Canada Welcomes Barack Obama - From A Different Point Of View

President Barack Obama being greeted at Ottawa by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties; R.C.M.P.) and Governor-General Michaelle Jean.

Take a longer look at this cartoon coming out of Canada to honor President Barack Obama's visit today to Canada. Almost like tourists on a cruise ship, The President will spend only about six hours in Ottawa, Ontario (The Capital) today.

When people draw a map showing you how to get to their place, they often do not draw it traditionally with North at the top. Well, this cartoon is like that. It is drawn from a Canadian perspective with Canada at the bottom and U.S.A at the top. I like that!

Take another look at the Superman rendering of the President! Better than the cartoon in our paper this morning of his arm being yanked off when trying to cross the aisle (to work with the Republicans).

Being a Canadian, living most of my life in Toronto, I grew with multiculturalism. (Sorry, Mr. Hilliard - readers: refer to Mesopotamia West - see link on sidebar.) When I was a kid, Toronto was pretty British and Canada was still a Colony. Toronto back then was about 500,000 in population and Montreal, Quebec was THE city to visit in the 50s

Once I was into my thirties, Toronto was a mix of every nationality and the last figure I knew was that "Anglo-Saxons" represented only about 17% of that city's population. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is about 5.5 million in population and that makes it THE most culturally diverse city in the world (yes, including New York). When you ride the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) buses, streetcars and subway system, you can hear many different languages.

Canadians are very excited about Barack Obama being elected President of the United States and they are showing him quite a welcome!

So far, I see that he was greeted by Mounties (R.C.M.P. - Royal Canadian Mounted Police) at Ottawa Airport. I would wager Canada will try to cram as much Canadiana into the six hour visit as possible! Already I have seen photos of people who have come from other parts of Canada to greet Mr. Obama.

Ottawa is about 250 miles northeast of Toronto. I think many people will be following Mr. Obama's visit and some may have travelled to Ottawa today.

We will see lots of footage tonight, I am sure on our nightly newscasts of this visit.

Bienvenue (Welcome) Mr. Obama! And by the way . . . there might be roaming charges on your Blackberry!