Mmmm, snark:
Leger poll shows Sikhs are the least liked religion in Canada (liked by only 53% of Canadians). Jews are the most liked minority religion (78%), Muslims at 61%. No data on Christians, or on people who commission really stupid polls. [Ikram]
But what about Jewish Sikhs? Feh. Fresh from the News Tab, some meshugge story in the Montreal Gazette which deserves Ikram’s (and perhaps your) scorn; Canadians apparently respect Sikhs less than members of other religions, and the amount of contact a Canadian has with a person influences their perception of them. Shocking, but true.
Asked whether they had a favourable opinion of each group, the 1,500 people surveyed by LΓΒ©ger Marketing across Canada said they hold Jews in the highest esteem (78 per cent), Muslims considerably lower (61 per cent) and Sikhs least of all (53 per cent).
And in each case, how much a person approves of one of the minority religions depends on how much contact he or she has had with them. The more contact, the higher the esteem, the poll found.
Forty-five per cent of Canadians are in contact with Jews often or occasionally, according to the poll. Only 37 per cent are in touch with Muslims, and only 21 per cent with Sikhs.
One thing to keep in mind– there are fewer Jewish people than Muslims, in Canada (pronounced Kuh-NAH-da, natch).
According to the 2001 federal census (religion data from the 2006 census are not yet available), there are 330,000 Jews in Canada and 580,000 Muslims. Sikhs number 278,000.
Y’all need to hold some Bhangra Blowout-esque event in Quebec. π
Sikhs are best-known in B.C. (44 per cent), Alberta (30 per cent) and Ontario (25 per cent); they’re virtually unknown in Quebec (four per cent, lowest in the country).
But if it is any consolation, people in Quebec also had the least favorable views on Jews. Ha! I rhymed.
Only 69 per cent of Quebecers have a favourable opinion of Jews – the lowest level in Canada. By contrast, Jews are held in highest esteem in the Maritimes (85 per cent), the Prairies (84 per cent) and Ontario (80 per cent).
Familiarity breeds respect, in British Columbia:
Muslims fare best in Ontario and the Maritimes (about 66 per cent) and worst in Quebec (52 per cent). Sikhs are best-regarded in B.C. (66 per cent), Ontario (59 per cent) and Alberta (51 per cent).
Behold, the confusion:
About one in 10 people polled refused to answer the question or simply didn’t know what they thought, except regarding Sikhs. For Sikhs, a higher percentage – one in four – refused or didn’t answer, perhaps reflecting lack of knowledge of Sikhs (except in B.C., where 14 per cent declined to answer or had no opinion).
And now, for you freaks who like statistics and methods and other things which have given me hives, since grad school:
Conducted for the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, the telephone poll was done over seven days from Aug. 22 to 28. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
The only useful thought I have regarding this survey is that we create understanding when we interact with others, as opposed to segregating ourselves; we need to educate our friends, coworkers and classmates, when it is feasible and comfortable to do so. The useless thought? One day, all white people should know as much about India as Gwen Stefani does…dating and singing songs about how a cute brown boy broke their heart…optional. π
Thanks, Ping Pong. Rephrased/edited accordingly. π
That’s a really weird way of saying the margin of error for a 95% confidence interval (which is what I assume they are going for).
Γ’β¬ΕThe only useful thought I have regarding this survey is that we create understanding when we interact with others, as opposed to segregating ourselves; we need to educate our friends, coworkers and classmates, when it is feasible and comfortable to do so.Γ’β¬Β
Indeed. If we stay true to ourselves know who we are, we are in a great position to share the wealth of our cultures, more importantly, we share many eats and treats!
Yeah, they’ve been using fractions randomly in the article (1 in 4 people, 1 in 10 people, etc) instead of percentages throughout. Must have a vulgar streak somewhere.
hey! watch it with the spelling and pronunciation! real Kannada people don’t need to be almost-dissed like that…
i got worried for a second when i read the title… but that’s mostly because i’m bleary-eyed from reading constitutional law books.
thats not a vulgar streak…what i have is a vulgar streak….
ooh.oooh. i remember you. your the south indian whose parents grew up in ajmer, right? d*mn im good. the title made me do a double take as well.
brownz don’t get out in kanada cuz its too cold outside.
Are you saying it’s an insult to be lumped in with Canadians? π What’s that all aboot?
its insulting to both. for the same reason its insulting to both dots and feathers to be lumped together.
What, I’m the only one who thinks that the way some desis pronounce “Canada” is teh cute? Fine, be that way, as my 3-year old nephew likes to say. π
That picture is really cute, btw.
It’s from our about page and bears an uncanny resemblance to Ennis, even though it is a cartoon. π
Vulgar streak.
My sixth grade teacher called improper fractions “Dolly Parton fractions” because they’re bigger on top than on the bottom.
