I hope you all are having a great Canada Day today!  For you
Yanks, Canada is the big party that we throw on the 1st of July (we
just had to be drunk before you lot) where we barby and drink real beer
while wearing the red maple leaf.

I was out and about in my new neighbour hood today and noticed
something that I felt was rather interesting.  I’ve had many
discussions with one of my American friends about how we Canadians
percieve Americans as being flag wavers and chest beaters.  He
claims that, on average, you don’t see the media version of a house
with flying the stars and stripes as often as we northerners
believe.  That said, he says that the Canadian communities he’s
been in have a greater proportion of homes flying the maple leaf than
the US has homes flying the stars and stripes.  So, where was I
going with this.  Today I noticed a large number of people, all
done up and going to the Alberta Legislature grounds, proudly showing
the Canadian colors.  It may have been just a small flag in their
hands, a shirt saying “Canadian Girls Rock!”, a motorcycle with a small
flag or a pickup with the flag flying from a upside down hockey stick
placed in the stake holes.  The thing that was interesting is that
of all the people that were showing their national pride, they were
comprised predominantly of people under 30 and those of non-white
ethnicity.  Once we were the quitely proud nation, now we will
thump our chest a bit and show the world what we are.

One of my proudest moments was when I visited Melbourne in November of
2003.  I was lucky enough to see Canada play two matches in Rugby
World Cup 2003 (Wales and New Zealand).  Prior to the matches, and
all done up in my maple leaves, I was crossing one of the streets
downtown (Little Flinders I think) and began to feel the warmth of
pride surge through my blood as a bloke in a cab stuck his head (and
hockey stick mast flying the flag) out the window and spontaneously
began to sing the anthem.  I had to stop mid-crosswalk to engage
in the singing with this fellow.  Unlike TV commercials, we didn’t
stop traffic with our patriotism, but we did get one or two others to
join in.

Celebrate the day and have a wobbly pop for me.