As a matter of fact, I spoke to a group of students at the University of British Columbia Okanagan just last week on this exact topic. They wanted to talk about whether or not multiculturalism or diversity was our strength and a real and true asset for Canada. The concern is that, unfortunately, there has been a little bit of a balkanization. We see that with communities not integrating.
I mean, one thing that I think is very different, and I see this with even my own former clients, is that people's information sources come from different places. Before the Internet, we all had to watch the same TV channels or read the same newspapers. Now I have clients who immigrated from Germany and who get all their news from German TV. I have other clients from Korea watching Korean news. They can do that now. There's not a need for them to integrate as quickly.
Another observation I would make is that I often met people who were immigrants to the United States and were interested in seeking immigration to Canada. Those people always could speak English very well, and usually with an American accent. In contrast, I would often meet people who'd been in Canada for three or four years and could barely string a sentence together in English or French. I think that reflects the different idea about the melting pot in the United States and this cultural mosaic thing we seem to talk about a lot in Canada. I think we can learn a bit from the U.S. We should think about that.