Time to start preparing for Canada’s 150th

Next year, 2017, is Canada’s birthday. We will be 150 years old!

What does Canada mean to you? To me, being a Canadian is the most wonderful experience and I am proud to be a citizen of this great country.

What about you, my fellow Beachers and East Enders – why are you proud to be Canadian?

Let us celebrate the birth of this great country of ours in as many ways as possible. I would like to hear your ideas and proposals on how to celebrate this great event. Young or old, I want to know your feelings and your ideas.

We have so many diverse cultures and peoples from so many different countries that have come to Canada and made a contribution, making it one of the greatest countries on Earth, if not the greatest.

Share your thoughts, please: shall we have a parade, or have several parades on different main streets: Queen Street, Kingston Road or the Danforth?

We should involve every school in the area. Students can make different projects to symbolize Canada. We should have essays from different grades about being Canadian. We could make a book with students’ material about where they come from, their contributions to our area, and call this book The Canadians.

I would like to have reminiscences from seniors about our great country.

Let us be proud of our accomplishments in sports, education, literacy, music, etc. Let us show our Canada.

Our religious community – the Anglican, Catholic, United, and Presbyterian churches, the synagogues, the mosques – please come forward with your ideas on why you think Canada is a wonderful country.

I would like to see the different historic groups brought together to help make a contribution.

I call on the business groups to come and celebrate this great event – the Beach Village BIA, Kingston Road Village, Beach Hill, the Danforth Mosaic BIA – any and all of these groups, we need your ideas on how to celebrate Canada’s 150th.

Let us get the recreation and community centres together, such as Fairmount Park, Balmy Beach, S.H. Armstrong, Adam Beck, the Beaches Rec Centre. Let’s help them celebrate Canada’s 150th in their own special way – we need your ideas and help.

Canada’s veterans and the different soldiers who gave their lives for our great country should be recognized, and the Royal Canadian Legion will, of course, contribute to the 150th.

We will have special contests and events for the coming year, but we need your input, please let us know.

We will be in touch with local politicians from the school boards, our city councillors, and provincial and federal representatives, who have already started in this endeavour.

This is something we have to do together. We will form a committee on this great 150th anniversary.

Newspapers like Beach Metro News will be in the forefront, but we cannot do it alone – we need Canadians who are proud of their country.

Please contact Beach Metro News, comment here, or contact your elected officials to share your ideas about how to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.