Juno News - Celebrating citizenship isn't offensive

What better way to celebrate Canada Day than with a celebration of the greatest gift Canada, or any country, has to offer citizenship? Citizenship is important. It's not like an airport terminal where whoever is just in a country at a particular time is the makeup of that country, it's something that is meant to be significant. It should be hard to get, because it should have meaning and a level of pride.

00:00:00.000 Canada Day is upon us or Dominion Day as I like to call it and what better way to celebrate this

00:00:07.680 great affair than with a celebration of the greatest gift Canada or any country has to offer

00:00:13.140 citizenship citizenship is important it's not like an airport terminal where whoever is just

00:00:19.740 in a country at a particular time is the makeup of that country it's something that is meant to

00:00:24.360 be significant it is it should be hard to get because it should have meaning and there's a

00:00:29.680 level of pride anytime you've ever talked to someone who's a new Canadian citizen or someone

00:00:33.560 who's taken their citizenship test and they feel it because they've worked for it they find something

00:00:38.160 about this country that they want a part of and being a citizen is something they've earned something

00:00:43.820 they've unlocked now for those of us born in Canada we don't have that same approach I think it's

00:00:49.620 incumbent upon Canadians who are citizens by birthright to try to reclaim that excitement and

00:00:54.460 that passion for Canada because as citizens we have an obligation to protect this country and

00:01:00.260 this country's values and it's also worth celebrating as the Mandarin restaurant has done for years a

00:01:06.680 national buffet chain that will offer a free Chinese food buffet for Canadian citizens they've done this

00:01:13.740 many years you show your passport your citizenship card your birth certificate whatever the case may be

00:01:19.040 and you get to partake in all the food that Mandarin has to offer now Mandarin most times I've been

00:01:24.360 there I meet franchise owners who are themselves not native-born Canadians they are people that have

00:01:30.160 opened it up because they want to share something with Canada but most Mandarin owners I've met are Chinese

00:01:34.620 as are a lot of the staff you'll find at these restaurants when they say we want to give a free buffet

00:01:40.220 to Canadian citizens they're not saying we don't like people who are immigrants to this country they're

00:01:45.100 saying we want to celebrate by giving back to this country that has given something to us but the

00:01:50.960 climate has changed a lot since the Mandarin first started this promotion the climate has changed a lot 0.93

00:01:55.240 in the last 12 months now it's being chided by the Twitter mob as discriminatory because apparently

00:02:00.900 they're saying that permanent residents that illegals are not genuine members of society now I don't want

00:02:06.920 to put illegal immigrants who are breaking the law in the same boat as permanent residents people that are 0.98

00:02:11.400 here legally or working or paying taxes but they haven't yet gone to that final step of becoming a

00:02:16.660 citizen there's nothing wrong with permanent residents there's nothing wrong with living and

00:02:20.800 working and staying in a country either wanting to keep your home citizenship or intending down the

00:02:26.200 road to get the citizenship of where you live but similarly there's nothing wrong with a restaurant

00:02:30.600 an individual or anyone saying we want to celebrate Canadian citizenship now for me I've never partaken

00:02:38.220 in the Mandarin citizenship buffet because I don't like lineups but there are a lot of people that do 1.00

00:02:43.500 people that want to go and be a part of it and in fact I've heard from a number of people on social

00:02:48.040 media that one of the greatest demographic groups represented are new Canadians who are so proud

00:02:53.600 that they are a citizen and proud that they are being recognized as such to take pride in citizenship to

00:03:00.480 honor citizenship is actually honoring a country a country that is holding on to something a country that is

00:03:06.980 protecting and preserving its values and a country that ensures immigrants have a path to citizenship

00:03:12.760 if that's what they so choose to say that this is racist defensive discriminatory is losing sight of what

00:03:20.020 citizenship in a country is supposed to be as I said at the top a gift and let's not lose sight of that

00:03:26.100 for true north I'm andrew lawton and happy canada day

Juno News - June 29, 2019

Celebrating citizenship isn't offensive

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