Canada Day
 

Happy Canada Day (one day early) to my fellow Canadians. Canada Day's going to be fairly big in Vancouver this year, because the decision for the 2010 Olympics is going to be made the day after (July 2).

How will you spend your Canada Day?

Could you please explain Canada Day to this silly American? :)

This silly American had a lot of learning to do too, BetaRose. :)

Canada Day is the celebration of Canada's Confederation.

From the National Library of Canada:

(Confederation is) the coming together of the colonies in British North America. Three colonies were made into four provinces. These were Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They became the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867. The other provinces and territories joined later.

From the Canadian Heritage Website:
http://www.pch.gc.ca/special/canada/11/canada_e.cfm

Canada Day is an opportunity to gather in our communities, from sea to sea, and to proudly celebrate all we have in common. It is an opportunity to celebrate our achievements, which were born in the audacious vision and shared values of our ancestors, and which are voiced in nearly all of the languages of the world through the contribution of new Canadians.

Canada Day is a time to celebrate the heritage passed down to us through the works of our authors, poets, artists and performers. It is a time to rejoice in the discoveries of our scientific researchers, in the success of our entrepreneurs, and to commemorate our history — a history in which each new chapter reveals itself to be more touching, more fascinating than the last.

As we look ahead, we have every reason to face the future with confidence and enthusiasm.

Canada
 

Or a basic definition is it's Canada's Birthday :)

I spent last Canada Day in Ottawa and it was a party and a half!!! I had a blast! I recommend every Canadian to spend at least one Canada Day in Ottawa...you'll have so much fun!!

Anyhoo, I'm not doing anything right now. I might do something tonight though, and just chill tomorrow, and maybe catch the firworks.

I don't know, it's been pretty busy in Toronto this past week...with Pride week and everything...this city just keeps going, which is good after SARS and all.

Anyway, I am just rambling now.

HAPPY CANADA DAY EVERYONE!!!!


P.S Happy Belated Pride too! :D

Re: Canada
 

Did you catch the fun on parliment hill?

That used to be one of my jobs :) Big black furry hat, hot as hell red jacket, and a rifle. I worked as a Ceremonial Guard for a couple of summers while in the military.

The only thing more fun is the levee at the Governor General's house on New Years day.....

We have a mixed household...
I am American and my husband is Canadian...
We haven't decided what we will do...probably have a cookout

I don't have any major plans. I may go out after work tomorrow and see what's going on around town - I'm waiting for July 2nd ;), man am I nervous.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~bleeck/canada/waveflag.gifhttp://images.animfactory.com/animat..._fl_md_wht.gif
In honor of the Canadian Commenwealth's birthday, this Yankee will lead everyone in a verse of their national anthem.

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North, strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Refrain
O Canada, glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!

O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!

Refrain

O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!

Refrain

Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.

Refrain

Mrs. DeltAlum returned just today from Toronto.

When we lived in Detroit, it was really fun during the first week of July when Windsor and Detroit celebrated the Canadian/American Freedom Festival at the riverfront.

Question? Was Canada Day orginally called Dominion Day? I seem to remember that, but it was over twenty years ago.

In any event, I used to love to watch CBC's coverage -- especially one year when it was several hours long, and had segments from all over the country. Toward the end of the coverage, a Metropolitan Opera star (who I guess was named an honorary Canadian), sang Oh Canada on Parliament Hill with fireworks going off all around -- which I thought was a really neat finale -- until it was followed by a single piper playing Amazing Grace.

Amazing was a good word for it.

And I've loved Oh Canada since the first time I heard it! A great anthem!

Happy Birthday, Canada!

I plan to sleep in :D

Seriously, I was perturbed that I didn't get a long weekend and had to head back from the cottage last night to work this morning (ugh). So tomorrow I'm enjoying my day off and doing nothing.

I've done the Parliament Hill party in the past and it was amazing. Although, last time I went I think it was about 10 degrees and they had to cancel the fireworks b/c it was so windy.

I may to go Ontario Place and watch the fireworks, if I can gather up the energy ;)

And might I say, docetboy, that there are verses in O Canada that I've NEVER heard of before! I know the first 2 (in French and English of course) but the last 2 are new to me!

And I would venture to say that 99% of U.S. citizens don't even know that there are additional verses to The Star Spangled Banner.

They are beautiful as well, by the way.

Once again, happy birthday to both countries.

