One of the things I love most about Canada is its diversity.
With my position at the Rocky View Weekly, I’ve had the opportunity in the last few months to attend many events across the county that clearly show the way residents are open to and curious about other cultures.
Like many people my age, my heritage is like a bowl of chicken noodle soup: there’s a little bit of this, a trace of that, but when it’s all blended, it’s a pretty nice mix.
One thing I can easily pick out in my lineage is my Scottish roots. I grew up learning how to Highland Dance and have two sisters who played the bagpipes and drummed in a pipe band. So you can imagine my delight when I was sent to cover the Calgary Highland Games hosted in Springbank in August.
The organizers told me it was important for them to see Scottish heritage and clan traditions carried on through the generations now living in Canada, and to educate other people about those traditions. I couldn’t agree more.
The more cultural events that I covered, the more it became apparent that message is consistent.
Just last week I went to an event celebrating a culture from a completely different part of the world. Diwali, a festival of lights originating from India, was held in Chestermere (see page 9).
Although it’s one of the most important festivals for Hindus, the event was attended by all different cultural groups in the community, even those without a trace of Indian or South Asian decent.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a Remembrance Day production that took place in Chestermere to celebrate Canada’s War Brides – the English women that married Canadian soldiers overseas during the war and followed them home to Canada in the says since.
As Remembrance Day was yesterday, I think it’s timely to recognize that the reality we live in - where there’s such diversity, acceptance of cultural differences and freedom of religion and expression - wouldn’t be what it is without the sacrifices of members of armed forces that died or fought in the line of duty to secure those freedoms.
Canada continues to grow and become a multi-cultural country because I think people recognize that it’s great place to live, and a place they want to live. I remember when I was living in China last year and had to visit the Canadian embassy to update my passport, the line-up for attaining visas to Canada was always dense.
One lady said to me in broken Mandarin, “You’re lucky,” and she was right. Where we’re born is out of our control, but the environment we live and grow up in does shape our life.
A list of the top 10 countries to live in the world was compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international economic organization, and it ranked Canada as number three this year.
OECD judged countries on qualities such as housing, income, jobs, education, environment, civic engagement, health, safety and work-life balance. Above Canada was Australia at No. 1 followed by Sweden.
Canada was No. 1 on Forbes list this year of Countries With The Best Reputations, followed by Sweden and Switzerland
So, I hope that everyone took a moment to recognize our soldiers and our veterans on Remembrance Day because they helped pave the road to develop the country we enjoy today.
