Canada Day

Tomorrow is our holiday, and even though I am that rare breed, the patriotic Canadian, and a bit of a Loyalist to boot, I have some thoughts on the matter. July 1^st is the anniversary of Confederation, when in 1967 the British colonies of Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Québec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were eventually convinced by our drunkard of a founding father to get their collective act together lest the Americans take another crack at taking control of all of British North America. This was a very real fear. They tried it in 1812, and with the help of native indian forces (who considered the British the lesser of two evils) and the lack of help from the farmers of Upper Canada (who were expected to join forces with the invading Americans to overthrow British taxation and oppression, but who in fact turned out to already have that peculiarly Canadian trait of being able to suffer overtaxation and an equally Canadian apathy about nearly everything else). the Americans were not only defeated but routed and had their capitol burnt. But that was 1812. At that point the American army was made up of largely irregular troops that had no useful training, no useful equipment including no appropriate winter gear, and no experience. In 1867 America was just out of the Civil War. The soldiers were well equipped and experienced and the separate state militia had been combined into a much more formidable federal force. America was no longer a collection of affiliated but otherwise autonomous states but now a centrally organized super-state and a real threat to Britain's interests in North America.

So "Canada" was formed. It wasn't a declaration of independence. The British North America Act (BNA), an act of British parliament the allowed for confederation to happen, was actually passed on March 29^th, 1867, in England, by English politicians. In relation the passing of the BNA would be the much less glamourous Canadian equivalent of the American Declaration of Independence. July 1^st simply marks four drunk Canadian provincial premiers getting their shit together to act on what the BNA provided for, creating a sliver of a country along the northern shores of the Great Lakes and the shores of the St. Lawrence river.

The great expanse of the north, wasn't brought into Confederation until July 15^th, 1870. The Northwest Territories (which at the time encompassed what is now the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the Yukon Territory, Alberta, Saskatchewan, most of Manitoba, northern Ontario, northern Québec, and most of Labrador, excluding the Queen Elizabeth Islands) and Manitoba (which at the time was just the area around Winnipeg) were acquired in a business deal with the Hudson's Bay Company. British Columbia joined July 20^th, 1871, basically to get a railway to the east built on someone else's dime (which further makes me wonder why we celebrate "BC Day on the first Monday in August, rather than closer to July 20^th). Prince Edward Island joined up on July 1^st, 1873, for similarly pragmatic reasons which included a railway also, as well as a ferry and help buying out some absentee landlords. Newfoundland and Labrador only came into the fold on March 31^st, 1949.

Now, it should be borne in mind that B.C. wanted a railway to secure the means to sell goods to the more populous east. What we got was legislation designed to protect eastern industry that has hampered British Columbia's economic growth right from the get-go. Likewise, I doubt you'll find many Newfoundlanders who don't feel royally screwed by the federal government in Ontario. Then there is the issue of Québecois separatism. And with the recent splitting of the Northwest Territories to create Nunavut, the land claims issues here in BC and elsewhere, and the issues the natives of northern Ontario and Québec have with the south, it's abundantly clear that the people who were here before the British and French started sticking flags everywhere aren't singing the praises of Ottawa en masse either.

Let's step back and look at the BNA again for a second. This was an act of British parliament. Our parliament couldn't touch it until November 7^th, 1984 when Prime Minister Trudeau got the Queen of Canada and the Queen of England (who are one in the same person, in case you didn't know) to sign a document giving us permission to alter what ostensively had been our "constitution" since 1867. So if you want to compare Canada Day to Independence Day, then really we should be setting off fireworks in November, not July. But just try to explain to someone how it is that we are an independent state yet any law passed by the federal government still has to go past the Governor General, either to be "vetoed" (to use the American term - and in the entire history of Canada the Governor General has only refused to sign three laws) or given "Royal Assent". You see the Governor General, the highest office in Canada (higher than Prime Minister) is the office of an appointed viceroy who is the Monarch of Canada's representative in Canada. Our monarch needs a representative because she doesn't live here, Why? Because the lives in England, because in addition to being the Queen of Canada, she is also the Queen of England. But really, we are an independent country because Queen of Canada and Queen of England are two different titles, it just so happens they are held by the same person (and, my American friends, if you find that confusing and contradictory, just skip the next paragraph were I explain the concept of Crown Land).

The Queen of Canada, who doesn't live here because she is generally too busy being the Queen of England, does still have a number of functions here. For example, when I joined the army I had to pledge allegiance to her and her rightful heirs. Also, should you get yourself in legal trouble here in Canada, you will find yourself being prosecuted by "the Crown" rather than the state. "The Crown" is the state, for ultimately the state is the property of our head-of-state, the Queen of Canada, and we are but her subjects, vassals and servants. And so "Crown Land" is not public land, like state-owned property is in the U.S., but rather the private property of the Queen, which due to centuries of bureaucratic weirdness is administered by people hired by elected officials who are mandated by laws that were approved by the monarch, who is ostensively prevented by the laws from meddling directly in the management of the lands that they still, in theory, own. Getting permission to do something on Crown land is a little like asking the person you are subletting your apartment from to ask the property management company who is managing the building you living in on behalf of the actual landlord who lives in a different country if it is O.K. to paint your bedroom. I won't even begin to go into how this concept is at the root of the softwood trade conflict, because I'd be here all night and the chances that anyone as read this far are next to nil.

So what is being celebrated tomorrow? The flag? The red and white maple leaf has only been the flag of Canada since 1965. When I was little, on Vancouver Island, which you must note boasts the city of Victoria, named for the Imperial monarch, which is the capital British Columbia, whose premier newspaper is the Times Colonist (so named when "The British Colonist" merged with "The Victoria Times", and which everyone just calls "The Colonist"), the Maple Leaf was only to be seen on government buildings. Anyone who flew a flag out of patriotism flew either the Union Jack or the Red Ensign (which is a red flag with the Union Jack in the upper left and the Canada's royal coat of arms in the lower right). The Maple Leaf was a rather pathetic political manoeuvre to try and bolster some nationalistic feelings in the face of a regularly occurring wave of separatism in Québec. It might have gone over better if the design hadn't succumbed to typical parliamentary stupidity. You see, it was originally designed to be a red leaf on a white field between two blue bars, representing Canada (the red leaf which alludes to the leaves in the coat of arms and to the red of the red ensign which was Canada's "unofficial" flag, with the white field being a reference to our northerliness), with the blue representing the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Make sense right, Canada, A mari usque ad mare. That's the text on the coat of arms, it means "From sea to sea", stated somewhat empathically, literally it is more like "from one sea all the way to the other one" - honestly, it loses in the translation. But, as the elected nimrods in the House of Commons (named, of course, after the garden variety, i.e. "common", twits that inhabit it) debated the merits of the design the white, red and blue design was deemed to be too much like the blue, white and red of the U.K. and the red, white and blue of the U.S.. So, they made the oceans red (!!!). Why on earth they didn't leave the oceans blue and make the leaf green I will never know. I suppose, in a way, the politically washed-out meaninglessness of it makes the flag that much more inherently Canadian.

But I'll wave the maple leaf and tell the kids that Canada is 135 years old tomorrow. Why? Because "I am Canadian".

(Oh, and for what it's worth, the inquiry is over. Those four Canadian soldiers that got bombed? Totally the fault of the Americans involved...)