November 1973 — VOL. 54, No. 11 —
Canada's Adopted
Citizens
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By becoming a Canadian citizen
a person shows that he is no longer satisfied to be merely
a guest in the house where he lives but that he has, in fact,
become one of the family.
In primitive times, when a person sought to live in another
group than his own, ceremonial rites of adoption were necessary.
These rites were supposed to make the incoming individual
a blood member of the new group.
Citizenship implies acceptance of a code of behaviour, but
that is only the starting point. It also gives one a set of
anticipations and expectations. After a few years residence
in Canada an adopted citizen becomes endowed with all the
rights that any of us have.
There is little or nothing to distinguish a person born
in Canada from an adopted citizen. People do not go around
wearing badges.
If you are a newcomer you are free to lead your own life
without reporting to any authority. You can start a business
or get a job provided you have the necessary skills. You can
buy a house, drive a car, educate your children, join all
sorts of clubs and societies, express your opinions, claim
the justice of the courts, and in general, live in the Canadian
way.
The worth of these freedoms is more evident to adopted citizens
than to those who have never experienced the repression and
restraint associated with other ways of life.
Becoming a citizen gives you a sense of having a part to
play in the community, of sharing fully in the duties as well
as in the advantages of being Canadian. You realize that your
contribution is appreciated and desired by fellow Canadians,
and that you are accepted and welcomed along with the heritage
and the culture you bring with you.
Practically all the races and nationalities of the world
are represented in our foreign-born population. The ancestors
of all of us wore animal skins and coloured themselves blue
with woad to ward off evil powers. Today we work together
in an enlightened way to build a country in which the best
things become available to all of us.
An ethnic mosaic
Canadian citizenship today is a compendium of all Canada's
past, contributed to by people from many countries. Every
succeeding generation has added to the wealth of knowledge
and the store of wisdom that was bequeathed to it. Every generation
has been aware of the possibility of improvement, and has
contributed its share.
Having assembled the vivid and adventurous spirits of numerous
races, Canada has evolved a social philosophy that may be
called an ethnic mosaic.
John Murray Gibbon wrote in the Preface to his book Canadian
Mosaic (McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1938): "Some
politicians want to see these [ethnic groups] merged as quickly
as possible into one standard type, just as our neighbours
in the United States are hurrying to make every citizen a
100 per cent American. Others believe in trying to preserve
for the future Canadian race the most worthwhile qualities
and traditions that each racial group has brought with it."
We believe that every race has something of special value
which it can contribute to the attainment of Canada's high
ideals. We believe that we must make useful to Canada the
unique good that is in the adopted citizen. We believe that
in differentiation, and not in uniformity, lies the path of
greatest personal and national development. We believe that
Canadian unity and identity are strengthened through intergroup
understanding and increased participation by all citizens
in their local and national communities.
In diversity is a treasury of riches. Nothing is valued
more by our citizens who come from other countries than the
sense of being fully accepted in the Canadian community without
having to conform to a specified pattern.
A government multicultural policy, announced in October
1971, is designed to encourage ethnic groups and to help them
to develop their culture and share it with their fellow citizens.
Our Monthly Letter in June that year said: "A country
that has geographical, racial, political and economic differences
may draw itself together and bridge its divisions through
blending its many cultures. Instead of existing as isolated
clusters of people in detached provinces and communities,
we become a group of men and women with common interests,
and culture is the tie that binds."
An example of the social intermingling of persons of several
racial extractions was given at the St. Jean Baptiste Society
ceremony opening the 1973 festivities of St. Jean Baptiste
Day in Montreal. The celebration featured entertainment by
Ukrainians and Romanians in national costume, dancing to the
music of a "coureur de bois" band.
Coping with differences
There is no nation — perhaps not even one family —
in which the members have complete unanimity of belief.
Becoming a good citizen does not mean that a person must
adopt the same views as his neighbours about politics, art,
economics or literature. It means permitting other people
to have beliefs that are different from ours. Cross-fertilization
is just as important in the intellectual kingdom as in the
vegetable. We need pollen from one another's minds.
When people state their opinions clearly, there is a chance
that through debate they may come together. Once they agree
on the objective toward which they are working, they can enter
into dialogue about the details, keeping in mind the saving
graces of humour and courtesy. Sweet reasonableness, gentle
manners, and civility go hand-in-hand with effective effort.
