ESL C niagara college memory book red leaf 2014

SUMMER ENGLISH PROGRAM CLASS LEVEL C Amalia Hevia Delgado Fermin Lopez Rodriguez Minerva Centeno Peña Alberto Rodriguez Alvarez Laura De Alvaro Garcia Marta Ongay Ibàñez Aida Fernandez Lara Sara Benito Garcia Bruno Rodríguez Meana

Welland: A Town for Everyone Hello!

Firstly, we are going to introduce ourselves to you. We are Marta Ongay and Sara Benito, two Spanish students which are staying in Welland for a month thanks to a scholarship. Our objective is to learn as much English as possible and to discover this new culture we found in Canada. We are going to talk about the place we are staying now. It’s called Welland.

Of all the cities in the Niagara Peninsula perhaps Welland best represents the cultural mosaic that truly is Canada. Welland has a high French-Canadian population. The city is also home to a significant Italian community and over the past 10 years has become the port of call for immigrants from South America, Africa, Asia and Russia. Welland offers immigration assistance, computer training, daycare and help finding a job. As students which are visiting this country for the first time, it’s surprising to find so many cultural differences between Canada and Spain. .

What we first found significant about Canada was the way people talk to us without even knowing us. Their friendliness and kindness made us felt more comfortable even though we were in a foreign country. Before coming to Canada, we thought we would miss our country because we wouldn’t feel part of this society, but immediately, people made us feel like we were at home. We found this kindness in shops and also in the streets of Welland, where everybody said hello to us as if they knew us and tried to help us with any problem or doubt we had. We are grateful about that because being in such a big country isn’t easy.

We also found very interesting that there is a big variety of ethnic groups and there are no prejudices. We had the pleasure to know many Japanese and Chinese people. Some of our Spanish classmates were their roommates and told us many funny stories about their experience with them. We knew them at class and shared a lot of activities and great moments with them.

Regarding to the food, we were worried about this issue since we didn’t know what we would find in Canada due to the multicultural society. We had some little problems with food timetable (In Spain we use to have lunch at two or three p.m. and dinner at nine or ten p.m.) Even though these differences we could carry on with them and have fun which was the main objective. We must say Tim Horton’s has helped us a lot to solve it.

Now we only have two days left until we leave Welland and we are pretty sure we will miss this a lot, but we know we have taken advantage of time and we have learnt a lot of new things. For us, the best part was meeting new friends and having the chance to discover a country full of nice people.

Political Parties in Canada Written by Fermin Lopez Rodriguez All Political parties in Canada are organized in the same way. They used be very hierarchical.

There is always a leader in the party, who is like “the boss”, and formulates the policy and the basic lines that every member of the party must follow. In federal elections, the leader of the party runs as a candidate for prime minister.

Being a party member in this country refers to somebody who holds an active, fee-paying and card-carrying membership in a political party. These are the people who choose the internal leader of the party and vote or discuss other internal matters, like amendments to the party constitution. But, the percentage of people who are members of one political party is only 2%.

The Party System actually.

Canada has what is known as a “two-parties-plus” system. The meaning of this word is that the country is usually dominated by two large parties (one of the left and one of the right). Historically, the Canadian two-party plus system has been controlled by the centre-left Liberal Party and the centre-right Conservative Party. But, it has existed more ideological political parties on the further left or the further right. Here, is a picture that can serve as a guide to know the spectrum of the political parties in Canada:

I ‘m going to describe to you some of the main political parties in Canada.

The Liberals.

When liberals want to feel proud about themselves, they like to be called “Canada’s Natural Governing Party” in recognition of the fact they’ve held power for long periods of Canada history.

The future of the Liberal Party is a bit uncertain at the moment. The popularity of the party started to decline during the 2000s, culminating in the 2011 federal elections, when they got only 34 seats in the parliament, and slipped to third-place of votes. But in 2013, Pierre Trudeau’s charismatic son, Justin Trudeau, took the power of the party and become in the leader of the same. So maybe he can be the person who be able to lead the Liberals back to their former glories. Today, the Liberal Party defines himself as a party that is fiscally conservative, but socially progressive. They are strongly supportive of abortion rights, gay marriage and immigration, but also favour a largely unregulated free market.

Here, in this picture, we can see the Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his finance minister, Paul Martin. They are credited for helping move the Liberal Party to the center with balanced budgets and low taxes.

The New Democratic Party.

