Online quizzes tell me I’m not proudly Canadian

I am proudly Canadian. I don’t care what those online surveys and questionnaires tell me. I am proudly Canadian.

I am writing this on Canada Day, you are reading it a few days later. I just spent the day mingling with fellow Canadians – though I am not sure how many people were actually Canadian at the festivities but they were celebrating the country.

After a long day of what I considered patriotism, I came home to write my column and surf online for a little bit. That’s when I saw what I see every year on July 1: the quizzes that try to make you feel bad you know nothing about Canada – or on the flip side, make you feel like a genius about Canuckland. (And I can almost guarantee you the people writing those quizzes spent hours doing research and probably didn’t know the answers themselves.)

So I might not know the fourth president… er, prime minister of our country. I might not know the history of the people on our money. Hell, I don’t even know why we have curling license plates in Manitoba.

What I do know is I am happy living in this country. I know that I feel safe in this country. I know that I have a voice in this country. I know that I am lucky to have been born in this country.

There’s a lot of stuff I know that, get this, wasn’t taught in school. There’s a lot of stuff I probably forgot that I was taught in school. At the end of the day, I know what it means to be Canadian.

Being Canadian is being polite. Being Canadian is being open minded. Being Canadian is being respectful. Being Canadian is being tolerant. Being Canadian is a whole list of things I couldn’t fit into this column even if I tried.

I know that on July 1 I will wear red and white and join a sea of people who are eager to wave flags, sing the anthem and rally together for an amazing fireworks display at the end of the night. Is it fourth of July calibre? Not really. But we’ve never been a country to go over the top on our festivities… unless it’s a gold medal hockey game.

Canada Day should be every day in this fine country.