I landed in Canada on April 26, 1968. It was like arriving into a different world! The trees were bare and looked like they had been through a forest fire. The snow and cool temperatures were no surprise to me because, in 1967, on television I had seen an ice storm in Toronto. I remember because that was the year the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup.

I had a visitor's visa. Back in those days, if you wanted to see someone from Jamaica, you would go to the WEFF Club located at College Street and Brunswick Avenue. My first Canadian address was 214 Humberside. In those days, $10.00 worth of groceries would fill your cart. TIC tickets were five for a dollar. You could thumb your way home and not be scared. There were no bank hold-ups and no shootings in the streets.

Nevel got me my first job. I was so fast that they called me "Speedy". I agreed to work every other Saturday. On one Friday, I finished my two jobs and I was to be off for the weekend. My boss asked me to start another job and I said no. He dismissed me. I still applied for permanent residency in Canada, as a painter. My application was denied because they did not know what kind of painter I was. I decided to go back to Jamaica.

I went to a barber named Colin, who had a shop on Harbord Street. I told him to cut my hair because I was going back home. He told me to appeal the denial to stay here. He gave me Joe's number and told me that it would cost me $350.00 to appeal the case. A friend took me to Ottawa and I won the appeal based on humanitarian grounds.