LETTER: Thankful to be Canadian

Friday, July 20, I hope to celebrate my 61st year as a Canadian resident having arrived here as a very young, naïve immigrant.

Had I been born here I too, as a reader in a letter to The Guardian stated recently, would perhaps not have wished to be named an immigrant since I would have been so proud to have lived here from my birth. However, I am proud to be labelled a former immigrant since having lived in England, also in Australia and the U.S.A. I find Canada is the best, most beautiful, most tolerant of all the other countries of my experience.

I can, though, see the point of someone thinking of some Canadians as immigrants since many of us are not the first people to populate Canada; our First Nations people so rightly deserve their status as the first people to live here.

Now I am, and proudly so, a full-fledged Canadian citizen with all the rights and responsibilities of that title. I hope sincerely that I have made a positive contribution to my chosen country, which I love so much.

It is good to be thankful to Canada, and in my case and that of many others, for our citizenship. That is why next Friday I will say aloud without shame or reticence to anyone who listens: Thank you my Beloved, Chosen Country for all you have given me, some of the privileges I was denied in the country of my birth.

Hilary Prince,

Stratford, P.E.I.