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The word “immigrant” is slowly emerging as a slur among the fringes of Canada’s right-wing. This creeping phenomenon reminds me of the term “Paki-bashing” that was still in vogue in 1976 when I first visited Canada as a young TV reporter covering the Montreal Olympics.

Those dark days are well-documented by Tanya Sabena Khan in her 2012 PhD thesis at McGill University. She documents an article in the Globe and Mail on Oct. 7, 1976, headlined: “Unprovoked Racial Attack.”

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It was a story by Stan Oziewicz who reported: “Two youths shoved a Pakistani fellow over the lip of the Islington subway platform.”

The victim, Shamshudin Kanji, was actually a 49-year-old Tanzanian immigrant.

Kanji was beaten and kicked on the platform by Steven Ingram, 22, and Thomas Allan Grimsdale, 19, while a third young man shouted “push the Paki.” Ingram responded by pushing Kanji off the platform onto the wood cover on the electrified third rail.