Canada: On the incline or decline?

There was a time when, according to Edward Gibbon’s history of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, “Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind.” It had a powerful and unified system of laws and manners that cemented provinces of the Empire into a realm that enjoyed an incredible level of peace.

Gibbon pointed to a singular major cause, moral decay as the precursor for decline in the Western Roman Empire. He provided evidence of this moral decline speaking about things like the failure of the patriarchal society, sexual perversity, infanticide, high levels of divorce, violent entertainment in the Coliseums, political corruption, the loss of a national work ethic, and ultra-multiculturalism, where Rome lost its core identity.

Some historians, like Arnold Toynbee and James Burke, have argued that the seeds of decline and failure were there right from the Empire’s inception. They portray Rome as a plundering economy that was based on the military looting existing resources rather than producing anything new, a system that was entitlement based and dependent upon importing slaves from the far corners of the Empire to do work they did not want to do.

Others point to decline as an accumulation of many causes coming together in a very short time. Students of the Empire describe the corporate impact of everything from deforestation, inflation, barbarian invasion, and urban decay to political corruption, disease and plagues, and military over-extension. Smallpox itself killed close to half the population which resulted in less capability to support the tax base and other necessary institutions.

Some see Christianity’s emergence as a cause of empiric failure, as many Roman citizens adopted pacifism and refused to protect the Empire. However, others saw Christianity as the stabilizing force for the Empire, as the Eastern Empire continued to exist close to 1,000 years longer than the West, mostly due to this unifying religious influence.

The immigration tragedy

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was on the hot seat this week regarding his review of immigration laws. First, he invoked a new regulation requiring new Canadian women of Muslim descent to show their faces while taking the oath of citizenship. This requirement was not considered onerous in that an open face is required to obtain driver’s licenses. A quick review of this demonstrates clearly that this regulation is not a violation of religious freedom as much as it is a challenge to culture.

Then, he ordered a crackdown on immigration fraud. Apparently, people have been using crooked immigration consultants to construct fake evidence of residency in Canada, and close to 6,500 people have now been linked to this fraudulent behaviour. This investigation may wind up exposing one of the biggest citizenship scams in our short history.

History hasn’t been that kind to Canada’s sense of responsibility towards those in need of refuge. In 1939, PM Mackenzie King rejected the SS St. Louis, a ship carrying 937 Jewish passengers who were desperately seeking refuge from the horrors of Nazism in Europe. He commented that “it is not a Canadian problem” and that “as far as he was concerned the admission of refugees perhaps posed a greater menace to Canada…than did Hitler.”

This moment has been portrayed in history books as the “voyage of the damned.” The mentality of many in our nation toward immigration then was that “none was too many.” That response, or lack of compassion, remains a dark spot on one of the pages of our nation’s history. It is vital that any residue of that attitude be wiped from our minds and hearts.

Canada likes to see itself as a sanctuary for the oppressed, but this view of ourselves may be at risk. In November 2000 Canadian clergy apologized for sending the ship back to its country of origin which led to their deaths, but as far as I know there has never been an official government apology for the rejection of the St. Louis, although a memorial for the Jewish refugees was unveiled on January 20, 2011 in Halifax at Pier 21.