Editorial

By Dale Sproule

When we first started publishing this magazine, people would ask how we were paying for it. When we explained that it was financed by private investors, people almost always made a comment like, “This is the kind of publication that the government should be providing.”

Since Issue 4, Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Settlement and Intergovernmental Affairs Directorate, Ontario Region has been funding a huge part of our costs – covering our printing, translation and distribution.

So now, when people say, “This is the kind of publication that the government should be providing,” we are able to point out that in a very real way, they are providing it, since Canadian Newcomer Magazine may not have been able to carry on without their help. And not only has the Canadian government covered most of our costs, they have done so without telling us what to say in the magazine or how to say it.

What a wonderful thing it is that a publication like Canadian Newcomer Magazine – which is most definitely not a ‘mouthpiece’ for the Canadian government – can receive that kind of support. The funding is not a reward for sticking to a party line – it is simply helping to provide a service to a growing segment of the Canadian population.

Canada is a place where the government not only allows, but encourages people to think independently. How many countries in the world encourage this much freedom of expression?

Whether or not our CIC funding continues, we would like to thank Elizabeth Gryte and Irena Nikolova at Settlement and Intergovernmental Affairs Directorate, Ontario Region and the translators who have helped us produce the French edition of the magazine, Magazine du Nouvel Arrivant au Canada.

Thank you not just for recognizing that Canadian Newcomer Magazine truly is “the kind of publication that the government should be providing” but for actually taking personal responsibility and cutting through the usual red tape to make it happen!

Dale Sproule, Editor.

CNM