I know how you feel - I didn't get my long weekend either. In fact my first long weekend that I can enjoy since easter is BC Day - I spent the Victoria Day weekend studying for finals :eek:.

Yeah, the fireworks were last wednesday but I missed them - i was out of town.

tomorrow I plan on watching the Canada Day parade here, although it is pretty small. Then on to grab some free birthday cake at the river. That's one big cake!!

July 4th I'm going to one of the music concerts at the river - they've got a lot of good music acts this year compared to the past - but they started charging :(

And, I do believe it was Dominion Day since we are officially the Dominion of Canada...but that was before my time so I guess I'm not 100% certain.

I'll be sure to wear my Canada handkerchief (sp?) tomorrow(well today I mean since it's already 1 am)!

Maybe I'll drag out my Canada trivia game and see if anyone wants to play with me (no one ever does, since I always win)

We are going to be looking at a house we will most likely rent!

Canada is cool?
 

Happy birthday Canada!

Here is an article from my hometown paper, the Boston Globe.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/18...ool_eh_+.shtml

Cool, eh?

Showing a plucky independence with its tolerance and diversity, Canada has never been more hip

By Alex Beam, Globe Staff, 7/1/2003

Happy Canada Day! Yes, it was just 136 years ago today that Canada signed its first constitution. True, it took our north-of-the-border friends another 64 years to break free of their colonial masters in London, but we're here to celebrate, not criticize.

Remember when Canada was just plain cold? Think Farley Mowat chasing wolves across ice floes. Think goalie Gump Worsley clogging up the goalmouth for the Montreal Canadiens. Think of Canada's unflattering nickname: ''Snow Mexico.''

That was then. Now Canada has gone from cold to cool. Call it global zeitgeist warming. It may be the coolest place on earth. Canada is what Cambridge would like to be: ethnically diverse, tolerant, committed to public transportation. And it's becoming the most permissive place on earth, west of Stockholm. You can buy all the pot you need in ''Vansterdam'' -- Vancouver -- a city so hip that Seattle grungies trek northward just to savor its heady melange of multicultural fusion. Needle exchange programs? Canada's got 'em. Pretty soon they will be adding their own full-service heroin dens: Vancouver will host the first ''safe injection site'' for drug addicts anywhere in North America.

Would you like a same-sex marriage? No need to travel to the barren shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont to sample former governor Howard Dean's half-baked ''civil unions'' compromise. The Canadian government is committed to full marital parity for gays and straights.

Got universal health care? Sure do, eh? Got cheap prescription drugs? So cheap the Yankee pillpoppers are shuffling north from Buffalo.

Did you see the movie ''Chicago''? They should have called it ''Toronto.'' It was filmed there, as are an alarmingly large number of Hollywood movies.

If you don't feel like being part of the cheering section for the Coalition of the Willing, come on up! South of Sault Ste. Marie, if you oppose George Bush's Iraqi adventure, John Ashcroft is writing down your name, and he's marking it twice. In Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chretien's speaking out on Operation Iraqi Freedom prompted Bush to cancel a summit. So what does Chretien do? He jets to the Dominican Republic to play golf with Bill Clinton -- who happens to have been keeping company with a billionaire bombshell, 36-year-old Toronto auto parts magnate Belinda Stronach, according to the CanWest News Service. What kind of country has a 30-something auto parts magnate who looks like the young Meryl Streep? Our kind of country, we say.

So Happy Canada Day, esteemed northern neighbors. You're cool and you know it.



A brief history of cool Canada, the last half-century

1953
Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson forms trio with Herb Ellis and Ray Brown

1955
Glenn Gould releases recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations

1958
Seagram Building is completed in New York

1964
Marshall McLuhan publishes "Understanding Media"

1970
Donald Sutherland plays "Hawkeye" Pierce in "M*A*S*H"

1976
"SCTV" debuts

1983
Peter Jennings is named sole anchor of "World News Tonight"

1992
Graydon Carter is named editor of Vanity Fair; Toronto Blue Jays win firrst of two consecutive World Series

1993
"The X-Files," fi lmed in Vancouver, debuts

1997
Sarah McLachlan launches Lilith Fair

2003
Mike Weir wins The Masters golf tournament



MARK FEENEY

This story ran on page E1 of the Boston Globe on 7/1/2003.

