Commentary
I used to think it was a pretty good thing to be a Canadian.
I could see that I lived in a free country, relatively free of violence. The people were prosperous but full of community spirit and charitable to those less well off. We weren’t the kind of country that picked fights but we behaved bravely and nobly when the bad guys stepped out of line. We dealt with the Kaiser’s armies, fascist stormtroopers, North Koreans, Red Chinese, and jihadis but quickly dismantled our armed forces after every war.
Our heroes were plentiful and varied—people such as Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky, Rocket Richard, Rick Hansen, Laura Secord, Leonard Cohen, and Mr. Dressup.  Our “Greatest Canadian” was a bespectacled Baptist preacher-turned-populist who pioneered Medicare. One of us invented basketball. Others invented peanut butter, the paint roller, the zipper, butter tarts, radio, and the electric wheelchair. We all knew that Canadians discovered insulin, and that the Robertson screw was as vastly superior to the Philips head as CFL football was to the snooze-fest that is the NFL. Instant replay? That was us. The Ebola vaccine? Canadians did that. Garbage bags, canola, newsprint, snowmobiles, the Canadarm? Ditto….