This is my Canada

It was a beautiful day for an outing.

The sun was shining with just a scattering of clouds to keep it from becoming overwhelmingly hot and there was just the wisp of a breeze. It was a great day to be at Canada’s Wonderland.

It was also an interesting look at the fabric of Canada.

Standing in line waiting to go on the Psyclone, and wondering how I had been talked into this, I started observing the people around me. Perhaps it was a distraction technique to take my mind off the fool act I was about to commit, but I found it fascinating none the less.

There was a time I would have looked at that crowd and seen mostly Caucasian faces looking back. Not anymore. This crowd covered the spectrum of colours, from black to white, and all shades in between. It struck me how different this was from my youth and how much this represented the Canada of the 21st century.

Most interesting of all was the intermingling of cultures.

Behind me was an East Indian woman with her head leaning on the chest of a man of African descent. A little way over was a Lebanese girl holding hands and talking animatedly with a Caucasian guy. In the next row over, I could hear the animated conversation, about which Power Ranger was the best, going on between three girls in their early teens, one Caucasian, one Asian and one Muslim. (blue or red Power Ranger?)

I looked around some more and noticed most of the people were in western style clothes. There were some obvious Muslims, with their headgear and designer jeans, and the occasional Hindu. All of them were talking excitedly, as people will while at the amusement park, clutching their cokes and eating junk food.

Sitting by the entrance to a rollercoaster, I spotted a woman in a burka with her children, all of them obviously wound up by what was going on around them (parents will know what I am talking about). Standing in line to get funnel cakes and candy were, again, people of all nationalities and religions, white, black, Muslim, Christian, Hindu.

And it struck me; here we were, all together, to have fun. There was no racial intolerance, no religious extremism, no terrorist plots, just a bunch of people enjoying a day out with the family, having a good time and eating junk. No one cared that the person in front was black or brown or that the person behind was Muslim or Buddhist. We were just people who were enjoying life.

And it gave me great hope, for this is my Canada.