Happy Canada Day! (And Happy 4th of July)

Sunday is Canada Day, the country’s  145th “birthday”. It’s always a big party on Parliament Hill here in Ottawa and is also marked with innumerable home-town events across the land.

Here’s the NCC’s rundown for their big show. It’s not all saved for Sunday either. There will be outdoor screenings of two well-received Canadian films on Saturday at Jacques-Cartier Park: Monsieur Lazhar and Breakaway. With a repeat of L’échappée (the French version of Breakaway) Sunday, July 1st.

Lots of music and fireworks on the hill all day Sunday. Here’s the musical line up and it’s all free. There will be some road closures, which are detailed here.

Speaking of music, a British study that purports to rank how easy or hard it is to sing national anthems puts “O Canada” just slightly ahead of “The Star Spangled Banner”. According to a Toronto Star article on the topic:

At the top of the order: France’s national anthem “La Marseillaise”, with a score of 50.98 per cent, followed by the anthems from Wales, (41.81 per cent), Australia (36.03 per cent) and Germany (31.71 per cent). Then comes Canada at 31.53 per cent, just ahead of the U.S. national anthem (30.35 per cent), Great Britain (30.22 per cent) with Scotland bringing up the rear at 25.84 per cent.

Are the two anthems really that hard? (Or are some studies that silly?)

In the spirit of studies or surveys that can’t mean much, here’s one from the Globe and Mail on what kind of Canadian are you? (From what region, that is.) And here’s how they set the questions up.

Canadians will be getting their maple groove on over the weekend, where ever they may be, as this Canada Day party in London attests.  A just-released survey survey says:

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.

Americans are just about ready to wave Old Glory on Wednesday, which is always a nice mark of patriot love and the sweetness of summer.

I’ll close with a personal observation.

In all the War of 1812 hoopla going on (at least on this side of the border) isn’t it nice that these two nations can (mostly) get along so well? And have managed that feat for so very long?

Happy Canada Day – and a glorious Fourth – to one and all.

Tags: canada, Canada Day, Fourth of July, United States of America