By It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for almost two months; it’s gone by so fast, but I’m just about ready to go home.
Today we were in Brussels taking a tour of the European Parliament, and something about the motto of this political body struck me. Their motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’, and already one can see the implications of this. If you know anything about Europe, you know that it is indeed a place full of diversity; in language, culture, and beliefs. In Belgium alone there are two main language groups. Apparently there is some talk (though I’m not sure how prevalent that talk is) about there being some desire for the language groups to separate and have the French speaking part join France and the Flemish speaking part join the Netherlands. This would mean the end of Belgium as a nation.
As I was thinking about this problem, it kind of reminded me of home, and the relations between Quebec and the rest of Canada. Quebec has long wanted to separate from Canada, and language is one of the major issues involved. It also made me think of how diverse our own nation is. Canada is considered a melting-pot of cultures as people from all over the world have come to our shores, for various reasons, and have brought pieces of their homelands with them. With diversity can come some big problems, so one of the questions that keep bouncing around in my head is wondering if and how we in Canada can adopt this idea of ‘unity in diversity.’ What can we do to create a nation where our differences don’t divide us, don’t bring us down, but rather work to build us up to be a strong and healthy participant in world and domestic affairs.
That’s my somewhat random thought for the day 
Take it easy ya’ll.
Angela Broda