Colin Macher, I was recently working with the New Brunswick Multicultural Council as a project coordinator. It is the provincial organization in New Brunswick dealing with multicultural issues, settlement and immigration of new immigrants. I was helping the Government of Dominica to fill out one of their reports for the UN, which was the “elimination of all forms of discrimination against women,” a CIDA report. I was gathering up the information, writing up the report, going through documents as well as talking to people one-on-one. Everyone was very nice to me, which was surprising because I was a white male and I was sure that they would suspect me of not being completely unbiased. Everyone was very willing to open up to me, which was really quite a revelation.

I found in Dominica, they do very well as far as the CIDA report goes, as far as employment issues and discrimination at work. In the private sector there are still reports of discrimination. The government has good hiring policies and there are a lot of women hired.

I learned that people are very interesting. They can be different but at the same time very open—you can really relate to them. I learned that I could do something important. They like Canadians; we do a lot of things in Dominica. I could bring the Canadian perspective of being the international good guy.