Jack, when you read Canadian history you soon come to realize that the first major waves of European settlers were largely made up of refugees and displaced people.

French from the Wars of Religion, the 30 Years' War and the dynastic struggles that followed. Scots from the British version of the Wars of Religion, the Jacobite rebellions, the Highland Clearances, and the industrialization of the border region. Irish from generations of famine, poverty and imperial exploitation. "Loyalists" from the American Revolution.

And the minute they got here, they scrambled to the top of whatever hierarchy was available to them and promptly started doing unto others what had been done to them.

"I and the public know / What all schoolchildren learn: / That those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return." I think that's Auden, who had his faults but was good with a bon mot.