A hundred-and-forty; not bad, eh?

Another Canada Day has come and gone and it’s hard not to feel a measure of pride in being Canadian, pride being the sin of those who don’t really understand what’s going on.

I’ve usually managed to find a seemingly distant but secretly communal connection with others on Canada Day. And I’ve tried, as best as opportunity provides, to get a sense of how we celebrate our fête nationale du Canada differently across the country. (Despite the fact that the two solitudes have been moderated by our official languages policy, I’ve felt more at home at the comedy festival or viewing the identical twins parade in Montreal than in their June 24th celebrations, and this is fair enough).

Despite our common attachment to events in Ottawa on the 1st – and who would wish to miss our Prime Minister speaking confidently, he thinks, for all of us — we manage to reveal more of ourselves across the country on this day than we might think, displaying our delicate, attractively ambiguous nationalism.

One of my more memorable was a parade a few years ago on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, home of a terrific site of Fringe Theater, both during the festival and from day-to-day. This Canada Day parade consisted of comedic representations of ourselves as a people while those of us in the crowd who were given kazoos all hummed our national anthem with glorious abandon, in no discernable official language. Even in the heart of Reformland there are delightful expressions of subtle resistance.

Though more by luck than design, I’ve also attended Canada Day celebrations in Montreal during the height of separatist passion. In the square where later Canadians gathered to save the country, declaring our love for Quebec, we found a large Canada Day cake, clearly from one of the better pastry chefs du Québec.

Alas, other than a few of us stragglers, the only folks who attended were a small cadre of seniors, many of whom were deservedly proud veterans sporting the red ensign. The cake was hardly touched.

Though we usually enjoy the fine display of fireworks in Wolfville from a vantage up the hill, we typically catch the July 1 parade in Hantsport, where folks know how to have a good time without broadcasting it; where the generations blend in wry, relaxed enjoyment of the subtle delight of the day, no one having anything they think they need to prove.

Two steps forward, one step back

This year we found ourselves in Halifax, me binging on what I take to be the remarkably non-fattening PEI potatoes of Bud the Spud while a fine, short and polished parade of first-rate marching bands turned the corner of Spring Garden Road.

It was going so well until a few of the lads in green showed us how, using their rifles, they pinned the enemy to the ground. This to the polite but confused applause of an audience of Haligonians the majority of whom vote NDP, all secretly wishing they were, in that moment, on Whyte Avenue. Canadians trust that our military is skilled and most of us prefer considerably less display.

Two steps forward, one step back, one of the few peoples of the world who continue to take self-deprecation to be a national sport, we have indeed turned 140.

It would be great, perhaps next year, to see the show in Ottawa. But this year was a good one to have missed.

Our Prime Minster’s quoted declaration of the day was: "The news is spreading throughout the world: Canada's back…as a vital player on the global stage.”

Sorry, Steve, this just isn’t us. When we think of our international citizenship we tend to think of the welcome we used to enjoy virtually everywhere in the world; our reputation for equanimity and active neutrality; the example we set of finding a common good across difference; and our insistence that we share the bounty of our privilege, even in the shadow of the eagle.

The world has more than enough players and way too many wannabes. Sure, we’ve let the West in with the remarkable Canadian gestures by which we find a way to moderate the seething discontent of all. But I wish the West we let in was the one on Whyte Avenue that sunny day.