i forgot to include my own little HAPPY CANADA DAY mention, which was on july 1st.

only three days shy from america’s own independence day, canada day marks the confederation of our provinces (not states, mind you), or the “BNA act” as we youngsters were made to learn in social studies 10. this makes me think back on that class, where we were forced to learn about our nation’s past plights and politics. i’ll admit it — it was boring. i looked forward to the end of that class everyday, as did every other tenth-grader.

this leads me to believe that canadian history is the most boring of all them histories. sure, we’ve had some great leaders like pierre trudeau and other honourable mentions, but all in all, canadians are content with such a seemingly idle and pacific past.

now let’s take a peek at our southern neighbour’s historic tale. the thirteen colonies… the civil war… the boston tea party… wow. the drama is always unfolding in the US of A. even my class of history 12 was more or less based around the tales of our yankee neighbours. why didn’t they enter into WWII right away? how did the marshal plan affect all of western europe? does the cold war ring a bell? it’s true. USA history is just far more interesting and more signifcant to the way the world now operates. that is why at sports games or at special events it is so common to see americans holding their hands to their hearts and proudly singing, “…and the home of the brave!”

a good example of the canadian difference in this area was when the stanley cup felt close to the vancouver canucks’ grasp back in 1993-94 in the finals against the new york rangers. now, you’d think that finally getting up to that spot in sports history would spark some sort of patroitism in my fellow canadians, seeing as how we invented the sport and how it is now being dominated by rich, american businessmen. but no. i had to sit through two full minutes of someone sheepishly singing the canadian national anthem with no more than half the canadian hockey fans in the pacific coliseum following along.

then, when the american national anthem came on, every single new york fan in the venue was singing their heart out. some of them didn’t even look like they spoke english, but nonetheless they were singing proudly.

er… so, canada day. what does that mean to me? so far it means seeing friends getting pissed drunk and watching a pitiful display of fireworks in downtown vancouver. patriotism at its not-so-best.