{"id":2532,"date":"2008-07-01T18:14:20","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T22:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=2532"},"modified":"2008-07-01T18:14:20","modified_gmt":"2008-07-01T22:14:20","slug":"oh-canada-not-too-bad-eh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2008\/07\/01\/oh-canada-not-too-bad-eh\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh Canada — not too bad, eh?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t want to get all patriotic on you or anything, but I came across a couple of tributes to our home and native land (okay — my home and native land anyway) and they were sufficiently funny and yet true at the same time that I couldn’t help but take note of them. One was a guest post on the Queen of Spain’s blog by Meg Fowler<\/a>, and while it’s entitled “Ten Things That Are Better About Canada<\/em>,” it isn’t really about why we’re better than the U.S. or anywhere else, I don’t think — just why things are pretty darn good. My favourites include:<\/p>\n

— Our national bird is tastier than yours.<\/p>\n

— We know the secret to feeling rich \u00e2\u20ac\u201d turn all your currency into gold-coloured coins!<\/p>\n

— Our national flag is a leaf and two bars \u00e2\u20ac\u201d something you can find in any town we have, too.<\/p>\n

— We have more trees than we have McDonalds. And more hockey rinks than Wal-Marts. And more donuts than cops.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nice job, Meg. And the other piece was a guest column in the National Post by a U.S. executive named Dave Burwick, who is leaving his tour of duty in Canada to head back to the U.S. and came up with his own list<\/a> of things he loves about this country, including some thoughts about how hockey is a metaphor for our culture (and no, it doesn’t have anything to do with Don Cherry, thank God). Some selections:<\/p>\n

\n— Hockey Night in Canada: One of the last communal TV events left anywhere.<\/p>\n

— Eating a peameal sandwich every Saturday at 7 a. m. during my son’s hockey practice.<\/p>\n

— Raising a family right in the middle of the city, and knowing they’re safe.<\/p>\n

— Surviving a minus-30-degree day in downtown Winnipeg, and how it made me feel more alive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I took a bike ride this afternoon through the Rouge River valley and into Pickering, out to Frenchman’s Bay<\/a> — where some people were sunbathing, some were kite-surfing in the shadow of the giant Pickering nuclear plant<\/a>, and some were sailing or kayaking — and along the way I saw hundreds of people walking, biking, picnicking, playing football, throwing a Frisbee, and just generally having a great time on a beautiful day. They were many different shades, from pale white to off-white to various shades of brown and black; some were wearing shorts, some dresses, some salwar kameez and some the hijab and chador and even burqa. And they were all Canadian. Happy Canada Day.<\/p>\n

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I don’t want to get all patriotic on you or anything, but I came across a couple of tributes to our home and native land (okay — my home and native land anyway) and they were sufficiently funny and yet true at the same time that I couldn’t help but take note of them. One … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Oh Canada — not too bad, eh?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}