Debbie Jabbour retweetledi
Great article on Alberta and separation from Senator Paula Simons @Paulatics
“Blood and soil ethno-nationalism doesn’t work here, because Canada has been multicultural since our very beginning, long before the first traders and colonizers and settlers arrived, home not to one single Indigenous culture but to hundreds of distinct languages and traditions.
Our colonial roots were both French and English—not to mention Scottish and Irish and Welsh, so we’ve been multilingual since the first Europeans landed.
No other country has been as successful at creating a truly multicultural nation of tolerance and inclusion. And it’s not some elite “liberal” notion that Laurentian Canada has imposed on Alberta.
Far from it.
Multiculturalism as national public policy was first championed in 1971 by Harry Strom, the Social Credit premier who preceded Lougheed.
Back then, multiculturalism was pushed hardest by Alberta’s Ukrainian community, who chafed under the limitations of the old “two founding nations” bicultural paradigm.
You might well call official multiculturalism Alberta’s greatest gift to Canada, since it has enabled us to become a global powerhouse ideally equipped to compete in a global economy.”
albertaviews.ca/the-case-for-s…
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