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It’s the July 1st Canada Day weekend. It should be a great time.
I presume our government is agreeable to the idea of celebrating the country it heads. That caution springs from the tepid and uninspiring performance it gave on the landmark occasion of our 150th anniversary. Any other nation, at peace, prosperous, with an earned reputation for good will in foreign relations and moderation at home, would have put on a show to shame Olympic spectacles and blasted Hosannas to the globe.
But either through a kind of careless meekness or perhaps a vague fear of being too showily patriotic (an emotion many shun as unenlightened these days) the government turned what should have been a birthday party for the ages into a frigid pantomime, something with less buzz than an after-party for the Geminis or (shudder) the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery dinner. Hardly a few have noted the Raptors’ (a team staffed by Americans, winning an American title) recent victory party as the “real” celebration we didn’t have two years back. A columnist in “the other place” put it very finely: “Everyone was feeling part of something big. Canada’s 150th birthday was a church tea compared with this blowout.”
Will it be better this time? We’ll see.
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