Nick Noorani Website

Every year in Canada some 250,000 people – like you – are sworn in as new citizens. I have been at citizenship ceremonies all over the country, from the Yukon to Halifax. And I’ve seen that all of us, new and established citizens, treat this as a normal part of Canadian life. And it is normal. And it should be normal. But it is also amazing – amazing as an inclusive and dramatized approach towards citizenship. As I’ve watched you going by today and chatted with you, I have been struck yet again by the obvious fact that each one of you has a very different story and each one of you has the possibility of making a contribution to this country.
You’re already making a contribution because you’ve already been here for several years. What I am talking about is the kind of contribution you can make now that you are assuming the full obligations of Canadian citizenship. I don’t know what that contribution is going to be and perhaps you don’t know yet. Some of you are students, and so there’s no reason why you would know what shape your life is going to take. And many of you have only been here four or five years. Why should you know already precisely what kind of thoughts you’re going to have on politics or public affairs and what kind of role you might wish to play in the public life of Canada, whether at the street level, or the community level or the provincial or national level? All of this will evolve and emerge with time.
Hosted by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship

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“This is the ghetto dude that I spoke to before,” said the email to the University of Toronto honours student from the very person handling his job application.
This is so sad. Just when we proudly blow our collective trumpets about DIVERSITY along comes something that makes you shake your head in wonderment!
Here are my thoughts:
1. Premier Dalton McGuinty called Reid to apologize, but Aileen Siu didn’t!
2. Aileen Siu is the person in charge of recruitment? Hello????
3. Her comment that ‘email was never intended for Reid’ is totally unacceptable!
4. The fact that Aileen Siu is Asian raises the subject of internalised racism – where some races feel superior to another!
Lastly, in Vancouver we have not even heard about this incident! Are we inured to this behaviour?

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Canada Day was the day we became Canadian Citizens. A nine year journey’s new landmark!

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