Harry Stemp was born in Uxbridge in 1934. He started his career with the Uxbridge Times-Journal as an apprentice typesetter at age 14. He soon began writing sports for the Times-Journal and eventually owned 10 community newspapers in central Ontario including the Times-Journal. He started writing his award-winning Stemp’s Stew in 1965. The column came to an end shortly after he sold his newspaper chain in 1989, but was rejuvenated in 2006 when Harry became a regular contributor to The Cosmos.
Multicultural integration
Raising salaries of councillors right after they have been elected is often a very controversial item with taxpayers, and whether or not the recently announced wage increases will sit well with residents remains to be seen.
Having said that, I must commend Mayor O'Connor for the way she handled this touchy subject. She saw a need for the ward councillors to receive a well-deserved raise without raising the hair of taxpayers by reaching into the shallow pot, for she and Regional Councillor Jack Ballinger are well looked after with pay cheques from both Uxbridge and Regional Council.
Having been around municipal councils for most of my life, I know the amount of hard work that goes in to serving their communities well. While being busy with municipal business through the day, they often don't know what it is like to have an evening or weekend off to spend with family and friends. Dividing the hours they spend dealing with council work into their annual salary, one councillor told me a while back that he was working on behalf of the people of Uxbridge for about 35 cents an hour.
So why do they do it, you ask? Mostly because they enjoy serving their community and trying to make a difference in improving the quality of life we enjoy in Uxbridge.
There is never a right way for council to raise salaries. I have always advocated that council salaries should be adjusted by the council that is heading into an election. They know the work load they have just gone through and have a good idea of fair compensation for serving. They also don't benefit from the increased salary unless they are re-elected. This always seemed fair to me as voters could decide whether they deserved the increase and to be re-elected.
This didn't happen in this case, but Mayor O'Connor found a fair and, in my view, acceptable way to take care of ward councillors and, hopefully, ratepayers will also see it as well-deserved.
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When the late Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau decided that multiculturalism was a great thing for Canada, I'm sure he did not envision the disaster it would create for our country as it has created for countries around the world.
Over the years we have bent over backwards to welcome people from around the world, with no demand that they develop the Canadian way of life and our value system. On the contrary they have brought all of their customs and most have not only refused to integrate into the Canadian way of life which, by the way, is respected around the world, but they expect us to change.
Most Canadians are fed up with what has, and is, happening with our immigration system and want the government to take steps to tighten up our immigration laws. It's also happening in other countries, some of which are finally taking steps to make sure that newcomers are not welcome unless they are prepared to adapt.
According to news reports the Netherlands, where six per cent of the population is now Muslim, is scrapping multiculturalism. The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands. A new integration bill, which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people.”
In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society. The letter continues: "A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore in the Netherlands."
The new integration policy will place more demands on immigrants. For example, immigrants will be required to learn the Dutch language, and the government will take a tougher approach to immigrants who ignore Dutch values or disobey Dutch law. The government will also stop offering special subsidies for Muslim immigrants because, according to Donner, "it is not the government's job to integrate immigrants."
The government will introduce new legislation that outlaws forced marriages and will also impose tougher measures against Muslim immigrants who lower their chances of employment by the way they dress. More specifically, the government will impose a ban on face-covering Islamic burqas as of January 1, 2013. Holland has done that whole liberal thing, and realised - maybe too late - that creating a nation of tribes will kill the nation itself. Australia's future may well be read here.
It was noted that Muslim immigrants leave their countries of birth because of civil and political unrest created by the very nature of their culture. Countries like Holland have an established way of life that actually works, so why embrace the unworkable? If Muslims do not wish to accept another culture, the answer according to the Dutch government on January 1, 2013 is simple - stay where you are!
Hopefully the Canadian government will carefully watch this move by the Dutch government and how it plays out. There is no doubt that the same thing needs to be done in all of North America - not just Canada.
The question is whether or not the presently elected government want to go down in history as the government who saved the Canadian way of life or the government who sat back and twiddled their thumbs while the valued and respected Canadian way of life went the way of the dodo bird.
