I wasn't born here - here, as in Canada. That hardly makes me unusual around here - more than 18% of people legally living in Canada weren't born here, or born to Canadian parents. That's over five million people. Just under 2.3 million of these are, like me, of European extraction - and just under 2 million originated in Asia. The top seven source countries for immigrants from 1991 to 2001 were in Asia - which is a far cry from 1895 to 1906, when under 5% came from places other than Europe and the United States. Even in 1956, almost 90% of immigrants came from Europe (and about 2% from Asia).
Every year, about 150,000 immigrants take out Canadian citizenship (last year, my parents were two of these). The requirements for citizenship are simple: come as an immigrant, stay a while, and keep your nose clean. We accept it as a given that, if you live and work here and came here legally, you have every right to be given access to full citizenship. We don't question it: rather, we are shocked when we find out that, in Switzerland, there are third generation "immigrants" who are not entitled to citizenship. You were born in the country, your parents were born in the country, you may not even speak the language of your "ethnic origin" - and yet, you are not a citizen. Why no change? Have a look at the little graphic above: a promotional ad run by Swiss People's Party last summer, arguing against granting citizenship to immigrants. You wouldn't want all those greedy non-Swiss hands reaching for the pie. 20% of people living in Switzerland aren't entitled to it.
Unthinkable, for most of us. We are a land of immigrants, with ever changing sources of people. We make a point of non-discrimination based on ethnic origin (or race, or sex, or ability) - it's enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But what if, in 1956, we had gone to a plebicite to decide if we should open our doors to people who are different from the majority - whether by race or religion? What if we left all human rights decisions up to popular vote? If the collective will was high-minded enough to ensure that we made the non-discirminatory decisions, we'd hardly need the Charter, would we?
The way I see it, we have institutions like the Charter to safeguard the interests of all of us - including minorities. We're fortunate in many ways, but there are places where racism exists (I'd argue we don't have to go very far to find it). We tend to reproduce ourselves, which means, to me, that we are most comfortable in systems we understand and we want to perpetuate them. But if my company were to call a meeting on hiring practices, and we voted on what sort of people we will hire in the future and we agreed, by consensus, that we would not hire anyone with an accent when he or she speaks English, we'd be in violation of the Charter, and we'd deserve to have our asses called out by the perfectly qualified applicants that we rejected because, well, they're not exactly like us.
Just because the majority wants something doesn't mean it's right. And a referendum is no way to decide human rights issues. I expect our politicians (and our courts) to make decisions is accordance to human rights, equity, justice and the like, as it is enshrined in the Charter. As of 1996, under Bill C-33, sexual orientation is analgous to race, ethnicity, disability and the rest of the reasons for which you cannot legally discriminate. We are equal in the eyes of the law, and "we" includes gays and lesbians. To use the analogy of citizenship, Bill C-33 finally extended this to the homosexual community: it doesn't matter where you're born, what colour you are, or what gender you prefer to go to bed with, we are entitled to the same things.
One of those things, as far as I'm concerned, is marriage. We can have marriage without the church - I can go to city hall and marry. It's not a "civil union", it's a marriage. I don't need any church blessing, I don't need to believe in any higher power, and I don't even need to stick with it for that long. If we change our minds, we can do it all over again with other people - and it will be as full and legal a marriage as before. It's not just profession of belief I'm exempt from - it's procreation. I can marry if I'm past my reproductive years. I can marry for partnership and extension of benefits. I can marry for shits and giggles. As long as I do it with a man?
I could argue that it affects my life not one little bit, whether we pass gay marriage or not. It will never have any bearing on my life, because it's irrelevant if you're heterosexual. Except not. It does affect me, if I live in a country that denies such a basic institution - which we already don't tie to religion - to a portion of people for no other reason than that they're not like us. To me, it's no different than denying citizenship based on ethnic origin three generations ago.
If the ceremony performed at civil hall is a marriage, then that's the word I want used. If we reserve "marriage" for "church wedding" and call all civil ceremonies "civil unions", fine, let's call it civil unions for all who leave religion out of it - but if two men have their civil union blessed by a church, it's a marriage.
When you have a personal website like this one, you derive no financial benefit from it. On the contrary, you pay for it: you pay for internt access and you pay for server space (though in my case, that doesn't apply nearly as much as in most people's). Furthermore, you spend an awful lot of time deleting unwanted comments from comments-enabled blogs such as this one, you spend time fiddling with pictures, and you can fritter away hours checking access logs to see what it is people are looking for anyway. For this reason, I've seen a lot of people who self-publish on the internt - whether it be trip reports, blogs on particular issues, or journals devoted entirely to things that I have a hard time understanding why anyone except the author would be interested it, but they have a readership - solicit some sort of "compensation". It comes in the form of wish lists with on-line retailers, PayPal donation buttons, or sometimes just put-upon rants about people emailing asking for updates and don't you know I have a life type responses.
I self-publish on the internet because I want to. This is something that, for whatever reason (more on that in a minute) I get something out of too. I like hearing from people. I don't do this because I'm developing some sort of career as a writer (I'm not), hoping for a book deal (nope), or want a portal site that will eventually generate advertising revenue (yawn. another buzzword). Nope.
