Canada Day

To all of my relatives in the north, Happy Canada Day.

I know that there are many people out there that think that this is the day that we gave the British the boot and declared ourselves an independent country. Nope. This holiday is the celebration of when the three colonies, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario) entered into Confederation. The Hudson's Bay company owned some land which they ceded to the confederation in 1870. Then, two more colonies decided to join and presto, you have a nation. (Newfoundland was the last to join in 1949 but we will just ignore that little fact)

In 1868, the Governor General, seeing that July did not have at least one statutory holiday, decided that we should celebrate our one year anniversary as a nation. It was officially called, "Dominion Day". Does anyone remember the old Dominion grocery stores?

Anyway, it seems that nobody cared a lick about being a country, probably because we were still a British colony and the holiday was not officially observed by the government until 1958.
In 1982, "Dominion Day" was changed to "Canada Day" and there you have it.

One of the things that I really miss, since I live in the US, is Canada's handling of statutory holidays. If the holiday falls on the weekend, either the Friday before or the Monday after is observed as the day off. As a matter of fact, July 2nd is considered Canada Day if July 1st falls on a Sunday!!! Thanksgiving, Victoria Day and Labour Day are always on Mondays, thereby making the long weekend a staple feature of Canadian working life.

I love that Thanksgiving is in October because there is enough time between it and Christmas to serve turkey twice. By the time Christmas day comes around, Thanksgiving is a distant memory and seeing Aunt Betty smashed or Uncle Joe unzip his pants after dinner, well, it's like experiencing it for the first time.

I have been living in the US for 14 years now and one thing I can't seem to get used to is the fact that Good Friday and Easter Monday are not holidays down here. It is so strange that in a nation dominated by a Christian belief system, the day of crucifixion and the day of ressurection are not observed. Equally weird is that Veteran's Day (like the Canadian Remembrance Day) is marked with official ceremonies but not recognized as a national holiday. Looking back on American history since the turn of the century, it is hard to find a decade in which the military were not engaged. Where is the disconnect, here?

This year, the American Independence Day falls on a Wednesday...largely worthless from an employee's point of view. You see, the fireworks don't start until nightfall, which is after 9pm so the kids are up late, they are tired and cranky in the morning and .....you get the picture.

Anyhoo....Happy Canada Day! Enjoy the fireworks and your long weekend.