Go, team, go!

Canada Day gives us an opportunity to take stock of just what we have.

Are we headed for hell in a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel, or are things likely to work out?

I could never catch on to the navel-gazing, self-centered, chronically anti-American, “we're-so-great,” Bobby-Gimby-leap-up-and-down-like-a-damned-fool outlook successive governments have foisted upon us.

I've always liked the idea of our being part of a larger entity - the Commonwealth, to be specific. I think this “Canadian nationalism” is too narrow, too confining for what we could do and be in the modern world.

The Crown and the Commonwealth are part of what we were. The old “Dominion Day” helped put things into that perspective.

I'm really taken aback by the fact every other group seems to think themselves entitled. Everybody seems to be hard done by.

This country was built by hard work and a large degree of selflessness and cohesiveness. No, it's not perfect. It's a work in progress.

Nova Scotia never wanted to be in the Canadian confederation - valuable years and energies were wasted attempting to get out of it - but we're here. We're not leaving.

Despite the temptation that recently presented itself over the federal government's treatment of the Atlantic Accord, Premier Rodney MacDonald - wise beyond his years - didn't fall for that bait. He didn't go off on a tangent, ranting and raging, providing entertainment for those not involved or immediately threatened.

Like Joe Howe, MacDonald knew where we stand - as Groucho Marx would say, “flat footed” - and what we could do about it. That is, if the feds see fit, nothing.

MacDonald was right in going up to Ottawa and trying to start a dialogue with whomever would listen, as far as that went.

Yes, the province has been de-industrialized and depopulated over the decades - from even before confederation. we have to take stock of now, and the future and how our membership in the federation is going to work for us - and every Canadian.

We've got to make it work, for all our benefit and because there is no alternative. We have too much invested, with too much to lose if it doesn't function, and well.

Whether your family came here four millennia, four centuries, four years or four weeks ago, we all have to understand the team comes first. What was before is part of you by all means, but you are now part of this great entity. A working part.

Whatever you may think of Liberal MP Ken Dryden and his political or hockey skills, he is the only politician in my experience who has pointed out how we Canadians got the way we are and how we have to keep working to go farther. He has pointed out the climate and geography of the country make it imperative we work as a team. That has shaped how we think and do things.

So, now the celebrations are over and the paper and plastic red and white flags - large and small - are out of the way, let's get to work, as a team.