O CANADA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CANADA!

You welcomed us, and so many other immigrant families, with generosity, optimism, wide skies, and the promise of a fresh new start.

We stayed only five or six years, but they were very important and formative years for us children.
Canada gave us many lasting gifts, including native-level fluency in reading and speaking the English language, and all the doors this opened for us.

So thank you for everything! And a bright and happy future to you, and all of your citizens and neighbours.

Our flag was still the Union Jack

P.S. You've all heard, haven't you, that it was actually an Austrian who gave Canada its name.
Many, many years ago, a small group of Austrians landed on this new shore. They looked around, but saw no one.

So one Austrian said to the others, "Kana da."  (Nobody here.)