What is a real Canadian?
That is a question I would ask myself, as we used to sing God Save The Queen and then the national anthem every morning in school, of course they don't sing God Save The Queen anymore. However it seemed that when our school teacher would talk about Canadians she didn't exactly mention that Inuit were Canadians per se. Canadians paid the taxes she said that funded the school. Canadians paid the taxes that created this country. Yet my father who worked also paid taxes and when I asked her "does that mean my father is a Canadian" she just laughed.
It seems foreigners are sometimes very welcome to Canada, that is if they have the Hong Kong Bank, or millions of dollars, but if you are just a working class Taiwanese refugee, you are not so welcome.
Just what is a Canadian? Is it a white middle class person? If so then it seems Canada is disappearing a bit. When we travel the world over the world thinks Canada being a wonderful multicultural land is a shining example. However if you are an immigrant medical doctor with a Nobel Prize, you still have to start fresh in Canada because Canada doesn't recognize "alien" medical degrees. Yet a lot of the universities that doctors oversees study in use the same theories and medical practices as in Canadian universities, because all humans are the same it seems. However the Canadian governments don't recognize that. It seems the red tape kind of takes the shine of the gleam of how "Canada welcomes university trained doctors". In fact Canada has a horrible need for doctors, you would think that it would help instead of detering people who can really help and become what it means to be Canadian.
It seems that Canadians are considered to be a unique biological being, and unless you happen to be one of them, then you should "know your place". I am not saying Canadians think they are a unique race, it just seems obvious that you always here that there are two founding races in Canada. What about the native people who helped and saved the new Canadians from themselves? What about the other ethnic groups who provided the expertise so that these new Anglo and Quebecois could survive the new harsh climates? It seems they too were told to "know your place".....
Yet what place is that? I guess for the dead Oka Mohawk who should have known better than to die and be buried in a spot that the Quebecois white golfers wanted. How uncivilized of the Mohawks to die in a piece of real estate that "real" Canadians want to use to play golf on. Then we wonder why those Mohawks were so angry, and for what we wonder?
So I wonder if anyone out there has the answer, what is a "real" Canadian please let me know.
It seems foreigners are sometimes very welcome to Canada, that is if they have the Hong Kong Bank, or millions of dollars, but if you are just a working class Taiwanese refugee, you are not so welcome.
Just what is a Canadian? Is it a white middle class person? If so then it seems Canada is disappearing a bit. When we travel the world over the world thinks Canada being a wonderful multicultural land is a shining example. However if you are an immigrant medical doctor with a Nobel Prize, you still have to start fresh in Canada because Canada doesn't recognize "alien" medical degrees. Yet a lot of the universities that doctors oversees study in use the same theories and medical practices as in Canadian universities, because all humans are the same it seems. However the Canadian governments don't recognize that. It seems the red tape kind of takes the shine of the gleam of how "Canada welcomes university trained doctors". In fact Canada has a horrible need for doctors, you would think that it would help instead of detering people who can really help and become what it means to be Canadian.
It seems that Canadians are considered to be a unique biological being, and unless you happen to be one of them, then you should "know your place". I am not saying Canadians think they are a unique race, it just seems obvious that you always here that there are two founding races in Canada. What about the native people who helped and saved the new Canadians from themselves? What about the other ethnic groups who provided the expertise so that these new Anglo and Quebecois could survive the new harsh climates? It seems they too were told to "know your place".....
Yet what place is that? I guess for the dead Oka Mohawk who should have known better than to die and be buried in a spot that the Quebecois white golfers wanted. How uncivilized of the Mohawks to die in a piece of real estate that "real" Canadians want to use to play golf on. Then we wonder why those Mohawks were so angry, and for what we wonder?
So I wonder if anyone out there has the answer, what is a "real" Canadian please let me know.
posted by joshie mitsima at
4:54 p.m.
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