Pride2.html

HOW UNIQUE IS CANADA: A CONTEXTUALIZED APPROACH How unique is Canada among the community of nations? My thesis is that Canada is not unique at all and is not very different from the United States. Let me run a couple of statistics by you to show that Canada is not unique at all or different from the United States. There have been legitimately elected female Prime Ministers in Israel, India, Dominica, Pakistan, Ireland, Britain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In Canada the only female prime minister was a caretaker prime minister who was not legitimately elected and only stayed for a very short time. There have been more female judges in the Supreme Court of Zambia (my native land) and were appointed earlier than in Canada. The U.S. appointed the first female justice to their Supreme Court earlier than Canada. The U.S. appointed their first Black justice to the Supreme Court in 1967. Canada has not done that. Ontario just appointed its first two minority justices to the Court of Appeal just this century, in fact, just last year in 2004. The U.S. initially had abolished the death penalty in 1972, four years ahead of Canada. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized a woman's fight to choose in matters of abortion fifteen years before Canada did. The U.S. permitted challenge for racial cause decades before Canada did. The U.S. permits the challenge of the entire array of jurors. Canada does not in the strictest sense. Many U.S. political and legal jurisdictions have acknowledged that racial profiling is systemic and have taken legal and political steps to stem it. No legal or political jurisdiction in Canada has accepted that racial profiling is a problem in Canada. The biggest police force in Canada - the Toronto Police - is dithering. Has Canada treated its Aboriginal, Black, Chinese, Japanese, South Asians and other minorities differently than from the U.S.? If you say yes, then you do not know the history of Canada or the history of the U.S. Try to read books by Professor Nancy Backhouse and various commissions of inquiry on Blacks and Aboriginals. It is in the context of comparative country and historical analysis that the concept of "legal professionalism" in Canada will mean anything at all. Otherwise it is like blowing in the wind.

I have never seen some thing quite like that discriminatory treatment for no basis whatsoever. I have passed through Europe and there are a lot of airports that have two lines: one for European Union citizens and one for Non-European Union Citizens, but both lines move quickly and there is no basis for complaining. But in Brazil, there is only one line and citizens are called at random intervals to be processed ahead of non-citizens. This can be very vexing, taxing and annoying when you are hungry, it is hot, you have been traveling for nine hours and there is no justification for it.

In South Africa, I discovered that there are two lines as well: one for "South African and other citizens of African countries" and one for "Citizens of other countries". Both lines were moving quite fast. There is no basis for complaining there as well.

In Zambia, there are three lines, one for Zambian Residents, one for Non-residents and the third for diplomats. All lines were moving fast. I had no cause to complain.

I cherish being a Canadian Citizen where there in no discrimination at the point of entry or departure from Canada. Racial profiling is in another category all together and it is the subject of litigation which merits another article. The Brazilian practice and other discriminatory practices will be the subject of a UN complaint. Non-citizenship should not be the basis of unequal and discriminatory treatment for no justification whatsoever. In the meantime, Canada must be applauded for treating or attempting to treat all citizens of the world equally at its borders.