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Reading this reminded me of an exchange I had at a recent political gathering where a handful of gay Iranian dissidents complained to me about the current influx of immigrants coming from Iran. While it’s near impossible to quantify, they said that back in the 1980s and 1990s people came to Canada from Iran to escape what was happening there. They fully opposed the backwards cultural mores then on the rise.

But in recent years, they claim, we’ve seen some people come here from Iran who are more OK with it, who even support it. The very cultural mindsets immigrants to Canada were escaping are now being imported to Canada.

We need to have a conversation about these sorts of issues. It just won’t do to brush it all under the rug. It won’t do to confuse talk about culture with talk about race and mindlessly bleat out accusations of racism. And it certainly won’t do to browbeat anyone into silence for making these points, regardless of whether they’re poorly worded or not.

Yet the pearl-clutching response to Bernier’s posts has been lacking nuance and has seen a rush to the guillotine. There are now petitions calling for Bernier to be booted from caucus for stating what a majority of not just party members but all Canadians no doubt back to some degree. (There are already non-scientific online polls on mainstream news sites backing him.)

The condemnation even came from within his own party. Conservative MP Michelle Rempel wrote that “equally as threatening to our pluralism as Trudeau’s lack of ability to maintain a planned immigration system, is those who make claims that Canada is become a ghettoized state, infers that Canada is no longer a functioning pluralism, without data to suppose the same.”