Nick Noorani Website

This Canada Day is a very poignant one for me. I can no longer claim to be a recent newcomer — I’ve been in this country for more than 10 years now. Nor can I claim that this is my first Canada Day as a citizen — that milestone occurred last year. I am a Canadian through and through — at least that’s how I see it.

Getting invited to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s June garden party at 24 Sussex Drive was further confirmation that not only am I welcome in this country, but I am permitted — even encouraged — to claim it, embrace it and improve it. So after mingling with Prime Minister Harper and 500 other Canadian changemakers over lobster hors d’oeuvres and hot dogs, I was feeling mighty proud of myself. I was definitely on a high, so before returning to my hotel room I stopped for a cold drink and an order of spicy chicken wings — the hotter the better — at a nearby lounge.
Sitting at the bar, musing about the events of the day in my head, I sipped and munched without really noticing the group of men who saddled up on nearby stools. But my ears couldn’t miss it when one of the men had this to say: “I’m as hungry as an Asian eating with his hands.”
It’s as if someone let all the air out of my tires. I went from feeling positive and enthused to feeling as low as can be. I picked up a newspaper and started to read, not yet sure what I should do … one thing I did know was that no one that immature should have any power over what I felt about myself or my adopted country.
I waited until they left and then asked the bartender to see the duty manager. I explained to him what had happened and, of course, he was profusely apologetic about it. He was an immigrant himself of Caribbean ancestry and was visibly upset. I said to him gently, “I could have walked away, but the line in the national anthem says, ‘We stand on guard for thee’ and I do. In the Canada that I dreamed of, this behaviour is unacceptable.” We then talked about ways his staff could be prepared to handle such incidents in the future.
It’s interesting to me that days before experiencing this hateful comment, I had been giving a presentation on the topic of citizenship and being Canadian to the federal standing committee on citizenship and immigration. A new rule under the Citizenship Act says that if you are living in another country, your children born in that country are still eligible for Canadian citizenship. But your children’s children are not because their link to Canada is now too far-removed. In my presentation, I agreed with this new rule. Some immigrants might question why I support this — after all, as immigrants some of us might find that we want to move back to our homelands, but retain the benefits of Canadian citizenship as well. But, for myself, I have embraced Canada wholeheartedly — even with its highs and lows — and don’t believe citizenship is something that should ever be considered a convenience or safety net.
In my presentation, I quoted a historic statement made in 1848 by Louis LaFontaine, the co-founder of the union that would eventually lead to our Confederation, which goes like this:
“[Canada] is our country as it must be the adopted country of the different peoples which come from around the globe, to make their way into its vast forests to build their homes and place their hopes. Like us, their paramount desire must be the happiness and prosperity of Canada. This is the heritage which they should endeavour to transmit to their descendants in this young and hospitable country.”
In other words, the essential requirement of “being Canadian” is to want the best for Canada. I doubt that those who hold onto citizenship for convenience fall into this category, but, then again, it seems neither do the men who laughed at my expense at the bar that night. Canada today is a nation of diversity, and its future prosperity depends on all of us making good choices not only for ourselves, but for our fellow Canadians and our country overall.
So on Canada Day I ask all of you to hold the phrase “We stand on guard for thee” and the rest of the anthem close to your heart as you go out and celebrate what it means to be CANADIAN!