All my life, until last month, I've been dipping into Canada for weekend stays, never longer than three days at a time. And then, in August, my wife, Roberta, and I devoted two weeks to Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops, Calgary and the Canadian Rockies (Banff and Lake Louise). We returned with a new appreciation of our neighbor to the north.
Canada has a much greater population than most of us would have thought: about 38 million people, and growing rapidly as a result of its receptive attitude toward immigration. In effect, Canada has sent word to the world that it will take in political refugees from countries where their lives have become intolerable (Iraq and Somalia among them).
It also has followed a policy of encouraging the immigration of highly skilled scientists, technicians and even unusually bright university students. To visit almost any large Canadian city is to be surrounded by people of all races and ethnicities from around the world. Canada is creating the kind of melting-pot society that the United States was in the 1920s.
The media of Canada are especially impressive. You turn on a local radio newscast and hear reports directly from Kandahar, Afghanistan. I cannot imagine hearing radio newscasts in the United States that would devote such attention to important world developments. The newspapers - I scanned several each day - are also impressive. The world coverage, the columnists, the editorial opinions in Toronto's Globe and Mail (circulated throughout Canada) are unusually serious and well-thought-out. During the early days of the Russia/Georgia/Ossetia war, the Canadian outlook was balanced and objective, without hysteria. The people of Canada, I concluded, seemed reasoned in their judgments, quite serious, tolerant toward the stranger, well-educated and well-read for the most part, thoughtful and reflective, and without the belief in absolutes, the dogmas, and the hatred that one sometimes finds in other countries.
I had conversations with taxi drivers that were on a level with what you would experience with a college instructor. In fact, every cabdriver to whom I directed political questions responded with details - the names of Canadian politicians, their political parties, their recent histories. They also were up to date on British and French politics, and followed the U.S. scene with great interest.
It's a unified and democratic nation that is ethical in its outlook and with the demands it makes of its government. I am well aware that I formed these judgments based on merely a two-week stay. I am ready to be corrected, if wrong. But I gained a new respect for Canada, and wanted to share my feelings.
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