The Canadian Tornado's Take on Canada Day

Canadian Flag - Wikimedia Commons

National animal: Beaver (A rodent - which goes to show our very real need for a sense of humour.)
National tree: Maple, duh
No national birds or flowers, although each province has them (The Canada Goose and Loon are right up there, again showing our need for a sense of humour - one denoting a silly creature, and the other denoting a crazy one.)
Official Languages: French and English
Population: 35,198,503 (2012 - estimated, but it makes me wonder why they felt they had to include the 3 at the end of an estimation.)
Districts: 10 provinces and 3 territories

I love my country. I could probably leave it at that, but I'm not going to. I'm going to talk about my country, and why I love it. Sure, I'll talk about the things I hate about it, too - if Canadians are anything, we tend toward an outlook of fairness and self-deprecation. And according to That Canadian Guy, the comedian Glen Foster, if we get mad enough we're gonna sit right down and write a letter. Yup. Apparently we have a firm attachment to the notion that the pen is mightier than the sword. Not that we're opposed to taking up a sword apparently, should the occasion warrant. The first murder in Vancouver this year was committed by sword. No, that's not a joke. A 19-year-old man died - was nearly decapitated, in fact - so I'm not going to stoop to making jokes about it. Being Canadian, and having the impulse to joke about damn near everything, however, does make it tempting.

Today is Canada Day, in case you weren't aware and the blog title didn't give you a clue. July 1st every year we celebrate it, and for my American friends who don't know, it's a lot like your Independence Day. We do the fireworks thing all weekend, have barbecues and special events lined up out the wazoo - a technical term. We have festivals and parties, you name it.

It was originally called Dominion Day, until 1982, which I had totally forgotten about until I started doing my little bit of research to write this part. I grew up while it was still being called that, and it totally slipped my mind! Must be my age catching up with me. Canada Day doesn't celebrate independence, though. It actually celebrates unity. There were three parts to my country before they were united under one country within the British Empire. On July 1st, 1867, the "British North America Act, 1867" was enacted, which is now called something else, too. We call it the "Constitution Act, 1867" instead.

It occurs to me that it's not particularly surprising no one outside Canada has any clue about our history. We keep changing the names of everything! Admittedly, American media is often ego-centric, so the American population tends to know almost nothing about us. I would hazard a guess that 99% of them do not know the name of our Prime Minister. Now, before anyone gets mad at me, I'm just as bad about other countries. I know Barack Obama is POTUS, and I know Nelson Mandela was President of South Africa. I know Elizabeth II is the Queen, and Tony Blair was PM of Britain, as was Margaret Thatcher (enemy of feminists everywhere), and that's the extent of my knowledge regarding leaders of other countries. Well, I know some of the titles of the leaders in other countries, such as whether they're led by royal families or by a president or prime minister. Beyond that I'm pretty much lost.

Back to Canada, however. Today's our day to shine. We're led by an idiot. Let's just clear that up right now. Our Prime Minister's name is Stephen Harper, and he has to be the biggest moron we've ever had in power. Oh, if only we had a term limit in Canada the way there is in the United States. He'd be gone automatically in two years. Instead, we just might be stuck with him until he keels over. He's done nothing but try to trample on the rights of people in my country. He stomps on women's rights, the rights of the Native population, you name it. And, well, he's just stupid and embarrassing. I can only hope no one associates my entire country with him, because we'll all look like idiots if they do.

So, why is he still in power? Good question. Here's the first reason: You see, we have more than two major options in Canada when it comes time to vote. There are actually three main parties, and then a whole slew of smaller ones. The party that gets the most votes, even if they don't pass the 50% mark, is the party that gets into power. Well, Harper is a part of the Conservative party. The Conservatives have a die-hard fan base, so to speak, of about 35% of the population. Divide 100% by three, and you only get 33-1/3%, so mathematically speaking we're screwed. That's not to say another party can't kick their butts with 65%. They could, but it will probably be the Liberal party, and I'm not into them either. They suck. They're a bunch of common criminals, which is a nice segue to the other reason Harper's still in power.

Reason number two: He's a  crook. Yup. I'll say it again, with emphasis. He's an out-and-outer, a criminal, a con artist, and a crook. There was a huge stink about it, but it appears nothing was done. You see, there was this robo-calling fiasco where voters were sent to the wrong locations in order to vote. No, I'm not kidding. They used auto-dialers to give people the wrong address for the voting locations. Nice, huh? Ah, the wonders of the technological age. They've pulled similar stuff in America, but not of this magnitude. Yet, he's still sitting on the high horse, waiting to have rocks thrown at him until he falls off. Do I sound bitter? I sure hope so. I tried hard to convey the spirit of that.

