Today is Canada Day, it says here....

This is typical CBC, which is short for "Canadian Broadcasting Corporation". It's something like "National Public Radio" but without the pizzazz, or the currency of content, and as you've noticed, the illustration in the above web page is part of their "ancient history".

I've just slogged laboriously through half an hour's rantings by a carefully chosen group of foreigners taking selfies and sending in compositions about Canada's image in the rest of the world, including, bejaysus, The Olde Sod, and know what? I don't give a damn what they say! It's mostly bullshit anyway....

Canada has a long and colorful history involving it roots in France and England, and the conflicts between the British Hudson's Bay Company of Explorers (those damned beaver-hunting pirates!) and The Northwest Company, their main competition, and all the skullduggery that went on. Amongst which, were the colorful "Coureurs Des Bois" of New France, those independent entrepreneurs who worked both sides of the street, so to speak.

And then, of course there's the problem of that battle on that field beside Quebec City, called the Plains of Abraham, on the 13th of September, 1759. The French under the Marquis De Montcalm were defeated by the English under General James Wolfe. Ever since then, the francophones have been weeping, wailing, and gnashing their teeth while loudly protesting "You Anglo bastards stole our country, and we want it back!" And us peace-loving anglophones have been showering them with preferential treatment, government grants and federal contracts, and marrying as many of them as we could catch, and they still aren't really happy. They talk of leaving Canada. We say, "You can't. It's ours - all of us, including you too - and we aren't giving it up. And besides, what would you do for government handouts if we let you do this?" So they're still thinking it over, while we all go for a beer together and talk more about it.....

So what does Canada mean to me? I'd be absolutely homeless without it, and so would my cute little francophone ex-wife, who just recently got re-married to another of those damned anglophones. Ah, mon cher, je l'admire votre courage!