First off, I'd like to apologise for the lack of blog updates recently... I've been extremely busy and I haven't had the time to sit and write an entry.
Onto the news.
This comes as little surprise to me, honestly. As I mentioned in a previous posting, we have a good tradition of treating gays, lesbians and the intersexed with respect and compassion that stretches back to 1986, when Ontario added anti-discriminatory legislation regarding sexual orientation to its Human Rights Code. (This was made country-wide in 1996.) The fact that a country with laws protecting its GLBT citizens from discrimination is desirable to GLBT people worldwide is entirely unsurprising.
Also, there's the fact that in 2006, Canada-wide, there were but 90 cases of violence reported against GLBT citizens (roughly 10% of all hate crimes reported) in 2006, as compared to 1,415 reported in America in the same year (or 15.9% of all hate crimes that occurred) and compared to 1,008 in the UK (I couldn't track down a percentage) in 2007. The total number of hate crimes occurring in each country is 892 in Canada for the year of 2006 and 5,449 in America for the same year; I was unable to find a reliable statistic for the UK.
Don't take this as me favouring my country over all other countries; there are other countries who have a much better track record with the GLBT community than Canada, including Switzerland, Scandinavia, Denmark and Norway, amongst others, mainly in Europe. I acknowledge my country's flaws, but I understand and appreciate that my country has a very good record with its GLBT citizens which makes it desirable to gay and lesbian immigrants.
However, it raises the question as to why these ex-patriots aren't moving to the European countries which have a longer-standing history of providing civil rights to gays and lesbians. It could be because Canada is renowned as a multicultural wonder, which makes it easy to find a niche that's familiar; it could be that some people interested in immigrating are already proficient in the English language, which is one of the two main languages in Canada (unlike some of the European countries, whose languages and customs may be completely alien). Or, it could be many different reasons which I can't think of.
The simple fact remains that Canada is a highly desirable country to GLBT citizens worldwide. There are more reasons to this than immediate meet the eye, I'm sure, and I'm also certain that many GLBT persons decide to move to other countries that respect gay rights, but Canada still is one of the top countries to move to if you're gay.
Where did you run off to? I see your once again gone from JUB.
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