Jim Cumming
We are a diverse community.
Across Rainy River District, our population includes those of First Nations’ ancestry, as well as first generation people from Holland, France, England, Vietnam, and many other nations.
As a district, we have welcomed and accepted immigrants for several centuries. It has been—and continues to be—part of our culture.
Our diversity helps to define us. For centuries, this region has welcomed strangers and helped them create a home. Each immigrant group, in return, has brought with them new foods, new ideas, and new hopes and dreams.
Those arriving in Canada and travelling to this region came because of the opportunities they saw. Some cleared the land and broke the soil and began farming. Some went into the woods, and harvested trees for lumber and paper. Some became fishers and trappers.
Others came teaching or opened stores to sell goods to district people. Still others brought their brick-laying and home-building skills.
When new industries appeared, they quickly learned those crafts while others immigrated to the community with their newly- needed skills.
The people arrived with different religious affiliations and built churches, and together they erected schools to teach their children.
They existed in their own ethnic communities.
Over time, the differences between many groups disappeared.
People crossed cultural barriers, married, and had children.
However, while many of the barriers between nationalities have come down, there continues to exist barriers that hinder people because of illness, physical disability, and even ethnicity.
In truth, we still are not a district of total inclusiveness.
Confederation College has a program called “It’s About Respect,” which sees respect as a human right. And when the college talks about respect, it sees itself as “needing to be accessible to a broad spectrum of students.” When it talks about diversity, the college talks about “race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, religion, intellectual capacity, body shape, disability, age, family background, parental status, and socio-economic
background.”
It is a lofty goal, but one the community and district also should aspire to. It is a goal of inclusivness.
Indeed, everyone deserves respect.
