© Don Komarechka
Canada, you are 145 years old today. But you don’t look a day over 100.
Yes, today is Canada Day. I decided to celebrate my country by listing 15 reasons to love Canada. Trust me, there are much more than that – 15 is a much too small number for such an amazing place!
We may be the object of several jokes from our southern neighbors, we may have a fugly prime minister, we may have dreadful weather 8 months out of 12. I don’t care. Not to go all patriotic on you guys, but dammit I love my country. Want to know why?
15. We have some of the most beautiful scenery in the world
Montreal in the snow
Moraine Lake in the Rockies © Tim Haughton
Peggy’s Cove
Fall in Quebec
x
14. We have a big country. And I mean BIG.
Canada is the world’s second largest country, with just under 10 millions km2. That’s roughly 40 trips around the Earth. Or lots, lots, and lots of football fields. We share the longest international border in the world (2475 km) with our beloved American neighbors, and we have more than 200,000 km of coastline. Did anyone say big?
13. We legalized same-sex marriages ages ago.
Canada is a free country, in so many ways. We were the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriages, and the first in the Americas. That was 8 years ago. Because as Liz Feldman once said:
Gay marriage, or as I like to call it: ‘marriage.’ You know, because I had lunch, not gay lunch. I parked my car, I didn’t gay park it.
12. We have Ryan Gosling.
Hey girl…
x
11. We have loads of great actors.
Most of them have left their home land for the glorious spotlights of Hollywood, but we still love them and know they all have a maple leaf tattooed somewhere. Mike Myers, the late Leslie Nielsen, Will Arnett, Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox, Rachel McAdams, Jim’s dad, Ryan Reynolds, my beloved Chandler Bing, the girl who plays Megan Draper, captain Kirk, Seth Rogen. Even the Canadian girl from How I Met Your Mother, Cobie Smulders, is actually Canadian.
10. We say thank you, please and sorry even when we don’t have to.
The myth that Canadians are overly polite actually isn’t that much of a myth at all. We ARE very polite – we were colonized by the British, after all. We think that a genuine smile will get you anywhere, and that there is no such thing as being too polite. Our grandmothers would not approve of anything less.
9. We’ve got cute animals.
Baby seals (© animalpictures1.com)
Mooses
Beavers
x
8. We are one of the best ranked countries in the world.
Canada is currently the 6th country in the “Human development index“, a measure of general well-being and standards of living. We have dozens of internationally acclaimed universities and an overall excellent education system, safe streets, a liberal school of thoughts, a long life expectancy, a high GNI, and we are often cited as one of the freest countries in the world. What more could you want?
7. We have great music.
I mentioned that Montreal has a great musical scene, but so does the rest of Canada. Metric, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Rush, the Tragically Hip, Alanis Morissette… I could go on and on! Perhaps the long winter nights have something to do with all that inspiration?
6. We also have Justin Bieber.
Prepubescent Canada’s dearest.
Baby, baby, baby, ohhhh…
x
5. We invented a bunch of stuff.
Telephones, walkie-talkies, peanut butter, zippers, Trivial Pursuit, ice hockey, basketball, IMAX, insulin, garbage bags, Ceasar cocktails, Wonderbras and the list goes on. Bet you had no idea all those things were Canadian, eh! I’m really starting to think that those long winter nights were not just used to contribute to our birth rate as legends says!
4. We have Tim Hortons.
One of the most sought after items within the Canadian expat community worldwide. True story.
Timmy time!
x
3. We have maple syrup.
Yummiest. pancake. treat. ever. We actually use it with lots of other things: salad dressings, BACON, marinades, BACON, cookies, BACON, cakes, butter (heaven-sent goodness I tell you), over eggs, waffles… goes straight to your butt, but your taste buds don’t give a damn about that.
2. We have free health care.
Because being sick or injured shouldn’t have to be more of a concern than it already is. To us Canadians, free health care is a fundamental right and probably what we love the most about our country. We simply cannot rationalize how and why every other country in the world doesn’t have that. Everybody should have access to health care, regardless of their social status. Including foreigners with frostbites.
1. And, well, that sums it up.
Have you been to Canada? Do you also secretly want to be Canadian? What’s one of the main reasons to love Canada according to you?
mevallieres
mevallieres
mevallieres
mevallieres
mevallieres
mevallieres
GREAT post eh! I was disappointed when the first link didn’t work but it was worth the wait! Loved, loved, LOVED the video at the end!!
You chose great reasons (dunno about #6 though) and I agree wholeheartedly with them! Maple syrup and Tim Hortons is something I get mailed to me here in Australia in care packages so I can get my fix. Maple bacon really is the best!
