Canadian by choice...

Today is Canada Day.
On this day, loyal citizens and subjects of this Dominion celebrate it's birth, or more precisely confederation.
Canada is compound nation, in many ways like Australia or the USA. It is actually a grouping and alliance of smaller countries or  Provinces, once part of the biggest Empire to have ever graced this earth.

Unlike the United States, Canada was loyal to the Empire and was granted a transcontinental Dominion via Royal Decree under the B.N.A (British North America Act) of 1867, by her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria, DGR et IMP Ind. In fact, we fought AGAINST the insurrectionists of 1776.
It has often been said of Canada, in military circles, that we are 'Red Coats, or Red Skins - but never RED (leftist/revolutionary)'.
Unlike Australia, Canada was populated by willing immigrants - not indentured servants or prisoners. Later by and refugees from the American Wars and slavery to the south. Some historians would suggest that as much as a third of the populations of our Eastern Provinces (Man-NFLD) are descended from folks who fled the war and chaos of the American War of Insurrection (Revolutionary War), as it was known here; and also many more from the Northern States during the oppressive rule of President Madison, whose brutal taxation to fund campaigns against the Royal Navy and the Spanish Colonies drove them to seek settlement in the unsettled regions of South Western Ontario, and Western Quebec. One of our famous and loved heroines, Laura Secord, was just so. Born in Massachusetts and settled in Ontario, she is Canadian heroine of the war of 1812.
There is also a great deal of the Francophone population of Quebec that can trace their lines to the sacking of New Orleans and the military annexation of Louisiana, and the expulsions of their kin from Vermont. The Natives have an even greater debt to this land. Over 60% of natives in Ontario are descended from dispossessed tribes in lands now known as the states of Michigan and Illinois, and remnants of the Eastern bands which had been pushed west by settlers from the '13 colonies'. These bands formed a massive confederation that allied themselves famously with Gen Sir Isaac Brock, and defeated the Yankee forces and Kentuckian Mercenaries at Queenston Heights, and later at Stoney Creek - to win the war of 1812 in North America, and allow our nation to continue to exist as independent provinces, and eventually become Canada. And of course there was the slaves. Tens of thousands of them would flee slavery in the southern US states and make their way to Canada. Although slavery was illegal in the Northern United States by the time of the US civil war, they were not welcomed there and were often hunted down. In Canada they could get a land grant and settle, or they could work for passage to the British Caribbean Islands; there was safety and something as close to freedom as a black person could get in those years.
In fact, when it comes to slavery Canadians have a record we should be proud of.
The sheer LACK of slavery in this nation's colonial period is astounding, and almost unique. The handful of African slaves that were owned in the Provinces that deemed it legal, were owned by the wealthiest people. Settlers did not abide the practice, and in Upper and Lower Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) the practice and it's owners were shunned and punished (fines and taxes) as early as the 1760's, so that by the time Upper Canada achieved it's own courts and constitution (The Quebec Act 1774) the practice had virtually vanished and was deemed a 'criminal blasphemy'. In 1830 the British Empire banned the practice all together forcing the last slave traders in ALL of what we call modern Canada (West Coast Natives) to abandon their practice, or face the legal consequences, which could include hanging.  By the 1840's even native slaving was stamped out.
Canada has also been a traditional pioneer in women's rights, medicine, and technology.
Canadians distinguished themselves in both World Wars as some of the most rugged and determined soldiers, sailors and airmen in those conflicts. Today we still hold our own. Despite being screwed out of our Security Council seat by the EU (on order to weaken NATO), we hold a very special position in the ONLY alliance that matters anymore: The North Atlantic Treaty Org.
Canadians are a tough, intelligent, and loyal bunch. Anyone who has met them, worked with them, and lived among them can attest to this.
I came to Canada as a lad, from England. An immigrant like so many of us. It took years for the pronunciations to change, for my feeling of 'home' to relocate; but, it happened. I am now a TOM - EH - TO guy, rather than a TOM-AH-TO bloke. Although, I will eat either :P
I may have been born in the cradle of the Empire and modern civilization, and I may have lived for many years in the 'Land of the Brave', and BOTH those lands remain dear to me - especially England -but, I made my home and put down roots in the true North Strong and FREE. I have a beautiful Canadian wife I love more each day, and a Canadian son who instills more pride than all the History above. Here is my home.
I will always be British even if of the North American variety, and ENGLISH by birth, BUT I am Canadian BY CHOICE.
Happy Canada Day to all the Canucks and their friends around the world!
And a GREAT summer to all!