Thursday, June 28, 2012

Good News

Canada Day survey:Canada growing prouder to wear patriotism on their sleeves

"The provocative results of a new survey challenge the long-held notion that Canadians are reluctant to be as outwardly patriotic as their brash American neighbours.

The Ipsos-Reid online survey of 1,100 people — conducted for the Historica-Dominion Institute in the days leading up to the Canada Day long weekend — suggest the Canadian sense of national pride is becoming an in-your-face swagger.

That is particularly true when it comes to the country’s most potent national symbol: the maple leaf.

One in five of those surveyed said they would consider getting a tattoo of a Canadian flag somewhere on their body.

They didn’t say where."

Hopefully that also means we're abandoning the "not-American" definition of who we are.

That only makes sense, given our proximity to the USA and to the availability of so much technology enabling communications - such as blogs, dare I say - across boundaries.

I've had a theory knocking about my head for some time now. We have gradually moved away from out British roots, because, after all, the Empire is no more, we are a nation of immigrants from all over the world, not just Great Britain. Despite the best efforts of the Liberal Party of Canada and the liberal media, we are becoming more and more attached to the values and lifeways of our cousins to the south WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING SWALLOWED UP.

I remember when we raised the flag in the morning at school it was the Union Jack that was hoisted on the pole. And high up on the wall in the front of the classroom invariably there was a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

Now, it's only the Maple Leaf flag you see flying high in front of public buildings and I think the Monarch's mug is no longer staring down at school children.

Not only that, but driving around out in the rural and northern parts of knuckledraggerland one frequently sees the Stars and Stripes sharing the pole right along with the Maple Leaf - on private property, of course, not on government buildings.

Of course, what happens in the USA can easily screw us over (think the Keystone Pipeline), but not so much with Britain any more.

That wasn't so with my parents generation. They were very loyal to Great Britain, and when the mother country called, we, especially the men, answered. My dad had signed up and was in boot camp within days of Britain declaring war on Germany in 1939. It took the yanks a few more years and a lot of arm twisting by Churchill before the joined in.

We are slowly losing our ties to Britain, and have far more in common with our southern neighbours and that's not a bad thing, Martha.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous ebt said...

The arm twisting that got the US into the war was done by Hitler, not Churchill. Germany declared war on the USA, not the other way round.

June 28, 2012 6:09 pm  
Blogger Louise said...

I beg to differ. The Western Allies farted around in North Africa and sat around in England for a long time before D-Day. During that time Churchill was trying to convince the US to join the fray.

June 28, 2012 8:27 pm  

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