Canada Day 2014

We interrupt our series on the lies internalized via workplace abuse with an important post about today:  Canada Day 2014.

Confederation Day.

The day we Canadians celebrate who we are.

And that we're unified - more or less.

We're not Americans - although we derived from the same British roots.  The Americans, however, chose to move on, to separate from Britain way back when.  I think dinosaurs roamed the land at that time.  I'm not sure.  But I do know that men like Paul Revere and George Washington did.  And that they had parties involving tea which made the British rulers angry.

We're not Americans.  We chose to stay with Britain.  I could say that between the two of us we're passive aggressive.  Americans tend to be more aggressive, Canadians tend to be more passive.

But that doesn't make us any less.  It just makes us different from our cousins south of the border.

Those cousins have warm temperatures in the south to which we flock in the cold winter months - and we are very grateful that (a) you have those warm climates and (b) you let us enjoy them.

They have the White House, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Rocky Mountains, etc.

We, on the other hand, have the Great Lakes - okay we do share some of them with our cousins to the south.

We also have the Rocky Mountains as well as our own version of the badlands in Caledon, Ontario.

We have the Horseshoe Falls part of Niagara Falls as well.


And the Niagara Escarpment which I didn't even know about until the last few years.  An area abundant in both hiking trails and waterfalls.  We have lots of wilderness, lakes and rivers.

We have our own distinct personality which is best seen when we have unforeseen circumstances, like a prolonged power outage.  We find creative ways to cope with and even enjoy the circumstance.  Shown on this post is a picture taken during a power outage that lasted hours in the aftermath of a severe wind storm last summer.  No power?  No problem.  Simply move everything outside and have a party.  That's the Canadian way.  As we roamed around surveying the damage that day, we saw neighbourhoods gathering together to help each other out, sawing down trees, directing traffic, etc.  Having their own version of spontaneous block parties.

We're also known for our love for hockey - which by the way is NOT the national sport of Canada, lacrosse is, go figure - and for our hockey players who are sought after for major league teams on both sides of the border.

Then there's Terry Fox, whose courage not only gripped Canada but the entire world in the early '80s when he was jogging across Canada on one leg for cancer research.  He never made it across as his cancer returned.  But his legacy has endured.

I could go on and on about Canada, my adopted country.  And I've only seen a small fraction of this great and magnificent land - mostly those portions of Ontario near where I live.

However, I can say that we are a great country.  We are a country steeped in history.

So today, we celebrate in our own way who we are.

We. Are. Canadian! 

Proudly so.