Given the lead-in, you might expect that I'm about to start ranting (and no, the above paragraphs do not yet constitute a rant!). 
Not true. The motivation for this entry is actually very positive: I want to point out how great this site has been for me. A few people you've seen on these pages in the last couple of years were actually met on the internet, as a result of a few email exchanges that started with a trip report or blog entry. I think that's totally cool, even if it means having to say the inevitable, shifty-sounding "someone I met on the internet" when I'm asked how I know the person I'm off with this weekend, and it's the best part of having these pages. How else could I find out on Tuesday that I'm leaving for Finland on Sunday, and have a list of totally cool things to do there while I'm there - and a local to do some of them with? Meet Matti, who has commented on this site in the past, and who is a major reason why I saw as much as I did in a day's worth of free time in Finland.
Every year the Friends of Helsinki Zoo organize a Finnish and an international ice sculpture competition at Korkeasaari Zoo. This year's theme was "Animals and Nature". Teams got blocks of ice measuring 2m x 1m x 70cm, and they go to work. The postage stamp sculpture above was called something like "Here today, gone tomorrow", and, in hindsight, it was my favourite because it was true to the theme in more than the obvious way (let's carve an animal!) but also beautiful and didn't require knowledge of a Finnish folk tale to understand (as was the case with some of the entries in the Finnish competition. The one on the left is called "Antant", and it won the grand prize.
Getting to the Zoo requires either a ferry, which doesn't run in the winter, driving, a bus, or the metro (with a 1.8 km walk at the end). Fortunately, I didn't have to find my way myself since Matti came and picked me up at the hotel, and patiently answered the questions I peppered him with on the way out (between Matti and a particularly talkative cab driver that picked me up at the airport, I got a capsule lesson in Helsinki history and architecture. And I learned that, if your car gets fogged up as it does in Winter, turning on the air conditioning will act as a de-humidifier - advice I've put to use since getting back).
So, the ice sculptures at the zoo hit all the criteria for things I wanted to do while in Helsinki: something that I can't do anywhere else, connected to winter, involving going outside, with animals no less (we also saw live seals, lions, reindeer, owls, mountain goats, lynx, and a host of other animals - we were, after all, at a zoo).
But I also wanted to eat some "traditional" food - as in, I can go to a Thai restaurant anywhere, but how often do you get salsify, reindeer, and the like? Matti suggested the perfect venue, a place called Keittiö & Bar Juuri, which serves "sapakset" (traditional dishes?) tapas-style. That way, I didn't have to pick one of the many things I wanted to try: there were five of us for dinner, and we ordered the whole menu. Twice! And over dinner, Matti took my tourist map of Helsinki and circled places that would be interesting to check out the next day. So, even though I'd never been to Finland and speak not a word of Finnish ("sauna" does not count), I was now a step ahead of the average tourist. Except, I guess, the average tourist who actually does some research before getting on a plane and deciding to explore a city at 60 degrees north in late January/early February. But why do research, when you can simply get people who read your website to tell you stuff?
Lots of people hate Heathrow airport, I'm sure I'm not unique there. But I must say, I want to textend my blanket hate to all airports.
Today started witha 4:45 a.m. cab ride to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. Yes, 4:45, and you don't know the best part yet: at 5:15, I had a meeting with my boss at said airport. Now, bossman is a nice guy and all, but *he* sedately went to sleep well before midnight. *I*, on the other hand, was absolutely determined to try going to the ice bar in Club Uniq - because everyone should wear metallic, futuristing, insulating cloaks, stand around pillars of ice, with cold glasses filled with vodka concoctions. And then, apparently, they should enjoy a cover band that probalby isn't that enjoyable. Most importantly, people with early flights should under no circumstances come home before 2 a.m., at which time they will remember that they have packed *nothing* yet and are lucky they remember the code for the safe (which contains passport...)
But. I should be discouraged from booking flights. Who in their right mind decides that Helsinki - Frankfurt - London - Stuttgart is even remotely reasonable? People who get lured by cheap flights and lots of aeroplan points, I guess. So Frankfurt had extra special security, including American-style shoe taking-off, being patted down by a border person, and all this at security places that don't normally exist. Portable security! And lots of extra passport checks. Weird.
And now, I kill time at Heathrow. Which I hate most of all. For many reasons, including that my internet time is running out again already, and I feed the slot a mixture of pound and euro coins like it's bulimic. So the rest of the bitching? some other time.
Actually, the temperature is hovering around freezing, but it feels plenty cold in Helsinki today. According to both my cab driver and Matti, this is because the Gulf of Finland is not frozen, so it's a wet cold. I asked Matti last night why he had the AC running in his car, and he explained that this helps with the fogging inside. I'm going to try that at home!
So, yeah. Finland. Land of the Nokia melody, for sure. I think perhaps you are issued a Nokia cell phone at birth in Finnish hospitals. Everyone rings, and frequently. My own Nokia phone is snug in the red barn, and I don't miss it at all.
Once I have the capability to upload pictures, I'll make you jealous of my life - because last night, we went to the Zoo, to see the results of both the international and Finnish ice sculpture competition. I'm still not sure which I like best, though the unicorn disappearing into the stamp, the ant ant sculpture, and the cricket all rated high. You'll just have to wait and see...