Don't forget the English

Canada certainly does need a day, a week, a month or even a season to celebrate her English history, culture and identity.

English mariners probably fished in Canadian waters even before John Cabot’s voyage of 1497. Two Bristol merchants, Thorne and Eliot, may have reached Newfoundland circa 1494. When Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived to claim the land for Queen Elizabeth I in 1583, he found a makeshift town that had been created to serve the Devon (UK) fishermen already there.

Sir Martin Frobisher explored the Northwest Passage to Hudson Bay in 1576. In 1670, the founding of the Hudson’s Bay Company brought an influx of English traders and employees.

Later, under the Dominion Lands Policy, many English immigrants were attracted to Canada by the offer of free land. Between 1869 and the late 1930s, over 100,000 children were sent to Canada from the British Isles. Orphaned, abandoned and pauper children, the majority were English and they were given free passage to Canada, where they settled and became wards of various communities.

English migration continued apace after both the First and Second World Wars, then during the post-war period.

Canadian common law and parliamentary process is inherently based on English law. English workers brought to Canada their own traditions of trade unions and social democracy, something the history-dismantling NDP should appreciate and acknowledge.

Noticeably, the NDP and the Liberal Party are those leading the charge to eradicate our history and rewrite it in their own soulless image to meet their own ideology and agendas.

Alternatively, we could all create a respect and appreciation for all cultures, skills, talents and backgrounds that made Canada what it was. I say "was" because the nation is rapidly disintegrating. Acknowledging our history with its faults, errors and other issues helps us move forward to a better, more cohesive and united future.

Yet there are those who prefer division and fabricated rage and offence. They strive to ruin our society, turning everything into "bad" and "negative". History was not perfect, but it is ours and should be owned for good and bad, to be learned from.

Enough of the politics of division, the hate-generating cultural divide. As adults, most of us can meet, talk, chat, do business, play sports and socialize with different cultures within our own country, province, city, and community. Yet we are treated like children by politicians whose over the top extreme dogma is now working against them.

The flag of inclusion is Canada's Maple Leaf flag, known around the world as such. Lest we need 600 different flags for minority interests, let's keep it simple, unified, cohesive, easily identifiable and appreciate the flag that identifies us all under one banner.

Ricky Daytona, West Kelowna