Our home our native land
Editor’s Note: As we prepare to celebrate Canada 150th birthday tomorrow we thought now would be a good time to take a look back at how the Journal Pioneer viewed our country’s 100th celebration. The following is our editorial commentary that appeared in the Journal Pioneer in 1967:
Perhaps Dominion Day as a term is getting a little out of date. The word “dominion” has little significance in relation to our position as an independent member of the Commonwealth. To us Canada Day has a nice sound while Confederation Day is a bit of a mouthful. But call it by any name tomorrow, July 1, is Canada’s birthday - this year her one hundredth – and consequently the one day in the year when our nationhood and all that our nation stands for should be honoured. We have read that officialdom generally has been amazed by the zest with which Canadians have entered into the spirit of centennial year. Ever since New Year’s Day they have been turning out by the hundreds and the thousands to all kinds of events. The Centennial Train and the Centennial Caravans have been attracting huge crowds and we all know that all attendance expectations have been exceeded at the Expo. In the towns and villages throughout the country people are participating with enthusiasm in all sorts of activities. Perhaps we are not as dull and under-demonstrative a people as we have always thought we were.
Certainly in this province the depth of participation in all kinds of events is little short of amazing. In Summerside – and we are sure the same is equally true elsewhere – the number of people who are giving hours of their time to plan and carry out various events is almost unbelievable. It has almost reached the stage that a person who has no personal participation in centennial activity feels left out – or perhaps feels badly at his own lack of interest.
Perhaps we will learn some lessons from the experiences of this year. Perhaps those in positions of power will in future show more interest in injecting patriotic colour and pageantry into our national life. If we are to have armed services what is wrong with letting the people see them more often marching in parades and staging colorful ceremonies? There has never been enough of this sort of thing.
Perhaps in the future there will be less hesitation about displaying and paying honour to the flag. And this brings up the subject of displaying the flag locally. Our people, generally speaking, give low priority to the need for flying flags on patriotic occasions. Yesterday in Summerside and Charlottetown several firms had modest displays of flags but much more should be done. There is little time left to prepare for Dominion Day but perhaps a few more flags will appear today. Whatever is done now it is to be hoped that there will be a much greater profusion of our national emblem when the Queen Mother arrives.
We note that several homes and business places have the Centennial symbol displayed. This is an excellent idea and one wonders why more public encouragement was not given to this practice which could have been made much more general.
So much for the colour and the display. In the end it is only symbolic of something deeper and more important. It is, or it should be, a public manifestation of the love and devotion to country that should be firmly imbedded in every Canadian heart. With all its troubles and drawbacks – including at times a miserable climate – this is a wonderful country and we have so much to be thankful for. We are rich in natural resources and in the qualities of our people but we are not populous enough or strong enough military to have to bear the responsibility of world leadership.
And so tomorrow let us join all join in thanking God for making it possible for us to say: “O Canada, Our Home, Our Native Land.”