Canada's Changing Face

While in Canada in the mid-1990s, the Turays had thought about applying for Canadian citizenship, but it wasn't until the war had spread across Sierra Leone and Mr. Turay spent several anxious months trying to get his daughters out of the countryside where they were hiding with family that he decided they would do so upon their return. "It was the experience of the war," he said eight years later. "I had a moral responsibility to educate my children and family and support them. We agreed we would make this country our home." Now Mr. Turay and his family are Canadians, part of a small Sierra Leonean diaspora who call Canada home. While Mr. Turay estimates there are only a few thousand Sierra Leoneans in Canada, they are just one small community in what Statistics Canada has termed the changing face of Canada as thousands of people born abroad come to Canada. Last week, the UN-mandated University for Peace, based in Costa Rica, hosted a conference in Toronto on the roles of diasporas in both their host and home countries. http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2006/october/25/diaspora/

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