Pickering College - Voyageur Yearbook (Newmarket, Ontario Canada)

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FL. X. .5 ' 5. 4. 1 1 E Nl nw 'X gf! vl 47N LW, gil The Headmaster. The Chairman ofthe Board. 'Q 4 S: .9 ' . f'.f7f.,. ' , fv- fx . VX. 1511.41 Pickering People: Joseph McCulley, John W. Holmes, Samuel Rogers, Arthur G. Dorland, and Harry M. Beer. lr'1'r1

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of peace on our border, but in all modesty we should recognize that the credit largely goes to our gentle giant of a neighbour. Let's face itg it's a long time since we have had to wrestle with the temptation to conquer the United States. The kind of patriotism wedon'twantin this country is negative patriotism directed against the Americans or the British or the French or even those dirty rotten Swedish hockey players. It must be a national feeling based on confidence of what we are in our own unique way. It is important to realize that we are not just a second class United States, a generation or two behind them and going in the same direction. The fact that weact and look much alike and use the same mouth wash conceals the fact that as countries we are different. It is not only that we differ in the way our governments work but we differ also in our ideas of what a country should be. Now to consider ourselves different doesn't mean that we consider the Americans or others to be inferior. The world needs different kinds of countries. Just now, it especially needs countries like Canada which can prove that it is possible to have different cultures and languages within a single state. One of the major causes of war in the world is the fact that there are thousands of different races and tribes and languages and the boundaries of exist- ing countries don't coincide with the boundaries between them. If we tried to makea separate state out of each one of them, the world would be bogged down with all kinds of little countries who couldn't run themselves. We have to cling together in groups to make a go of it. Too few Canadians realize that we are in the majority in the world, and that it is a minority of countries which have only one language. And of all the countries with more than one we are the luckiest. We began life with the world's two richest and most valuable tongues. In some bilingual countries you would have to learn Urdu or Swahili or Flemish. All the world should admire what the United States has done in its two centuries. It has set the great example of democracy and produced something new, the all-American man. Not realizing that we have another mission, many Canadians are beating their breasts because we haven't created the all-Canadian man with the same measurements from the Yukon to Cape Breton. Well we are trying to do something else and we always have, and our success should not be judged by our uniformity because that is not what we are after. It is a marvelous thing that you can exist freely here in one way as a Prince Edward Islander and in another way as a British Columbian or Quebecker, or if you prefer the hard life as a seal-hunter in the Magdalen Islands or a student at St. Andrew's College. This is the freest country in the world because we don't have to conform to any single idea of what a citizen ought to be. lt isn't so much unity we should be after as harmony. I don't see why, for instance, French and English shouldn't have their own words to 0 Canada. It is true that for us it gets a bit exhausting being on guard for thee four times, as if we didn't have any forwards on the team. And the French words are a little hard for an Orangeman to swallow, but I don't know many Orangemen who want to sing in French. The words of a national anthem are really a kind of beloved ritual regardless of their meaning. When you start trying to have them make sense you're in trouble. If you look at the silly words of The Star Spangled Banner, you will realize that it's a good tune that's the thing. It is better that French and English Canadians be united Seventeen

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in harmony by a good tune. Anyway we all end up singing in unison, Dum dum dee dum . Let us look at the future of our constitution as a cooperative effort. In English Canada we must particularly guard against the assumption that any change is appeasement of the French. We are not in a contest with Quebec for control of the country, although we have interests which we have a right to maintain. It is false to believe that if one region or group is satisfied, the other necessarily loses. We must stop looking upon our two languages as a burden and think of them as an opportunity. Here I detect a notable difference between the views of young people and old, and you have to reform your parents - many of whom are compensating for their failure to learn French at school. You people have a wider vision of this country and the world. You also have audio-visual methods and tape recorders and Petula Clark and Monique Leyrac to teach you. Your parents only had Maurice Chevalier. It isn't so much real problems in this fabulous, rich country as fear and suspicion that cast shadows on our future. It bothers me that so many well- intentioned people concentrate all their attention on the hostilities between French and English Canadians. These do exist and we mustn't ignore them. But it is high time we spoke more of the deep bonds of unspoken affection which unite us. I lived long enough on the banks of the Ottawa to feel this in very personal terms. It is the message which I think we in Ontario need to bring to the rest of the country. We are of Old Canada, the people who have lived beside our French brothers for two hundred years. We have argued with them, got mad at them, and attended each other's funerals and weddings. We would feel as lonely and bereft without each other as would the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens if hockey were abolished. The long association has taught us both tolerance, and in spite of the shouts of angry men, it is tolerance which is the most blessed virtue of Canadian government and the Canadian way of life. That is why we are the freest people in the world. We have had during the past week a deeply moving example of the way in which we can be united in affection for one man - or a man and a woman. We have had also a reminder of the splendour of our traditions in the solemn and strangely joyous funeral of our Governor General. It was a very Canadian oc- casion, but in the ceremonial we were aware of what we have derived from our countries of origin - no less Canadian because our ancestors brought it across an ocean. Of all General Vanier's words the one which will stay longest in the memory of many of us will be those which he made when he summoned up the final reserves of his strength in a plea to Canadians last New Year's Day. He said, The way to unity is the way of love. It is a lesson twenty centuries old, but it has a special meaning for this country in its hundredth year of union. It has also a special meaning for those of us who have known the comradeship of this College and who through it have felt the quality of the Quaker tradition. Our Centennial project should be to make this great community of Canadians truly a Society of Friends. I NIQIZ 0106111