Thanks. I heard on the radio on the way to work that one of the original names (there have been several, apparantely) was Dominion Day. They said it is the date of the British North American Act, which officially chartered (is that the right word?) Canada as a Dominion. I don't remember what year that Act happened -- maybe sometime in the 1830's or 40's? Maybe RA or someone can help us with that.

The name was changed to Canada Day in 1982 according to the program.

I will be celebrating Canada's birthday along with my 20th birthday today!

Maybe I should celebrate by planning a last minute trip to Winsor :D

And coming to hang out with me and MisterMadly, I hope? :D

Whoa, Canada!
 

From the July 1 Washington Post. Long but a good read:

Whoa! Canada! Legal Marijuana. Gay Marriage. Peace. What the Heck's Going On Up North, Eh?

By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 1, 2003; Page C01

Peaceniks, pot and people of the same sex exchanging wedding vows: It's a trinity from the church of high liberalism, or a right-wing trifecta of decline and doom.

Either way, it's a perfect storm of cultural weather patterns that you'd expect to be brewed only in, say, the East Village, Dupont Circle or the intersection of Haight and Ashbury.

But no!

Can you say Saskatoon?

Banff?

Nunavut?

Just when you had all but forgotten that carbon-based life exists above the 49th parallel, those sly Canadians have redefined their entire nation as Berkeley North.

"It's like we woke up and suddenly we're a European country," says Canadian television satirist Rick Mercer.

"We're supposedly the reactionary society," says Rudyard Griffiths, director of the Toronto-based Dominion Institute, which promotes Canadian citizenship and history. "We didn't have the revolution. You'd think we would be an inherently conservative society. There's the irony."

In March, Canada decided it was unwilling to join the "coalition of the willing" for the attack on Iraq. Unlike French wine and toast, Canadian bacon avoided boycott because somehow Canada's defection escaped notice.

In May, Canada proposed to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and refocus law enforcement on traffickers. An herbal blend out of British Columbia known as "B.C. Bud" is attaining a reputation reminiscent of the old Panama Red and Maui Wowie.

In June, Canada decided to allow same-sex marriages. In comparison, the U.S. Supreme Court's striking down of the Texas sodomy law last week seems tame. Since the Canadian marriage right is construed as inalienable and open to all -- sound familiar? -- hundreds of gay Americans are streaming north to get married. Their nuptials will not be recognized at home, where a 1996 federal law decreed that marriage is strictly a man-woman thing. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," called for amending the Constitution to ban gay marriages.

The news from Canada is just a little disorienting -- no, shocking -- for Americans. Depending on your view, isn't America supposed to be the cradle of the coolest, most cutting-edge culture? Didn't we invent civil rights? Alternatively, if such so-called cool culture is corrupt and these "rights" wrong, at least by golly we're supposed to get to Hell first.

Now Canada is leading the way.

And America is looking fussy, Victorian and imperial.

On this Canada Day -- commemorating the creation of a central Canadian government on July 1, 1867 -- let us pause to wonder: What happened to that clean cold land of Mounties, Dudley Do-Right, loons on lakes, loons on coins, cheese on french fries? What of the goofy, front-teeth-missing, bad-haircut, lovable beer-and-doughnut civilization of hosers like Bob and Doug McKenzie, the characters created by Canadian comedians Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas? Eh? Bob would ponder conundrums like: "What is a six-pack equal to in metric conversion?"

That's a Canada we recognize, where everyone speaks in a crisp nasal deadpan, even the French. It is the home of a self-deprecating and polite-to-the-point-of-invisible people. In Michael Moore's 1995 satirical film "Canadian Bacon," the Canadians say "pardon me," "excuse me" as the Americans club them like baby seals during an invasion to keep the military in business after the Soviets caved. Toronto, observes one of the invaders, "is like Albany, only cleaner."

In more noble moments, we admire the benefits that seem to come with a passive, upstanding, low-key, non-controversial existence. Moore's new film, "Bowling for Columbine," hails Canada as an unarmed, low-crime utopia Where Front Doors Are Unlocked.

But Canada is also like the well-behaved child who is fun to pound on the playground. "Blame Canada," goes the song in the 1999 "South Park" movie, which depicts another invasion scenario. (Why is the idea of going to war with Canada such an easy laugh?) "It seems like everything went wrong since Canada came along."

"We tend to think of them as the quiet good people to the North," says David Biette, director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Canadians are surprised by the stunned reaction to current events of their friends to the south. Is America's image racier than the reality?

