Is this really where I want my son to pursue his advanced education?

This week Quinn found out that he was accepted to the University of Waterloo in the mechanical engineering program. 

This was a huge feat for Quinn as only 15% of all applicants were accepted. Waterloo is considered the MIT of Canada, and it is recognized throughout the world for the quality of its program. 

Waterloo is the home of the national math competition and the birthplace of the Blackberry.

As far as mechanical engineering programs, Waterloo is ranked first in Canada and fourth worldwide. 

I am incredibly proud of my son. He’s worked very hard to get the marks he’s accomplished, I’m honestly hesitant to support sending him down east.

I don’t understand what has happened to this country, especially down east. I understand we are considered backward, cowboy-hat wearing, pick-up truck driving idiots to many of the cosmopolitan people down east, but to me Alberta and Saskatchewan really seem to me to be the only sane provinces in this great country.

I watch the news and see the rampant antisemitism throughout eastern Canada. Whether you agree or disagree with the Israeli war and their fight to protect themselves, it’s as if the war has allowed all the antisemites free reign to openly express their hatred. 

It seems to me that the many of the protests are happening at the eastern schools, such as Queens, Toronto Metropolitan and York. Ironically, Quinn spent a month in York this past summer at the SHAD program. 

Now it appears that the law firm of Diamond and Diamond has launched a lawsuit against those four universities. 

“What we’re suggesting in our lawsuits is that [the universities] fostered an environment where this type of hate speech has been encouraged and allowed, and there’s been no consequences for it,” said Diamond and Diamond managing partner Sandra Zisckind.

“We’re not filing just to file. We’re filing when we’ve seen a pattern and we’ve seen an environment that has been fostered by the universities ... and the current state just brought it to a new height,” she said.

The suit also alleges Jewish students have been forced out of student organizations, haven’t been given equal opportunity to voice concerns over hate speech on campus, and have been attacked for expressing their Jewish identity at public student meetings. 

Is this really where I want my son to pursue his advanced education? Would he even really fit into that environment?

Luckily Quinn has also applied and been accepted to the University of Calgary and Alberta in their mechanical engineering programs. Those institutions are ranked eighth and fourth respectively in the country. 

Although it’s ultimately his choice where he wants to go, I hope that I have given him the tools to see that there is a line between free speech and hate. I hope that he sees through the academic indoctrination at these universities to what they really are, people who support antisemitism.

It’s a sad world. I read an article that said a war happens every fourth generation because the third generation forgets why their predecessors went to war. 

Quinn learned about the holocaust in English 30. Yes, you read that right, English 30. It’s not covered in Social 30. Such an incredible persecution and annihilation, and the holocaust doesn’t merit a topic in the social studies curriculum.

Perhaps it’s part of the cancel culture we are seeing throughout the world, I honestly do not know. I do know that when we forget, we repeat. I see what’s happening and it makes me sick to my stomach.

We will see what Quinn picks, I just hope I fostered in him the ability to critically think, because our post-secondary school system seems to have forgotten that concept.