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2 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, August 13, 2003 Subscriptions $29.91 + $2.09 GST = $32.00 per year. Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 • Agreement No. .40012366 Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. " Orono Weekly Times 5310 Main Street, P.O. Box 209, Orono, e Ontario LOB 1M0 Email: oronotimes@speedline.ca • Phone/Fax 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. When the going gets tough Our two week shut down is over, so its back to the business of getting a paper out each week. Much has happened on the national scene since the last edition edition of the Orono Weekly Times was published on July 23rd. The big rock concert in Toronto on July 30th to help kick start tourism in Toronto following the blows from S.A.R.S One and Two had for the most part gone on without incident. What ever else the concert accomplished, it will go down in history as the biggest ticketed concert in Canadian history, with close to 450,000 in attendance. The negative connotations from being North America's S.A.R.S. capital will probably outlive the positive vibes created by the rock concert. Tourism is noticeably down not only in Toronto, but throughout throughout the country. A relative who spent some vacation time in Europe last month relayed that people there felt sorry for him because he had to go back to Toronto and the S.A.R.S. This is one instance where the media caused a lot of damage in how they reported a sometime fatal disease, which was mainly mainly contained to health care facilities. Add to this the impression that the beef in Canada is unsafe to eat, and the country is on fire, it's a wonder any of us are vacationing at home any more. While tourism dollars are important in every economy, it is good to see how Canadians are pulling together to help each other through the rough times. We recieved a Letter to the Editor on August 1st from a Manitoba beef farmer, who wrote they as farmers in a crisis do feel and appreciate the public support of their plight following the identification of a mad cow in Alberta in May. Fire fighting crews from across the country went to Alberta and British Columbia to help fight the massive forest fires those two provinces were dealing with. In fact, as of August 6,2003 (the latest figures available on the Natural Resources Canada web site) 186,000 ha of Canadian forest was on fire. Nationally, 22 aircraft, 673 personnel, 450 pumps and 305 km of hose have been mobilized which is above average for this time of year. And of course, the Toronto Rocks Stones' Concert was the largest demonstration of the healing quality of music this country country has ever known. •» Mini;" Vu. !'-rt**r • ; "<^, 1 m M 1 ji 'll if ; 1 1 li !•, ; •. . 11 mip }■ h'i"r T ... 1 't'llli'jifhjtip'i 'h» «• • • I • •; ; . iiiitliiiwiliii iiiiiidiÜHlmwii: ,1m:..: MW doUghan.com AS I S66 it ...by Peter Jaworski Sten is Canadian "I'm contributing," Sten tells me over the telephone, eager to have me understand. "I'm contributing," she repeats, "but they don't want me here anymore." "They," in her case is Human Resource and Development Canada and the Immigration Department. Recently they did not extend her visa, and did not grant her permission to remain in Canada, convinced Sten was no longer needed here. But in her case, they are wrong. Why don't 'they' want her here? "They don't want me here because I'm a competitor to someone else here in Canada," she explains. Sten, like me and probably you-or your parents at least-- and countless others in our community, is an immigrant. She came four years ago from Brazil--Brazil just wasn't quite what she was looking for. So she packed her things, and came to Toronto. "I couldn't speak any English when I came here," she tells me. Even so, somehow somehow she managed to convince Ryerson University to accept her into their Interior Design Program three months after landing in the big city. 1 ask her how she managed to do this, and she says, "I told the lady I could do it. To give me a chance because I know 1 am a hard worker, and I knew that I could do it." She was right, of course. She did do it. She graduated with my sister last year. With elegant projects, stunned professors, professors, and an attitude of independence and ambition. She's turned her Interior Design Degree into a job at a new interior design firm called 2pir (that's 2pir, like the formula formula for calculating the perimeter of a circle, or something something like that anyways). So now she speaks three languages--Portuguese, Mandarin, and English, fluent English. And she's a University graduate, fully contributing to her community. community. She has no criminal record. What, then, is the problem? Each year my country accepts more people into our fold- very few of them are as incredibly gifted, talented, and capable as Sten is. So why does she have to leave? Talking to her on the telephone telephone reminds me of the nightmare immigration was. It's bad enough not being able to speak the language, and it's bad enough wanting desperately desperately to fit in. Small wonder she wants to stay. This is Canada. I'm proud to call this place my home, my country, my community. Take a trip abroad, anywhere, make it the United States if you want to. Then come back here. And tell .me this isn't the best place in the world to live and raise a family. You won't sway me, and I've lived in four countries. And you won't sway Sten, either, and she's lived in three. "I love it here," she tells me and laughs a little, "the city, the community of people 1 work and live with, the country. country. Everything." She's- scared, of course. "They should meet me before they deport me," she tells me. "If they would just meet me, then they would .see what kind of a person I am." "I created all this world around me; new friends, new family, new places to visit, new places to call my own." I would be scared too. I tell her so--how do you manage to create this new 'world' anticipating that it will be yours one day, that the country you want more than anything else to accept you and make you a member of its community, community, of my community, doesn't think it needs you anymore? Her response? She knows who she is, and she knows where she belongs, so she's just going to keep on repeating that until somebody listens. "I'm not living in the Portuguese community, although I could; I'm not living living in the Chinese community, JAWORSKI continued peg# 3