Mmmm Ryan Gosling-I’ve loved him since his Breaker High days (gotta love Canadian tv shows) and don’t forget Ryan Reynolds-also a delicious Canadian!
I’m currently dressed in maple leaf socks, undies, tshirt and hoodie, about to make a poutine for dinner and smores for dessert. There are some days when I really miss my country!
Happy Canada Day!!!
I could not not include the Biebs. He is prepubescent Canada’s dearest, after all! ;)
I’m pretty sure that my 8 year old daughter would tell you that the most exciting thing that happened on Canada Day was seeing Justin Bieber’s star on the sidewalk outside the Avon Theatre in Stratford. :)
Great post!!
Indeed, the Biebs is very popular with the young girls!
I am a proud Canadian, and I always know it’s time to go home for a visit when the Timmy’s and maple syrup are running low :)
Me too! my maple syrup bottle is almost empty but luckily I’ll be home in just 12 days :)
Love this post! And I agree – Canada is pretty fantastic! I need to spend some more time exploring it myself.
You should! Montreal is waiting for you :)
I may be from British Columbia, but coast to coast, the place ain’t all that bad, inn’it?
I do love how you slipped in the “Canadian, Please!” video from YouTube!
Canada is an amazing place, ad mare to ad mare ;)
You forgot to mention all the beautiful women and the excellent comedy scene (SCTV, Kids In The Hall, Just For Laughs, Improvaganza, etc)! Also, I second you on the Tim Horton’s thing…
Oh I’ll take that compliment :) Canadian woman are gorgeous and so easygoing!
I adore your country! I lived there for a year and have always wanted to do so again. Amazing landscapes, wildlife and maple syrup whiskey (yum!)are what help me love Canada so much.
Oh alright, maybe it has a little bit to do with Ryan Gosling too ;)
Ryan Gosling is a VERY good reason love Canada. Also, Ryan Reynolds.
I absolutely love Canada, especially the scenery. It is utterly breathtaking in places.
Yes, Canada is blessed with beautiful landscapes and cities.
Two Canadians here, representing Québec and Ontario. No matter where we live, Canada will always be our home.
Vive le Canada! :)
We invented garbage bags? Wow we are so cool :)
I like to think we are cooler than that, but garbage bags are pretty useful though :P
There are many fine reasons to visit Canada. However, #6 is not one of them. This is the second post I’ve read in tribute to Canada – both very good. However, where’s the tribute to Canadian athletes? :)
I know we have really good athletes, but I know so little about them I didn’t think I was up to the task!
Marie-Eve, you’re right with all those 15 reasons, but still you have forgot the most important …
In Canada you have the best MENS/HUSBANDS ever ;)
That’s true ;)
I love this post. Canada is my dream…
You should come over, we’re a nice bunch ;)
Ryan Gosling! Enough said! Happy belated birthday Canada, you good ‘ol neighbor you!
Ryan Reynolds is not to shabby either. :)
Marie-Eve, if these kinds of posts persist I will definitely move to Canada! I had no clue Ryan was Canadian too.
Ryan (both of them!) are a good enough reason to come to Canada. We’ve got the best boys on the planet :)
Slightly belated happy Canada day. Amazing list of reasons why Canada is awesome – I really must visit!
Thanks Laurence! You really should come to Canada :)
I love Canada, especially Peggy’s Cove. I don’t miss Tim Horton’s though, I must say. Hope you had a great Canada day!
Not even the iced cappucinos on a 100+ degrees day? :P
wow! I love Canada just from this post =) I have never been there but I hope to visit some time soon.
Great list! Although mine would leave off #6 and #10 would be in my top 5.
Also love that you described the ass running our country as fugly.
Well he is fugly and robot-looking :)
Oh and I’m curious, are you the photographer on the animal shots? They are fabulous!
Just click on the links to get to the website :)
Ha ha ha. Surely Justin Bieber is enough? Why bother with the rest of the list…
Good question. The Biebs is a good enough reason to love Canada, right? :P (not even a fan, but too many little girls like him)
This are so many reasons why i seriously have to visit your country! Great post, I have read it with a smile :)
Great post. I do secretly want to be Canadian. And I might end up there someday. The U.S. crazies are starting to get to me.
Us and Canada are entirely different despite what some people might think. And of course, Canada is much better :)
I think canadian guys are cute… sporty, manly and have a lovely english accent! :)
Canadian guys ROCK :) I married one!
