Celebrating Canada

As this blog is just starting out, I thought I'd include an old piece that gets at some of the things I appreciate about my chosen home and native land. It made the rounds of Canadian newspapers a few years ago:

American Reasons for Celebrating Canada Day

When I first moved up here a little over ten years ago, I was surprised to learn that Canada Day happens just before July 4th. I thought you wanted simply to beat us Americans to the punch. Canada Day might be a few days earlier, I thought, but hey, we’ll always do a celebration bigger and better than you. (Thinking like a true American, I was.) Well, after ten years, I’ve decided it’s time to fess up—I love this place. And this year, I’m finally going to focus on Canada Day. July 4th I’ll call up the family in the States to say hello, but the party will be on Canada Day. Here are twelve reasons why.

1) Your Electoral Process—At this time last year, the campaign for the U.S. Presidency was already under way. We Americans might be efficient at some things but election campaigns isn’t one of them. Canada, your warp-speed campaigns are a thing of beauty. It’s so short that the candidates can practically make a new promise every day, pollsters can go hog-wild, newspapers can add special campaign sections and then—boom!—it’s all over. We can get back to our regular lives. You may or may not like tomorrow’s results, but you gotta love the speed. Just like a good hockey game.

2) Your Healthcare System—My third child was born prematurely weighing 1 lb. 4 oz. I was so scared and confused that I went on-line to find communities of parents experiencing the same thing. The only topic parents from the U.S. could focus on was what their insurance covered and didn’t cover. Not Canadians. They wanted to talk about what mattered: prognosis, treatments, risks. Canada, I don’t know how much those 3 months in the hospital and four years of follow-up cost, but believe me, I am forever grateful. You can tax me as much as you want. I’ll never complain. I know I’ll never pay off how selflessly your medical system was there for us when we needed it. And I have a healthy five-year-old daughter to prove it.

3) The Gun Registry, Decriminalizing Marijuana, Approving Gay Marriages—First, let me come clean here and state my biases: I think it’s idiocy to lock people up for toking on a joint, a greater idiocy for allowing everybody who doesn’t toke to arm themselves to the hilt, and more than a bit foolish to approve only those committed relationships that have certain approved combinations of genitalia. That said, I’m not celebrating these because I think they’re particularly wise, effective or moral. Nope, I name these because—to paraphrase Dorothy—they let me know I’m not living in Kansas anymore. Could you imagine any of these taking root in Kansas? Not on your life Bubba. So Canada, go for it. It make you you.

4) Your Lakes And Rivers—If you haven’t been in them or on them, can you be Canadian? Your water is what brought me up here in the first place. You’ve got big untamed rivers swimming with hungry fish and vast empty lakes waiting for the wind to turn them into a froth of waves. Canada, your fresh water has spoiled me—how many times I’ve been able to paddle alone on a sky-blue lake without a cottage in sight. And heck, I was on a river trip where we didn’t see another soul for twenty-three days. That is the big lonesome. It’s beautiful, it’s empty and it’s calling you.

5) Your Government Ads—Let me get this straight: federal departments actually run ads on TV about their services and benefits? You must be joking! The first time I saw one I was so baffled I had to ask friends what I’d just seen. Clearly, these departments believe they’re part of the solution. I’m for any country that believes government has a positive contribution to make.

6) Your Bureaucrats—Living in Ottawa, I’ve come to know some of these people. Not what I expected. Some of these folks work awfully hard. Too hard, in fact. If truth be known, they’re workaholics. They’re a dedicated and conscientious lot. And why? I guess they think they have to live up the billing in those ads. These folks put in the honest 9 to 5 and then some. Any country would be only too happy to replace their Public Servants with Canada’s. Ok, I’ll admit they’re not perfect; after all, money has disappeared. But hey, wasn’t it one of the bureaucrats who blew the whistle on the lack of perfection in the first place.

7) Your Political Parties—“What,” you might ask in shock. “Are you crazed?” Probably, but that’s beside the point. It is simply because you have them. I grew up in an either-or world. Either Republicans or Democrats. Here you’ve got Either-Or-Or-Or-Or-Or (if I can include the Green Party). Now and then a third candidate shows up on the American stage, but everyone knows they’re going to be yanked off before too long. The truth is following political parties in the States is like living with nothing but a 100 years of Bruins-Rangers games. Up here, you’ve simply got more teams to watch. Keeps it interesting.

8) The Rockies—Maybe the summer traffic slows down in some of the parks a bit too much, but when the cause is people craning their necks to look at what the word “grandeur” was invented for, who can complain? And having to stop because an elk with antlers as wide as your rivers (see reason #4 ) has ambled into the road is nothing less than a moment of grace. Notice I’m not even talking about what you can see if you get out of your car and head into that immensity! A gift of beauty for all of us to enjoy.

9) Curling—I don’t have a clue when it comes to curling. Never saw men with brooms, the movie or the reality. I figure that any country that buries NBA news inside the sports section so it can lead with a curling story has to be in on some important secret. What finally won me over was when you made a national hero out of a woman curler who won the gold medal. Something in the way you then mourned her too-early death was heartbreaking even for me. Hockey might be your national sport, but something tells me your relationship with curling is about your national soul.

10) Quebec—It’s a place apart, isn’t it, in the very best sense of that phrase. Is it a distinct culture? You bet. I’m glad I’ve been a bit around it, married one of its daughters and am having my kids educated in its language. Let’s face it: English Canada’s more button-down propriety is nicely balanced by Quebec’s joie de vivre—good wine, good humour, and you can even light up a cigarette without being banished to the nether regions of Pluto. But what has me most appreciative isn’t just Quebec, it’s the number of Canadians I’ve met in outposts far from “the French fact” who want their children to be bilingual, who want to have an immersion program of some sort in their school system. It’s a kind of cultural appreciation that’s particularly touching when one comes from a land where Texans and New Yorkers live in separate, parallel universes.

11) Your Introspection—Ah Canada, what would you be without the questions you constantly ask yourself? Questions like “what exactly does it mean to be Canadian?” and, of course, “what exactly does it mean to be Canadian?” You ask that a lot, and loudly. I think you even know you’re never going to come up with the answer, mainly because the truth of the matter is that the question is the answer. And I love you for it.

Canada, I hope you’ll join me in celebrating you. I could of course continue with more reasons, but instead I’m going to stop writing, mosey down to one of your rivers with my wife and kids, pop open one of your beers (reason #12) and give thanks I’m up here. Happy birthday!