Canada Day. We are 143 years young!!

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Betty's Blogs topic

Website where you will find various royal speeches

Enjoy, AP.

I was born and raised mainly in southwestern Ontario and watched a lot of American TV as a kid e.g. Schoolhouse Rock, Rocketship 7 (with Commander Tom!), Bowling/Dialing For Dollars. Buffalo TV was the s@#t!

Point being, we've being fighting off the American virus ever since I can remember, which, ironically, is part of the Canadian experience. I think as long as we act enough like beer-guzzling, bacon-munching hosers, they'll leave us alone.

Meh, dunno, they keep eye-ing our ressources like a pack of hungry wolves. :p

i like back-bacon also. but i like canada's universal health care system even more.
i also like the canadian [defence] forces rank insignia, especially the chief warrant officer "from sea to sea" "dancing horses" below-

I am one of the relatively few Americans from south of your border who is aware of our giant neighbor to the north. Here is my 2 cents:

GREAT THINGS ABOUT CANADA:
1) Tim Horton's- I tried a taste test. My dog, who has a serious sweet tooth, loves Tim Horton's maple-frosted donuts, but he won't eat Dunkin Donuts maple-frosted donuts.
2) Canadian Forces- fighting bravely in Afghanistan, and 143 dead so far, a lot for such a small military. Go Princess Pat's and Royal Canadian Regiment and Van Doos!
3) Quebec City
4) Poutine
5) Schwartz's in Montreal
6) Halifax, NS- beautiful natural location at the mouth of a sort of fiord, plus a real working port with lhilly streets, lots of big cranes and oil-storage tanks, plus a neat old fort-the Citadel.
7) Since 1867, a surprisingly peaceful history largely devoid of massacres, civil wars, revolutions, and the like.
The main way that Canada is not modern and PC- Its still a monarchy. The head of state is HRH Queen Elizabeth II, and there is still a Governor-general. I don;t know if its still that relatively hot-looking Haitian one,
NEGATIVE THINGS ABOUT CANADA:
1) Cold Winters
2) Really dull news media, such as the Toronto Globe and Mail, the CBC Newsand Maclean's
3) Canada, unlike our fellow Anglosphere countries of Britain and Australia, never supported the War in Iraq.
4) All too common smug self-righteous attitude toward all things American.
5) French Canadian attitudes toward language- I'm sorry to break it to you Francophones, but the vast majority of people in North America prefer English to French. Get over it.

Being a monarchy does not mean that a country is not modern or PC. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all modern, industrialized, pluralist societies. The fact of a hereditary monarch as our Head of State may be anachronistic to republican eyes, that does not dictate the nature of our societies or cultures!

BTW, the Queen has not been an HRH since 1952. She is HM. There are 20 HRH's (18 who use the style) starting with the Duke of Edinburgh, and finishing with Princess Alexandra of Kent.



This wee list would likely provoke long discussion amongst us.

I, for one, think winter is part of our national identity. And not just because of ice hockey! Granted we b***h and moan about it, but we have to have something to do during the period from Labour Day to Victoria Day!

I can't agree with you about our media. I turn to The G&M and to CBC frequently for timely, accurate news reporting. I don't read the news to be entertained, I read it to be informed! However, I have been hot and cold about MacLean's ever since Andrew Coyne took over and dragged the magazine to the right. But that particular issue is about content, not about style.

As for Iraq, I suspect history will demonstrate the wisdom of that particular decision. Your leadership made an ill-considered decision that has only served to further destabilize an already fragile region, for which history might not thank you. Given the level of disapproval of the Iraq venture in your own country, and among the populations of your coalition partners, I think it may prove difficult to hold this one against us.

On your fourth point, however, you are bang on. For so long we have had to define ourselves by what we are not--first we were not British, now we are not American. But the reality is that our fate and our prosperity is inextricably bound up with you. The damage done by Bush's failure to mention Canada after 9/11 cannot be overstated. Nine years on, it still rankles. Perhaps we should move on, already.

As for five, I suggest that you walk a mile in those shoes before you get too smug. French culture, whether in France or in the Francophonie is inextricably tied into language. The Québecois aspiration to be maîtres chez eux was almost completely the product of assimilationist language practices practiced at the federal level from time long before Confederation. The loss of French language in Québec and in francophone communities elsewhere in Canada (particularly the Acadian community in the Maritimes) would mean the destruction of rich and vibrant cultures.

Should the Germans give up German, or the Spaniards give up Spanish because of the Aglosphere hegemony? I think not. Perhaps the United States should give up English, in view of the growing dominance of Putonghua. After all, that's where the global economic muscle is growing, maybe you should get a head start!

In the War of 1812 Canadian commandos supporting British troops successfully burned the White House to the ground.