Actually, I am a Canadian, and pretty proud of our weird country. I have known Canadians from all walks of life, lived with them, buried them, and I was speaking from personal experience, such as it is. I stand by what I said -- there is a deep suspicion of neighbours, immigrants, people who speak French/English, Catholics/Protestants, you name it. We have a long proud tradition of bigotry and narrow mindedness: the Orange Parade used to be the biggest parade of the year in Ontario. Within the last 10 years, this country was within a hair's breadth of breaking up over the French/English struggle, which is based on that long tradition, and is characterized by ignorance, prejudice, and mutual suspicion. Almost every week, some province or other is threatening some other province, or proposing to leave the country because some other part of the country is benefitting, or doing it down or something. Easterners vs. Westerners, Ontario fat cats versus downhome Maritimers, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Up tot this point, the difference, over time, is that rather than kill each other, we have ignored each other, kept to ourselves, and were reasonably lawabiding, except we bitch a lot. We seem to think that peace is better than fighting over creeds and colours, which is just fine by me. I am very happy with the cultural mosaic notion, it is better to believe in that than in killing people for race, colour, or creed. For one thing, the food on offer in Canada has improved drastically. When I was growing up, there was one Italian restaurant in Toronto, and the Chinese restaurants served "Canadian and Chinese Food", which mostly meant chicken chow mein.

"Embracing" does not mean "melting".

I have still to be convinced that the glories of the mosaic would survive a serious depression -- Canadians have enjoyed, throughout the period of massive immigration, a great deal of prosperity (much of it generated by the need to feed, clothe, and house all these arrivals). If the economy goes into the tank, and unemployment goes up, the arms open to the world will fold up pretty quickly.

yours,

Peter T.