Knowing who we are

Oddly, Canada might be having a more meaningful birthday this year than last, even if the number of years we’re celebrating isn’t quite as much of a landmark.

The 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017 was a bit forced, as awkwardly self-conscious as the word sesquicentennial itself.

There was never a chance it would match the coming-of-age euphoria of the Expo 67 celebration of centennial year half a century earlier.

This July 1, marking the 151st anniversary of Confederation, Canada has challenges to be sure. It would be news if we didn’t. Everything in human affairs is a work in progress.

Charles de Gaulle, the former president of France, once sighed in a moment of exasperation: “How can anyone govern a nation that has 246 varieties of cheese?”

Likewise, how can any nation manage with only 36 million souls inside almost 245,000 kilometres of coastline?

But we do. And remarkably well. Not with shock and awe, or fire and fury, or chest-thumping about our own exceptionalism. But with a becoming rationality, decency and sense of generosity.

There’s lots we need to do in this country — most importantly the unfinished work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. There are widely differing views on how to do that and much else.

There are pipeline disputes. There are squabbles over the inter-provincial beer trade. And brewing battles over the equalization formula.

But you have to be a pretty sensible land in the first place to even have an equalization formula.

There’s plenty of reason — in taking stock of what we’ve built, what we’ve got and what we aspire to — to kick back and celebrate.

We even have an unlikely person to toast for perhaps giving us a greater sense of ourselves and what we stand for than we did last year.

The unhinged attacks by U.S. President Donald Trump on our prime minister, our economy and our country have prompted us to recall what it is that makes us gratefully different, makes us modestly special, makes us who we are.

Granted, his are no small threats. Canada — with two-thirds of our trade conducted with the United States — is among the most vulnerable of countries to Trump’s upending of the world economic order.

But Canadian leaders of all stripes opted not to grab at partisan advantage during Trump’s burst of epic rudeness and insult. Rather, they stood together with the prime minister in the broader interests of the country.

Let’s leave it to others to sing the praises of this fine Canadian moment.

“Mr. Trump’s aggression has inspired a rare unity in Canada,” noted The Economist.

The same American friends who came to our defence against the president will be helping us celebrate.

Few voices have been so steadfast during this strange period in cross-border relations as that of former American ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman.

“Never underestimate a Canadian,” he recently tweeted. “Not their friendship nor their resolve when attacked.”

For many, moreover, Canada has been the world’s chosen land — and a recent study says we are happy to be so.

The polling company Ipsos found Canada to be the most tolerant and inclusive country in the world when it comes to who is accepted as “a real Canadian.”

This year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have caught the toned-down mood and recognized that Canadians often have a preference for celebrating our vastness and diversity through the local.

The PM will visit three communities across the country — Leamington, Ont., Regina and Dawson City, Yukon — on Canada Day instead of attending Parliament Hill celebrations.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Heyman has asked Canadians who might be a little wounded by the president’s antics not to “assume @realDonaldTrump speaks for all of us.” Didn’t think so for a minute, sir. We’ve heard the town of Little Canada, Minn., is already hard at work planning its annual three-day festival called Canadian Days in August to celebrate our birthday and relationship.

And we’ve heard they have a Tim Hortons.

The unhinged attacks by Donald Trump on our country have prompted us to recall what makes us who we are