On the occasion of Canada’s 159th birthday, we invited Taproot readers to tell us how they’re thinking about Canada Day in this very strange year.<\/p>\n
These festivities are happening months away from the Oct. 19 referendum<\/a> that will ask Albertans if they want to stay in Canada or start the process for a binding referendum on separation. Nine other questions<\/a> will ask voters to weigh in on matters related to immigration and the Constitution, all of which speak to Alberta’s relationship with Canada. And the average Albertan seems to be more separation-curious than before<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, we’ve just gone through a few years where the Canadian flag was closely associated with protests against vaccine mandates<\/a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patriotism has been complicated by awareness of our country’s genocidal legacy<\/a>. And the President of the United States keeps musing about making Canada the 51st state<\/a>.<\/p>\n So we asked, “What does this year’s Canada Day mean to you?” For some, it’s a day to celebrate, full stop, with maybe a bit of elbows-up action:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “This year especially, I feel we have to wave the flag and dress in red and white to let the rest of our country know we’ve not all gone mad here.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \u2014 Janice MacDonald<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “Freedom, peace, and prosperity. Canadians are able to live free, pursue their dreams, and enjoy a good quality of life. Canada Day is a day to celebrate what we have achieved together and the promise of what we can build in future.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \u2014 Alexander Smoliak<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “A day to honour our independent, diverse, and civil country. Every U.S. news story makes me glad I live in Canada, so much more tolerant, compassionate, and generous in comparison. It is reason to protect and nourish our public education system, which is the genesis of reflective, aware, and tolerant attitudes.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n \u2014 Dawn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the occasion of Canada’s 159th birthday, we invited Taproot readers to tell us how they’re thinking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-773375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}