Great post! Although I think #6 is a flaw ;) We have much to be proud of as Canadians!
Poor Biebs, nobody over 14 seems to actually like him, haha! :P
What a DELIGHTFUL nation! My family and I used to drive up to Canada all the time when I was little (mostly PEI, Quebec, New Brunswick), but we haven’t been in forever. Hope to be returning soon!
Thanks Kate! I do love me some Canada :) there are SO many things to do.
I love Canada very much especially JUSTIN BIEBER and AVRIL LAVIGNE… eventhough im not canadian
Canada eh
Healthcare that does not work buddy
No free speech with laws that regulate what can be said
Chinese taking over natural resourses
Free enterprise in a minority when it comes to employment
Majority on the government tit in some way or fashion
An immigration policy letting in 3rd world peasents who maybe can sweep a floor.
A country that values PC speak over common sense
A 2 language policy that recently decided that DOGS had to understand English & French to play in the park
Blame Quebec for that
Canada- with resouces, scenery and a educated workplace was a great place to be until Trudeau came along.
Sorry for the rough copy here’s the finished one.
Dear Dave
Dear Dave! Quad by pass in September this year! one week in the hospital only! Cost? nothing! Results: I’m writing this to you now! Check out your facts on the very best medical care plan on earth. but remember: “Triage” means the most important go first. The ones closest to death? Works for me!
Ever ride the Go train in Toronto at rush hour? Every language on earth being used – French, English the least of them! All free to do so in a multi-lingual land!Check out the modern signage! not French or English at all! Symbols for all! Most recent census reveals 60% Canadians speak an Asian, yes! Asian language! at home – so much for Trudeau and his scab picking from his dad’s past! My ER-RN in Toronto assures me they can service over 100 languages with computer technology assistance, and our Parliament functions quite well in two languages for now. We even have a ‘French Only Nation’ as part of our identity, (no other land on earth does this?) and an Icelandic high school, and Ukrainian schooling in Manitoba and Mandarin is so taught in the graded schools of B.C.
China and Malaysia two of our major trading partners now, will finance – underwrite, the very expensive development costs for our “Diamond in the Rough Tar Sands” – we simply do not have the capital to do this ourselves and the U.S. is currently broke and fighting the highest deficits ever – they are now the world’s all time, largest debtor nation, in all the history of the world, and cannot help.
If we cannot sell our natural resources and cannot consume them what good are they to mankind?
61% of the “popular Vote” in Canada this last election was for the NDP, a Socialist Democratic Party ! In fact: the “Official Opposition” in our Parliament in Ottawa is NDP, a Socialist Democratic Party in the style of the Scandinavian Socialist reality. Canada,and Canadians, voted this way, this is our new reality! We are so not Americans! Free enterprise is welcomed but Corporate and especially Multi National Corporate Plutocrats are not! China on the other hand, a communist entity can so be welcomed. (not for profit)
Governments “tits” have always, in all governments, been a big factor and can be a good factor if used to limit the distance in pay from the richest to the poorest – a major, unresolvable problem south of the border today?
most Canadians only need go back one or two generations to find relatives that could not speak the languages of the land, had little or no talents, were born into poverty, left their homelands for better? We all fought hard, in a very hard land, to do better. This is our greatness – people who dedicate, focus and achieve in healthy fashion.
“PC Speak” soon vanquished from this land? You get out and support the other party, the one you prefer, and make it so! Free country! Yes you can!
Even dogs can so do it! Why not? Imagine my daughter, French, English and Ojibwa, all taught in Ontario grade school thirty years ago! The best educators all agree, multilingualism produces the very brightest children! Music and maths also commended! Bi and multilingualism a gift of mental exercise! Just for Hellery: more English/Mandarin speaking folk on the internet today, than American English only speakers!
Marc Garneau (C.C., CD, PhD., F.C.A.S.I),
Trudeau (BA, BEd, LOL)
Sonny boy as nuts as his Groupie Mother, tries to ride his father’s old paradigm to power in a Canada that now has an entirely new paradigm, and a new Canada of Asian blood predominance, no longer facing English/French confrontation but a new found multi-culturalism multi-lingualism the little Frenchman from the past cannot fathom! The boy is simplly “lost in The Past’ – his goddammit father’s past! Sad but true. CIA/FLQ tried to divide and conquer this land, give it to the U.S. and this kid picks at those old scabs – asshole for sure. The liberals need a Canadian educated multilingual Asian face to truly represent this growing changing land. Same for the NDP!
Just a couple of nit-picking points:
” beloved American neighbors”….’neighbour’ was spelled the American way; the plural of “Moose” is also “Moose”.
