Flags, torching the White House and other Canada Day stuff

Jun 29, 2018 | 9:51 PM

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to talk about Canada Day this year without discussing our current relationship with the elephant to the south. Borrowing from the words of Pierre Trudeau, the beast is twitching and grunting.

Our two countries have much in common but our differences define us. There are things about American culture we’ll never understand. College marching bands, for example. I’ve always found the fascination of small-town America with college kids dressed in dorky outfits and playing tubas to be truly mystifying.

And as we struggle with the concept of selling wine in grocery stores, I’ll wager it will be a long time before we start seeing beer in our drug stores.

Some differences are obvious. Their money is all the same colour but somehowthey manage to tell the difference between fives and 20s.

Their national food is the hot dog. Ours is Hawaiian pizza. And, of course, donuts. Their national bird is a raptor. Ours is a rodent.

We break out our Maple Leaf flag on Canada Day. If somebody wants to fly a flag on some other special day, City council has a major debate about whether to allow it, and where to put the flag pole.

Down there they fly the Stars and Stripes 24-7 year-round. Their flag is everywhere — front porches, motorcycles, clothing (but not on backpacks). They even celebrate a Flag Day. And, never take a knee in front of their flag.

We elected a young, fit, good-looking man with great hair who looks really good in a suit. They elected an orange over-weight man who wears his ties so long they swing like a wind chime when he walks. We like Americans and can’t figure out why they elected him.

Yet, as Capt. Jack Sparrow said to Elizabeth Swann on the beach that day, “We are very much alike, you and I. I and you. Us.”

When the 13 colonies broke with England, their admiration for the ways of the British didn’t immediately wane. Many U.S. lawmakers wanted to set up banking and military systems that emulated the country they had just defeated.

Many wanted to model their government on the British parliamentary system, they admired it so much. But in the end, worried about the optics of copying the British, they set up a system of government so convoluted and complex that it’s unworkable. In an ironic twist, they built in so many checks and balances — with the president being the ultimate check and balance — that there’s now no balance at all and he governs without check.

Even today, they long for the monarchy. How they gushed and reveled when Harry married Meghan, the woman they now call the “American Princess.” She isn’t a princess but it doesn’t matter to them, if they even know it. To Americans, almost two and a have centuries after the revolution, they finally have royalty again.

We should settle this thing about the White House fire while we’re at it. Trump asked Justin, when the latter dared complain about Canada being called a security threat, “Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?”

Many have jumped in to “clarify” that Canadians did not burn down the White House during the War of 1812. As Dolly Madison shoveled the presidentialsilverware into a sack and grabbed the portrait of George Washington and prepared to flee with her house slaves, the men outside with the torches were British soldiers, not Canadian.

Canada didn’t even exist then, they insist. I say balderdash. Those soldiers were fighting for Canada. It was Canada the Americans invaded, not jolly old England.

If not for that bit of arson, which seemed to have a salutary effect on American ambitions, we might have been saluting President Trump and celebrating July 4 instead of July 1, but I suppose we should say, “Sorry.”

It’s sometimes said that a Canadian’s idea of graffiti vandalism is to scrawl “Have a nice day” on a building. Now, of course, we say “Have a nice rest of your day,” just to be clear.

As we have a nice rest of our day during the celebrations Sunday, let’s be thankful for all the things that make us who we are, and not somebody else.