Men and women find their greatest self-fulfilment in groups.
All persons have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions.
The practice of citizenship in a democratic country consists
in bringing about the expression of these desires in harmony,
and channelling them into constructive effort.
Citizenship is not a status conferred by the award of a
certificate bearing the Seal of Canada. It is part of the
process whereby a person enhances his happiness by entering
into fruitful relations with his neighbours seeking their
shared good as Canadians.
A citizen does not stand alone. He is one of as many million
people as make up his nation. Sir Arthur Keith, distinguished
scientist, tells us: "Of the millions of nerve units in the
brain not one is isolated. All are connected and take part
in handling the ceaseless streams of messages which flow into
the brain from eyes, ears, fingers, feet, limbs and body."
A community is built by similarly close relations between
citizens. The individual good of every citizen depends upon
the harmonious working of all the community. Here is a functioning
group. The people in it see themselves as highly individual
but at the same time as responsible citizens using organized
action to improve their living environment.
Shape your destiny
The rational purpose of the state is to work out the best
possible satisfaction of the changing wants of its members.
A well-integrated individual life is impossible unless the
social relations that surround it respond to its needs.
A marriage is needed of the technical age with a civilization
that makes way for science while retaining the five fundamental
qualities: truth, beauty, adventure, art and peace.
We need to lift up our heads and determine which way leads
toward the sort of Canada in which we wish to live. When we
decide what things must be changed, and are brave enough to
go to work on them, we are headed in the right direction.
The dignity of man demands that he participate actively
in shaping his own destiny. Indolent people cannot enjoy the
fruits of citizenship. Only people who are small in character
and weak in intelligence are content to look on, and conjecture,
and gossip in undignified idleness instead of putting their
hands to construction of something desirable.
Becoming part of
The people who are Canadians by accident of birth and those
who chose Canada to be their home are alike in this: they
started life with a heritage of goodly beliefs, and along
their path they have heard, felt, thought and learned much.
They should care enough about the past to learn what it has
contributed to today, and go on to add their contribution
to the structure.
Canada has institutions which encourage every man and woman
who has industry and ability to rise to any position in the
land. To start with, in nearly every urban centre and in many
rural districts, language and citizenship classes are conducted
by the local school authorities or by voluntary organizations.
Language study books are provided free by the Government's
Citizenship Branch to Departments of Education and voluntary
organizations that conduct language classes. Booklets which
give information about Canada are available to persons preparing
themselves for citizenship.
There is a big array of adult education classes. Many institutions,
including school boards, provincial and private schools, business
and professional associations, community colleges and universities,
offer a variety of correspondence and extension courses. Hundreds
of thousands of adults are pursuing academic, vocational and
cultural education to obtain diplomas or to gain individual
satisfaction.
The most effective way for individuals to improve the quality
of their lives is through organizations founded by citizens
for purposes which they themselves have determined. The Citizenship
Branch cooperates with voluntary agencies and with social
action groups which express the needs and interests of people
across Canada. The interests may be in the theatre, ballet,
festivals, music, visual arts, writing. To supplement this
work there are many museums, art galleries, libraries, television
and radio.
Its work is done by the Citizenship Branch through eighteen
regional offices which work closely with citizens' groups,
organizations and local government agencies. Regional officers,
trained in the social sciences, are available to help agencies
and groups to organize and plan.
Many thousands of persons are helped by newspapers published
in languages other than English or French. These total about
85; they appear in 23 languages, and have a circulation of
close to three million.
Through this press, loneliness of newcomers is eased, they
are made acquainted with Canada's aspirations, problems and
opportunities; and they are assisted to fit into and make
the most of their new way of life. They feel free to go into
one of their newspaper offices for information about jobs
and housing and other things that affect them.
Seek rewarding citizenship
The rich rewards of citizenship are within the reach of
everyone who wants them. The foundations of citizenship do
not consist of statistics and research projects that can be
traced on squared paper, but of wisdom, belief in betterment,
and virtue found in the hearts of people.
Citizenship means, like culture, religion and education,
progress of the individual and of the group toward something
which they ardently desire. Being a citizen is part of their
outreaching for Utopia. Every step opens up a whole new vista.
