Canada Day

My birthplace homeland and my adopted homeland both have national days that carry the nation's name. I've lived about half my life in each and therefore claim both as my homeland. Australia Day, January 26, commemorates the day in 1788 on which the 'First Fleet,' a small flotilla of sailing ships, arrived to establish a permanent British colony. Canada Day, July 1, commemorates the day in 1867 on which all the territories, colonies and dominions comprising Canada as it then was met in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and agreed to form a confederation. It was an untidy affair because Newfoundland, technically the oldest (albeit non-permanent) European settlement, established in the late 15th century, remained a separate British dominion until 1949. There had been a few non-permanent European settlements, mainly whaling seafarers, in Australia too, before 1788. The European colonists in both Canada and Australia did not acknowledge that the lands they were colonizing had been inhabited for many thousands of years by indigenous people who had their own traditions, cultures and languages. The indigenous peoples were decimated by imported diseases, their traditions were scorned, their cultures largely destroyed. Genocidal actions included fabricated wars, deliberate infection of family groups with smallpox, and segregation of survivors on reservations, usually in remote places with harsh environments. We who are descended from European colonists look back now, apologize for what our ancestors did to their ancestors, grudgingly admit that the indigenous peoples deserve reparation, are our equals, not our inferiors. Not much if any of these aspects of history get mentioned on Canada Day (or Australia Day). It is a national holiday for celebration, festivities, fireworks after sunset, speech-making by leaders and heads of state, performances by popular entertainers. This year the queen is here and our own head of state, the Haitian-born vivacious governor general Michaelle Jean, is away on an official visit to China. Over a million Canadians in the total of 35 million, are ethnic Chinese; about another million have roots in the Indian Subcontinent and close to another million can trace their ancestry to Africa. Increasing numbers have been coming also from Middle-Eastern nations. Canada is truly a rainbow nation. One of the things I like best about Canada is that it is in large part 'colour-blind.' School children, university students, shop and office workers, sports teams and their supporters and spectators, are a multi-coloured free and easy mixture. The 'assortative mating' that I used to observe among medical student classes quite often takes little or no account of ethnic differences. There are rare isolated outbreaks of the kind of mindless and vicious hatred that once led white mobs to lynch black youths in the southern states of the USA, but such outbreaks are extremely rare in Canada, even more rarely violent and lethal. There are also some ethnic gangs, mainly in Vancouver, engaged in gang warfare to gain control of the illegal drug trade, prostitution, protection rackets etc, but these don't seem to threaten the national or even local body politic. At the other end of the spectrum, on Canada Day especially, are displays and celebrations of ethnicity, traditional Ukrainian, Portuguese, Hindu dance and dress, delicious meals of traditional ethnic dishes, recognition that Canada truly is a multicultural nation in which we all get along pretty well together. I hope it will always remain so!