THIS IS CANADA
It’s Canada Day. And with everything going on in the world, the division, the noise, the anxiety about what tomorrow might bring, today feels like a good time to step back and talk about what makes this country not just good, but truly remarkable.
Because despite our differences, despite the debates, despite the long road still ahead there’s one thing that continues to unite us: being Canadian.
And being Canadian means more than a flag or a border. It means believing that the world can be better, and doing our quiet part to help make it so.
In 1921, in a modest lab in Toronto, two Canadians, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, discovered insulin. Before that, diabetes was a death sentence. With their breakthrough, they changed medicine forever. And in 1923, they sold the patent to the University of Toronto for just $1, saying, “Insulin does not belong to us. It belongs to the world.”
That’s Canada.
In Brantford, Ontario, a man named Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Yes, the telephone. The Americans like to claim it, because Bell later went to Boston to patent and commercialize it. But the invention itself? That spark of world-changing ingenuity? It happened here.
That’s Canada.
In 1956, as the world stood on the edge of another war, with Britain, France, and Israel invading Egypt after the nationalization of the Suez Canal, and the United States and Soviet Union dangerously opposed, a Canadian stepped up.
Lester B. Pearson, then Canada’s foreign minister, proposed something the world had never seen before: an international peacekeeping force known as the UNEF (United Nations Emergency Force). With Egypt’s consent, troops from Canada, India, and Norway and others were deployed to create a buffer zone. It worked. The conflict cooled, diplomacy returned, and a war was averted. For this, Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, the first ever awarded to a Canadian. He would later become Prime Minister.
That’s Canada.
And long before any of these moments, long before Confederation, the Mi’kmaq First Nation, on the land now called Nova Scotia, played a game of stick and ball on frozen ice. In 1875, the first official indoor hockey game was played in Montreal. Today, the world knows it as hockey, but it started here, shaped by both Indigenous tradition and Canadian passion.
That’s Canada.
We don’t have a perfect history. Far from it. But we are one of the only countries on Earth to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and we’ve become a global model for how to begin addressing the injustices committed against First Nations. We still have a long, long way to go. But the work has begun, and we won’t stop.
Because that, too, is Canada.
We are a country of quiet revolutionaries. Of humility and strength. Of insulin and peacekeeping, of inventions and apologies, of protest and patience. We lead not with dominance, but with empathy. Not with bluster, but with vision.
So today, whether you’re marching in the streets or reflecting in silence, whether you’re Indigenous, a newcomer, a settler, or all of the above, take a moment to be proud. Not of perfection, but of potential. Of the country we are still becoming.
This is Canada.
And the best of us is still ahead.
I agree, Cole, that the best of us is yet to come! Awesome post, thnx!
Well said!