Canada Day

While the usual suspects; the PWG-wavers; the myth-makers and myth-weavers; the nationalists culture vultures who have built "artistic" careers and nice houses in St. John's on Canada Council grants and freelance or contract work with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; the rats in the basement of the LSPU Hall; the columnists and self-styled journalists who draw their conclusions first and come up with their facts — if any — later; the revisionists; the conspiracy theorists; the kooks and the rest of the hand-wringers; while they mourn the country they supposedly lost on March 31, 1949, I celebrate the country, the wonderful country, that I gained, thanks, in no small part, to my ancestors' wisdom in voting nearly 4 to 1 to join the Canada they had long felt more attached to than to the island that supposedly had jurisdiction over them.

Newfoundland nationalists, yes you, running around today, spouting and sputtering the Newfoundland English version of je me souviens, wearing, metaphorically or otherwise, your cute little black armbands, you will do well to remember this: for over 100 years, the ancestors you praise and glorify denied to mine the very franchise, the public benefits and all the incidents of the nationhood you melodramatically mourn today.

Don't ask me to mourn for your so-called nation.

It wasn't mine. And isn't.

Je me souviens, aussi. Je me souviens bien. Et je me souviendra toujours.

O Canada! nunagivaptigit
Inungnit naglingersiorpotit
Omativut tettdlarput
TatuKoruptigit
Nunatsiavut! pivlutit
Pigâtsainarpogut
O Canada! NunatsiaK
pigârpogut, inôjogut illa,
Pigârpogut pivlutit Canada

Vive le Canada, et vive le Labrador. Happy 57th.