Happy Canada Day. 150.

150 years since the Act of Confederation came into force.
Although I have to say, I preferred when I was young and there was a lot less flag-waving jingoism and extravagant, noisy celebrating, and a lot more quiet excellence. It is 150 years since four colonies became one Confederated Dominion, and our history has not been anything like as pristine as I was taught, but I do believe the basic idea of Confederation is a worthy one. But we have a long way to go, still, before we can be truly a united country for all those who live here.
So lets maybe celebrate the idea of what we should be, a nation that protects and supports all its people, that draws on our differences to produce a better result than is ever found in an echo-chamber of agreeable voices. Let us rededicate ourselves to an expanded awareness of multi-nationalism that is at the foundation of this nation, once referring only to French and English, but which now must refer to people from many different cultures, some here since the first humans arrived, others lately arriving from distressed places abroad. Let us celebrate our differences, always very careful of never crossing that fine line between lauding our own cultural background and denigrating another. We have failed to do this in the past, so we must strive to succeed in the future.
I read history and the most creative, the most stable societies, managed to have diversity without divisiveness. They produced the finest art and developed the finest ideas. That is the sort of society I wish to live in.