On the health care issue, of course it is not free- it is paid for primarily through taxes. And that is fine with me. Just because something is paid with tax money does not mean it is a burden; it is a blessing, and I know of at least three families who would definitely be bankrupt and possibly also have a dead child without our Canadian health system. Many who criticize it never seem willing to improve it or make representations to hospital boards or elected members of parliament. They just complain.
I suppose I may also have to criticize our education system which produces, sometimes, incomprensible rants on the internet characterized by poor grammar and spelling. But that may not be just a Canadian thing,eh? (Incidentally, I’ve never heard anyone say “Oot and aboot”, or “Ruff” – not roof – except when kidding around.)
On the other hand, we do have a liberal democracy (‘liberal’ from the Latin ‘Liberalus’: of freedom) which does allow a great deal of free speech, but does not allow and encourage the most base, hateful and ultimately damaging-to-society provocations for the sake of provocation, causing damage to a safe and harmonious society. As long as you can speak up and say “We do not have freedom of speech”, you do have it. Try that in a few other countries and you’ll be in jail, or “disappeared”.
I’ve been a citizen of Canada for all my life and I sometimes worry about it being corrupted by extremism from our American friends- and yes, we remain friends and, I hope, will always be such. But as long as we, native born, native to Canada, immigrants and visitors keep in mind that we are a free country, and that it comes with responsibilities to protect that freedom,I think we will be fine in the long run.
And one last bit in my rant: While Bieber isn’t my cup of tea I don’t understand why those who prefer different music feel oath-sworn to tear him down. Or Celine Dion, for that matter. Does it make small peopel feel bigger to tear down a larger-than-life figure? It’s still a free country where you can listen to Lady Gaga, the Canadian Brass, or Justin Bieber. If you go in for that sort of thing. Beiber. And freedom.
Nobody has mentioned 4 seasons. There’s always something new to enjoy.Winter can be a struggle,but Spring is always going to come and we have as much fun in Summer as we can. September is often the nicest month of the year.I enjoy being able to see into the woods when the leaves fall,but look forward to new leaves next Spring.Snowmobiling is a blast and gets you to places you couldn’t (or atleast wouldn’t)with out a motor. Here in Haliburton County,Central Ontario
we still have wilderness. The wolves that killed a deer
on the lake that I live on provided food for themselves,eagles,and ravens.
That commercial,I AM CANADIAN was good,makes we want to have a beer!
Good point! Very good point indeed!
Free health care? Don’t think so. Maybe universal but certainly not free. The doctors and nurses don’t work for free, the hospitals were not build for free, neither are their supplies, electric or communications among a long list of stuff, none of it free. The fact is tax paying citizens and corporations pay for all this, rather they use it or not.
Free as in: no extra charge. Not literally free.
[...] became a go-to whenever I get the Canada blues, immediately brightening my day by reminding me why I love my country so [...]
The beautiful scenery and cute animals sells it for me alone – the rest are bonuses! :-) Great post!
We have Universal Health Care. it is not free, we pay for it through our taxes. Other wise awesome list.
[...] 15 reasons to love Canada [...]
Great list!
#10 makes me laugh. I always say if you want to spot the only Canadian in a crowd, step on everyone’s toes and see who apologizes to YOU.
I’ve forwarded your blog on to my husband. He was born and bred in Montreal and misses it so. We live a few hours from there and try to get back once a year but it’s not enough.
P.S. Found you on StumbleUpon.
Besos, Sarah
Blogger at Journeys of The Zoo
Your medical bills paying insurance isn’t “free” as you claimed wrongly. People pay in three ways:
[1] Working Canadians pay premiums for this insurance in the form of payroll taxes
[2] Because payroll taxes do not cover the full expenditure on medicine and medical practice, your Central Bank buys bonds from your federal government to make up the difference.
This leads to money accretion and credit expansion, which puts more buying power into the hands of the people without a corresponding rise in output, thus prices rises over time for all products.
[3] Because supply of medical services gets restricted, many the prices of many procedures are higher than otherwise would be. Innovation gets hampered.
And if you never considered, Americans subsidize your medicine, all of it, as five of six top drug makers are headquartered in the U.S.A. as well as the biggest medical equipment makers. Americans pay higher prices and inflate the margins for these firms, covering lost margins that would have been earned from Canadians.
Why are Canadians so clueless about medical economics?
Well, I think I would have chosen Canadian architecture over Justin I-want-to-gag Bieber…
Gotta love us Canadians! Great post and photos, thanks for sharing!