Blog Line

Best wishes all for a Happy Canada.

Recently I took part in a two-day kayaking course at the Toronto Harbourfront. As I paddled furiously, battling sunstroke, I looked up at one point and saw two Muslim teenage girls laughing and gliding smoothly by in a canoe. I was reminded of Canadian historian Pierre Berton’s quote; “A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.” An amusing and trifle uncomfortable image.

But as I saw them pass, enjoying themselves and dressed in head scarves and jibabs, I was also reminded of a recent conversation I had had with a nonCanadian business colleague of mine. He was asking me about Canada generally and Toronto specifically. He was surprised at the city’s degree of diversity and asked me what impact that had on society, how well people worked and lived together etc…. At the time, I told him Canada was like being in a lifeboat. It wasn’t perfect but at the same time everyone was doing their best to figure it out and paddle in the same direction. Instead of lifeboat maybe I should have said canoe. Pierre Burton would have and likely the two teenagers in jibabs would have too.