John Ralston Saul

I went to listen to the annual multicultural lecture at the Chan Theatre at University of British Columbia last night. It was very interesting for me being a Canadian. My ancesters were among the very first to settle this great country. I always wondered why Canada's relations with its Aboriginal peoples was so much better than our neighbours.

Our neighbours and many other countries settled the same way treated Aboriginals like they were the interlopers. Aboriginals were pushed out of the way for immigrants to take the land and resources. Maybe not right away, but as soon as the European settlers became numerous enough to survive without help, they did so.

Canada's early settlers would not have survived their first winter without the help of the Aboriginal peoples in the area. That they did survive is a testiment to them, and a testiment to the Aboriginal peoples who taught them what was safe to eat, how to make a shelter from the cold, and so much more. Canada began right off the hop with a dialogue, a conversation with the native peoples.

John Saul talked abut all this, and especially how Canada has 3 legs that it stands on. The French, The English and Loyalists, and the Aboriginals. His main theme is that as long as all three legs remain strong, so will the country.

I agree with him for the most part, but I have noticed a decline in the conversation. I don't believe that the newest generations of immigrants to Canada are being properly included in the conversation. I am seeing a lot more influence to Canada's great culture by relatively large groups of other immigrants. There is no conversation between these new groups and the three founding legs. We are losing our special bond between all Canadians by leaving these groups out of the conversation.

Canada cannot take steps that will lead us to the types of rulings and laws that are enforced in other nations. We have to continue the conversations with all our groups included in order not to lose the orality of our nation. We must keep the conversations open and active. We must keep the conversations flowing.

Canada will not survive as we know and love it if we start only looking at written laws and rules. Our Aboriginals did not write laws, they negotiated them amongst the group. When my ancesters came to join this marvelous land, they tried to ring the written laws with them. They would write reports back to England and France, but not all was told in the written reports. The oral conversations were not reported. The far away masters thought they knew everything, but they did not. The ongoing conversations between the peoples involved led to a peaceful co-existence, There was no need for a large government to tell everyone what their jobs were. There was a great co-operation and working together for surviva of the peoples involved.

That is what we need to get back to. I don't mean fur trade, or anything like that, I mean we need to keep the conversations going and involving everyone to keep this country as stable as it has been all these hundreds of years.

To keep my conversations going, I use Skype and Message Magic.
Skype is free, Message Magic enhances it like you would not believe.

http://tinyurl.com/d9zhdu

Coach Elouise
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