Published in the Epoch Times
“Now Know Ye, that I, Charles Stanley Viscount Monck, Governor General of Canada, do hereby proclaim and appoint WEDNESDAY, the FIRST day of JULY next, as the day on which the Anniversary of the formation of the Dominion a Canada be duly celebrated. And I do hereby enjoin and call upon all Her Majesty’s loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the due and proper celebration of the said Anniversary on the said FIRST day of JULY next.”
So spoke our first Governor General in 1868 to the citizens of the world’s newest nation, calling on them to mark the anniversary of the creation of Canada. In 1879 Parliament made July 1 an annual holiday of celebrating our Confederation, a commemoration to be called Dominion Day. For many years thereafter July 1 was a festive day of parades, pyrotechnic spectacles, speeches, multicultural dances, visits by royalty, community picnics, and all-round jollity as Canadians (in our typical modest and understated way) made clear their pleasure in belonging to one of the most successful countries in world history.
But that was then. For the past decade demonstrating pride in our nationhood has been deemed to be an inappropriate sentiment. Statues of our Founding Fathers were taken down, vandalized or shrouded; once glorious names were removed from public buildings and institutions. Apologies were made for previous governments’ decisions on immigration policies, residential schools, the purge of homosexual civil servants, tuberculosis hospitals, and trials of sundry rebels. Our prime minister clutched a teddy bear as he knelt at a grave site and ordered the national flag to be lowered in shame to half-mast for months. Cities have curtailed Canada Day celebrations – in 2023 Calgary called July 1 “a day of mourning and reflection” and replaced the traditional fireworks display with “diverse, educational, and inclusive programming.” In a December 2024 poll only just over a third of Canadians said they were very proud of their country.
Enough, I say. Ten years of breast-beating over the imagined sins of our ancestors is sufficient – it is time for Canadians to start feeling proud again. Heads high, shoulders back, elbows up, Canadians, here is what you have given the world.
Canada pioneered the peaceful transfer of power from a colonial status to an independent democracy. Our example has not always worked but it was a model for success stories such as Australia and New Zealand.
Canada demonstrated the ability to maintain a democracy despite ethnic and religious strains, showing how a confederal approach can overcome longstanding differences and antipathies. Count the number of civil wars and state ruptures around the world since 1867 and be glad that we have managed to avoid that fate.
We have always been the good guys. When world peace is disturbed and Canada is called to arms, we have always been on the right side. The list of those whom we have enlisted to fight would fill a large rogues’ gallery in Hell: Adolf Hitler, Balkan warlords, Kaiser Wilhelm, African jihadis, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, the Taliban, Kim Il-sung, Japanese imperialists, Fenian invaders, ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
A nation that could invent the egg carton has much to be proud of. Not to mention the telephone, insulin, the paint roller, the garbage bag, snowmobiles, the Robertson screw, JAVA, Imax, pablum, cobalt-60 radiation treatment, Standard Time, kerosene, the cardiac pacemaker, the electric wheelchair, peanut butter, an Ebola vaccine, the Wonderbra, the zipper, painted lines on roads, basketball, hockey, football, lacrosse – and instant replay to improve your viewing pleasure – and the electron microscope. Rejoice too that we are the people of Hickory Sticks, Ketchup Chips, poutine, Hawkins Cheezies, Ganong Chicken Bones, the Caesar cocktail, Coffee Crisp, Nanaimo bars, Jos Louis, butter tarts and Mae West. (I’m reserving my judgement on the idea of pineapple on pizza.)
When compared to other nations since the beginning of time, our treatment of indigenous inhabitants has been outstanding. As settlers spread westward across the continent from the St Lawrence Valley and Acadia, the acquisition of native territory has overwhelmingly been achieved by negotiation and payment. There are no bloody events such as Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears in the USA, or the genocide of the Herero in German Southwest Africa, or Indonesia’s behaviour in East Timor to blot Canada’s escutcheon. (There have been massacres of Canadian settlers by natives but that’s a story for another article.)
While our thought leaders in government and education lament Canada as a genocidal hell-hole, millions of foreigners flock to our shores to be admitted to a country of universal literacy and health care, low corruption, freedom of speech, and social tolerance. Be proud Canada.
Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
