“We do not like your kind.” These are the words that ushered a Leduc family into 2019. This followed a similar racially assaulting letter months ago received by another family in St. Albert. You may be mistaken to think that this is a view shared by majority of people in the Edmonton Capital Region. Nope! Not at all. These are minority of people who simply resist change. These families got tonnes of support and wide media coverage to say never again to such a racial assault. Although RCMP says they are investigating the Leduc incident, from the St. Albert example, it seems, law enforcement is not changing as fast as the world around it.
Alberta’s Increasing Immigration
Well, the world has changed a lot, so too is Alberta. Surprisingly, under the noses of these people resisting change, their neighbourhoods will have many more people who do not look like them physically as Alberta population grows. Alberta population is growing, fueled in a big part by international immigration. As of October 1st, 2018, Alberta had a population of 4,330,206, an increase of 23,096, or 0.54%, over the last quarter. Alberta Statistics for the last quarter of 2018 revealed that international migration was the largest contributor to the province’s growth (0.26%), followed by natural increase(0.20%).
Alberta is projected to add roughly 2.1 million residents over the next 29 years, reaching 6.4 million by 2046; an average annual growth rate of 1.4%, with the majority of the expected growth to come from migration, with 48% from international migration and 18% from interprovincial migration. By comparison, natural increase is projected to account for the remaining 34% of growth with a strong growth in indigenous population as well. On the contrary, Alberta’s population is projected to continue aging, where the average age is expected to climb to 41.6 years by 2046 from 37.9 in 2017.
Changes in Other Parts of the World
Indeed the world is changing in and out of Alberta and Canada. You will be making changes in your political representatives this year and next year. Let this population increase be reflected in the election results. When a man does something that only few of his friends can do, his change is instantly noticed. When he does something that none of his friends has ever done, he becomes a legend. Decades ago, China was considered a poor country. Today it is a super power rivaling the US. This week, China sent an un-manned machine not just to the parts of the moon where US has gone before, but to the part that no nation has ever been to. In the same vein of change across the world, the people of Sudan woke up from sleep and have taken to the streets for weeks now, with many killed but have stood firm, demanding the resignation of the 75 years old brutal dictator, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who has been in power since 1993.
Sri Lanka says yes to democracy and held firm to their constitution. The Sri Lankan president, Maithripala Sirisena, fired the prime minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe, and appointed former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom they teamed up to take out in last election. Ranil and his supporters resisted the dismissal as un-constitutional and the Supreme Court agreed with them and he was re-instated as prime minister, a serious slap on the face of President Maithripala, in all his power of the police and military.
DR Congo just got up from a long sleep. The Congolese have been in war for ever with no democratic election. This year the people, with the support of the Catholic Church, for the first time, forced President Joseph Kabila not to run again for another term, and now asking him to publish the true results of the election after collecting results from the election monitors of the Catholic Church. Anglophone Cameroon says enough is enough with French domination and the brutal dictatorship of 85 years old President Paul Biya since 1982. The English speaking regions of Cameroon have stepped up resistance against years of marginalization by the the Biya Regime and have been resisting with lots of casualties and internal and external displacement of thousands of English speaking people.
The Strongest is the one Who can Adapt to Change…
It is obvious that when change occur, there are always going to be people who will resist it, even though majority will embrace it if it is a positive change such as migration and multiculturalism, bringing together the best of both worlds, in terms of; skills, talents, culture, arts, humanitarian, and so on. We can educate people, but when they cross the line and to start assault people, the law has to be enforced, or new a legislation enacted. Ladies and gentlemen, as we move deeper into 2019, expect a lot more things to happen that have never happened or a repeat of previous events. The world s changing, in and out of Alberta, and is changing very fast. The strongest is not the one who leads or the one who has power, but the one who can adapt to change.
