HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!!!

By Debbie Bulloch



Today, Canadians celebrate Canada Day – Canada’s official birthday.







Canada Day (Fête du Canada), formerly Dominion Day (Le Jour de la Confédération), is Canada's national day; a federal statutory holiday. Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act of 1867. The Act united Canada as a single country of four provinces. Canada Day observances take place throughout Canada as well as internationally.



Frequently referred to as "Canada's birthday," particularly in the popular press, the occasion marks the joining of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada into a federation of four provinces (the Province of Canada being divided, in the process, into Ontario and Quebec) on July 1, 1867. However, though Canada is regarded as having become a dominion in its own right on that date, the British Parliament at first kept limited rights of political control over the new country, which were shed by stages over the years until the last vestiges were ended in 1982, when the Constitution Act patriated the Canadian constitution. Canada Day thus differs from Independence Day celebrations in some other countries in that it does not commemorate a militant assertion of political self-determination, but rather recognizes one of the major milestones of the long and peaceful political process which formed the modern nation of Canada. (I have always maintained that Canadians are “just” like Americans – just better educated and more polite. Even in the way that Canada became a nation, there is a high element of politeness!)



Most communities across Canada will host organized celebrations for Canada Day, usually outdoor public events, such as parades, carnivals, festivals, barbecues, air and maritime shows, fireworks, and free musical concerts, as well as citizenship ceremonies for new citizens. There is no standard mode of celebration for Canada Day; professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford Jennifer Welsh said of this: "Canada Day, like the country, is endlessly decentralized. There doesn't seem to be a central recipe for how to celebrate it – chalk it up to the nature of the federation. The locus of the celebration, however, is the national capital, Ottawa, Ontario, where large concerts, presided over by the Governor General, are held on Parliament Hill, as well as other parks around the city and in Hull, Quebec. The sovereign may also be in attendance at Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa; Queen Elizabeth II was present in 1990, 1992, and 1997. The Queen also helped celebrate Canada's 100th anniversary on July 1, 1967.



Canadians all over the world will organize Canada Day activities in their local area on or near the date of the holiday. For instance, since June 30, 2006, annual Canada Day celebrations have been held at Trafalgar Square – the location of Canada House – in London, England. Organized by the Canadian community in the United Kingdom and the Canadian High Commission, the event features Canadian performers and a demonstration of street hockey, amongst other activities. Also, since 2000, the Victoria Cross bar in Sydney, Australia, is the location for official Canada Day celebrations; events also take place in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong, for Canada D'eh! Members of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan mark each Canada Day at their base.



Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, have, since the 1950s, celebrated Dominion Day or Canada Day and the United States' Independence Day with the International Freedom Festival. A massive fireworks display over the Detroit River, the strait separating the two cities, is held annually with hundreds of thousands of spectators attending. A similar event occurs at the Friendship Festival, a joint celebration between Fort Erie, Ontario, and neighboring Buffalo, New York, of Canada Day and Independence Day.

In California we do not have an official Canada Day celebration (although the Los Angeles Channel Five News is having a big celebration – they have a whole bunch of Canuck newscasters). But in a little corner of Ventura County, in a place tucked between the Santa Monica Mountains and the crashing of the blue Pacific Ocean, there is a certain someone celebrating Canada’s birthday.



To my dear Moose, with those glowing embers that light up my nights, to that Big Canuck with the extra big rib cage (to hold his extra big heart), to a generous, kind, loving man who gives so much of himself and never asks for a single thing in return:

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!