22 November 2011

This is exactly what I heard...

...on my latest visit to the Devil's Armpit for a little day surgery...
Just this week, an opinion poll showed that new arrivals believe just as strongly as home-grown Canadians that people who come to this country should adapt and integrate.

The vast majority of immigrants don’t want separate schools or different treatment. They just want to be treated like everyone else.
Perhaps somebody oughta share that news with the TDSB.

On my cab ride back from the hospital to Mrs Neo's brother's place, I had quite a conversation with my driver. A Pakistani Muslim, who had spent 20 years working in Saudi Arabia... this man had enthusiastically embraced the Canadian Dream.

Sure, he wasn't chairing the board of a top 10 Canadian corporation... but it sounded like his two sons (one finishing up a business degree at York University, the other enrolled in a Systems Information co-op program at Waterloo) had every chance of making that a reality.

This guy was articulate & intelligent and despite being employed at a job far below his capabilities... was thankful to be here in Ontario. Like the Italian immigrants who came to Canada in the middle of the last century and built Toronto brick by brick... he was making a better life for his family.

And driving a cab was the price he was willing... nay, eager... to personally pay to make that happen.

The point is... his children were excelling within the system... and he would no more have enrolled them at Token U than poked himself in the eye with a sharp stick.

That, my friends, is the type of person who will ensure that Canada continues to be the shining beacon of democracy that it has been these last 350 years.

This man is worth a dozen Occubots. Maybe we could arrange some sort of exchange program with socially & financially disadvantaged countries to swap out some of our misfit toys.

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RELATED: Compare & contrast

There is, of course, two sides to every coin...
"After receiving no response to the jiggling rope, Hamed got in his car and left, driving through the night to Montreal, about three hours away."