Oddly, Canada might be having a more meaningful birthday this year than previously.
This July 1, marking the 155rd anniversary of Confederation, Canada has challenges to be sure. It would be news if we didn’t. Everything in human affairs is a work in progress.
Charles de Gaulle, the former president of France, once sighed in a moment of exasperation: “How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 varieties of cheese?”
Likewise, how can any nation manage with only 38 million souls inside almost 245,000 kilometres of coastline?
But we do. Not as well as we used to though. The rise of right-wing extremism which has been fostered by pandering politicians is threatening our calm decency.
In addition to figuring out how to manage the disinformation spread by the 'freedom' convoy yokels there’s lots we need to do in this country – most importantly the unfinished work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and confronting issues of racism that lurk beneath the surface. There are widely differing views on how to do that and much else.
There are pipeline disputes. There are squabbles over the inter-provincial beer and wine trade. And brewing battles over the equalization formula.
But you have to be a pretty sensible land in the first place to even have an equalization formula.
There’s plenty of reason – in taking stock of what we’ve built, what we’ve got and what we aspire to – to kick back and celebrate.
For many, moreover, Canada has been the world’s chosen land – and a recent study says we are happy to be so.
In fact, as we celebrate Canada Day, the surveys once again confirm the blessings of living in this land. Canada is the most inclusive and tolerant country in the world (Ipsos), the second best place in the world to live, after Switzerland (U.S. News and World Report). Canadians are among the happiest people on Earth (ranked seventh according to a United Nations report), in part because we live in one of the safest places on Earth (ranked sixth, according to the Global Peace Index) and our cities enjoy the highest quality of life in the Western hemisphere (Mercer Quality of Living Survey).
Lots to be proud of as we raise a glass of something tasty and Canadian and toast our great nation.
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