BC Lags Behind Other Provinces in Life Satisfaction

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by blankall

You don't even have to go that far...the true paradise that is Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge is only about a 5 minute drive from PoCo.

But yes, as soon as you leave Vancouver and Victoria, BC can be pretty racist pretty quick. Much worse than anything I've seen in Alberta. This sign in PoCo doesn't surprise me at all. Neither does it surprise me that people would move to one of the most racially diverse cities in the world and demand that it be less racially diverse.

Even Poco was pretty much a "white" city 20-25 years ago. The demographics now seem pretty much on par with the rest of the LML now. My kid goes to school in Poco and we do a lot of community center activities. Her class is probably less than 50% white kids and when we do community center stuff, she is often one of the only white kids there. Not that I care or anything, but it is pretty amazing how quickly the demographics of Poco have changed over the years.

If white people really want to self-segregate, the way to do it is to learn a non-English language that non-whites are unlikely to know, then have your functions in those languages. For example, the daycare that is across the street from where we live is a bilingual Farsi daycare. They don't specifically say no one else can get in, but it is pretty obvious that they want one type of people there.

[Galakanokis]

I was waiting for that one to show up here. Yeah, pretty disgusting but not really surprising. These feelings are everywhere and certain #######s have embolden hateful, awful thinking for years now. Hell, one was president and one might be premiere soon.

Thankfully I don't see it around where I live and the kids go to school. And the kids don't see it anyways. Colour, race, background, sexual orientation, identity. None of it. Just us dip#### parents do.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Even Poco was pretty much a "white" city 20-25 years ago. The demographics now seem pretty much on par with the rest of the LML now. My kid goes to school in Poco and we do a lot of community center activities. Her class is probably less than 50% white kids and when we do community center stuff, she is often one of the only white kids there. Not that I care or anything, but it is pretty amazing how quickly the demographics of Poco have changed over the years.

If white people really want to self-segregate, the way to do it is to learn a non-English language that non-whites are unlikely to know, then have your functions in those languages. For example, the daycare that is across the street from where we live is a bilingual Farsi daycare. They don't specifically say no one else can get in, but it is pretty obvious that they want one type of people there.

Fair enough. The demographic stats I was looking at didn't consider age. The stats for children are likely totally different than those for the whole population.

That being said, why would anyone want their children to be surrounded only by kids that look like them? I can understand the apprehension in some areas of Richmond, for example, where the kids may be communicating primarily in a language other than English, as the only English speaking child may be lonely and excluded. You aren't going to see those same issues in PoCo.

[chemgear]

https://vancouversun.com/news/drug-u...-drug-purchase

During question period on Tuesday, B.C. United MLA Mike de Jong said the Drug User Liberation Front is using cryptocurrency to buy drugs from organized crime sources online which amounts to “taxpayer-funded drug trafficking.”

The MLA for Abbotsford West demanded a forensic audit of “every penny” that went to the group and to the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, which has also handed out tested drugs.

Whiteside refused to tell reporters whether she knew that the Drug User Liberation Front was buying illegal drugs, despite those activities being widely publicized for more than a year.

[FlamesAddiction]

I don't know if this is happening in Alberta, but in BC, there is a pretty strong movement to remove Christmas from public schools.

My kid's elementary school in the Coquitlam District, cancelled the yearly Christmas concert. I guess I missed the memo, but apparently the school received some feedback from the community and decided it would be more appropriate to remove Christmas from the school and have a Winter Concert instead. My sister who works for the Burnaby school board said they received the same directive to tone down Christmas because some people are bothered by it.

I went to see my kid's concert today and it was so dull. No Christmas decorations. They had a few snowflakes and fake evergreen trees, undecorated. The song list included classics like; Take Me Out To The Ball Game, Raindrops Are Falling On My Head, Let It Go, Bon Journee, Thunder by Imagine Dragons; Umbrella by Rhianna, some random Celtic song about rain. Oh, and some really bizarre interpretive dancing that confused me.

