When Barack Obama addressed Parliament two days ago, he recalled what the other Prime Minister Trudeau said about building a country:
A country, after all, is not something you build as the pharaohs built the pyramids, and leave standing there to defy eternity. A country is something that is built every day out of certain basic shared values.
In 1867, Canada seemed like an impossible dream. In 1995, we almost lost it. But the country has endured.
May it continue to endure. And may we continue to build it.
Image: ottawacitizen.com
13 comments:
A happy Canada Day to you and yours Owen.
As we celebrate the anniversary of the start of the process that eventually united all of our country into one nation and I contemplate the country of my birth going in the opposite direction I wonder how many of us think of ourselves as Canadians first and provincalists second. I will say that I think of myself as a Canadian who happens to live in Ontario, perhaps because I am Canadian by choice not chance. We generally do not seem to be a very nationalistic lot so I do wonder how many think of themselves as Albertan, or Newfoundlander or Quebecker etc who happen to live in Canada.
Either way let us celebrate both our diversity and our togetherness today!
Canada should be a lifeboat for the present and a speedboat into the future.
Happy Canada Day Owen!!
Happy Canada Day, Steve!
We are both citizens of a province and citizens of a country, Rural. To be one does not mean we cannot be another. Happy Canada Day!
Wait a minute! Yesterday, this was the headline:
Canada to send troops to Latvia for new NATO brigade
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/nato-canadian-troops-baltics-1.3659814
Today it's not even discussed. Happy Canada Day? Really?
Oh, it will be discussed, Toby -- for many days to come. But, for this day, let's count our blessings.
Rural poses an interesting question. For the first 60+ years of my life I unhesitatingly considered myself Canadian first. That resolve was shaken somewhat when I saw my province put at potentially enormous environmental risk from bitumen pipelines and armadas of supertankers. The threat came from Alberta and Saskatchewan but also from Ottawa and it still does. The only thing holding it back are our steadfast courts that, unlike our federal government, have proven unwilling to bend.
It took the Federal Court of Appeal to throw the Northern Gateway back to square one for its "stacked deck" environmental review process that made a mockery of First Nations rights. Why did our Liberal prime minister not step up to block the venture and clean up the National Energy Board? Why did he not stand up for British Columbia or our First Nations? When powerful interests are abusing us and trampling over our legitimate rights and protections, why did Ottawa stand mute? Why is our new prime minister allowing the rigged National Energy Board's decision on Kinder Morgan to stand?
Add it all up, Owen, and it doesn't give me warm, fuzzy feelings about being "Canadian." Today I feel decidedly British Columbian first.
I guess my experience growing up in Quebec colours my opinion, Mound. As a kid, St. Jean Baptiste came before what we used to call Dominion Day. In Quebec, the province always came first. But it was driven by a siege mentality. And I knew that the world did not stop at Ontario's, New Brunswick's, New York's, Vermont's or Maine's borders.
I never think of myself as an Ontarion, but I do have a dislike of Alberta. Much less so since Notely took over. It used to gall me to be lectured by people who only needed to dig a hole in the ground.
I used to think of my self as a Quebecer, Steve. I now think of myself as an Ontarian. But, first and foremost, I think of myself as a Canadian.
I prefer to think of myself as a human, as discomfited as that usually ends up making me feel.
It's similar to how I feel about considering myself an internationalist in the face of globalization.
Yet it's good to live here, all things considered. There are many, many worse.
Mound, this is for you.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/07/01/former-toronto-mp-wants-vancouver-island-to-become-a-province.html
God knows we have our problems and sources of frustration, Dana. But we're lucky to find ourselves here at this time.
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