If there’s one thing here in Toronto, Ontario which makes toiling through its winters bearable, it’s the arrival of the summer, the season of summer and the return of summer. Let me say it again if you’re missing the subtle point here: Summers here are what makes the winters bearable. Period.
It is indeed hard to believe, when one looks at the cityscape in summers, that just a few weeks ago, everything was covered deep in snow, ice and all that the winter leaves behind. It is really an experience for someone not used to all this during the better part of his previous life.
Much is being made of the cold weather “alerts”, as they’re called here. These remind me of those almost-Orwellian efficiency ‘campaigns’ at government departments when suddenly saving a bunch of paper-clips becomes top priority just because a ‘green week’ is being celebrated — when it really should be standard practice.
But if braving Canadian winters (as blogged earlier) in a previous suburban neighbourhood seemed a little getting used to — as I was new to all this — surviving a recurring winter gives one plenty of fodder to ruminate over, if you’d excuse the terrible pun.
As a free service to the Canadian Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, I have written an insider’s guide to the inner workings of an idle immigrant mind in Ontario. It will help the Ministry spend more money on government-funded programs for immigrants and will also add more glossy literature to put at the airports and Service Canada Centres nationwide, thus creating more secure jobs for bilingual Canadians from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
This is an ongoing guide. Check back often to find more tidbits and help and support information as my adventure continues. I’m still working on the French version.
It’s not what you know… it’s who you know.
If you’ve followed this blog even a little, then you really don’t need an IQ over 160 to conclude that professionally I haven’t been a very successful (an understatement to the depths of hell) newcomer to this country — so far (okay I should be an optimist at least.) I ascribe this unfortunate turn of my life to the professional field I belong to: advertising creative.
