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Author: Mr. Larkin - Ontario, Canada
I grew up in Toronto in the 50s & 60s, back when this city was quietly becoming a home for people from every corner of the world. Long before anyone talked about “multiculturalism,” we already had families here who had come through the Underground Railroad. Real survivors. People who escaped slavery, found safety on Canadian soil, raised their children here, and carried themselves with a dignity that told you exactly what freedom meant. Nobody questioned their loyalty. Nobody asked them to pick sides in anything. They were welcomed, and they appreciated this place with a depth you could feel.
And then the waves of new immigrants came — Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Ukrainians, Jamaicans, Chinese, Germans, Polish,—huge list — all landing in Toronto with a suitcase, a language barrier, and a hope that their kids might live better than they did. Their parents worked two jobs, saved every nickel, and didn’t complain because they knew exactly what they’d left behind. And their kids, the ones I went to school with, became some of the most Canadian people you could ever meet. As Canadian as me, and I’m six generations deep.
The thing that tied all those groups together – the Underground Railroad families, the post-war immigrants, the first-generation kids I grew up with – was an unwritten understanding: Canada was the refuge, not the battleground. Nobody dragged old feuds onto Canadian soil. Nobody walked around waving flags from back home demanding we take sides. Nobody tried to turn Canada into the place they ran from. You came here, you acclimated, you kept your head down, and you built a life. That was the silent agreement.
Somewhere along the way, something shifted. These days people feel comfortable shouting at other Canadians for not supporting their overseas cause, marching with flags from everywhere but the country they’re living in, accusing anyone who disagrees with their politics of hate, racism, or whatever label shuts down conversation the fastest. And the rest of us — immigrants, children of immigrants, and those of us with roots going back generations — find ourselves asking when gratitude turned into entitlement, and when we started importing battles that were never ours to begin with.
Ignorance, stupidity, racism, bigotry — those come in every shape, colour, and background. Nobody owns them. But there’s a world of difference between disagreeing with an idea and hating a people. Criticizing an ideology is not an act of racism. Wanting to protect Canada’s peace doesn’t make you a bigot. It makes you someone who remembers the old understanding — the one the Underground Railroad families lived by, and the one every hardworking immigrant family after them respected: if Canada gives you a home, you honour it.
Not by being silent forever, but by knowing what’s worth fighting about — and what should’ve been left behind at the border.
So yes, when you choose Canada, you choose it fully. You acclimate. You contribute. You don’t drag us into battles we never asked for. And if someone can’t manage that simple respect, then maybe they need to ask themselves why they came here in the first place.
The End!
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