Immigrants make a pact when they become Canadians. They promise to make a positive contribution to a civil society. They undertake to abide by the laws of the country and otherwise fulfill the duties and responsibilities that their fellow citizens have undertaken to perform.
The demands their new country makes on them aren't onerous. In exchange for their word, we offer them a home in one of the greatest countries in the world. In a democracy that, despite its flaws, offers its citizens freedoms that are the envy of many parts of the world. And we throw in perks such as access to one of the best health-care systems on the planet.
We don't ask immigrants to repeal or turn their back on cultural practices that are important to them, as long as they don't offend the sensibilities of a majority of Canadians. To the extent that we demand they assimilate, we hope they adopt the value and belief system upon which this country is built.
Which brings us to a culture clash that has erupted at the University of British Columbia, not among students but rather residents in one of the many posh residential towers going up on the grounds of the institution.
Residents of one of the buildings are upset that the university has unveiled plans to allow a 15-bed palliative care facility to go up right beside them. Those who are upset are Chinese. Nearly 80 per cent of those living in the building are Chinese and, according to Chinese superstitions, death and dying are taboo subjects associated with bad luck.
When a small group of concerned residents, all Chinese, expressed their concerns to the university, and subsequently to the media, all hell broke loose on radio talk shows and on the online comment boards of the Internet. The group didn't help itself when members also associated the presence of the hospice with the declining value of their investment. Many of the units are worth $1-million or more.
The easy and perhaps instinctive response to this debate is to rip the residents for being insensitive and selfish. It's easy to be inflammatory and mock people who express fear that a hospice could release ghosts and a karma that has the potential to break up families, hurt children and be bad for business.
That, to me, isn't the proper response.
While their beliefs may offend many Canadians, most of those residents came by them honestly. They are as much a part of what they grew up being told by parents and grandparents as the bad luck omens those of us raised in Canada heard: Never walk under a ladder; avoid the number 13.
Yelling at these residents, calling them racist names, isn't going to do anything to contribute, in a positive way, to the discussion that needs to take place here. What we need to do is explain that in the culture and country they are now part of, the way in which we treat our sick and dying is how we judge the worth of our society. Hospices are there to make a person's final days and months as easy and painless as possible.
That is why one of the most amazing ones in the country, Canuck Place, which looks after the needs of dying children, can be located in one of the most expensive, swankiest neighbourhoods in the country, Shaughnessy, and be a source of pride for local residents, not disdain.
In Canada, there are few who serve a greater honour or a more important duty than those looking after the needs of the dying.
That's what we need to explain to the residents of the Promontory at UBC. If they still feel the same way after they learn what a hospice is really about, that it is not a crematorium as some Chinese mistakenly believe, then they have the option to sell their units and move elsewhere. Which is what the rest of us do when something goes up in our neighbourhood with which we can't live.
The university did the right thing by putting off a final decision on plans for the hospice until the spring. Meantime, the university should do what it does best: teach, dispel harmful myths, promote broader understanding among people.
In the end, however, the hospice should be built exactly where it was going to be built. And hopefully one day Chinese residents living next door will find it in their hearts to drop by and volunteer their services.