When I was 10 years old, a group of actors came to our school and posed as would-be immigrants. We children were given the role of immigration officers, with a quota of immigrants we could admit and a list of desirable characteristics in new Canadians. We had to decide who could come to our country - and who couldn't.

The idea, I guess, was to teach us to identify with would-be immigrants. It worked. Indeed, the actors' stories were so moving that we children were spurred to political protest. Immigration quotas were wrong, we declared, and we intended to admit the entire group.