Founded during the middle of the Great Depression, Canada’s New Democratic Party was originally a hardline socialist party dedicated to the downfall of the capitalist system. Since some decades, the NDP has moved in a more moderate direction, from a doctrinaire Marxism and towards a modern spirit of social democracy and a “mixed economy,” where the Government exists but not regulates everything.

The Conservatives.

The Conservative Party of Canada is the party that is in the Canada Government presently. It’s a new party, founded in 2003. Previously, what is now the CPC used to be two different parties: the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance. The Progressive Conservative Party was, until 2006, the only party (without count Liberal party) had ever governed Canada.

About his composition, they were simply an alliance of people who were not Liberals (in the same way the Liberals were often an alliance of people who weren’t Conservatives). Historically, it defined itself as the party of loyalty to England, English-Canadians and English culture in general, imperialism, and Protestant traditionalism.

The coexistence of Progressive Conservative Party and Canadian Alliance was causing a continuing division of the right vote and keeping the Liberals in the power due to a divided opposition. In 2003, the new leader of the Alliance, Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, agreed to mix their parties into a new: the Conservative Party of Canada. They took a strategically wise decision, and Harper, the first leader of the united party, was elected prime minister three years later.

The Green Party.

Another one of the great controversial topics of modern Canadian politics is how seriously to take the Green Party of Canada. Only electing his first member in the Parliament in 2011, not is very clear if they are going to be a main party in the future or only have had good luck for that time.

Becoming a Nation Written by Aida Fernandez Lara Between 1867 and 1931, Canada was becoming a nation. In 1867, the British North America Act (BNAA) was signed and Canada became a Dominion in the British Commonwealth. John A. McDonald was called the first Prime Minister.

With this arrangement, Canada was divided in three big provinces. Those provinces were: The Province of Canada (later it was divided into Ontario and Quebec) Nova Scotia New Brunswick There were three elements that were the basis to the building of this state. There were: The Governor General Council had the power to disallow any provincial law.

There was a division of power between the federal and the provinces.

The Parliament could assume any powers that were not specifically allocated. They could govern for peace, order and good government.

Furthermore, the provinces had some powers, like the power to law the education.

But not all the provinces agreed with the Confederation. Some of the made a resistance against it. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland opted out and did not join until 1871 and 1949 respectively. However, maybe the most important resistance happened in 1868, when a strong repeal transgression movement gained force in Nova Scotia. The British Government give them two options to fix the problem. The first was go to the war, rebellion against British Authority. The second was the submission and this was the one that Nova Scotia chose.

The things were changing quickly because in 1905 British didn’t intervene when Canada negotiated a treaty with the USA. Another important step happened in 1926. At that time the Imperial Conference laid the groundwork for a new arrangement that was based on equal status between the dominions and Great Britain.

Besides, the national identity and the independence conscience had to be building. An important point for this was the Tragedy of the World War I. The heroism and sacrifice that the men had in the war became arguments for the independence and gave moral and strength for all the Canadian people.

Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls situate in the border between Canada and Unites States, more exactly between the province of Ontario and the state of New York. The three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls.

The first one lies mostly in the Canadian zone, and the Americans Falls entirely on de America side.

Also, the small Bridal Veil Falls is located in the American zone. The three falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world.

The falls are located 27 km north-northwest of Buffalo, New York and 121 km south-southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York.

Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, water from the Great Lake, which carved a path through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.

Our experience We went to Niagara Falls the first Wednesday we spend in Canada; it was a rainy day so we couldn’t take great pictures of the falls. We were wet before be close to the falls, that it was a fun fact. The Falls were amazing and we couldn’t believe the lack of water that falls over.

We put red raincoats and went to the ship, everybody was so impressed and so excited. We take lots of video and pictures. It was a fun day with the entire group together sharing one of the most grateful experiences of our lives.

Written by Amalia Hevia Delgado

1. HISTORY AND FOUNDATION: In the amazing Ontario province, we have some special and unique places such as Niagara on the Lake. This small town, has almost 16,ooo people. But this number is higher because of the tourists.

In 1781, the Niagara region was a British military base and British people who wanted to flee from the United States during the American Revolution went here.

Also, Niagara was an important place in the 1812 war. Because of that, it was burned and time after, it had to be rebuilt. Its name was adopted in 1880 to distinguish it from the other town (Niagara Falls).

Because of it military historical past, Niagara on the Lake has a lot of military places such as Fort George. Laura Secord was a Canadian heroine of the War of 1812. She is known for having walked 20 miles out of American-occupied territory. The Americans invaded the Niagara region while the occupation, and she acquired information about a planned American attack.