J. B. S. Haldane, the "burly, tweedy, shaggy man" of many
academic and scientific distinctions, wrote: "I have not very
much use for people who are not in touch with the invisible
world. At best they are good animals, and too often not even
that .... If you do not make any contact with this timeless
world (in other words, have no inner life) you have at best
a very precarious hold on happiness."
The good citizen participates in and promotes education;
he supports his church and other good moral forces; he takes
part with intelligence in the selection of persons to represent
him in government; he believes in the family and its duties;
he does the best work of which he is capable, in whatever
profession, trade or business he engages; he takes part in
programmes for the good of his community. He bears allegiance
to ideals, to the system of liberty and order that Canadians
live under.
Diversity of culture
Citizenship is the daughter and mother of civilization.
Comte de Mirabeau, the most important figure in the first
two years of the French Revolution, associated civilization
especially with women. He regarded it as a condition of humane
laws, customs and manners, of relatively tender human relations.
It is not to be measured by the number of automobiles per
hundred thousand population, but by the number of good people
per thousand.
Social organization is the standardized manner in which
groups behave. A civilized person gets along with other civilized
persons no matter where they were born or to what race they
belong. The higher the state of civilization the more completely
do the actions of one member of the social body influence
all the rest.
Within civilization, there is a diversity of culture. The
Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism reported
a few years ago: "There cannot be one cultural policy for
Canadians of British and French origin, another for the original
peoples and yet a third for all others."
All cultural groups are essential elements in the community
of cultures which make Canada what it is. They are encouraged
to share their cultural expression and values with other Canadians,
thereby contributing to a richer life for all.
Culture is not a fixed thing, imposed once and forever.
New requirements arise from new knowledge and new circumstances.
It is a deposit from the activities of men and women as they
endeavour to control reality for the satisfaction of their
wishes. The members of each generation receive the cultural
heritage from preceding generations, adapt themselves to it,
add to it, and pass it on to their descendants.
No culture is ever complete. That would be stagnation. We
borrow and accept from others the ideas, beliefs and practices
that will enhance our own culture. The outcome, some time
in future, will be a Canadian culture to which all have contributed
and from which all benefit.
The form of government under which people live is part of
civilization, and, indeed, it is a guide to how civilized
they are. Good government can be provided only by socially-minded
citizens organized for their "better ordering and preservation"
as was written in the Mayflower Compact.
There is no compulsion upon a citizen to vote in any election,
but the good citizen will prize and will not throw away this
valuable right. The democratic system and the Canadian form
of representative government rely upon the ability and willingness
of citizens to accept the responsibility of citizenship, taking
a lively interest in issues of the day so that the laws of
the state represent the will of the majority of citizens.
The real laboratory for democracy must be in the community.
Here are all the institutional modes of life as expressed
in the home, the church, the school, the state; here are the
hundreds of "little states", called by Pope Leo XIII, "the
'Society' of a man's own household"; here are younger citizens
in the making and older citizens in the remaking.
Freedom to think and speak
Upon the thoughts and actions of the individual citizen
depends the continued existence of democratic freedom. Liberty
grants us the right to act without undue interference. We
are, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, free as long
as we keep some rules.
John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist, wrote in his
essay "On Liberty": "The only freedom which deserves the name
is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as
we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their
efforts to obtain it."
Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese poet, essayist and philosopher,
asked the question: "What is it to be a good citizen?" He
answered: "It is to acknowledge the other person's rights
before asserting your own, but always to be conscious of your
own. It is to be free in word and deed, but it is also to
know that your freedom is subject to the other person's freedom."
The liberty to express and publish opinions is of almost
as much importance as the liberty to think of them. Every
person is encouraged, in Canada, to expound his honest beliefs.
If what a public representative says or does displeases us,
we are free to express our distaste.
There is no repression of the communication of ideas, even
of ideas which advocate the separation of Canada into a western
alignment with the United States, a prairie authority based
upon wheat and oil; a French cultural bloc; or a Maritime
confederacy aligned with the United States. All these are
freely stated, patiently heard, and deeply considered.
Democracy and freedom include what are called civil rights.
These are the legal immunities of individuals which the state
protects against interference. Here are some of the rights
that are considered fundamental in Canada, and they belong
to all the people, to every individual, and to none more than
to another: the right to life, to personal freedom, to contract,
to earn a livelihood, to freedom of belief and speech; to
associate; and to equality before the law.