Anything Christmas was off limits. I get avoiding anything with a religious undertone, but not even Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer... heck, not eve Frosty the Snowman. They did have a class do some Indigenous themed drumming, which I can appreciate working that into the curriculum as much as possible, but it also seemed like cultural appropriation.

[Winsor_Pilates]

That sucks, school fail.
I sure hope my son gets Christmas fun when he's old enough for school, it's the best.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I don't know if this is happening in Alberta, but in BC, there is a pretty strong movement to remove Christmas from public schools.

My kid's elementary school in the Coquitlam District, cancelled the yearly Christmas concert. I guess I missed the memo, but apparently the school received some feedback from the community and decided it would be more appropriate to remove Christmas from the school and have a Winter Concert instead. My sister who works for the Burnaby school board said they received the same directive to tone down Christmas because some people are bothered by it.

I went to see my kid's concert today and it was so dull. No Christmas decorations. They had a few snowflakes and fake evergreen trees, undecorated. The song list included classics like; Take Me Out To The Ball Game, Raindrops Are Falling On My Head, Let It Go, Bon Journee, Thunder by Imagine Dragons; Umbrella by Rhianna, some random Celtic song about rain. Oh, and some really bizarre interpretive dancing that confused me.

Anything Christmas was off limits. I get avoiding anything with a religious undertone, but not even Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer... heck, not eve Frosty the Snowman. They did have a class do some Indigenous themed drumming, which I can appreciate working that into the curriculum as much as possible, but it also seemed like cultural appropriation.

Seems like the new fad/way things are going.

https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/en/resou...us-intolerance

[Wormius]

I wonder how much Yoho paid for chemgear's account.

[FlamesAddiction]

I think the religion aspect is part of it, and maybe a big part, but not the only part. There is also the materialism that some people are offended by. People who have no interest in participating in Christmas feel pressured to spend money and accommodating their kids so that they feel like they fit in. With cost of living being what it is these days, I think some people want to cancel it for that reason.

Just my opinion or gut feeling, but I think there are those who don't like it because they are offended by the religious connection (which is pretty loose or meaningless to most people who celebrate it, but maybe not to those who don't celebrate it), but also the expensive nature of the holiday.

[GGG]

Christmas is currently a non-religious holiday unrelated to the religious holiday of the same name that is celebrated by some at the same time.

Things should be added to encourage multiculturalism not removed. Incorporate other winter traditions into a Christmas concert not make the thing bland and boring.

That school could have at least done Frosty, Winter wonderland, Jingle Bells, and other winter songs with no reference to Christmas in them.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I think the religion aspect is part of it, and maybe a big part, but not the only part. There is also the materialism that some people are offended by. People who have no interest in participating in Christmas feel pressured to spend money and accommodating their kids so that they feel like they fit in. With cost of living being what it is these days, I think some people want to cancel it for that reason.

Just my opinion or gut feeling, but I think there are those who don't like it because they are offended by the religious connection (which is pretty loose or meaningless to most people who celebrate it, but maybe not to those who don't celebrate it), but also the expensive nature of the holiday.

Not everyone needs to be catered to.

[blender]

I just asked my two daughters (11 and 13, different schools) and was somewhat surprised to hear that indeed, Christmas is not a thing. It's the holidays, and there is no reference to Christmas itself.

The interesting thing is that neither of them is bothered by this. The holidays are fun, everyone is included; dad, why are you asking?

I was just at a Catholic funeral, and I was reminded just how ritualistic and creepy Catholic service truly is if you are not indoctrinated. On reflection I honestly have no problem taking Christ out of the holidays in the public sphere.

It feels weird and I get the angst about living the change, but societal change is destabilizing. I'm going to roll with it

[cam_calderon]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, just ban all religion. Get rid of it. Now.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by cam_calderon

I've said it before and I'll say it again, just ban all religion. Get rid of it. Now.

