Canada has managed to hold itself as a country for 150 years, something we should be proud to celebrate throughout 2017, and in particular Canada Day.
It has not been an easy road to our 150th anniversary.
Ours is a country with its share of lasting bruises, blemishes and scars.
There remain the scars of residential schools on our First Nations people.
In 1916–17, many Austrians were paroled to fill labour shortages. Of 8,579 men at 24 camps across Canada, 5,954 were of Austro-Hungarian origin, including 5,000 Ukrainians; 2,009 were Germans; 205 were Turks and 99, Bulgarians. All endured hunger and forced labour, helping to build some of Canada’s best-known landmarks, such as Banff National Park.
We did not learn our lesson, as was witnessed when the next great war came along.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor the RCMP interned 38 Japanese nationals; later, an additional 720 Japanese, mainly Canadian citizens and members of the Nisei Mass Evacuation Group who resisted separation from their families, were imprisoned. Approximately 20,000 Japanese Canadians were removed from the Pacific Coast in 1942.
We could unfortunately fill pages with examples of missteps made as we forged this nation.
But ultimately those things we might wished had not occurred are what ultimately make our nation what it is today.
When we have stumbled and erred we have found a way to get back up, and move forward.
In some cases it has taken decades to make the apologies necessary, to work through the problems created. It is a process we are still working through, but again that is what makes Canada the country it is.
We have grown and evolved through the decades.
This is not the Canada of our founding in 1867.
It is not even the country Canada was when we celebrated our 100th anniversary in 1967.
That is a good thing.
We should grow as a nation, and Canada has shown it is has been able to do that.
We have shown a way to hold on to elements of our past, the recent Painted Hand Casino Powwow illustrating how we retain some of the best elements of our First Nations heritage.
And as each new wave of immigration has arrived to grow our country we have added bits of their culture to ours.
The annual Robbie Burns Day, and Taras Shevchenko readings held in the city through the years being examples.
To that we can now add celebrations such as the Pinoy Festival, a celebration of food and music among those Canadians who immigrated from the Philippines.
Each of these singular events are now part of a dynamic mosaic which is Canada.
We need to remember that if we accept the best of what each new Canadian brings, we become a stronger country.
This year we mark what we have become in the past 150 years, but also take a moment to think of our future, it can only be a bright one given the foundation we have built.
