Facts Schmacts! Paulie and Friends Continue to Play Fast and Loose With the Truth

Well, it really didn't take Paulie long to comment on the racial taunting incident in London, Ontario:

We were surprised that he would take this position on the fine city of London, as one of the more infamous residents has claimed that the city is as close to a "White Nationalist" utopia that one can find in Ontario:

My, my, who to believe? London as the promised land or London as a den of perverse iniquity?

How about London is a growing city that is very safe but which has it's share of crime like any other city in Canada? Yeah, that makes more sense.

Paulie really will make things up, or promote people who make things up, in order to try and convince people (mostly those who have already drunk the Kool-Aid) of the correctness of his views. Yet another example of this dishonesty is a post on "White News Now" in which he presents the view of the individual slamming Canada:

Paulie writes that, "Mr. Newton makes some powerful points." Just how powerful are these points when you actually take the time to dust off your critical thinking skills and perform a modicum of fact checking?

Well, first off the bat (and also briefly mentioning Canada's current population is something closer to 34 or 35 million rather than 30, but this is a bit petty) Newton's claim that Canada takes in almost 700,000 immigrants a year is true only if you really, REALLY round that number up. In 2010, Canada accepted 280,681 immigrants into the country, the highest number in recent history but still far below that as a percentage of the population during, say, the Lauirier Boom. Interestingly, the same arguments Mr. Newton and Paulie make about immigrants today were also made about those immigrants from Central, Southern and Eastern Europe:

By the fall of 1928 local Klans had been established in over 100 Saskatchewan towns, usually signalling themselves by a ritual burning of crosses; their leaders claimed an overall membership of some 40,000, who had been attracted by the Klan’s attacks on the “unassimilable” immigrants from central and southeastern Europe and on the Roman Catholic church for its “subversion” of the public school system. These attacks revived ancient prejudices dormant for years, spread animosity and suspicion across the province, and threatened groups friendly to the Liberal Party.

And here is another source:

In 1901, 98% of Canadians declared themselves as being either Protestant (56%) or Catholic (42%).  However, with a high proportion of Catholics residing in Quebec, the ratio of Protestants to Catholics was much higher in the West.  In 1921, about 20% of the population of Saskatchewan was Catholic.  With the waves of new immigrants in the early part of the twentieth century, came a backlash among segments of the established population.  The KKK promoted itself as a defender of the Protestant faith and exploited fears of change related to immigration.  Although the KKK appeared in other parts of Canada, it had greatest impact in Saskatchewan which was experiencing the influx of new Canadians from Europe.  The KKK had more members than any political party in Saskatchewan.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

What struck us most in this missive is Newton's claims regarding Costa Rica itself.

Now we aren't criticizing Costa Rica. It is a developing country which has come a very long way in improving it's economy, educational outcomes, environment, health standards and democratic institutions. But is it really a "White Nationalist" utopia compared to the multi-cultural hellhole he is describing Canada has become? Let's look at a few facts here by examining two of the claims being made.

Mr. Newton claims that the violent crime rate is much lower than in Canada. For this claim we decided to compare homicide rates. Looking at the most recent numbers, Costa Rica had a homicide rate of 10.6 persons/100,000 people. According to Mr. Newton, Canada's homicide rate must be much higher if his argument makes any sense.

In 2009 (last year numbers were available) Canada's homicide rate was 1.8 persons/100,000 people. Given yearly trends, we suspect the 2010 and 2011 numbers will be roughly around this rate as well.

We don't know about our dear readers, but we think 1.8 is a smaller number than 10.6. Perhaps Mr. Newton is using new math?

We might also comment on the point that Mr. Newton makes regarding the superiority of the Costa Rican healthcare system and the overall sense of freedom. In fact, the Costa Rican healthcare system IS a model for the region and has vastly improved health outcomes in the country. The irony is that this is the result of a socialized healthcare system. That's right, Costa Rica, like nasty, socialist Canada, benefits from Universal Healthcare that all citizens in the country contribute to an benefit from.

Even then, we aren't sure that the Costa Rican system is yet at Canadian standards. While both countries have health expenditures as between 10% and 11% of their GDP, the numbers in a number of health indicators still favor Canada when compared to Costa Rica:

Life expectancy in Canada: 81.3
Life expectancy in Costa Rica: 77.7


Doctors/1000 population in Canada: 1.91
Doctors/1000 population in Costa Rica: 1.32

Hospital beds/1000 population in Canada: 3.4
Hospital beds/1000 population in Costa Rica: 1.2


Infant mortality rate in Canada: 4.92 deaths/1,000 live births
Infant mortality rate in Costa Rica: 9.45 deaths/1,000 live births

Maternal mortality rate in Canada: 12 deaths/100,000 live births
Maternal mortality rate in Costa Rica: 44 deaths/100,000 live births 

Is Costa Rica doing well? Yes. Has it improved a great deal over the years? Without a doubt. Is it yet on par with Canada? Well, perhaps we should allow our readers to make their own conclusion.

But more than the facts we could provide, we love Mr. Newton's missive for one simple reason.

His solution to the unbearable immigration problem in Canada is to immigrate to another country, inviting numerous others who are sick and tired of immigration to follow his example, and we presume (and according to him and we presume Paulie) burden the social services of Costa Rica. We mean, at least the immigrants coming to Canada are mostly younger, healthy and in their prime working years. Mr. Newton is inviting a bunch of retirees to follow his lead. If we apply the same standards to him as he does to immigrants to Canada, we'd be pretty pissed off if we were Costa Rican.