Fascinating tale of how CIBC let CAIR-Canada slap them silly

I didn't even know  there was a CAIR-Canada.  In my wanderings on the internet highway, to bring to you my readers,  lots more information on how sharia finance is seeping like a cancerous fluid into our banking system,  I found this great article from Margaret Wente.  The article exposes the humiliation that  Jeff Rubin, who was the Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets in 2005    was put through a "diversity training program"  because of something he wrote in a monthly newsletter that ruffled  the feathers of the invaders.  Read it and weep a little for Canada. After what the Liberal govt has done to Canada, how can anybody even think of ever voting for them..... ever again ? 

 "Hospitality will be your first lesson," my diversity trainer told me   with a smile. I had offered her a coffee before we sat down for our session, and as it turned out, I was mighty glad I did.

Many people do not, and that, she informed me, is a sign of cross-cultural insensitivity.

The coffee offered my instructor an opening to explain the value that different cultures place on hospitality and the differences between individualist cultures (ours) and collective cultures (lots of other ones).

This is the kind of thing they send you off to learn about when you screw up. And Jeffrey Rubin, apparently, screwed up.

Mr. Rubin is chief economist for the World Markets division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Every month he issues a research report on world trends that is aimed at the bank's sophisticated investing clients. Monthly Indicators, as it's called, is distributed to a few thousand select readers, and is posted on the bank's website.

Despite the deadly dull title of the publication, Mr. Rubin is widely respected for his sharp mind, and his writing is unusually colourful for an economist. Perhaps too colourful for the times we live in now.

Because of a passing comment most people wouldn't pause to notice, Mr. Rubin was found guilty of insensitivity by his own employer, which issued a public apology for his misbehaviour. To signal its sincere contrition, the bank also instructed him to attend a training session in cross-cultural diversity, devised especially for him.

The bank's instant climb-down was a triumph for the offended pressure group, an increasingly powerful outfit called the Council on American Islamic Relations - Canada, or CAIR-CAN. And it was an embarrassing humiliation for one of its star employees, whom friends describe as a decent, thoughtful -- and, yes, sensitive -- man.

The offending passage appeared last April 5, in a report predicting that oil prices would keep rising: "The first two oil shocks were transitory, as political events encouraged oil producers to seize full sovereignty over their resources and temporarily restrict supply," Mr. Rubin wrote. "This time around there won't be any tap that some appeased mullah or sheik can suddenly turn back on."

A few days later, the bank received a letter from CAIR-CAN. The organization keeps a close watch on the media, as well as on government agencies, businesses, universities and other institutions, for signs of bias against Muslims. It says it received several calls complaining about the passage in Monthly Indicators.

"We are gravely concerned that Mr. Rubin is promoting stereotyp-ing of Muslims and Arabs in a CIBC publication," executive director Riad Saloojee wrote in a letter to the bank. "We request that Mr. Rubin and CIBC World Markets issue a letter of apology and undergo sensitization training regarding Muslims and Arabs."..........................