In 1951, the Rotary Club of Ottawa established its annual "Adventure in Citizenship" Program in which over 150 senior high school students from across Canada spend four days in Ottawa experiencing tours, lectures, discussions and social events designed to enhance their understanding and appreciation of Canadian citizenship. From May 26 to 29, 2024, Shawn Toor, of Ladner, was among students aged 16-18 years from communities in District 5040 and the rest of Canada who are leaders in their community and reflect the broad spectrum of religious and cultural communities that comprise Canadian society. On August 6th Shawn visited members of the Rotary Club of Ladner, which sponsored his trip, to share his experience and thank the club.
Shawn talked about what made his Adventure in Citizenship memorable and the presentations that had the biggest impact on him.
Every day, we would wake up at six or seven a.m. we would have breakfast. And then we would either be at a presentation or we would be at an event or we would be doing something and then we would get home 9 or 10 at night then talk with our friends until curfew at 11 from Sunday through Wednesday.
The Canadian War Museum was an amazing place. It showed all of the places that Canadian soldiers have been deployed over time. It is a huge Museum. With only two hours there I was just running around to every exhibit. Just trying to see what was they had to offer. But for the most part it was just really touching and it just had so much significance to it.
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One thing that stood out to me was from World War II. It was one of Hitler's cars which Canadian soldiers captured at the end of the War. I was like, wow, that's kind of scary.
Then we all visited the Canadian Museum of History. It was amazing because we saw so much of the Canadian culture and especially Indigenous culture. And there was so many works of art and history attached to everything. There was more modern day Indigenous people's art and a lot of ancient art. And, on land that originally belonged to the Indigenous people, I like how we're honoring them and how we're all on this road of reconciliation. So I did love how this was an integral part of the Adventures in Citizenship program because we want to honor the people that were here before us.
We also went to a French Canadian restaurant which was also a maple syrup farm with French Canadian folk music and multiple courses of traditional French Canadian food. Super tasty. Then we went outside to their maple syrup area where they gave us maple syrup like lollipops. Back inside we danced for a couple of hours, we learned how to play like the spoons and all their instruments, and that one was just a really fun night, but also we got to be immersed in this different culture that we don't really see much here in BC.
We got to go to the House of Commons. That was such a truly amazing experience. The pages, who serve the MPs, are like kids that are about my age, a little older, or they could be in university. We met the Clerk and then the Speaker of the House of Commons, Greg Fergus. We could sit in the MPS chairs which are very comfy. That was truly an eye-opening experience. I really loved that. I learned from Greg Fergus that it is important in running for the chamber, as Speaker, you have to be impartial despite your own political views or your own personal views.
One presentation was about the relationships between climate needs targets and political action. The presenter showed us as young adults how we can help change. People's mindsets and Views about how important the climate action we need to take is necessary. And that instead of just leaving it off for the Next Generation, we have to like fix the problem now, because if we don't start now then it's just going to keep going on a downward spiral, but he just spoke with a lot of like optimism and he inspired a lot of us to actually get involved.
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It was just amazing to see how many people from all the different provinces were there. There were 30 from BC. Although all of the presentations and all these places that we got to visit were truly amazing, it was the other people that we met, there was my favorite part of it, because everyone's from their own community and has their own story and grew up in a different way. There was so much diversity. Every kid there that I met was so nice. I made so many friends there. I expect a lot of them to stay as lifelong friends and whenever I go visit them or they come visit me.
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| Shawn Toor is thanked with a donation to Rotary's global campaign to end polio by Ladner club president (l) and Past District Governor Chris Offer |