Celebrating citizenship isn't offensive
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
193.21548
Summary
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.
Transcript
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Canada Day is upon us or Dominion Day as I like to call it and what better way to celebrate this
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great affair than with a celebration of the greatest gift Canada or any country has to offer
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citizenship citizenship is important it's not like an airport terminal where whoever is just
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in a country at a particular time is the makeup of that country it's something that is meant to
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be significant it is it should be hard to get because it should have meaning and there's a
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level of pride anytime you've ever talked to someone who's a new Canadian citizen or someone
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who's taken their citizenship test and they feel it because they've worked for it they find something
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about this country that they want a part of and being a citizen is something they've earned something
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they've unlocked now for those of us born in Canada we don't have that same approach I think it's
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incumbent upon Canadians who are citizens by birthright to try to reclaim that excitement and
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that passion for Canada because as citizens we have an obligation to protect this country and
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this country's values and it's also worth celebrating as the Mandarin restaurant has done for years a
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national buffet chain that will offer a free Chinese food buffet for Canadian citizens they've done this
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many years you show your passport your citizenship card your birth certificate whatever the case may be
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and you get to partake in all the food that Mandarin has to offer now Mandarin most times I've been
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there I meet franchise owners who are themselves not native-born Canadians they are people that have
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opened it up because they want to share something with Canada but most Mandarin owners I've met are Chinese
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as are a lot of the staff you'll find at these restaurants when they say we want to give a free buffet
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to Canadian citizens they're not saying we don't like people who are immigrants to this country they're
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saying we want to celebrate by giving back to this country that has given something to us but the
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climate has changed a lot since the Mandarin first started this promotion the climate has changed a lot
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in the last 12 months now it's being chided by the Twitter mob as discriminatory because apparently
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they're saying that permanent residents that illegals are not genuine members of society now I don't want
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to put illegal immigrants who are breaking the law in the same boat as permanent residents people that are
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here legally or working or paying taxes but they haven't yet gone to that final step of becoming a
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citizen there's nothing wrong with permanent residents there's nothing wrong with living and
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working and staying in a country either wanting to keep your home citizenship or intending down the
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road to get the citizenship of where you live but similarly there's nothing wrong with a restaurant
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an individual or anyone saying we want to celebrate Canadian citizenship now for me I've never partaken
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in the Mandarin citizenship buffet because I don't like lineups but there are a lot of people that do
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people that want to go and be a part of it and in fact I've heard from a number of people on social
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media that one of the greatest demographic groups represented are new Canadians who are so proud
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that they are a citizen and proud that they are being recognized as such to take pride in citizenship to
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honor citizenship is actually honoring a country a country that is holding on to something a country that is
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protecting and preserving its values and a country that ensures immigrants have a path to citizenship
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if that's what they so choose to say that this is racist defensive discriminatory is losing sight of what
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citizenship in a country is supposed to be as I said at the top a gift and let's not lose sight of that
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for true north I'm andrew lawton and happy canada day