October 11, 2010, It’s Thanksgiving Day in Canada — yes, it’s a lot earlier than in the U.S., but harvests come sooner up north.
(And no, it’s NOT a copy of the American holiday; its origins go back even further than ours).
Having just returned from my latest enjoyable visit to Canada, I can personally attest to/list a number of things Canadians have to be thankful for — besides turkey and a three-day weekend, that is. A few of them:
1. National health care. Canadians have had it for years. And while it’s not perfect — there are long waits for some procedures — polls repeatedly show that Canadians wouldn’t trade it for anything.2. Canada’s solid banking system. There’s been only one bank collapse in Canadian history, years ago. You can’t buy a house in Canada with a liar’s loan, and you never could.
3. A new National Hockey League season has begun!
4. Canada has the Olympic gold in hockey. Thanks to the “golden Games” in Vancouver last winter. Canada will be the reigning Olympic champ in its national sport until 2014.
5. Canadian tween heartthrob Justin Bieber is down in the U.S. much of the time now.
6. Molson Canadian and Labatt Blue.
7. No Detroit Lions’ game on TV on Thanksgiving Day in Canada.
8. Canada’s massive oil reserves. The second-biggest in the world, even if much of it comes from the Alberta tar sands.
9. Huge Canadian potash, gas, and mineral reserves. Plus other natural resources like timber that are destined to make Canada an increasing world economic force (largely for good).
10. Global warming/climate change: Not something one is usually are thankful for, true. But…a UCLA professor said on the CBC recently that North American ecosystems are advancing north five feet (!) each day. Canada’s once-desolate far north is warming up, and the Northwest Passage is now navigable several months a year. Most Canadians would never gloat about this — at least publicly. But YOU connect the dots.
11. French is an official language in Canada. Vive le langue le plus beau au monde! (The world’s most beautiful language). The national anthem, O Canada, was written en francais.
12. No U.S. politics.
13. Emily Carr. Few Americans have ever heard of this great, acclaimed, maverick Canadian expressionist painter whose paintings of the verdant forests of her native British Columbia are evocative of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work. Carr, a national treasure, will be honored with a statue on the grounds of the provincial parliament buildings in her native Victoria. (Too bad the quirky Carr’s longtime companion, a monkey, won’t be part of that statue!).
14 Montreal smoked meat. C’est bon de se lecher les doigts. Makes the best deli sandwich you’ll ever taste.
15. Montreal-style bagels. Cooked over an open fire, they’re Montreal’s other deli classic.
16. Tim Horton’s
Omitted from this list: Poutine, Canada’s ultimate culinary guilty pleasure: French fries (”patates frites”) topped with brown gravy and cheese curds. The highest-calorie Thanksgiving course imaginable. Health Warning: Poutine is starting to catch on in the U.S. I limit my intake of poutine to once a year — mostly because I’d like to live to celebrate more Thanksgivings.
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/canada/2010/10/11/a-canada-thanksgiving-day-list-of-things-canadians-can-be-thankful-for/
