I sent this letter March 20th, the day after the editor of the St Catharines Standard gushed all over the recomendations of the Mayor's committee. It seems like the whole city is trying to bend over backwards to curry favor with the forces of political correctness in this city.
The letter was published in the Standard March 31st. The editor left out a few sentences, but all the main points are still there. Now we just have to wait for Ms Azzeh's reply. I'll post it here as soon as it goes in the paper.
I see from your editorial of March 19th that you've come out 100% in support of the new anti-racism committee at city hall. What I want to know is, what exactly does this new committee think it can do? Is it going to investigate criminal activity? I thought we had a police force for that. If criminal acts occur, criminal sanctions should apply.
The latest police statistics indicate there are about 100 crimes a day in Regional Niagara. In the last four years (according to Ms Azzeh), there have been ABOUT SIXTY bias/hate (race) crimes in our city. This works out to less than half of one tenth of one percent of all crimes in our region. Put another way, for every hate crime that occurs, there were 2433 "non-racial" crimes. That doesn't seem like much of a wave of race crime to me.
So, if the committee isn't about criminal activity, what will it do. It will challenge "non-criminal" bias. Hmmmm. What does that mean. It means that the committee will investigate and challenge any interaction between people that doesn't measure up to its standards of acceptable behaviour. Here is one example: a student gives another student the "evil eye". That second student perceives it as racially motivated. Will the committee investigate and challenge this "racial incident"? Will the council publically identify these evil racists? Will we have a "racist of the week" contest? Perhaps the council can put a stocks on the city hall front lawn, and the worst racist each week can be pillaried.
This committee is an example of political correctness run amuck. Every interaction between people of different races will have to be carefully conducted, lest you fall under the gaze of the race committee. They will investigate and analyze, and if your conduct doesn't measure up, you will be declared a RACIST!
St. Catharines is a decent and honourable place to live. To declare our city a hotbed of racism is an insult and disgrace. The anti-racism industry cares nothing for reality, they merely want to perpetuate their own existance and agenda. It is a terrible shame that the Mayor and City Council have been caught up in this charade. As usual, it is the taxpayer who will foot the bill for this folly.