Canada is celebrating the 158th anniversary of Confederation. On Parliament Hill and beyond, there will be parades, picnics, and proclamations. But this birthday is vastly different from last year — and from any in our history.
We have rearranged the political furniture since last Canada Day. There is talk of existential threats and unseen opportunity, with the government making broad commitments on trade, defence, and big projects. It’s given itself the powers to fulfil them.
A year ago, Mark Carney was a former public servant, central banker, and international financier who had never held elective office. Now Justin Trudeau, his three-term predecessor, is gone, Carney is prime minister, and the Liberals have won a fourth consecutive mandate. It is a stunning restoration, even for the country’s “natural governing party.”
A year ago, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was the presumptive prime minister. Only a near-extinction event, it seemed, could stop him. Now the Conservatives are back in official opposition. Poilievre is running to re-enter Parliament and retain his leadership, which is under review.
A year ago, Jagmeet Singh was leader of the New Democrats, holding the balance of power in a minority Parliament. The NDP ensured the expansion of the social safety net and tighter gun control. Had Singh withdrawn support from the Liberals on a vote of non-confidence last autumn, as expected, the Conservatives would surely have won the ensuing election. In one of those hinges of history, Singh declined and delayed, pushing the vote into the new year.
Events, events, events. Donald Trump won the presidency in November and suggested annexing Canada in December. Trudeau announced his resignation in January. Carney became Liberal leader in March and called a snap election. The Liberals won a near majority in April.
The national conversation and conventional wisdom have been turned upside down. Canadians are alarmed and unsettled. They no longer assume that Canada will remain a prosperous, secure, independent nation. That’s why they chose Carney, the seasoned technocrat, over Poilievre, the political professional, favouring the seemingly safer pair of hands.
Fear concentrates the mind. Today, we are also determined and uncommonly united. Most of all, we are proud. This isn’t the fleeting pride that comes from hockey victory, or from a Canadian author or scientist winning a Nobel Prize, or our soldiers taking Vimy Ridge or storming Juno Beach. That is the pride of prowess, excellence, and courage.
Today’s pride is all that, but primarily it’s a pride of place. It’s a belief that we mean something, after all these years, even if we seldom see it or say it. It’s Canadians refusing to visit America; waving the flag as civic expression, not ideological grievance; drinking Ontario wine while giving up Kentucky bourbon.
It’s singing O Canada with feeling. For a shy, unassertive people, suspicious of chest-thumping, this is the biggest, most surprising affirmation of patriotism.
It means, for an unconscious people, understanding our land and legacy with new awareness. We did not just arrive here.
We survived in a big, cold, empty place. Abroad, we fought when necessary and kept peace when possible. We have struggled, and we have endured as others have not. We are not by nature a violent people, but when we say elbows up, we mean it.
Ours is an imperfect system, but we have largely avoided revolution, anarchy, insurrection, assassination, and extended civil disorder. We offered ourselves “peace, order and good government,” and by and large, we have had it.
We favour prudence and restraint. We are less likely to think big than small, with exception, while accepting mediocrity rather than excellence, with respect. We aren’t risk-takers, which is why we have a constitutional monarchy and an unelected Senate, colonial relics more suited to the white Anglo-Saxon 19th century than the multicultural 21st.
We act too slowly, think too modestly, take offence too easily, give too little. We are more polite than nice. But we are loyal, decent, tolerant. For all the mistakes, injustices and indignities — on Indigenous people, Chinese immigrants, European Jews, Japanese Canadians, to name a few — some of us have been too hard on ourselves. For the most part, blessed with our natural bounty, we have been too contented. That has made us, as a people, more good than great.
Still, whatever our indecision or inertia, we have created a diverse, open, moderate, progressive country that has slowly detached itself from Great Britain. Since the Great War, we have won the right to conduct foreign affairs, to become Canadian citizens rather than British subjects, to give our high court the last word, to create our own flag, national anthem, and honours system. In our single greatest act of nation-building, we patriated the British North America Act and entrenched the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Along the way, we have tried to shed our self-deprecation. We are not small; we are the world’s second-largest country in size, its ninth-largest economy, and 37th in population.
Canada is not young, either, as philosopher John Ralston Saul reminds us. We have been an organized democracy since 1867, and practitioners of responsible government even longer. We have not had five republics like the French, three Reichs like the Germans, or suffered a wasting civil war like the Americans.
If we are big, old, and successful, shouldn’t we act like it? We are Canadians. Americans are our partners and friends, as we like to say, whether they like it or not. And if they want to break that bond, well, as Fleetwood Mac sings, “You can go your own way.”
For Canada in 2025, that means a new set of arrangements and a new agenda born of self-confidence. Our great national challenge is to turn anxiety into ambition and patriotism into purpose.
It means, over the next year and beyond, doing big things, as Mark Carney likes to ask of us. Diversifying trade that’s heavily dependent on the United States. Creating a real internal economic union. Investing in housing, health care, high-speed rail, energy, and the green economy. Rebuilding national defence as well as our diplomacy and development, giving us the credibility to return to the world, where we once made a difference.
On Canada Day 2025, we know who we are and where we must go. On Canada Day, 2026, we will know if we have the will and the imagination to get there.
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