Enough about the dweeb in power. We have other dweebs spreading the word about Canada that are apparently off their nut, too. People like Justin Bieber who thinks our national dish is spaghetti and milk. Wut? Um, pasta comes from China originally, and gooping the sauce onto it is an Italian thing. Don't ask me about the milk, because I'm pretty sure milk exists all over the world. No, if we had to say we've got a national dish, it would be something like poutine (pronounced pooh-teen, but it tastes way better than it sounds). Maybe beaver tails (it's a pastry, not the tail of a rodent) seeing as Obama is so fond of them and actually had them brought in for the big party when he was sworn in for his second term, but I'd hate to choose something based on the opinion of an outsider - no matter how famous he is.

Enough about the bad stuff, though. Now we get to the good stuff. A recent article in Huffington Post listed the top ten nations, by reputation, in the world. Canada topped the list. *rah rah* A few months ago Yahoo! Finance had a piece about Canadians being the most educated citizens in the world. The funny thing is, Canadians are generally, myself not included, the least likely to toot their own horns. All the information about how wonderful we are up here in the Great White North seems to come from outside sources.

We've had marriage equality for 8 years. We have abortion available, and paid for by provincial healthcare - the only exceptions to that having to do with availability of clinics, and Quebec apparently being the only province that doesn't do third trimester abortion because they don't have a doctor that will do them. They're actually trying to bring in a doctor specifically because there are occasionally reasons for an emergency third-trimester abortion. PEI has no facilities, apparently, so people have to go out-of-province to get one.

We have pretty damn good labour laws, too. Every province is slightly difference, but pretty similar. We also have the federally regulated industries, such as inter-province transportation companies and the like. Employers are required to pay vacation pay and termination pay if they terminate without proper notice. We have the added benefit of basically a year's paid parental leave. It's 50 weeks, and then you've got your minimum two weeks' vacation in there. The leave can be shared by both parents, male or female, gay or straight.

This is all on top of our healthcare. Now as much as I might complain about not being able to find a family doctor, I will find one. If I can't, and there's an immediate need to see someone, we have clinics and hospitals everywhere. Besides, if we didn't have healthcare I'd be screwed right now, and not in any pleasant way. I'd never have been able to have my tailbone removed, and would still be incapable of sitting in a chair. I wouldn't have been able to afford the MRI on my hip and multiple ECGs and the EMG tests I've had to have done, or even the x-rays. At this point I wouldn't even know what was wrong with me, because there is no way I could afford to go to a doctor in the first place. It's not a perfect system, but then nothing ever is.

As I mentioned to a friend yesterday, when I grew up no one was patriotic in my country. My grandmother wore a pin of the Canadian flag, and was unusual for doing so. She stuck one on my coat and it embarrassed me. It wasn't until I heard a story from a family member about how well he was treated abroad when people found out he was Canadian, and how badly he was treated when they thought he was American, that I realized there was something to be proud of. Maybe it wasn't cooler to be an American. Maybe being Canadian was a truly awesome thing. It's sad that it took an outside opinion for that to happen, but as I said we tend to be a self-deprecating bunch.

That being said, my fellow Canadians also tend to be extremely funny. Self-deprecation is a part of that, but we simply find humour in so many things. It may be why I don't take things too seriously that people say to me, and can handle criticism pretty well. I may not like it, but then who does? We've got some great artists out there in general, that many people have no idea are Canadian. I knew about William Shatner, but I didn't realize until fairly recently that James Doohan (Scottie of Star Trek) was also Canadian. Gene Roddenberry was a truly inclusive man. George Takei made a comment a few months ago about him being his personal hero because he not only believed that an Asian could drive, but that he could even pilot a starship. He's a funny man, that George Takei, even if he isn't Canadian.

Many, many films are being made up here now. I mean, it's hard to beat the landscape - well, New Zealand has that covered (think Lord of the Rings), but we're pretty damn decent. There's so much variation in our weather and the type of land we have. We have deserts with rattlesnakes in southern Alberta, prairies through Manitoba and Saskatchewan and part of Alberta. We've got the Rocky Mountains slicing between Alberta and BC, as well as the mountains and extremely hilly terrain of Quebec and Ontario. We've got oceans on both sides, but of extremely different natures - tempestuous in the maritime provinces, and far more temperate in BC where we have the surfing and wind-sailing crowd. Then we have arctic tundra up in the Northwest Territories, Yukon Territories, and Nunavut.

I love my country. It's beautiful, even if we do sport some idiots. It's just not possible to have a population of around 35 million people and not have at least some of them come up wanting, so we have to abide the occasional ones. So, come on up and check us out...if you're not an idiot. Oh, and we have beer! Lots and lots of beer.