Dear Editor,
Letter sent to the elected Members of the House of Commons of Canada.
Seven years ago I started to try to do something about online racism and hatred that was being posted on the internet, and also asking the government to reinstate Section 13 back into the Canadian Human Rights Act, and to act on the social media outlets that post such content, and for them to take responsibility for such postings that not just harm individuals, but does great damage to a society and to a nation.
Canada is a home to all individuals, a nation of religious and ethnic Canadians, and peace-seeking immigrants who seek a home to equality and recognition that they are truly welcome into our country, and to find freedom here for themselves and their children.
Can we truly say all is equal when racists and individuals, and groups from within and from without wish to destroy our home, our pride and our rights to exist, and our acceptance to accept and nurture equality no matter what color of our skin is or our religious beliefs?
Racism is destructive.
History is embedded with hate and racism, and it echoes even more now across the world.
Misinformation and disinformation on the internet will and does lead us down a path of being dissected from our values and from trusting nothing that is in front of us. It will tear a society apart, a nation apart. History tells us this.
Canada has been given a gift, a gift that countries out there in the world would cherish and hope for, and that gift is democracy with the enlightenment. We not only need the truth. We need the will and the hope to believe in it, so that we can trust it with our very lives and our children’s future.
What lies ahead is not to repeat the past but to present a future where acceptance and equality is not just practised, but is embodied into our very existence, and to acknowledge we are a light and a torch that never goes out, and the world will seek it.
Please, act swiftly and reinstate Section 13 back into the Canadian Human Rights Act where it belongs, and it belongs to every Canadian and to the people who come after us. Equality has no age or height it only evolves as a man, woman and child.
Cran Campbell, Langley City