When I arrived in St. Catharines and bought my house, already I had enjoyed the sober, quiet and kind attitude of most Canadians.

Soon I discovered things that literally were absolutely new experience for someone coming from Europe and Africa.

I discovered for example that if you loose something, you have just to make your itinerary back way, and you normally will find what you lost.

As a buyer of an old house, I needed to make some works and all was new to me as regards water and electrical systems.

“Go to Canadian Tires”, that was the advice of my friends.

There I found people that knew everything about tools and works to be made in a house for repair or improvement.

Those people were famous for their competence. I learned so much from them that I immediately started solving by myself some problems I found inside the old house I bought.

With my friends sometimes we were joking when someone had a question even not of constructions or cars, and nobody knew the answer, we were suggesting him/her:: “Go to Canadian Tires!”

I also discovered that in the community there were some other points of reference that were important.

For example, as an immigrant, frequently I had to send out documents properly signed. My signature had to be certified.

I learned that I just needed to go to the bank, and one employee that knew me would certify my signature, and that was normally good enough for governments, federal or provincial, municipalities etc. Doctors or school teachers could also be used for that purpose.

When I withdrew money from my bank account, I took the money from the cashier without counting the banknotes. Very few did.

I also discovered the Post Office (never thought of it as a friendly place abroad!), as another re-assuring place.

For example, once settled in our just acquired house, we sent out lot of postcards to friends all over the world. The same did friends that came from outside Canadà to visit with us.

We went to the Post Office, all postcards ready, and the employee would calculate the total cost of the stamps.

We paid, gave the postcards to the employee and left. They took care of affixing the stamps in quieter moments of their day.

Same we did visiting Montreal, Vancouver, Western New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio etc. All postcards were always duly dispatched and received.

You still do that at the Post Office with letters, parcels etc. Pay and go, they will complete the operation.

If by mistake you paid more than you had to pay, the excess of money was politely returned to you.

Coming from countries where you used to keep your money in a little bag hidden under your shirt, where you counted every money you managed, where you had to go to a notary public to certify your signature, where a lost item was usually gone for ever, where you had to watch carefully your luggage, check the identity of the handlers, defend yourself from fake taxi drivers, avoid asking direction not to be sent in a dead end street where you would be robbed… no wonder if we soon realized how good had been our choice of a new country.

Is our environment the same today?

Largely, yes.

In spite of many difficulties created by the new technologies, for me and my family more or less Canada is still the country it was 38 years ago.

Add to that the kindness of my neighbours , now more attentive than before in helping me, due to my age.

I wanted to express all this because the Pandemic and litigious politics have somehow distracted us from what is most important: our daily life in our community.

I hope that everywhere my fellow Canadians consider their communities as I consider mine: a real asset that I highly treasure.