People attend at a memorial at the location where a family of five was hit by a driver, in London, Ontario on Monday. AP Photo
People attend at a memorial at the location where a family of five was hit by a driver, in London, Ontario on Monday. AP Photo
People attend at a memorial at the location where a family of five was hit by a driver, in London, Ontario on Monday. AP Photo
People attend at a memorial at the location where a family of five was hit by a driver, in London, Ontario on Monday. AP Photo

Everything is not fine in Canada


  • English
  • Arabic

What Canadians abroad tend to miss most about their homeland is the feeling of safety. Not the low-crime, leave-your-doors-unlocked kind of safety – those are weary cliches for brand Canada. There are plenty of ways and places and times in Canada to be unsafe in your own way.

No, it’s the mental safety: the prototypically Canadian sensibility in a world of bad news that, actually, you are at home and everything is fine.

Most of us who grew up in Canada have become good at making ourselves feel that way. So many of us came from places we now view with a sense of forlorn pity. And the ones who didn’t come from elsewhere rest comfortably – sometimes smugly, sometimes a little jealously, but always comfortably – in the happenstance that they’re not in America.

Every so often, one of our number breaks the spell. On Sunday, 20-year-old Nathaniel Veltman of London, Ontario drove his black pickup truck onto a suburban curb and smashed it into a family, killing four members from three of its generations, leaving alive only a nine-year-old boy. Veltman sought to kill them, London police allege, because they looked foreign.

They looked foreign because, well, they used to be. The idea that they and others like them are no longer foreign is a national mantra, drilled into Canadians from a young age at school, on TV and in the stump speeches of wide-eyed politicians. The US proudly calls itself a melting pot, but Canada is a mosaic, goes the refrain in grade 10 civics class. There isn’t much debate over what that means exactly or why it’s better.

Sometimes the sentiment is so genuine that it strikes you deep in the heart and you want to cry. When Canada was debating refugee resettlement a couple of years ago, the mayor of far-north, edge-of-the-world Dawson City, Yukon told a reporter: “Canadians are born all over the world. It just sometimes takes them a bit of time to get here.”

It just isn’t like that in the US, which is where I was born and where we tell ourselves all the Nathaniel Veltmans of North America tend to live. When I was an 11-year-old kid there, in North Carolina, from a Muslim family, living in the aftermath of 9/11, I was told by my parents what they were told at the mosque: “keep a low profile”.

The day I immigrated to Canada, I was sent by officers to a balloon-filled room at Toronto airport where every Canadian’s white grandmother had volunteered to greet me and the other new immigrants coming in that day. “Thank you for choosing us,” they said. I wanted to cry then, too.

Flowers lay in memorial at the fatal crime scene in London, Ontario. Reuters
Flowers lay in memorial at the fatal crime scene in London, Ontario. Reuters

That’s the mental safety I’m talking about – the one Veltman’s victims undoubtedly had on Sunday, somewhere in the back of their minds, as they were out for a family stroll. It’s a stream of messaging that papers over everything – the fact that one third of young black Canadians in Ontario are born in poverty; the fact that Arab Canadians have double-the-average unemployment and below-average wages; the fact that native Canadians are treated perhaps even worse than those of us who just arrived.

Every so often, the messaging doesn't stick. It didn't stick in 2017, when a white supremacist shot dead six worshippers at a mosque in Quebec City. Nor last September, when Mohamed-Aslim Zafis, the caretaker of a mosque in Etobicoke, a Toronto suburb, was stabbed to death by a white supremacist. Nor did it stick for Nathaniel Veltman. Whatever he heard from Canada's system, his victims still looked foreign. They never stood a chance.

Sometimes it doesn’t stick in the immigrant communities either. There have been plenty of young Canadian men from Muslim families over the years who plotted their own attacks at home or joined terrorist groups abroad, some of them acutely aware of how foreign they looked.

The easy takeaway from all of this is that words are not enough, and that Canada must act to heal division and hatred and all of those other societal ills its politicians will name breathlessly in the days to come.

The US proudly calls itself a melting pot, but Canada is a mosaic, goes the refrain in grade 10 civics class

But perhaps, I would suggest, the words are too much. The feel-good platitudes describe the Canada of our fantasies, but not the one that exists today. Better to speak humbly about the Canada that is – a complicated country, like all of the countries from which it is built.

Canadians are not born everywhere in the world, just waiting to join the family they never knew they had in Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver. Many of them were born on the outside and are trying to join a society that is mostly nice, but mostly white – and so they will be foreign to some degree, and that carries a price that cannot be papered over.

The nine-year-old boy Veltman left alive, presumably unwittingly, has paid this price in the form of his entire family. He’ll grow up knowing that a man once thought he, a Canadian, looked foreign. He’ll sit in grade 10 civics class and hear about the mosaic, and he’ll know that it’s missing four pieces because that man thought they didn’t belong.

