len cultures collide

THE DEBATE over new
immigrants is becoming
more heated as lmmigration
Minister Sergio Marchi digs
himself deeper and deeper
into a hole, refusing to slow
the tide of a quarter of a
million people barging into
this country every year.

Marchi makes an idiat of him-
seif by saying stupid things like
“Fan out!” to new arrivals, as if
they are going tu go anywhere
except where they mainly always
go, namely Vancouver, Montreal
and Toronto, where the support
systenis, the welfare and health
benefits, language training, ethnic
and religious organizations, state-
subsidized ghettoes and court inter-
preters are to be found.

I found this oul for myself
recently when my son wound up in
a Toronto court, squaring off
against a gang of Iranian Muslim
boys who were charged with
attempting to beat up my son and
his girlfriend, whe is also an
Iranian Mustim.

The charges laid against the
cight boys were for uttering death
threats and for “racially motivated
assault” against my son because, in
their view, he wasn’t a member of
the right race and religion to be
going out with his girlfriend.

Ina word, he’s an infidel, and
these budding little ayatollahs were
out to stop him from having any-
thing to do with a Muslim girl,
and, more to the point, trying to
terrorize her into having nothing to
do with my son.

I must say that school officials
and the police acted swiftly after
the first outbreak of violence. The
chief culprit of the gang was
promptly kicked out of the school
and ordered to stay 200 metres

- away.

His buddies were all put or
notice that they were n-.t if any-
thing like this happened again.

t's hard iv knew how the
courts would have performed if we
had gone to trial, because the legal
aid system kicked in so swiftly it
was enough to take your breath
away.

While my wife and I were still
debating whether it was even
worth retaining a lawyer for our
son, the other kids involved, appar-
ently being somewhat more experi-
enced in these matters, immediate-

STRICTLY PERSONAL

ly applied for their free legal aid
lawyers, who promptly turned
around and counter-sued my son,
accusing him of having attacked
three boys at once!

This is a routine legal manocu-
vre that didn't amaze me, What did
amaze me was that the first thing
the lawyer P hired saie vas: “File
for legal aid.”

“But | don't need legal aid. We
can pay. t want the best lawyer |
can get.”

“You don't understand,” he
insisted, “Fll have to charge you
$1,000. This way, legal aid pays
for $600 of it.”

Great. So here they all were,
some nine boys in all, including
my son, heading into court, each
with a lawyer being paid out of
taxpayers’ money.

My son appeared in court no
less than five times before we even
got'to the point of the judge decid-
ing whether there should be a trial.

Three months passed from the
initial laying of the charges until
our first appearance, with the sub-
sequent appearances spread out
over another two months.

Rather than go through the pro-
longed agony of a trial that could
take three full days — over a
‘schoolyard fight! — we opted to
drop the charges in exchange for
the boys all signing $500 peace
bonds, promising to stay away
from my son and his girlfriend for
15 months.

During our return trips to the
court in response to the phony
counter-suit, I couldn’t help natic-
ing that the majority of the accused

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around as Were, Indeed, new
arrivals in this country, or at least
they didivt speak Haytish.

Court cases were routinely pul
over and the accused released on
their own recognizinees until some-
ohe could aringe fora court inter:
preter, also, you nriy be sure, paid
lor by the Gaxpayer.

Ih was disconcerting to see for
oneself how mary “visible minori-
ties” Were represented in the court
rognit or lined up inthe halls, wity
outof proportion to their numbers
in Canadian society at large,

Creport thts because, having
seen it, Peart deny the evidence
of my senses. And. in case you
were wondering, Ehave been a
reporter for 44 years. Tean count.
And [can ob erve.

This is all very vopleasant staff,
the dark side of the ideology of
malhticultucalism,

[suspect one has to see inside
the courts for onescl! to realize just
how swiftly and profoundly this
country is being changed by a
flood of immigrants ill-prepared or
unwilling to piay by our cules.

Having said all this, my purpose
in writing this column is to get toa
related anecdote, still concerning
my son and his experience of the
multicultural educational scene.

He was doing terribly in math,
so we decided he needed a tutor.
My wife got on the phone and
started calling around.

I think she finally connected
with some student employment
registry, and was eventually put in
touch with a young woman with a
degree in math.

My wife, an engineer, decided
after a long talk on the phone with
the prospective tutor that this was
somebody who knew her stuff, The
young scholar was invited over.

The punchline is that she turned
out to be black. And not only was
she black, but she had becn born in
Jamaica, the country that is always
singled out in media stories from
Toronto as the worst single con-
tributor to immigrant crime.

She proved to be an excellent
tutor. My son passed his math with
his best marks ever.

And my point is that while I,
too, believe current immigration
levels are far too high. let’s not
make the mistake of thinking that
just because a lot of immigrants do
screw up, that there aren’t also an
awful lot of whom it’s great to
have aboard.

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