Daniel Igali embodies all that makes Canadians proud

June 30 2001

Baraladei Daniel Igali makes me proud to be Canadian. It is not because he won a gold medal at last fall's Olympics. It is because of the way he won and what his winning says about Canada.
First, Igali wrapped himself in a huge Canadian flag, then he carefully placed it on the wrestling mat and ran around it clockwise and counterclockwise before kneeling to kiss the scarlet and white flag of his adopted home.

Later, he stood on the podium, tears spilling down his face as O Canada played. I cried too. Igali's story symbolizes everything that is good about Canada. His story Is a celebration of diversity, of tolerance, of small acts of kindness by strangers. It is a story that in one bold sweep encapsulates the Canada that has taken 134 years to build-a country that is not just wealthy, but welcoming. A country whose influence around the world is well known beyond its tiny population.

In the days that followed Igali's Olympic victory, his story became well-known. But it bears repeating in brief. Born in tiny Eniwari, Nigeria, into a family of twenty brothers and sisters, Igali had to share everything from toothbrushes to a bed. Although his father is an accountant, and his mother a teacher, the Igali's were poor. The village remains remote-there are no telephones and no televisions-and his former country is torn by political violence. After his Olympic victory, it was days before the news reached his mother, Grace Igali - the person Daniel says he admires the most.

She encouraged Daniel to study hard, to work hard at whatever he chose to do. And what he chose was wrestling. He was good enough at it that at 16, he left his village for the city of Jos to continue his training. Four years later, Igali arrived in Victoria with the Nigerian wrestling team to compete in the Commonwealth Games. He didn't win a medal, but he did meet a volunteer driver, Tom Murphy. Murphy told him about Canada and then offered Igali a place to stay when he decided not to return to Nigeria when the games ended. Igali soon moved to Vancouver to continue his wrestling career and pursue a degree at Simon Fraser University. He found a mentor in Coach Dave Mckay and a friend in Surrey businessman, Satnam Johal.

It was Johal who gave him a place to live rent-free for two years and introduced him to Vancouver's Sikh community. Igali also met and grew to love Maureen Matheny, the mother of a friend who became Igali's surrogate mother. Unable to call his own mother in Nigeria, when he won the World Championships in 1999, it was Matheny who got Igali's first phone call. Matheny was dying of cancer and did not live to see his Olympic performance.

Daniel Igali's story is extraordinary because his success was so huge and so public. But look at the others in the short re-telling of Daniel Igali's tale - Murphy, Mckay, Johal, Matheny. They are names from different continents, different cultures, different religions. They are the names of other immigrants who came here for different reasons, worked hard and made quiet contributions to their communities. Millions of people have immigrated to Canada in the past 134 years including all four of my grand parents.

In the building and mixing that makes a nation, what has resulted is a country that the United Nations consistently ranked as the best in the world. It?s a country that accepts nearly 250,000 people a year who have queued for the chance to move here. Canada is not the grand design of a small group of founding fathers. Canada became this way incrementally, through small steps taken in response to the traumatic and terrible events of the 20th century - two World Wars, the Holocaust and subsequent civil wars that have left millions of victims and refugees.

Canadian John Humphrey, head of the UN Human Rights unit at the end of the Second World War, wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that was adopted on Dec. 10, 1948. Canada was among the first to sign. In 1956 Lester B. Pearson proposed an international peace keeping force that would allow Britain and France to ease out of Egypt. He won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his idea, which became a model for modern-day interventions that Canada has been deeply involved in. Pierre Elliott Trudeau enshrined the principles of equality and diversity in our 1982 Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

But it is Daniel Igali that I come back to.

There are many other Canadians who have won medals for athletics and for bravery. There are heroes like Terry fox and Rick Hansen who continue to inspire Canadians to attempt what seems impossible. Seven scientists have won Nobel prizes, while the list of writers who have won international prizes is too long to print here.

Other sports heroes have held Canadians in thrall - many of us still remember where we were when Paul Henderson scored the decisive goal in the 1972 Canada-Soviet Union hockey series.

But Igali's story, in some version, belongs to all of us whose families came to this country in hope. His story stands as a tribute to the kind of country we continue to build, where people are bound together by their ideals, not their color, language or even shared history.