Joe Clark once described Canada as a “community of communities”.  Even while proud Canadians, we come from local lives and with regional identities. That is a strength. But ensuring Canadian federalism remains viable is also the central, endless challenge that faces Ottawa.

I’ve personally had no better antidote to my own insularity and mirror to the country’s diversity than this fellowship.  It has seeded lifelong friendships that span from ocean to ocean, reaffirming our enduring pride in our similarities and differences.  And so it was altogether fitting that our farewells as fellows should be said in Ottawa.

I currently live in Ottawa. My three successive lives in geology, economics and now law separately returned me for sojourns here. There’s perhaps no town where one can find such professional diversity or such wide impact (albeit, with Bytown being a government town, for arms of just one employer).

However, with my residence always temporary, I’ve never felt quite at home in Ottawa. That may be why I’ve been able to rediscover myself here before departing elsewhere. From Ottawa’s vantage, transients like me are both the town’s benefit and curse: we bring the country to the city, but our draw to Ottawa is Canada, not the city itself.

It’s near gospel that insular Ottawa knows too little about other parts of Canada. The rejoinder could be that there’s no other Canadian city that knows as much about the rest of the country.  And to my mind, the key for Ottawa as a city is to preserve the ebb and flow of we troublesome transients who give it that wider reach.

– Grant Bishop, ’14