So, it's Canada Day, eh?

In the first place, we don't all utter 'eh' every second word, the way Bob and Doug McKenzie would have it. Secondly, I have never owned a toque in my life, I thoroughly dislike hockey, I don't know what in the fuck poutine is, and I never want to find out, my mastery of French is probably significantly inferior to that of Dr. John, I don't know what a cold winter is really like, since my climate zone offers the same winters as Seattle, Portland, or Northern California, and don't care for either Kit Kat or Coffee Crisp bars of the sort arrayed amongst uniquely Canadian candy bars, off to the right. Smarties, on the other hand, are virtually identical to M&Ms, which are also available here, so there is a bit of candy redundancy at play here.

Anyway, on this so-called 'Canada Day' (which used to be called Dominion Day when I was growing up, but this was deemed to be a relic from the colonial past, which only leads me to question why then do we still pay homage to the Queen of a foreign country, nice lady that she might be?). What I am going to do is clear up a bit of Canadian mythology for my dear American friends, just so that they, should they decide to come to call, will be prepared for what is here.
Here goes, eh:

These are in no particular order, and they profoundly reflect my biases which, to me, are the only biases that count.

1. Canadian Mounties only wear the scarlet tunics (known as 'red serge' on ceremonial occasions. Otherwise they look like regular old cops and pretty much act like regular old cops.

2. Canadians do not hate Americans, despite the inane rantings of a couple of former prime ministers, who were only doing that to steal votes from the lackluster federal socialist party, which is neither 'new' nor particularly 'democratic'. Some Canadians may dislike certain policies advocated by your current president. So do about half of the citizens of the US.

3. Ontario is not Canada, and Toronto is not a charming city in my esteem. In the obverse, neither is Canada Ontario, despite what the Ontarians obsessively believe. This is akin to Americans thinking that every person on the planet secretly wants to be American. Absolutely not so in either case.

4. Canadian travelers generally detest Air Canada, and for absolutely excellent reasons. They detest it more knowing that this airline, that should have gone deservedly down the tubes two decades ago, only exists due to subsidies designed to satisfy big players in Toronto. We in the west, of course, love WestJet, much as we loved Canadian Airlines until easterners killed it to bail out Air Canada.

5. There are eastern and western biases in Canada. To speak glowingly of the name Pierre Trudeau in the west is akin to speaking glowingly of Abraham Lincoln in Atlanta in 1867. In Alberta the uttering of the name is, I believe, an indictable offence. So it should be.

6. Canada consists of 10 provinces, a couple of territories way up north that nobody ever goes to except a few trappers and miners, and crazed alcoholic woodsmen. There is also some sort of entity known as Nunavut, that has a population of about 17, but drains massive amounts of money out of the pockets of taxpayers like me.

7. Vancouver is not a particularly cool city, despite what it obsessively believes itself to be. It is mainly a city with a very pretty setting and an irritating sense of self-importance. It also has what is, to me, the absolutely best city park in the entire world, Stanley Park. But, in terms of genuine cool, San Francisco is cool and cultured, and Vancouver is more like Honolulu. Honolulu would be a remarkably uninspired and uninspiring city except for the fact it happens to be in Hawaii, which makes it seem more wonderful than it is.

8. If Vancouver is relatively uncool, Victoria, despite how it sees itself, bears no resemblance to any 'little big of olde Englande' that any Brit has ever seen. What bit of olde Englande? Manchester? Leeds? Stepney? I lived in England. It's generally more progressive than Victoria.

9. The only city in Canada -- big city at least -- that could genuinely lay claim to being cool, cosmopolitan and sophisticated, would be Montreal. As for other Canadian cities, most are tiresome enough that I've never really bothered visiting them.

10. Finally. Canada is 'not' a bilingual nation. The majority speak English, and barely understand French; in Quebec the majority speak French, but most understand English better than Anglos do French, and they also understand a lot more than they will ever let on to an Anglo. And, speaking of national myths, Canada is 'not' metric. Ottawa (which is not Canada, despite the protestations of the weasels who dwell therein) is metric. The rest of us interact and think in old-fashioned imperial measure, and likely always will. I love driving in the US. The distances are in miles. That lets me know in my mind just how far away a place is.

other than that, I am genuinely proud to be Canadian, despite my loathing of that stupid beer commercial.