FTR, I am quasi-Sikh and I hate Canada and French Canadians in particular (except for one blue-eyed Lebanese French Canadian shorty.)
harbeer sitting in a field with a daisy, plucking hte pedals off. “they hate me, i hate them. they hate me, i hate them.”
ouch, i think you mean “fewer”
Wasn’t that a Dolly Parton musical?
But seriously, Harbeer, why “French Canadians in particular”?
Here, now all may share my learning pains:
Sorry that it pained you. π I fixed it.
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Aside: to anyone whose grammar I’ve corrected, ever…I’m so sorry. Never again. Since I blog/make fewer mistakes than others (?) I am held to a “higher standard”. I’m scrutinized and I obviously don’t like how that feels. Ouch, indeed. I hope I didn’t make you feel like that, K, V et al.
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Full disclosure: I promise, I don’t mind being taught grammar, but I would prefer it over email or perhaps with some humor or an emoticon following it. Someone once told me I needed a thicker skin to blog, but that’s not possible for me. So, this will continue to feel like being strapped to a rock where my liver is pecked at daily. Yay! GSK needs to develop a skin-thickener asap…there are enough drugs for random things, like itchy leg syndrome or whatever. Skin thickening? Now THERE is a market.
What about Hindooooos?
They’re snobby like the French, with less reason to be so. I mean…they’re frickin Canadians…
Notable exceptions: Leonard Cohen and anybody associated with Cirque du Soleil.
This is a Sikh’s burden. A large part of the whole turban thing is to stick out and when you stick out people tend to not like you. If there is a herd of elephants and one of them is striped then there is a good chance of that elephant being alone and not being allowed into the pack. It’s the same thing with human’s.
This is just about 1st impression’s and people will change their opinons with positive exposure, but as the old saying goes, the 1st impression is the most important impression.
We are all guilty of doing this. If you see someone with a huge african plate in their ear’s, you are going to think that this person is on drugs and a loser. If you see someone in a ferrari you will think that they are some snob with a small penis.
It would not surprise me if a survey found out that Sikhs are the most hated people on the planet and if you think about it, it shouldnt surprise you either.
Except that the people who liked Sikhs least were the people who didn’t know any, right? It’s a plausible story but it doesn’t fit the facts.
Hi — I only linked to the Montreal Gazette site because I can’t find the actual Leger poll. It isn’t on the Leger Marketing site or on the Association for Canadian Studies site (who commissioned the poll). If anyone can find the underlying poll data, please link to it.
The ACS is run by Jack Jedwab, who comissions a lot of very idiosyncratic polls about religion, identity, and language, probably reflecting his own peculiar interests as a Anglophone Jewish Montrealer. It’s not representative of the field of Canadian Studies in general.
The motivation for the poll? — probably the first hearing of Quebec’s Taylor-Bouchard Commission on immigrants, religion, identity, and everything else under the sun. Officially, its mandate is to look into “reasonable accomodation” of religious practices at public institutions. The phrase comes out of a Supreme Court Decision on a Quebeck Sikh boy who wanted to bring a Kirpans to school. The Court said yes, and that public institutions need to make Reasonable Accomodations for religious practices. Quebeckers had a very negative reaction, and since then the debate has become very emotional.
Mix into to that a request by Muslims at a sugar shack (Cabane a sucre) for a pork-free meal, a women’s only YMCA swim nite, a request by Hasidic Jews for darkened glass at a gym, one or two unscrupulous politicians, and a few tabloid newspapers: now the whole province is in a frenzy.
Genuinely curious – how/why does that work? What happened to the YWCA? Or is it some crazy stunt to shake off the Village People image?
ive always wanted to start an organization called OHM. “old hindu men”
A N N A, re #19: the other one along that line is number vs. amount.
Resistance is futile.
Now would be a good time to admit that while I was precocious enough to be beamed at regularly by doting family members, I have never taken a grammar class. Ever. No lie. Every English class I took, 1st-8th grade was some combination of “Literature” or “Creative Writing”. Aside from diagramming a few sentences and remembering wtf a predicate nominative is, I’m lost. There, I’ve done it.
I’ve come out.
I’m here, I’m filled with grammar-related fear, get used to it.
Wow, that felt liberating. π
I like Vulgar fraction, coz they are top heavy!
You know Lebanese girls are the new half-Asians.
really? i need to get all the matching accessories. the phat apartment, the flashy cars, nice suits, house in the hamptons and a matching lebonese girlfriend..
Since I come from a sikh family[Ex-sikh myself] and live in the Vancouver area I can maybe add a few things.
The sikh community is huge in the Vancouver area, they are 2nd biggest minority outside of people from china. But one thing I have noticed here is that sikhs/punjabi for some reason do not mix with other that much here. I have gone to several sikh wedding where in the Vancouver area, and I have noticed that it is almost always 99% sikh event, despite the fact that both bride and groom grow up here and you would thing they would make some non-sikh friends. Go to downtown Vancouver on friday or saturday night and you will more then likely see punjabi groups by themselves, while everyone else is mixing.