2. THINGS TO VISIT: The Shaw Festival is a great Canadian theatre festival and is the second largest repertory theatre company in North America. It was founded in 1962.

The main street is King St, in which we have amazing shops and awesome houses and buildings such as Prince of Wales Hotel. This hotel was founded in 1864 and is so famous because of its royal guests.

King Street, as I had said, is so beautiful and you always will find it crawled and full of snow in the winter or of powerful flowers in spring and summer. Also you have Lake Ontario with brilliant views.

3. EXPERIENCE, PERSONAL OPINION

We have been one sunny day, perfect for riding a bike as we did. We rode Niagara streets seeing the beautiful “suburban” houses and the relaxing views of the lake. Then we went walking to the other part of the lake and to King street; where we had to dodge lots of people.

There’s a typical jam shop with all kinds of jam that you could imagine.

Written by Minerva Centeno Peña

CANADA’S WONDERLAND Written by Laura De Alvaro Garcia & Alberto Rodriguez Alvarez

Canada’s Wonderland is a theme park in Vaughan, Ontario. It is said to be the biggest amusement park in Canada. It has 69 rides, 17 of them are roller coasters and 2 are water rides.

There are many types of rides such as Merry-go-round (also known as carousel), tea cups ride, haunted house, ferris wheel, free fall ride, swinging-ship ride and others. The most famous thrill rides are Leviathan (shown above) and Behemoth. Besides the rides, Canada’s Wonderland is also known for its Funnel cakes. This dessert is original from Pennsylvania (USA). It is made by pouring batter into hot cooking oil in a circular pattern and deep frying the overlapping mass until golden-brown.

The theme park is divided in different areas such as family rides, thrill rides, areas for the kidz, splash works, live entertainment, dinosaurs alive, dinning and shopping.

The splash works 20 acre area has over 7 million litres of heated water fun. The most little children have fun in the splash island sprayground and the splash island kiddie pool that have very low thrill. If you want more thrill in this area, although not as much as in roller coasters as the Leviathan, there are other rides as the plunge, the black hole, the super soaker, the riptide car and the barracuda blaster.

The Barracuda Blaster is the last but not the least, in fact it was my favourite. The barracuda blaster consists in a high slope followed by a twist around the vertical banks of a giant whirling bowl of water and ended flashing out into the lazy river. In the lazy river you can relax gently floating down stream or in individual tubes.

Apart from the water rides there are other ‘better’ ones, the park call them the thrill rides.

These rides are faster, higher, bigger, and more entertain for some people that like the feel of adrenaline. The two biggest thrill rides are the Leviathan and the Behemoth. I tried both and they were amazing, I would not be able to say which one is the best because both are awesome.

The Leviathan: The first thing I did when I enter Canada’s Wonderland was going to the well-known Leviathan with some of my trip mates. We had to wait in line for about 15 minutes, but it was worth it. When you sit in your place you can feel your heart beating hard, then the ride start going up slowly until it reaches the summit, after that the ride is so powerful that the only thing you can do is enjoy. I ride the leviathan three times, and I can say without a doubt each time was better than the one before.

The Behemoth: I only ride it one time, but I would have liked to do it many more times for sure. At first it is very similar to the Leviathan, but when it starts you realize that it is even faster, and also longer. It is a great ride, and I would recommend it to everybody

Toronto is the most populous city in Canada with 2.6 million of habitants and the capital of Ontario. The history of this big city started in 1793 when the British Crown bought its land and found a settlement called York. Eventually this settlement became a city and was renamed as Toronto. Toronto remain increasing and expand every year.

Toronto is known for its diversity, actually is the city with the highest percent of people who haven’t born in Canada, about 49%. Moreover is one of the safest city in the world and it have been chosen as one of the best cities in which life is more comfortable.

Our group went to Toronto on Saturday but regrettably it was raining all day. We can’t enjoy the city so much because also the haze covered the top of buildings so we couldn’t see as much as we wanted.

Written by Bruno Rodríguez Meana It was a bad day but fortunately we came back 2 weeks later and we had a sunny day. We could do everything we wanted: Rode in the CN Tower, go to the Toronto Island and see the skyline from the boat, made some shopping in china town, Eaton Center (where some people spent all their savings), but specially in Kensington where we found a lot of beautiful markets, cloths and graffiti’s.

Moreover we had enough time to just walking between high buildings that surround us. At the end of the day we were exhausted a lot of people fall asleep in the bus to Welland.