Sulaiman Hakemy is opinion editor at The National

  • Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a vigil for victims of the deadly vehicle attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario on June 8, 2021. AP
    Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a vigil for victims of the deadly vehicle attack on a Muslim family in London, Ontario on June 8, 2021. AP
  • Friend's of Yumnah Afzaal, 15, who died in the attack along with her parents and grandmother, gather at the vigil. AFP
    Friend's of Yumnah Afzaal, 15, who died in the attack along with her parents and grandmother, gather at the vigil. AFP
  • Prime Minister Trudeau is greeted by London, Ontrario's mayor Ed Holder. AFP
    Prime Minister Trudeau is greeted by London, Ontrario's mayor Ed Holder. AFP
  • Women attend the vigil. AFP
    Women attend the vigil. AFP
  • New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh speaks at the vigil. AFP
    New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh speaks at the vigil. AFP
  • Prime Minister Trudeau condemned Islamophobia. Reuters
    Prime Minister Trudeau condemned Islamophobia. Reuters
  • The lives of the four victims 'were taken in a brutal, cowardly and brazen act of violence', the prime minister said. AFP
    The lives of the four victims 'were taken in a brutal, cowardly and brazen act of violence', the prime minister said. AFP
  • Mr Trudeau places flowers on a memorial. Reuters
    Mr Trudeau places flowers on a memorial. Reuters
  • The prime minister greets mourners. Reuters
    The prime minister greets mourners. Reuters
  • Thousands of mourners attended a vigil at the mosque the family attended. AFP
    Thousands of mourners attended a vigil at the mosque the family attended. AFP
  • Pandemic restrictions were eased to allow mourners to attend the outdoor vigil. AFP
    Pandemic restrictions were eased to allow mourners to attend the outdoor vigil. AFP
  • Imam Abdul Fattah Twakkal called for a commitment to end racism during the vigil. AFP
    Imam Abdul Fattah Twakkal called for a commitment to end racism during the vigil. AFP
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Rating: 4.5/5

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

THE SPECS

Engine: 3.5-litre V6
Transmission: six-speed manual
Power: 325bhp
Torque: 370Nm
Speed: 0-100km/h 3.9 seconds
Price: Dh230,000
On sale: now

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How to report a beggar

Abu Dhabi – Call 999 or 8002626 (Aman Service)

Dubai – Call 800243

Sharjah – Call 065632222

Ras Al Khaimah - Call 072053372

Ajman – Call 067401616

Umm Al Quwain – Call 999

Fujairah - Call 092051100 or 092224411

In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

The bio

Date of Birth: April 25, 1993
Place of Birth: Dubai, UAE
Marital Status: Single
School: Al Sufouh in Jumeirah, Dubai
University: Emirates Airline National Cadet Programme and Hamdan University
Job Title: Pilot, First Officer
Number of hours flying in a Boeing 777: 1,200
Number of flights: Approximately 300
Hobbies: Exercising
Nicest destination: Milan, New Zealand, Seattle for shopping
Least nice destination: Kabul, but someone has to do it. It’s not scary but at least you can tick the box that you’ve been
Favourite place to visit: Dubai, there’s no place like home

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The President's Cake

Director: Hasan Hadi

Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem 

Rating: 4/5

How to get there

Emirates (www.emirates.com) flies directly to Hanoi, Vietnam, with fares starting from around Dh2,725 return, while Etihad (www.etihad.com) fares cost about Dh2,213 return with a stop. Chuong is 25 kilometres south of Hanoi.
 

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The specs

Engine: 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6

Power: 540hp at 6,500rpm

Torque: 600Nm at 2,500rpm

Transmission: Eight-speed auto

Kerb weight: 1580kg

Price: From Dh750k

On sale: via special order

Groom and Two Brides

Director: Elie Semaan

Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla

Rating: 3/5

The Details

Kabir Singh

Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series

Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa

Rating: 2.5/5 

The Indoor Cricket World Cup

When: September 16-23

Where: Insportz, Dubai

Indoor cricket World Cup:
Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23

UAE fixtures:
Men

Saturday, September 16 – 1.45pm, v New Zealand
Sunday, September 17 – 10.30am, v Australia; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Monday, September 18 – 2pm, v England; 7.15pm, v India
Tuesday, September 19 – 12.15pm, v Singapore; 5.30pm, v Sri Lanka
Thursday, September 21 – 2pm v Malaysia
Friday, September 22 – 3.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 3pm, grand final

Women
Saturday, September 16 – 5.15pm, v Australia
Sunday, September 17 – 2pm, v South Africa; 7.15pm, v New Zealand
Monday, September 18 – 5.30pm, v England
Tuesday, September 19 – 10.30am, v New Zealand; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Thursday, September 21 – 12.15pm, v Australia
Friday, September 22 – 1.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 1pm, grand final

How green is the expo nursery?

Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery

An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo

Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery

Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape

The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides

All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality

Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country

Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow

Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site

Green waste is recycled as compost

Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs

Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers

About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer

Main themes of expo is  ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.

Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months