Few Canadians understand the power and significance that is imbedded in our Culture. It was Canadian Culture that finally bridged the Iron Curtain with a hockey tournament. It was Canadian Culture and the assistance of an elected Member of Parliament, The Honourable Eugene Whelan, Minister of Agriculture, that helped to dismantle the Soviet Union and introduce Perestroika and Glasnost, the policies which lifted the Curtain of Darkness and brought hope to East Europe. These policies, according to Mikhail Gorbachev, then Agriculture Minister for The Soviet Union, “were developed on The Canadian Model.” And this transformative socio-political plan was formulated on Canadian soil at Mr. Whelan’s home near Windsor, Ontario.
Few know how I carried Canadian Culture to China twenty-five years ago, a mission which has had profoundly positive consequences that can be seen in the new China as portrayed on the current CBC series “China Rises.” Only a Canadian could walk into the then closed and cloistered China and share democratic ideas. Dr. Norman Bethune, hero of the Chinese Revolution, made this possible for me, one Canadian opening the door of opportunity to another.
This was the first spark that ignited the massive social and industrial and cultural revolution that is now in high gear in the ancient Middle Kingdom. This act of intervention was intended to pre-empt the dangerous potential of China as it existed at that time. China was a threat to the entire world and much has changed in this regard. Now she is open, prosperous and integrated into the Global Community. This is in stark contrast to the China I entered. Now China represents a different more dangerous threat.
Few are aware that a young woman lawyer from Georgetown, Ontario is in Bosnia, helping that nation to build a future with a new legal code “based on the Canadian model.” And all of the legal codes (criminal, civil, military, corporate, traffic and transportation, international Law) introduced in South Africa at the end of Apartheid were built upon “The Canadian Model”.
More people are aware of former Prime Minister L.B. Pearson’s diplomatic success in the formation of The United Nations organization. He received a Nobel Peace Prize in our behalf for this work. And we know of Canadian heroes like Astronaut Marc Garneau who leads us Spaceward; and Stephen Lewis who, as UN Special Commissioner for AIDS in Africa, is single-handedly spearheading a Global solution to the horrors of this disease.
We know how to make friends through acts of courageous generosity. We do not kill, we heal. We do not hinder, we help. We do not enslave, we set at liberty. We strive with greater and greater success to be Just and Compassionate with Citizens, visitors, and all people of all nations, faiths and languages. In so doing we have become the hub and envy of the world.
But we know that the entire world can enjoy the blessings we enjoy. And we can teach them, help them, support them, learn from them, befriend them. We have, we are, and we will. We can teach the world the most special thing that we know in the process: how to live together in respectful peace.
We can share our “Software” with the world and thereby enable them to build and possess what we have: freedom, equality, Rights, opportunity, cooperation, prosperity, support, security, efficiency, economy, productivity and peace and hope.
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