John Robson: On Canada Day, Let’s Be Grateful for the Free and Prosperous Country We Inherited

Commentary
We can do this. We can celebrate Dominion/Canada Day not just by shunning office and computer for dock and cooler, but by committing ourselves to a positive vision of the country.
Rah-rah rhetoric about one’s nation is out of fashion these days, at least in nations worthy of it. “From the river to the sea” is chanted with passionate intensity, while “From sea to sea” lacks all conviction. But it would be a mistake, a kind of weird anti-nostalgia, to assume that in days of yore the First of July oratory was smug, facile, and indolent.
Well, undoubtedly some of it was. No one who has attended speeches will deny that they vary greatly in quality, with many apparently designed to fend off somnolence only through irritation. But the real stuff had substance to it….


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