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Heading for Canada



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Published Date: 05 July 2008
Bravo Canada for inviting more Britons to settle there. Canada would become slightly more British, and that is something we could take pride in. Britishness is not geographically limited.
If they want our most skilled, we can always train more. If any nice British families find both their children are off to Canada and leaving them, they should have had three or four, shouldn't they?

JOHN RISELEY
Harcourt Drive
Harrogate, North Yorkshire



The full article contains 75 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 04 July 2008 8:47 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Mikey,

05/07/2008 08:57:51
Eh?
2

Mr. Lachie Todd,

Edinburgh 05/07/2008 09:59:16
Anyone who travels regularly to Canada knows only too well that it is now a multi-cultural society just like the UK. Toronto and Vancouver are about as British as Southall, Brixton, and Toxteth!

However, almost 250 years after losing Canada, the French influence is still massive, especially in their home Province of Quebec, with a populatiopn three times more than Paris! Canada is officially a biligual
English/French language nation.

Another national group which dominated Canada were the Scots, and their influence can also be seen all around in the place names of rivers mountain ranges. There are towns and cities called Airdrie, Calgary, Edinburgh, Glasgow, et al. You will see more kilted soldiers in Canada than you will see in Scotland! The first Prime Minister of Canada was a Scot and Canadian politics was once dominated by the Scots and their descendants.

It could be argued that Canada was really NORTH British!
3

Darien,

Panama 05/07/2008 11:49:58
I visited the underground museum in Vancouver which gives the 'history' of Canada. In one window, a dummy of Queen Victoria pops out and proclaims that "England gives Canada her Independence". This was supposed to be second half nineteenth century when England had long since ceased to be a state. No mention of 'Britain' or 'United Kingdom' or indeed of Scotland. Och weell, a' part o the Union dividend, a suppose.
4

Hugh V McLachlan,

Elderslie 05/07/2008 11:58:26
'Anyone who travels regularly to Canada knows only too well that it is now a multi-cultural society just like the UK.'

I suspect that a multi-cultural society could not survive. The UK is a society whose culture accommodates numerous variations. However, there are not within the UK, separate autonomous cultures. I suspect that Canada is the same.

5

EWB,

UK 05/07/2008 12:01:13
#1: What Mr Riseley writes has more than a modicum of truth in it. In 2004, the Australian Senate solicited the views of Australian expatriates all across the world and nearly 700 people or bodies wrote in.

I am copying an excerpt of what one Australian who lives in Brazil wrote:

"Five years ago, I would have rejected the idea that Australia could be classified as a British country, but those five years have taught me to disconnect the term “British” from a geographical meaning and recognise it as describing a world view and a set of institutions that are fundamental to what Australia has become: things as diverse as our parliamentary democracy, our ironic, self-deprecating sense of humour and our sense of fair play.

"The Australian diaspora is, in fact, part of a broader British diaspora: a diaspora not merely of people, but of a world-view."

Having watched Andy Murray's disgusting display of non-sportsmanship against Gasquet, reinforced by the blatant prejudice of the English spectators, I wonder how many British people still embrace "a sense of fair play".
6

EWB,

UK 05/07/2008 12:06:32
#2 should research more deeply when he writes about Canada in general and the Province of Quebec in particular. Quebec has a population of 7.8 million whereas Greater Paris (Paris unité urbaine) contains 9.3 million. It is the City of Paris with 2.2 million, whose population is less than a third the size of Quebec's.

Despite #2's persistent "Here's tae us" refrain, he should know that the Quebeckers are extremely conservative and refuse the display in a public place of any sign in the English language despite Canada's official policy of bilingualism. Vive l'exception française! (Just like the EU.)

Perhaps Quebec's linguistic fascism appeals to him and one can wonder what he would like the language of an independent Scotland to be - Scots?

#3: I watched PM Stephen Harper's address to the Canadian people the other night to celebrate the nation's 140th anniversary. When I then clicked over to listen to the French version, he addressed Canadians "français et anglais". N.B. No mention of the Scots, the world's invisible nation.

7

Beth Boyle,

NY 05/07/2008 16:59:32
I live close to the Canadian Border and have to say Canada is an amazing and wonderful country!
8

Mr. Lachie Todd,

Edinburgh 05/07/2008 20:38:23
It never ceases to amaze me how far some posters will go to disparage the Scots and Scotland!

Historically, like the French, and original population of the 13 ENGLISH colonies, the Scots have never been militarily defeated by its acquisitive Southern neighbour.

England only succeeded in "catching Scotland" by dynastic and political means, only to find that 300 years later this ungrateful Trojan Horse of a nation
has other plans: a sovereign Scottish State!
9

Beth Boyle,

06/07/2008 06:52:52
#8 Who disparages Scotland? Surely not the Canadians? I always order Scottish products from Canada as it's the cheapest way to get things. I certainly am very proud of my Scottish roots but live over the border on the south side of Lake Erie. I heard my first pipe band in Canada and have gone to Highland games there. I went on my honeymoon to Canada.

 

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