Anne 🌼

Hello new immigrants to Canada, welcome! I’m not sure how much you learned about Canada before you showed up at our borders with 47 members of your immediate family, so I’ve put this list of “things-to-know” together for you. Canadians keep different types of pets at home, including cats and dogs and sometimes pigs or skunks. Often we will walk our pets. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. Many Canadians enjoy bacon. And ham and sausage and other parts of pig. Sometimes they will send these meats as part of their children’s lunch to school. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. On Oct. 31 every year, a large number of Canadians participate in activities for Halloween, including dressing up, going trick-or-treating and decorating their homes. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. Canada is home to people of many different backgrounds, cultures and religions. Canada allows everyone to practice their religions and enjoy their cultures, so long as they don’t impede on the freedoms of others. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. Canadians practice various religions, and a number of them pray. They pray in places of worship or their homes or in other private, safe places. They don’t pray where they’re blocking traffic and impeding emergency vehicles, which is against the law here. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. Canada allows for same-sex marriage, and allows people to love who they choose. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. Canada has laws against rape, including sexual contact with children. If this offends you, you’re welcome to go home. I promise I will never move to your country, and try to get your country to change its laws or customs or values to accommodate me. And I promise if you try to do that here, I will do everything in my power to try and have you removed. Canada has warmly welcomed new immigrants for decades, including my grandparents and the parents and grandparents of many people I know. None of them tried to turn Canada into the countries they were fleeing. Attempting to change Canada isn’t immigration. It’s invasion. And we won’t accept it.