Canada was founded in 1867. Initially it consisted of four provinces : Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

What you probably saw in the papers when you were visiting last year were references to Saskatchewan's and Alberta's centennial celebrations. These two provinces joined the Canadian Confederation in 1905, and we were celebrating that fact during 2005.

The province that joined Canada most recently is Newfoundland & Labrador, which joined in 1949.

Although Canada officially became a country in 1867, Europeans were extracting resources from it and, indeed, settling in it, long before that. King Charles II gave the Hudson Bay Company its charter to trade in furs in 1670. The infrastructure of trading posts, forts and trading routes that the company established acted as a de facto government throughout a vast territory that even included what now are some of the northern states of the USA.

I think the 1670 Hudson Bay Company charter marked the beginning of European settlement that would "stick." Prior to that Europeans had been visiting Canada, and some even had settled here, but those activities did not lead to permanent settlement. I'm thinking of the Basque fishermen of Spain who fished along the Atlantic coast of what now is Canada. Farley Mowat and others also have postulated that Irish and Scottish fishermen came to the Atlantic coast of Canada many centuries ago. In fact they believe that some Inuit groups carry genes of those Irish and Scottish fishermen. I suppose it would be easy enough to prove or disprove that hypothesis through genetic testing, but I have not followed the issue. I just flipped through Farley Mowat's book on the topic in a bookstore. What is not in doubt is that there were Norse settlers in Newfoundland about 500 years before Columbus. Archeology has proved it. However, between the hostility they encountered on the part of aboriginal people and a change for the worse in the climate, the Norse did not manage to endure in North America. Their technology was somewhat similar to that of the aboriginal people, so they lacked an advantage in warfare. When Columbus arrived 500 years later, he came with cannons, and that changed everything.

Anyway, moving forward to the recent past and the present, dbd33 beat me to it in pointing out the fact that immigrants or children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of immigrants are perfectly capable of discriminating against immigrants who arrived even more recently than they did or indeed against people who were in a place for eons before they arrived. I grew up in Southern Africa, so I have an ironclad guarantee of that fact.

Canada has an official policy of multi-culturalism. I find that, on the whole, Canadian society is pretty tolerant. But the degree of tolerance varies from person to person. There are people with closed minds in cities, and there are people with open minds in the countryside. However, if you want to find a person with a more progressive orientation, you have a better chance of finding him/her in an urban centre. Conversely, if you want to find a person with a parochial outlook, you have a better chance of finding him/her in a rural area.

In previous generations, even non-English speaking Europeans were discriminated against. A woman who is a contemporary of mine, so in her fifties, has told me how she was hit on the hand with a ruler when she was caught talking German in her school playground in Saskatchewan. A friend of ours who is a war bride from Germany suffered for decades because her husband's Canadian family of British ancestry was snotty towards her. Most of the relatives who were unwelcoming towards her have died off now, but the matriarch of the family, whom our friend calls The Duchess and who must be approaching 100 by now, lives on in her own little English speaking Canadian world.

I don't know when the turnaround happened, but I do know that it now is considered to be a good thing for immigrants to keep their native languages alive. Certainly that is the attitude that I observe around me in Calgary.

yep... I'm working in Montreal tomorrow... probably should have included due to its size.. but its not a major economic player like the other three (IMHO)

Toronto… Big business

Vancouver… huge port imports etc

Calgary… Oil..oil and more oil

Montreal … big old French orientated city

Ottawa mid sized city with the federal government base but not much else

When was the last time you were there !!

I am enlightened, thank you

I was not implying anything other than they were dutch immigrants.
I actually have the highest regard for them as dairy farmers. Which I mentioned to the Ontario official who toured the farms with me.
Which turned out well, as he then mentioned he was a dutch immigrant.
He has since helped me in getting the business immigration department to assist me with my work permit application.
So I like them even more now!

Hi Willmore!
I am interested in your experience with Mennonites, as I think maybe I have drawn the wrong conclusion about them being an insular society, from your thread.

How do they take to outsiders interacting with them?.

I do have to say the ones I met at St Jacobs market appeared very friendly towards us.

