Program
Our speaker Nailya Kukmasheva who speaks very good English with a beautiful Russian accent came to Canada several years ago as an immigrant and is now a Canadian citizen. She was trained as a pediatrician in Russia and learnt to speak English there as a second language. She feels fortunate that when she decided to come over the immigration rules hinged on a point system which favoured her application.
She recently won awards for public speaking and her talk today about Canada is very timely as we approach Canada's 150th anniversary of confederation
Her talk is called O Canada and describes our country for the view of a new citizen. She knew before arriving that Canada has the best reputation around the world for a place to live and has since experienced the kindness of Canadians which proves it true to her. She related various examples from the rescue of stranded motorists by volunteers to the many examples of acceptance and multi-culturism.
She now works as a Russian language translator for the OPP headquarters here in Orillia.