Montreal, November 15, 2008 • No 261

  

OPINION

 

Randy Hillier is MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) for Lanark Frontenac, Lennox & Addington (Ontario).
 
 

DIVERSITY'S COLOUR
– A HUE OF UNIFORMITY
 

by Randy Hillier

          As Canada becomes more diverse in certain ways, we are increasingly cornering our minds into a collectivist cage of consensus, where vocabulary and reason are shackled in public discourse. Immigration of people from other cultures ought to increase our knowledge and expand our perspective, but not if we hold our freedoms captive while unlocking the doors of morality with relativism.
 

          The true value of diversity in Canadian society is being fraudulently coloured by politicians of all shades and tinted in our legislatures, courts, schools, and media. Diversity is a many-splendored thing, but when it is limited to multiculturalism, skin colour, language, and exotic restaurants that are visible in society, its real value is demeaned and destroyed. Although Canadians see diversity of race, creed, colour, and gender as valuable and essential, we often punish diverse opinions using courts, tribunals, and political correctness. Clearly, our insistence upon consensus is depriving Canadians of practical public policy and individual freedoms, and clouding our understanding of moral rights and wrongs within society.
 

Stifling Dissent

          It is a timeless natural law that freedom of thought is the prime mover of human progress and prosperity. Each and every advance in human history is the result of an individual's challenge of the status quo. History is nothing but a portrait of people who battled for advancement with their ideas. People like Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein in science, and Aristotle, Jefferson, and Churchill in politics, raised the bar for all of mankind. They battled conventional thinking and policy with new ideas and opinions, and they were proved either right or wrong by the test of time. Had they succumbed to the conformity and consensus of the day, far fewer apples would have fallen from the tree of knowledge.

          Although society finds value in diversity of colour and creed, we increasingly view diversity of thought and opinion as bordering upon the criminal. Just ask Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, MacLean's magazine, or the many others who have faced the inquisition of our Human Rights Tribunals. These examples illustrate that to publicly challenge the validity of diversity politics is to bring forth the wrath and vengeance of progressive tribunals, and to be stereotyped and marginalized by pundits in the press. These same progressives who profit from and jealously guard their own freedom of expression are first in line to attack others with their legal hypocrisy.
 

"Although society finds value in diversity of colour and creed, we increasingly view diversity of thought and opinion as bordering upon the criminal."


          In addition, while faulty public policies proliferate based on incomplete science and a misunderstanding of responsibility, our freedom to challenge these policies diminishes. To question the crisis of climate change is to blaspheme against the green prophets of Gaia; to challenge the public monopoly in healthcare with private competition is a universal taboo; the only safe place to oppose polygamy or Sharia law is in a darkened closet; and while expressing enthusiasm for racial inclusion, we build segregated afro-centric schools. It is indisputable that public policies that rely on the shield of political correctness do so because they cannot withstand the challenge of logic, experience, and rational discourse.
 

Shining a Light on Foolish Policies

          As more Canadians are killed every year in Toronto than in the Afghan war, poverty industry politicians blame the gun instead of the murderer. Ontario's government wages a phony war on poverty, which it blames for street violence, shying away from any consideration of immorality. While police create special gun and gang units to combat the real war, the government issues another welfare check which the impoverished combatants will use to buy more ammo. The war on drugs parallels the poverty war, offering government-sponsored safe injections sites, crack pipe giveaways, and free needles, while courtrooms are filled with those who buy their own drugs, but get caught. Of course, only racists and bigots would speak with such frankness on these subjects. By induction we can see that government's promotion of diversity leads to a universal policy of contradictions and hypocrisy.

          It is surely the ultimate paradox of progressivism, that it demands open hearts for a multitude of people from various backgrounds, ethnicities, and faiths, but demands closed minds for contrary opinions and opposing views.

          All public policies and opinions must be freely challenged from all corners and come under the scrutiny of millions of free and inquisitive minds. Should they withstand this assault of reason, we will be able to have some confidence that the opinion is fact and the public policy is the best that mankind can attain at the time. Only then will we be able to have any confidence that Canada is on the path to freedom, justice, and prosperity, and not just painting a surreal social landscape lacking in perspective.
 
 

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