To the real conservatives out there

Let's call him Don (not his real name). 

We had run into each other almost daily for months, but he had never spoken to me.  The other day he finally addressed me: "So, what is your nationality?"  having overheard his conversations with my non-visible-minority colleagues, I had some idea of his Reform-Party-oriented mindset, so I just said: "Canadian."  This not being the kind of answer he wanted, he said: "Yes, you're a Canadian now, but what is your real nationality?"  I just repeated my original answer.  Given the chance, though, I would have told him:

Yes, Don, I do have a dual nationality.  But I want you to get to know me as a person first, and then as an immigrant.  Don't you, Don, want people to know you as a person first?  Don't you want to be judged according to the values you uphold, rather than the place you happened to be born?

Don, you are worried that immigration is diluting what you think of as Canadian values.  I know you love this country, and you are concerned about its future.  So I dearly wish you will try to understand what I'm trying to tell you.  That's because I think you, as a conservative, can contribute to saving the real Canadian values.

The real Canadian values, it seems to me, are centered around the idea of peace.  And peacefulness goes hand-in-hand with tolerance.  There are few nations more tolerant of differences than Canadians.  The Canadian people's willingness, and even eagerness, to listen to people with opinions different from their own is a precious quality.

An enlightening way of looking at Canadian values is to compare them with American ones: the rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.  Canadian values are all of these and more, but in each case tempered with tolerance and equity.  Unhampered individualism is un-Canadian.  Communal peace and social equity define Canada.

So you see, Don, I think a concern with equity is just as much a part of being Canadian as a concern with social peace and harmony.  If you are worried about the deterioration of communal peace and harmony in Canada, you should realize that the deterioration of the other half of the equation, social equity, is partly to blame.  Some powers-that-be are even trying to take away medicare and unemployment insurance.  They want to discourage average working people from immigrating to Canada.  I think you, as a conservative, should try to do something about it.

By pushing people like me away from you, Don, you are serving neither peace nor equity.  If you join the rest of us and embrace peace and equity, you would in fact be confirming Canada.  Canada has been receptive to immigrants and refugees because it is Canada.  A Canada that rejects them would no longer be the Canada that you know and love.