I spent most of my growing up years in the KW area which has a great population of mennonites living in and around the area. We as a family socialized with them - inviting them to our home being invited to their home. When we are at the farmers market in waterloo and see our friends we stop and chat. We also go to the farmers market at xmas time, and buy all our goodies for the xmas meal there. They will stop and chat with you and make different suggestions for meals. I can remember one xmas jim wanted to bring home some back bacon, and they went out of their way not only to slice it, but actually wrap it for us so we could just through it in the freezer when we got home.We have always found them to be very friendly and generous. Now this is just my experience with them - it must be noted however that the kids do go to a separate school from other kids and are very focused on "home" and family.

If you are ever in the St. Jacobs area, you will see them still driving horse and buggy in the middle of winter. Im amazed that they dont freeze to death being exposed to the elements.

I think the bottom line really is that people like to be treated the way in the same manner that you do!

We'll gloss over the fact that Montreal is Canada's largest container port, in addition to being home to much of its aerospace and other high-tech industry.

Bare reference will be made to the fact that 80% of employed Ottawans don't work for the government. Lots of them work in, gasp, high-tech.

Let's face it, Calgary's current wealth depends upon activities that are based a rather long way away from the city itself. If the global oil price ever returns to a more reasonable level, and I think it probably will, or a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine is made widely available to the consuming public, those oil sands will return to being nothing more than a stain on the landscape, as they were in the early 1960s. There will be a new version of the Calgary Stampede; money and jobs - leaving.

To add to what Willmore said about Mennonites ......

Like Quakers, they have a history of pacifism. Mennonite Central Committee Canada is involved in conflict resolution projects in Northern Ireland, Gautemala, Kenya and Burma. They contribute funds for the removal of land mines in Laos.

You may have heard of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). They recently were in the news because four members of CPT were kidnapped in Iraq. One was American, two were Canadian, and one was a New Zealander. After nearly four months the American hostage was killed, and then not too long afterwards the Canadians and the Kiwi were freed. Anyway, while CPT does attract volunteers from other Christian denominations and even from other religions, the four Christian denominations that founded CPT were the Mennonite Church in the USA, the Mennonite Church in Canada, the Church of the Brethren, and Friends United Meeting (an association of Quakers from North America, the Caribbean and Africa).

I was interested to read Willmore's description of Mennonites in rural Ontario. Here in Calgary Mennonites drive cars and wear "normal" clothes.

They are known to be welcoming to immigrants. They run an organisation that helps immigrants to integrate into mainstream society, to learn marketable skills, to start small businesses, etc.

The Unitarian Church of Calgary, which I attend, hosts "Collective Kitchen" once a fortnight. Collective Kitchen is a Mennonite initiative in which my church participates. It provides an opportunity for immigrants and established Canadians to learn each others' recipes, cook together, and get to know each other socially.

Whether or not Mennonites would be willing to buy a tractor from me if I tried to sell them one, I have no idea.

Thanks for that, my ignorant preconceived idea's are changed!

Amen, brother. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. Plan WTF (to quote hot wasabi peas) is in place if/when it happens again.

You are welcome. I learned something from Judy's messge.

I might also add that most of the mennonites around the KW area have no electricity or electrica appliances of any kind.....

Thanks for this, I am a little less ignorant, and as said to Willmore, my preconceived image of Mennonites has changed.

Not in Ontario. They don't use tractors but teams of horses, that's partly why the horse auctions are so interesting, they're buying and selling horses as machinery; they'll be advertised as teams "broke to plough" or "broke to wagon" or whatever. I don't know the details of Mennonite theology but it would seem that specific machines, perhaps those in existence at the time of the religion's foundation, are not allowed; cars and tractors being examples while others such as gas powered weed whackers (!) are allowed. We get summer sausage and eggs from a Mennonite farm where there's just a sign and a bowl for the money, the sausage and eggs are in a fridge so, I suppose, fridges are also allowed.

Mennonites here wear clothes of a limited range of colours fastened with clasps rather than buttons or zips. They smoke like chimneys and are major marijuana growers. They're also big in barn building, if you need a barn you can get a team of Mennonites to come, by wagon, and build it quite cheaply but you have to feed and house them while they work.

Samples of horses for sale as equipment here:

http://www.davidcarson.on.ca/gallery-2006-04-22.php

lot 24 is described in the catalogue as being "Well broke to drive.....have been driven on busy paved road with transport trucks". Perhaps they're ex-Young's brewery.

Thanks for adding this - I forget about it! Except I have never ever seen a mennonite smoke - I thought it was against their religion? or are there cultures of mennonites?