"I find it interesting that a country like the United States . . . isn't at the same level on these issues as we are," says Amanda Hachey, a university student from New Brunswick in Washington for an internship with an international consulting firm. "For example, you only have to go as far as watching 'That '70s Show,' where they're smoking marijuana on that show. It's an American show. You'd be thinking American culture would be accepting of those things."

Or: "You watch 'Will & Grace.' There's two gay men on that show. It seems to present that it's totally accepted."

"Certainly we are ahead -- if you want to call it that -- on those two issues," says Lorna Hundt, manager of Great Canadian Holidays in Kitchener, Ont. "As a Canadian, I'm proud."

Majorities of Canadians support their government on the war, marijuana and same-sex marriage. The most negative reaction, at least to gay marriage, is coming from Alberta, which Canadians call their most "American" province: cowboys, oilmen.

Maybe it's time to overhaul some old assumptions about national character.

At one time all you needed to know was that America was created through revolution under the slogan "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Canada was born of evolution and compromise under the slogan "peace, order and good government." America invented itself, Canada sort of happened.

The English settlers of what would become the United States were driven by religious freedom, as well as economic opportunity. The land of woods and lakes to the north attracted Frenchmen and Englishmen in pursuit of fur and a passage to Asia.

In America, groups besides white males acquired rights, immigrants came, industry was built, wars were won, music was made -- and in the process the nation forged an identity.

Similar things happened in Canada, except the identity part. The nation has struggled to figure out who it was.

The winner of a radio contest some years ago to define the Canadian identity in one sentence was: "As Canadian as possible under the circumstance."

"In Canada, we're a nation of institutions, we're not a nation based on an idea or a set of founding documents," says Griffiths, of the Dominion Institute. "There's no bedrock, there's not a terra firma to Canadian identity. It's something we make up very much on the fly."

Plenty of Canadians have made their mark, but somehow that hasn't really helped define their homeland.

"People look at Celine Dion and say she's Canadian," says Biette. But "is what she does Canadian?"

And what about: Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland, Geddy Lee, Bruce Cockburn, Peter Jennings, Margaret Trudeau, Mike Myers, William Shatner, Keanu Reeves, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox, Margot Kidder, Pamela Anderson, Carrie-Anne Moss, k.d. lang, Neil Young, Alanis Morissette, Robbie Robertson, Paul Shaffer, Paul Anka, Shania Twain, Alex Trebek, Lorne Michaels.

But now with peace, pot and same-sex people saying "I do," something weird is happening. Could it be Canada is getting an identity? Even weirder, is it possible that Canada is becoming more American, and America is becoming more Canadian? Julian Roy of Toronto legally smokes marijuana for medical reasons. Kevin Frayer - AP

A new nonfiction bestseller in Canada is called "Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values." It's based on surveys of Canadians and Americans about their values as sampled in 1992, 1996 and 2000.

"What emerges," writes Toronto-based author and pollster Michael Adams, "is a portrait of two nations evolving in unexpected directions: The once shy and deferential Canadians, who used to wait to be told by their betters what to do and how to think, have become more skeptical of traditional authority and more confident about their own personal decisions and informal arrangements. Americans, by contrast, seeking a little of the 'peace and order' that Canadians hoped 'good government' would provide, seem inclined to latch on to traditional institutional practices, beliefs, and norms as anchors in a national environment that is more intensely competitive, chaotic, and even violent."

Adams found that Americans were adopting more conservative stances while showing more pessimism about the world. Canadians were moving in the opposite direction. Adams considers attitudes about "patriarchy" to be particularly revealing. He asked Americans and Canadians their view of the statement: "The father of the family must be the master in his own house."

In 1992, 42 percent of Americans agreed strongly or somewhat, and 26 percent of Canadians did. By 2000, 49 percent of Americans agreed, 18 percent of Canadians.

Adams and other scholars point to the varying influence of religion in the two societies. Two-thirds of Americans think religion is important, while a third of Canadians do, according to polls. Nearly half of Americans say they attend church weekly, compared with one in five Canadians.

"We don't have Pat Buchanans and we don't have powerful religious movements shaping social policy the way you do," says Neil Nevitte, professor of political science at the University of Toronto, who also has measured national values.

On religion and related moral questions, the United States is off the charts when compared with other industrialized societies, say those who have studied the subject. America looks most like Ireland. Canada is more in line with Scandinavia, and the rest of Europe.