I have many white friends who I grew up with who moved to the Vancouver area and almost none of them have made sikh friends, yet they have made friends of many other races, and the only desi friends they have made are non-punjabi.
And one more thing is that the worse act of terrorism in Canada was the 1985 air India bombing which was done by right wing sikhs.
ANNA, two books I find indispensible:
English Syntax: A Grammar for English Language Professionals– This is really geeky, technical stuff.
The Elements of Style– This is the sleek, thin volume that explains common grammar and style points clearly and with flair. Love. It. The illustrated edition is really funny.
I wonder how much of this poor perception of Sikhs is due to:
Air India Kanishka bombing by Sikhs? Remember before 9/11 that was one of the deadliest attack on planes – whole plan was engineered and carried out in Canada by Sikhs
large number of Sikhs who have massively abused the asylum law to gain entry to Canada (and continue to do even today) – thus from uneducated / pind background who paid crores of rupees to immigration agents rather than educated ones (compared to other Indians who are from professional background?)
“I’ve come out. I’m here, I’m filled with grammar-related fear, get used to it. Wow, that felt liberating. ;)”
don’t worry, the only reason i remember some of these things is because i had it drummed into my head by some wonderful but strict english teachers. they’d probably hang their heads in shame if they heard/saw the grammatical lapses that seem to increasingly pepper my speech and writing these days (i blame watching too much tv, including tv news π )
Very true all this. My father died of cancer a few years ago in Calcutta but was able to get morphine towards the end. This was in part because my sister was a Doctor at the one center that the NYT mentions (its called the Thakurpukur Center) and for a while I think even headed a division there. Despite having this fabulous inside connection which works wonders in India as we all know, I still remember the papers and then the number of locks and keys that opened drawers then cupboards and then a small steel almirah that housed a few precious small bottles.
sorry, wrong thread
i have 3 friends who went to grad school at UBC. their perception of brown people really changed after their stay in vancouver; or, more precisely they didn’t take as a given that browns were always a ‘model minority.’
Razib, spend anytime in Vancouver and browns and model minority is the last thing that will come to mind. There are so many people who are uneducated from the punjabi village and yet somehow make it into Canada. You don’t see that in the United States that much.
.You don’t see that in the United States that much.
not yet. but with with the increase in brown illegal immigration and the inevitable ‘path to normalization’ i’m sure we’ll be gifted with the ‘vibrant’ ‘diversity’ of the desh in terms of semi-literate and illiterate villagers attempting to make do in the computer age! inshallah.
some of those semi-literate immigrant types are the most enterprising people around…
In some ways, browns in Canada occupy the same socio-econo-cultural ‘othered’ space that blacks do in the US. And I would guess that a very large plurality, if not a majority, of male Sikhs in Canada do not wear turbans. And the Sikh population is extremely concentrated, I would guess about 90% of it is either in Vancouver or Toronto. So the ordinary Canadian’s feelings about Sikhs, arise despite not knowing any Sikhs. Another word for that is prejudice. That’s only one of the reasons the ‘survey’ is silly.
oh, Ethnic mini-cities on rise: StatsCan: The StatsCan study used an isolation index to measure the “probability that a member of a visible-minority group will meet only members of the same group in a particular neighbourhood.”
It found that Chinese immigrants in Greater Toronto had an isolation index of 25 per cent in 2001, more than double that of 10 per cent in 1981. The index for their counterparts in Vancouver also increased, from 18 per cent to 33 per cent, during the same period.
The same trend was evident for Greater Toronto’s South Asian community, whose isolation index rose from 6 per cent to 20 per cent in the last two decades.
In Vancouver, the group’s index went from 7 per cent to 25 per cent in the same period.
some of those semi-literate immigrant types are the most enterprising people around…
what’s the literacy rate of banias?
in any case, perhaps south asians are totally different, but the history of european immigration between 1850-1920 shows that those groups with the most ‘human capital’ at t=0 entered the middle class earliest. and i don’t think that anyone would accuse the literate jews of not being enterprising.
I bet alot of the illegal immigrants from India more then likely punjabi. Yeah that what america needs.
I’m punjabi and yet I have never understood this. Punjabi want to immigrate to the west more then anybody, yet when they get here they make no effort to intergrate into western society compare to people from other parts of India. And also they can never stop talking about great the Punjab is. I’m sorry if the punjab is so great, then don’t leave.
Illegal immigrants from India on the rise.
p.s. and to be fair, if indian illegal immigration is driven by tourist visas (as it suggested above), it is unlikely to be villagers, right? that is, middle class indians who don’t have opportunities back home are probably overstaying.
Razib what a surprise on you last post that that the illegal indian immigrant is punjabi. What kind of message is this gonna send back in the punjab. I would’t be suprised if punjabi now start flying into Mexico and try to get into America that way.