THE OTHER JULY 1
Newfoundland remembers
As we wave the Maple Leaf on this special birthday, let’s remember our origins and acknowledge our roots. Let’s appreciate our diversity and honour our beginnings. Let’s be proud that Canada is a homeland for people from all corners of the globe. People who work hard to build productive and secure lives for their families, creating places of belonging and communities of sharing, in a world that, increasingly, is running for the exits.
Canadians can, and should always feel honoured that our treasured values include promoting peace, teaching tolerance and urging unity, among all peoples, all races, all religions. So, Happy Birthday to a most beautiful and majestic and special country, a nation that ripens, and grows richer, the longer it matures. Richer in culture, richer in diversity, richer in equality, richer in experience.
It’s a blessing to be a Canadian and a privilege to call our great land home. Yet, as we celebrate our goodness and greatness, let’s not forget our collective responsibility: ensuring that Canada stays as Canada for the families and new Canadians to come. Canada is not just a country to cherish, appreciate and love. It’s our Canada to preserve for the next 150 years. Mark Dickinson, Stittsville
Ponder advantages of free transit Re: Capital Wishlist – Let’s make public transit free and accessible in Ottawa, June 20.
This is something I’ve wondered about for a long time. Has anyone ever crunched the real numbers and considered the many, many advantages listed in Kira-Lynn Ferderber’s article?
Consider the resulting reductions in roadway construction and maintenance, parking lots and garages, required bridges, personal vehicles, gasoline consumption and the real convenience for everyone. Mary James, Ottawa
Canadians should know history Re: Capital Wishlist – It’s time to tell our children real story of indigenous peoples, June 21.
Kudos to Catherine Clark for her thoughtful words about fully educating children about Indigenous Peoples and Canada’s mistreatment of them. Let’s go a step further and ensure all citizens have easy access to a similar understanding of our history. The Canadian History Museum, Canadian Museum of Nature and National Gallery of Canada all appear poised to help educate museumgoers with new installations.
If there is just one thing Canadians should insist upon coming out of the 150thanniversary celebrations, it is greater education to all of us on this topic and a genuine movement toward correcting longstanding wrongs. Catherine Coulter, Ottawa
You won’t find separatists in the bars of George Street. Canada doesn’t matter much to many Newfoundlanders. Canada is there like God might be there, sensed only when it brings harm. — Dawn Rae Downton