A maple leaf in the presidential palace

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada, began her State visit to Finland on October 6. This was the second stage of a visit to three circumpolar countries: Russia, Finland, and Iceland.

In her address on the occasion of the State Dinner that was hosted by Tarja Halonen at the Presidential Palace on October 6, the Governor General touched on themes common to Finns and Canadians as northern nations with similar identities and relationships.

"We are a northern country: northern in character and temperament and in the way of living and looking after each other. Those two ingredients, people and landscape, together have helped us blossom in reputation and in maturity."

Citizenship and identity in Canada have changed in many ways over the past decades, because Canada is increasingly diverse in its ethnical make-up. This "new Canada", as the Governor General refers to it, is built around the concepts of human rights, tolerance, and acceptance of others.

"Uniquely for a northern country, we are developing the understanding of citizenship that breaks free of national and ethnic and religious groupings. This has happened because we have been able to accept and accommodate all newcomers to our land and into our society.

"We have an identity arising out of the rights of citizenship duties we share with others and the sense of public good and ethics that involve us all. We have an identity that is being expressed very forcefully in literature, visual arts, music and architecture. It is constantly being defined, guided, reflected and redefined."

The pillars on which Canada has evolved were the contributions made by original Francophone and Anglophone immigrants to a northern country, and our Aboriginal peoples. The path of development has been guided by more than a century and a half of immigration and its influence, and by public education.

As the author and Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje says, Canada "is still documenting and inventing itself. This is a country of metamorphosis, where we have translated ourselves."

The Governor General used the word "acculturation" as opposed to "assimilation" to describe the Canadian process. Finnish and Canadian national identities share the influence of, and relationship with, the natural landscapes, the environment, sparse populations and the feeling of space.

By Dwayne Weleschuk

December 03

• Around the world
on two wheels
• A view of manufactured landscapes
• Goodwill Ambassador Jari Kurri

• Visitor from Canada: Owen Rose
• Finnish-Canadian trainee exchange
• Membership survey
• Canada Day 2003 
• Chairman's update
• Canbits and Finnbits
• Caisa International Fair