Canada Day, But Why?
Wednesday
Jul 1, 2009
Today is Canada Day, a time when Canadians can come together with an excuse for a day off. Supposedly, it was established to celebrate four provinces uniting as one country, but are they really?
Exhibit A – Nobody Cares
- July 1, 1867, the British North America Act of 1867, Canada supposedly becomes a country.
- June 20, 1868, Royal Proclamation to Canadians to celebrate the anniversary of the confederation was issued by Governor General Lord Monck.
- 1879, Dominion Day officially established.
- 1917, the first offical Dominion Day celebrations were held. It would be another decade until they were held again.
- 1958, official celebrations are put on by the Canadian government.
- 1967, the turning point at which average Canadians celebrated the holiday.
- October 27, 1982, Dominion Day gets a name change to Canada Day.
If they were actually a country, why did it take them so long to celebrate it? And why did they wait until 1980 to designate a national anthem (Oh Canada)?
Exhibit B – Canadian Forces
- Maritime Command has 33 warships and submarines in 2 fleets.
- Land Force Command has 3 field ready brigade groups, 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.
- Air Command, As near as I can tell, this consists of 466 planes and helicopters.
- Canada Command is responsible for terrorism and natural disasters.
- Expeditionary Force Command is in charge of international military operations.
- Special Operations Forces Command, supposedly these guys do cooler stuff, like America’s Navy Seals do.
- Information Management Group gets to watch over all the electronic stuff, as if anyone wants to hack Canada.
Yeah, real potent military up north. Someday North Dakota will send a soldier (only one) up there in a humvee with an empty super soaker and taker over the place.
Exhibit C – Quebec
- They’re more French than France.
- They often try to establish independence from Canada.
Every country has people who would like to secede, but Quebec doesn’t try to hide it, and at times is quite adamant about becoming independent.
Exhibit D – The Queen
- Her Majesty, Elizabeth II (you know, from Britain)
Are you kidding me? You want to be your own country but you can’t even get your own queen? Now we know why Quebec wants to be free so badly.
So there you are, help your Canadian friends celebrate Canada Day, an excuse to have a party, even if it took them 100 years to start having them. Those Canadians are living the good life, able to blame their problems on Britain’s Queen, call their southern neighbor for help if they’ve got any problems, and offer a French vacation without crossing the Atlantic.
Now go ahead, leave lots of comments, let us know what you really think of Canada. Just remember, I have several Canadian friends, and this post is all in good fun. Just because we earned our independence from Britain and they didn’t doesn’t mean we’re better than them.