The contrasting values -- and the latest policy announcements -- might be less surprising to anyone paying attention to a range of Canadian stands over the years: The country has strict gun control, no death penalty and universal health care. Canada signed the Kyoto global warming accord that the United States refused to endorse.

Canada, despite its open spaces, is more urban than the United States, with most of its population clustered in or near cities not far from the border. And despite the whitebread hoser stereotype, Canada accepts more immigrants per capita than the States, making it ethnically diverse. Adams theorizes that Canada's tradition of compromise as opposed to the pursuit of individual fulfillment has paradoxically made the society better able to tolerate a change like gay marriage.

"The point is that the 'conservative' society that values 'peace, order, and good government' is also the society whose people feel secure enough to acknowledge interdependence," he writes. "To be interdependent means to acknowledge the essential equality of the 'other.' "

That sounds right to Machell Louis-Kante, a Native Canadian from British Columbia who is working as an administrative assistant in Washington. She says America's melting-pot ideal implies that people need to shed differences to become more alike. Canada goes to sometimes awkward lengths to allow differences to dwell in each other's orbit, like putting French and English words on the same sign.

So maybe there is a Canadian identity emerging from all of this. Adams reprints in his book a 2002 New Yorker cartoon showing a man and woman in evening dress having cocktails. The man says, "You seem familiar, yet somehow strange -- are you by any chance Canadian?"

But consider how maddening it must be to live next door to a country that has almost 10 times your own country's population, and significantly more money, science, art and adrenaline to show for it.

One way to come into your own as a Canadian is to look at what Americans are up to -- and do the opposite.

"Part of our problem of differentiating ourselves from the United States -- post-World War II and the creation of a global consumer culture manufactured on Madison Avenue and produced in Tinseltown -- all that has made us look at the United States as a mirror to reflect back not what we are, but what we don't want to be," Griffiths says.

Canada can say it's Canada because it has gay marriage, universal health care, gun control and so on, and America doesn't.

Says Griffiths: "I think if the United States ever got a handle on universal health care and gun control, Canada would have a major identity crisis on its hands."

Staff researcher Margaret Smith contributed to this report.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

We used to be a "Dominion" of Great Britain. In 1982, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau "brought the constitution home" to Canada from England and we got more self-gov't or more independence from England or something like that and all that good stuff.
I'm off to sit by the pool on this fine Canada Day!

I'm sitting on the chesterfield (;)) watching the celebrations on the Hill and just had to say,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA

How proud I am to live in such a beautiful country.

And an early Happy 4th to our neighbours to the south

Re: Re: Canada
 

We did catch the fireworks up on the hill!

We spent the day in the market, then just went from party to party to party, it was hot as hell last yera, but sooooooo mych fun!!

Happy Canada Day!!!!

Just finished watching the CBC coverage, and I'm 1 Bubba down :)

Killing time until the Trailer Park Boys marathon. Until then i'll hang out with the boys before they ship-out to Afghanistan and continue our goal of have a glass of every Canadian beer.

In honour of Canada Day here are some other Canadian words:

Napkin, Poutine, Toque, Mukluk, and Eavestrough... see if you know what they are?



PS> Just saw GW on CNN.... celebrating 30 years of a volunteer military? Is that right? We have had 136.

I'm 5 for 5. Had to clean the eaves this weekend at the cottage.

I think the word of the day should be Mukluk

Happy Canada Day Canucks :)

Hope we get to hang out sometime this week! :D

How's this sound?
 

Yesterday i worked 16 hours - 7 until 11. I was supposed to have this morning off, got stuck coming in, and sucked to work until 3 p.m. I Now have to go back to work at 10 until 7 tommorrow morning.

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention that I work in a hotel 3 blocks from Wellington (the street parliament runs on). Tonight there will be thousands of ppl just outside the front entrance, and yeah, geuss who's gonna be keeping all the non-geusts out all through the night. It's a sea of ppl, if i stumble on a camera i'd like to take an overhead pic to show everyone the craziness.

Re: How's this sound?
 

You can soooo grab a girl's ass and she won't know who did it then.

-Rudey
--I'd wish you good luck but I know you're already a pro at this.

Re: Re: How's this sound?
 

done and done.

- rudey's on the trolley.

In regards to today I am soooooooooooo nervous, but our biggest competition to host the games (Salzburg) has just been eliminated...

Hey, congratulations!! Maybe I'll work the games for TV!