May 11, 2003: Jumping To The Front Of The Employment Line At The CBC And Elsewhere In Canada

Ms. Lorna Haeber
Executive Producer
Information Programming
Radio One
CBC Vancouver

Dear Ms. Haeber:

Here are some comments about an interview on CBC’s The Early Edition. As part of Asian Heritage Month, the host was interviewing a woman who was describing a play being put on by a group of Chinese actors. In the course of her description, the woman commented that Chinese (and Asians in general) were under-represented in Vancouver live theatre. The host did not react to the woman’s comment, so here are a few reactions:

(1) If the woman was born here and was commenting on the condition of herself and other actors/actresses also born here, her comments might be justified. However, I suspect she is referring to the fact that Asians now compose a large part of the Greater Vancouver population—- largely because of unprecedentedly-high federal immigration numbers. If she is saying that these new people should suddenly be given priority in hiring by local live theatres—again, largely because of the flood of them that have arrived in the last dozen years—-she should have been challenged by the host.

(2) Who does she think she is to suggest that Canadians should allow these newcomers to jump to the front of the line simply because they now make up a large percentage of the population? What gives newcomers the right to push Canadians out of their places in the employment line-up? What gives newcomers the right, in effect, to demand an instantaneous and equal share in the country’s resources?

(3) If the host had prepared himself well for this interview, he would have been aware that many of these newcomers were never even needed by Canada and that their presence here is largely the result of the high-jacking of Canada’s immigration policies by Canada’s immigration industry. In other words, the question he should have asked her was the following: “Doesn’t it add insult to injury to force Canadians to give up their places in the employment line to many people who were never even required by the country and whose presence here is largely the result of the avarice of the immigration industry?”

(4) As can be easily seen, the CBC has already followed this woman’s wishes in its own hiring policies. It would be very interesting indeed for the CBC to disclose why it has hired many of the people it has hired in the last five years. I suspect that the CBC, like a number of other employers, has been quick to fall on its knees to give employment to members of the flood in order to be politically correct. Simultaneously, it, and other like employers, has discriminated against its own citizens. This is completely unacceptable behaviour from a crown agency which is supposed to stand (not fall down on its knees to curry favour with newcomer groups) when Canada’s citizens and Canada’s sovereignty have to be protected.

Have an enlightened day.