Judy Young Drache is a former senior public servant with some 25 years of experience in the Canadian government’s multiculturalism programs. In 1957 she arrived in the UK as a Hungarian refugee and immigrated to Canada in 1967. She is President of the Canada-Hungary Educational Foundation and lives in Ottawa.

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The Canadian government’s recent poster and media advertising campaign in and around Miskolc has raised some eyebrows both in Canada and in Hungary. What is this campaign all about? Perhaps to advertise Canada as that “most livable country”…and a “symbol of tolerance” –  described by Gáspár Miklós Tamás, one of Hungary’s best known intellectuals, in his long and thoughtful opinion piece of January 24, 2013.

Alas, no. TGM, as Mr Tamás is known in Hungary, leaves no doubt about his disenchantment with this ad campaign and what is behind it. The title of his article is…