Tuesday, June 30 2009

Happy Canada Day!

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise . . .

To all my American friends puzzled by the absence of Canadian voices on the other end of the telephone/email device July first, we have a good excuse: it's Canada Day/Fête du Canada! While on many levels it's analogous to the American Independence Day, it's mostly not, really.

Established by statute in 1879, Canada's July 1st holiday was first called 'Dominion Day', and it celebrated the confederation (joining together) of four provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec) into the Dominion of Canada. We started small.

Here's where it gets a bit difficult to explain to Americans: at that point, we weren't really our own country. The British crown (oddly enough, comprised of Germans by the name of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, mostly) retained some rulership of Canada up until 1982, when the constitution was finally repatriated to our Country, and the name was Changed to Canada Day. By then we'd added a lot more provinces and territories and a huge number of immigrants from all cultures and backgrounds. so it's not a case of celebrating our independence, but rather one of celebrating our togetherness.

Actual beauty of Canada not shown to scale: beauty reduced to prevent envy.

For most Canadians that means celebrating our differences--another bit of weirdness. Canada is not a melting pot: it's more like a big tossed salad, with the tender leaves of common purpose, the crunchy cucumber of cultural variations, the sweet tomato slices of shared community, the grated cheese of tradition, and the creamy dressing of order and good government.

I can walk down a street in Vancouver and hear a hundred languages spoken, see traditional costumes of dozens of countries/ethnicities/religions, smell wonderful cuisines on every corner, and very few of the people will be concerned with assimilating or 'becoming Canadian'--because they already are Canadian, as part of a nation strengthened by diversity. While being demonstrative of patriotic intent isn't the done thing here, I must say that our diversity, and the richness it brings to my life and to our country is something I'm very proud of.

So if you need me, I'll be down on the beach, watching the sun set across this great land of ours, meditating on my great good luck to be part of it. Happy Canada Day to everyone.

Posted by Tim AT 9:29PM

2 Comments

Post A Comment

Email