyone’s sake, and at the moment we are anything but. This is the deal for living together. The same tolerance that allows Muslims or Methodists freedom to practise and espouse their religion is the same tolerance that allows their religion or any aspect of it to be depicted, criticised or even ridiculed. Take away one part of the deal and the other part falls too. You live here, that’s what you agree to. You don’t like it, go somewhere else.”

Fans of the Muffin

  • Richard's Left Bank
  • Willy Or Won't He
  • Storie & Archeostorie
  • ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020-23
  • ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2010-20.
  • Philippe Lagassé
  • Moving with Mitchell
  • Palliser Pass
  • Roijoyeux
  • Spo-Reflections
  • KREUZBERGED - BERLIN COMPANION
  • My Secret Journey
  • Routine Proceedings
  • The Historic England Blog
  • Larry Muffin At Home
  • Sailstrait
  • dennisnarratives
  • Prufrock's Dilemma
  • domanidave.wordpress.com/
  • theINFP
  • The Corporate Slave

Blog Stats

  • 126,373 hits

Birthplace of Canada

C1A 1A7, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Follow Larry Muffin At Home on WordPress.com

Archives

  • January 2023 (9)
  • December 2022 (13)
  • November 2022 (10)
  • October 2022 (15)
  • September 2022 (17)
  • August 2022 (10)
  • July 2022 (10)
  • June 2022 (13)
  • May 2022 (11)
  • April 2022 (11)
  • March 2022 (14)
  • February 2022 (9)
  • January 2022 (14)
  • December 2021 (17)
  • November 2021 (12)
  • October 2021 (12)
  • September 2021 (13)
  • August 2021 (10)
  • July 2021 (13)
  • June 2021 (12)
  • May 2021 (12)
  • April 2021 (15)
  • March 2021 (12)
  • February 2021 (11)
  • January 2021 (8)
  • December 2020 (22)
  • November 2020 (16)
  • October 2020 (17)
  • September 2020 (13)
  • August 2020 (17)
  • July 2020 (16)
  • June 2020 (23)
  • May 2020 (24)
  • April 2020 (23)
  • March 2020 (28)
  • February 2020 (20)
  • January 2020 (12)
  • December 2019 (17)
  • November 2019 (15)
  • October 2019 (18)
  • September 2019 (5)
  • August 2019 (9)
  • July 2019 (10)
  • June 2019 (6)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • April 2019 (12)
  • March 2019 (8)
  • February 2019 (7)
  • January 2019 (9)
  • December 2018 (15)
  • November 2018 (6)
  • October 2018 (7)
  • September 2018 (6)
  • August 2018 (7)
  • July 2018 (7)
  • June 2018 (6)
  • May 2018 (10)
  • April 2018 (7)
  • March 2018 (7)
  • February 2018 (5)
  • January 2018 (11)
  • December 2017 (19)
  • November 2017 (13)
  • October 2017 (20)
  • September 2017 (12)
  • August 2017 (11)
  • July 2017 (24)
  • June 2017 (17)
  • May 2017 (24)
  • April 2017 (23)
  • March 2017 (21)
  • February 2017 (22)
  • January 2017 (23)
  • December 2016 (19)
  • November 2016 (21)
  • October 2016 (25)
  • September 2016 (4)
  • August 2016 (15)
  • July 2016 (13)
  • June 2016 (13)
  • May 2016 (8)
  • April 2016 (21)
  • March 2016 (17)
  • February 2016 (30)
  • January 2016 (23)
  • December 2015 (36)
  • November 2015 (23)
  • October 2015 (26)
  • September 2015 (22)
  • August 2015 (15)
  • July 2015 (21)
  • June 2015 (27)
  • May 2015 (17)
  • April 2015 (16)
  • March 2015 (15)
  • February 2015 (12)
  • January 2015 (21)
  • December 2014 (4)

Blog Stats

  • 126,373 hits

Blog at WordPress.com.

Richard's Left Bank

Books, whimsey & political satire (views of news from those that snooze)

Willy Or Won't He

So Many Years of Experience But Still Making Mistakes!

Storie & Archeostorie

Notiziario di storia, arte e archeologia (©2010-)

ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2020-23

ROME - THE IMPERIAL FORA: SCHOLARLY RESEARCH & RELATED STUDIES.

ROMA ARCHEOLOGIA e RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA 2010-20.

ROME – THE IMPERIAL FORA: SCHOLARLY RESEARCH & RELATED STUDIES.

Philippe Lagassé

In Defence of Westminster

Moving with Mitchell

Jerry and I get around. In 2011, we moved from the USA to Spain. We now live near Málaga. Jerry y yo nos movemos. En 2011, nos mudamos de EEUU a España. Ahora vivimos cerca de Málaga.

Palliser Pass

Stories, Excerpts, Backroads

Roijoyeux

... Soyons... Joyeux !!!

Spo-Reflections

To live is to battle with trolls in the vaults of heart and brain. To write; this is to sit in judgment over one's Self. Henrik Ibsen

KREUZBERGED - BERLIN COMPANION

Everything You Never Knew You Wanted to Know About Berlin

My Secret Journey

The road I have traveled to get to where I am today.

Routine Proceedings

The adventures of a Press Gallery journalist

The Historic England Blog

Larry Muffin At Home

Remembering that life is a comedy and the world is a small town.

Sailstrait

Telling the stories of the history of the port of Charlottetown and the marine heritage of Northumberland Strait on Canada's East Coast. Winner of the Heritage Award from the PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation and a Heritage Preservation Award from the City of Charlottetown

dennisnarratives

Stories in words and pictures

Prufrock's Dilemma

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.

domanidave.wordpress.com/

Procrastination is the sincerest form of optimism

theINFP

I aim to bring delight to others by sharing my creative endeavours

The Corporate Slave

A mix of corporate and private life experiences

  • Follow Following
    • Larry Muffin At Home
    • Join 538 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Larry Muffin At Home
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...