The word "right" has a powerful appeal. It carries with
it the idea of the square deal upheld and enforced by the
state. To have a home of your own, to do what you like in
your spare time, to leave the country when you wish and enter
it again, to select your own amusements, and to work at what
you choose and are fitted for — these are rights that
are not available everywhere. They are part of the fabric
of a democracy like Canada.
Morals, law and justice
Every citizen plays his part in determining the character
of the conscience of his nation. Society has established more
or less definite standards for conduct; it has agreed upon
a certain set of rules. These are not chains, but just restraints
in the interest of all the people. They conspire with quiet
inducements and concealed checks to keep the surface of life
comparatively respectable.
The goodness of a nation must embody itself in the life
and ideals of its citizens. Ideals are something very personal,
developed within the hearts and minds of men and women. It
is as useless to discuss an ideal with someone who cannot
perceive it as to discuss Beethoven's piano sonatas with a
person who has no ear for music. But most men and women in
Canada have an instinctive appreciation of, and love for,
what is right, just as artists have for what is beautiful.
Happiness through citizenship
It is not enough to fulfil the animal function of keeping
alive. That is merely the means toward the end of enjoying
life.
Happiness includes, among other things, the satisfaction
which can come only through the full development and utilization
of one's faculties.
To be happy, newcomers and old-timers alike need to approach
life as a wholeness. It is not merely, or even primarily,
physical or economic or aesthetic. It is all of these put
together, with emphasis on this or that according to our own
nature, character and aspirations.
Values emerge from life at all its levels: there is virtue,
as Plato saw, in the good shoemaker, quite as much as there
is in the philosophic guardians of the Republic.
Love, art, poetry, disinterested thought, service to others,
the pursuit of non-utilitarian activities and the enjoyment
of non-consumable goods — all these are beyond calculation
in dollars and cents, and a life that does not enter into
their realm is incomplete. They are at least as much part
of the reality of a happy life as are atoms and electrons.
It is not enough to be mentally brilliant in order to be
happy. You may be able, like Rev. Charles Dodgson, to recite
pi to 71 decimal places, but unless you have something of
the love of life and the sparkling imagination he displayed
when he wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland you
are not enjoying all that life has to offer.
The Canadian attitude toward adopted citizens should offer
them: the opportunity to serve Canada as good citizens; the
possibility of personal development, of satisfying body needs,
of building up adequacy and self-reliability.
Then it should point the way to extend the range of their
participation in the country's life, of achieving their expectancies,
of building up congenial loyalties and friendships with persons
and groups, and of finding opportunities to serve Canada as
citizen members of the family.
Canada's variegated population may be likened to the little
dabs of colour an artist spreads on his palette. With these
colours, Canada can paint a masterpiece showing national life
at its most beautiful and its illustrious best.
W. EARLE McLAUGHLIN
CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT
November 1973
To the readers of the Monthly Letter:
With this edition of the Royal Bank Monthly Letter we are
marking the thirtieth anniversary of a continuing endeavour
by John Heron, who has been the author of every Monthly Letter
since December 1943.
Prior to that time we had been publishing a letter directed
exclusively to the world of business and finance. John Heron
began his writing career with us by saying "I couldn't write
that stuff!" Rather than attempting to imitate his predecessors,
he remained true to himself and to his training as a journalist
by choosing to write on subjects he knew and in a way with
which he was familiar. During the past thirty years his essays
have touched on education, youth, health, the family, communications,
and ( perhaps his favourite subject ( Canada. Each has been
of interest and help to thousands of people throughout the
world.
Honours are not new to John Heron. Statesmen and students,
universities and governments have all lauded him. Yet in spite
of an abundance of citations, awards and letters of appreciation,
he shrugs off praise as he does any discussion on economics
and finance.
One of his favourite quotations is from Montaigne :
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"I gather the flowers by the wayside, by the brooks and in the meadows, and only the string with which I bind them together is my own." |
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On behalf of more than seven hundred and fifty thousand
people in over one hundred countries who receive our Monthly
Letter, I wish John Heron an abundance of flowers to gather
and sufficient string for all his years to come as our essayist.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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