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try bring you together and give you a comforting feeling. But that doesn’t mean it will last. I came from England and there are around 60 million people crammed onto the tiny island. I met lots of them in the 40 years I was there, but I was close to fewer than 20 of them.
Living in a ghetto, reminiscing about the old country, is going to have an impact on how you assimi- late and it will not be a positive one. There is no need to lose your iden- tity – I will always be from England – but now I see myself as an English Canadian.
I have seen many newcomers who buy a house in the country and a big pick-up truck to park in the garage, then ATVs and sleds, and a ride- on mower for the vast expanse of grass outside their windows. They then struggle to make the payments.
If you don’t adopt that attitude, you will always be a ‘foreigner’ and as such, will miss out on a lot of what this great country has to offer.
If I had only a few pieces of advice to offer anyone new to Canada, it would be this, and in this order: Think of yourself as a Canadian born in another country; learn the language and the Cana- dian way of doing things; remem- ber you are here to live and work, you’re not on holiday; and finally, keep a close eye on your spending until you fully settle. TN
THE
CHANGING
FACE
OF
TRUCKING
Further coverage in the latest edition of
Truckers better educated than ever
Knowledge of Punjabi language steadily increasing
TORONTO, ONTARIO
Canadian truck drivers are better educated than they’ve ever been.
Roughly three quarters of truck drivers in Canada and Ontario now have a
degree, diploma, or certifi-
cate. That’s up from about
40% in 1991. Each census year since then saw the per- centage of truck drivers with a degree, diploma, or certif- icate, rise from the previous one, reflecting a trend from the broader overall Canadian population.
Because the South Asian driver population is explod- ing, it should come as no sur- prise that a growing num- ber of drivers now claim an understanding of the Punjabi language. More than 100 mil- lion people worldwide speak Punjabi, which is the native language of the Punjabi peo- ple from the region of Pun- jab, extending from north- west India through eastern Pakistan.
In Canada, 27,475 truck drivers said they had a knowledge of Punjabi in the 2016 census. In Ontario, the
number 13,295. Going back to the 1991 census, fewer than 1,000 Canadian truck drivers claimed to have a knowledge of Punjabi.
In Canada, 1.7% of residents of South Asian descent were truck drivers, according to the 2016 census, up from 0.4% in 1996, showing members of this community are increas- ingly seeking opportunities in
the trucking industry.
Most visible minorities in the
trucking industry are of South Asian descent. In Ontario, according to 2016 census data, there were 22,885 visible minority truck drivers, 16,580 of whom were of South Asian background. In Canada, the number of truckers who identi- fied as a visible minority surged 856% from 1996 to 2016, and in
Ontario, that number climbed by 1,019% over the same time frame. TN
Ontario visible minority and South Asian truckers (2016)
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November 2018 • Truck News 25