My wife and I have just returned from one of the great cities of the world. Toronto is a calm, clean, well-ordered, cosmopolitan, peaceful city. If during one long weekend in that city of two and a half million people there are a couple of murders, it is an alarming law and order crisis. And Canada as a whole, as a friend of mine describes it, is a blessedly fangless country. It is strongly democratic, well-run, friendly, and progressively aware of its responsibilities as a world citizen.
The cultures of all countries and creeds increasingly gather there with little friction. World-class exhibitions, plays, concerts, festivals and sporting events find a stage. The economy is flourishing, the currency is strong, the abundance of natural resources is never-ending in this immense land of endless opportunity. Even the dreaded onset of global warming seems to be bringing the benefits of longer summers and milder winters to the land, which has been described as “A miraculous country: miraculous in its peacefulness, its diversity, its tolerance and its determined non-Americaness.” Nigerian-born Daniel Igali, once an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, when asked on his induction to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame what his new home signified to immigrants, softly and very simply said “Canada is heaven.”
