My Country Is 150 Years Old This Summer

My country is called Canada.
It bills itself as “The True North Strong & Free’ and that’s the way I have always seen it.
I’ve seen summers here that can scorch the skin right off your face.
I’ve seen winters cold enough to freeze a naked body solid in minutes.
I’ve seen breathtakingly beautiful roses bloom in the spring.
I’ve seen fall colours that no landscape artist anywhere really do justice to.
I have seen most of this country and each part, in its own unique way, is amazingly beautiful.

The part of Canada I am from and where I live is called Niagara. It’s a peninsula between Lakes Erie and Ontario. My town is called St Catharines but I was born and raised in Fort Erie, about 30 miles from here.
This area is all about rich soil that produces grapes and apples and plums and cherries and peaches and vegetables and beautiful landscapes. This area is populated with people who are warm and friendly and used to looking out for their neighbours.
It’s also, most recently become populated with refugees from Toronto. Boomers like my wife and I who had just had enough of the big city and wanted a place where we could breathe a little easier and move a little slower.
For a lot of years, I took this country for granted. It’s easy enough to do. I mean, when you have a country that gives you so much it’s easy to feel like, well that’s just the way it is.
In my lifetime I have seen our country go through some shit. Mostly political, some of it social, but very little of it to do with people and where they came from.
I suppose this is because nobody really comes from Canada other than the native people and now we’re starting to discover that even they came from somewhere else.
Canada is a nation of jigsaw puzzle pieces. Ethnic pieces. Religious pieces. Social pieces. Entrepreneurial pieces. Corporate pieces. Political Pieces. Activist pieces. Gay pieces. Trans-gender pieces, Even a few atheists, and anarchists thrown in for good measure.
And I believe that all these pieces fit together. Not perfectly, but close enough for cowboys.
We have had all kinds of governments in this country. Some great. Some not great. But we have never, at least in my lifetime, really been what you would call a nation in a state of complete disarray.
Maybe that has to do with our size. We have lots of land but people, not so much. And I believe this is a good thing. There’s a little more room to grow for people who are so inclined, and distance to put between you and the next guy if you’re bent that way.

Canada, as a country, is 150 years old this year. In two weeks we’ll be celebrating that officially. And I for one think it’s a worthwhile celebration to have.
I look at what is going on down in the United States and think, you know, we have always understood that we are a little bit different from Americans.
But over the past couple of years, these differences have become like night and day. America is having an identity crisis. But it’s not a natural one. It’s being forced on them by nasty and evil people who are up to no good.
I know quite a few Americans who are really good people and they are terrified that their way of life is being threatened from within. And it sure as hell looks that way.
But seeing all this upheaval play out right before my eyes has dramatically affected my appreciation for all we have here in Canada.
Although it may be wobbly, we are about as stable a democracy as there currently is in the world. Things could be better. But just go turn on the US or British news and you will see that we’re in pretty good shape on a whole lot of levels.
This is not to say things are all peace love and groovy. We have to worry about America because, in many ways, we are dependent on them for a good deal of our export trade.
But by the same token there’s actually very little we can do for them. They have to hit bottom. And when they do, as they have many times in the past, I am certain they will pick themselves up and get back to business as usual, once they get rid of the virus that is contaminating their country.
In the meantime, I’m going to carry on like a true Canadian. I have a new partner to hustle business with down here. She’s a firecracker. I have lots of family close by. I have Buffalo Bisons baseball which is a hell of a good day out. And I have a pool in the back yard and a pool noodle with my name on it. It’s blue, like the name of our national beer.
So I just want to wish my fellow Canadians all the best in this 150th year of true Canadian democracy.
Skidoo safe, you freakin' hosers. I raise a double double to you all.

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