Ahahahahaha!!



I know that all religions have done some heinous crap over their time, but they've existed since the Dawn of time.

And if we've learned nothing from the COVID pandemic we should at least have learned that society, as a whole, learns nothing.

"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it."

Thats a lie. We're doomed to repeat history anyways. Because people suck.

[CliffFletcher]

I don’t know if polls have been done in Canada, but I recently saw a U.S. poll showing that only 6 per cent of non-Christians are bothered by Christmas.

The ‘war on Christmas’ is farcical on both ends. Conservatives have dreamed up an anti-Christian agenda to ban Christmas. But on the other side administrators and PR flacks are so fretful of appearing bigoted in any way that they’re taking stances that most of the people they think they’re championing don’t actually want them to take.

As GGG says, Christmas isn’t even a religious holiday for most people anymore. Which is why school Christmas concerts these days perform Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls, not Holy Night and Away in a Manger. That seems to fit the popular attitude towards Christmas. So what problem is being solved by doing away with Christmas concerts altogether?

[Wormius]

Are kids even interested in this? Ask them if they’d like to go out carolling and it will probably receive the same level of enthusiasm as them wanting to do it in school. Kids don’t want to do the old-timey things we and our parents had to suffer through. That’s fine.

[Galakanokis]

Did my daughters concert last night and it was very Christmas themed. All Santa, elves and reindeer. Some classic songs but most written by the music teacher. This was in Burnaby. Few if any references to religion which is how it should be but still very Christmasy.

And there's no war on Christmas or anything else for that matter. It's just not want you think or want it to be. That's it. Times change, things change.

[DoubleF]

To have no association with religion, perhaps December 25th should henceforth be the celebration of the app formerly known as Twitter.

Merry Xmas everyone!

[Table 5]

I went to my youngest daughter's Christmas Concert a few days ago. It was all pretty safe and generic stuff (bells, snowmen, reindeer), but I was surprised they managed to get a Silent Night in. I'm sure they won't make that offensive mistake again.

My eldest daughter's school doesn't have a concert. They have a "winter solstice assembly" and for the students only. My daughter keeps making fun of it...I think even kids get how clinical schools have gotten.

We're already a fairly shallow country when it comes to shared heritage and culture, but I guess we're looking to get even more antiseptic. Personally I think if we're trying to be a multicultural society, then instead of trying to reduce everything to the bare inoffensive minimum, we should use holidays as a learning opportunity...teach children about Christmas, about Hanukkah, about Chinese New Year, about Diwali, etc. And instead of boilerplate land acknowledgments at ceremonies, how about using it as an opportunity to illuminate or share about indigenous traditions. You're not offending, you're teaching and enriching...that's the whole point of school.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I went to my youngest daughter's Christmas Concert a few days ago. It was all pretty safe and generic stuff (bells, snowmen, reindeer), but I was surprised they managed to get a Silent Night in. I'm sure they won't make that offensive mistake again.

My eldest daughter's school doesn't have a concert. They have a "winter solstice assembly" and for the students only. My daughter keeps making fun of it...I think even kids get how clinical schools have gotten.

We're already a fairly shallow country when it comes to shared heritage and culture, but I guess we're looking to get even more antiseptic. Personally I think if we're trying to be a multicultural society, then instead of trying to reduce everything to the bare inoffensive minimum, we should use holidays as a learning opportunity...teach children about Christmas, about Hanukkah, about Chinese New Year, about Diwali, etc. And instead of boilerplate land acknowledgments at ceremonies, how about using it as an opportunity to illuminate or share about indigenous traditions. You're not offending, you're teaching and enriching...that's the whole point of school.

Yeah, the line between cultural appropriation and learning about a culture is so annoying defined at times that you basically can't do anything. If there was a way to enrich each other by mutual learning, I agree, I'm all for it.