Why should I be proud?

I should probably let you all know, I WANT to be proud, I just can't find a reason to be.

Whatever floats your boat I guess. I don't like big cities, don't like crowds. When living in Kentucky, and even here in BC a bit, what I miss is elbow room. Plenty of that on the prairies where I grew up.

So I prefer a massive landmass dotted with towns to "major metopolis' left, right, and centre."

Like Regina said, live abroad, you get another perspective.

Well first off, America has ten times the population than us in a slightly smaller total land area that happens to be a lot mroe comfortable to acceptable human living conditions.

America has a larger than life feel to it because of their history. They want to try and be like their forefathers in the Revolution, and so will strive to be larger than life, whereas Canada's history, while extremely interesting and pride-instilling if taught correctly, has also been more "proper" and "Gentlemanly", because Canadians for most of our history have had strong roots and ties to our ancestors across the pond in England; Home of the Gentleman.

If you actually took a close look at Canada and even a fleeting glance at our history books will reveal that we are in fact larger than life, it's just that most people choose to be modest and unfortunately, have lost all interest.

Canada, since its discovery, has been a bloody battleground for everyone from the Vikings, to the French, to the British, to the Americans.

Pirates hiding in coves from Newfoundland and Labrador to Nova Scotia...Britain and France fighting over the control of Canada...the sacking of Montreal in 1775...Or how about when Natives, Frenchmen and Englishmen and Canadians alike banded together to fight a nation that outnumbered them ten to one and managed to fight them back...Or how a hundred or so Natives surrounded the fort of Detroit, started their war cry, and that cry alone made the General surrender the Fort without a fight...

And what of our national heroes? Sir Isaac Brock? Tecumseh? Sir Arthur Currie? Laura Secord? These people have helped make Canada what it is today.

And in more modern history, what of Tommy Douglas, the Father of Canadian Medicare? Or Terry Fox? Whose story touched millions and still continues to raise awareness about Cancer and receives millions of dollars in donations for Cancer reasearch? Sir Frederick Banting, who was the co-discoverer of insulin, which has helped save millions of lives?

Or what of our contributions to the wars of the 20th century? The Germans in WWI learned to fear the name "Canadian" and gave us many nicknames from the Red Devils, to Storm Troopers. The Germans never messed around and always pissed themeselves when they heard that the Canadians were coming. That's how badass we were...

In WWII, the Nazi's learned to fear us as well. At Dieppe, which was a colossal failure for Canadian forces, the victorious Nazi's said that they had expected more of a fight from the Canadians, because they knew that we were dangerous soldiers.

In Sicily and Italy, we advanced so fast at some points that our allies told us to slow down and stop kicking so much Nazi ass. And on D-Day, we were the only allied force to achieve all of its objectives and advanced further than any of the other allied forces that day, which created the Falaise Pocket, where Canadians had to wait for everyone else to catch up while simultaneously fighting back the "unbeatable" and fanatical SS and Hitler Youth.

As if that wasn't enough, we also ended up liberating Holland and most of the Netherlands, which is something today that is still remembered with the Tulip Festival and the Nijmenen Marches. On top of that, the Dutch Royal Family became refugees in Canada, and one of the Princesses was pregnant with a child, and Dutch law said that royalty must be born on Dutch soil. As a result, the Canadian Government temporarily seceded a wing of the Civic Hospital here in Ottawa to the Dutch, officially making it Dutch territory, so that the new princess would be born on Dutch soil.

In the Korean War, a handful of Canadians and Australians held back a large force of Chinese and North Koreans on a hill in the famous battle of Kap-Yong. By fighting off this force,w e prevented the Chinese and North Koreans from marching unopposed into Seoul, the Capital of South Korea. Were it not for our efforts there, South Korea would have fallen to the Communist forces of China and North Korea.

And from thereon, we felt that we had had enough of war, and so we invented peacekeeping, which has worked in some cases such as Cyprus, the Suez Crisis, and even Bosnia and Kosovo to a certain extent.

You should also be proud to come from a nation that accepted tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees escaping Vietnam after the Vietnam War. These people were found on crammed onto small boats floating in the Pacific.

And how can you not be proud of nation so diverse in its cultures and people and climate? From the frozen Archipelago of the Arctic, to the Dominating Mountains of the West, teh Rainforests of British Columbia, the deserts of the Osoyoos and Okanagan, the Alberta Badlands, the Prairies, the rolling hills and forests of the Canadian Shield, the green valleys and pastures of Southern Ontario, the Mountains of Quebec, and the surreal lanscape of the Maritimes. We have Cowboys, and First Nations, and Quebecois and Acadians, and people who haven't forgotten their Irish and Scottish roots out in the East.

To also hail from a nation that is world-reknowned for its artistry...From The Group of Seven to the beautiful stone and bone carvings of the Inuit, to the breath-taking crafts of the Haida on the West Coast...

To hail from the third nation in space, which is also still a significant contributor...

To hail from a nation that is a leader in robotics technology, telecommunications, and right now, the world's most sophisticated and advanced satellites and is also home to a homegrown aviation and transportation company that is the the world's third largest aviation company.

To hail from a nation that has given so much to so many, and asked for so little in return...That is why you should be proud...

Don;t get me wrong, I have nothing against Canada.

I'm a 20-something male from BC and I just feel so dry about this nation. I don;t mean to turn this into a "USA is better than Canada" ordeal (I'm sure you have had alot of that as it is), but whenever I cross into the US I always get this larger than life feel, that I'm entering a new and exciting world.

Being Canadian just makes me feel like a small blip on the radar. It's not even the relevancy (or lack thereof) this nation has in the world, it's also the fact that we are so small population wise. What I love about the US is that you have major metopolis' left, right, and centre. Canada you only have a line from east to west of a handful of large cities. This country feels so bare to me considering the size of it.

What also really hurts is how reliant we all are on US media, entertainment, ect. that fact that practically 90% of this county's culture revolves around what American show or movie we watch.

I should probably let you all know, I WANT to be proud, I just can't find a reason to be.

FYI, I already know about our healthcare, education and hockey, so you don't have to exlpain those to me.

Well first off, America has ten times the population than us in a slightly smaller total land area that happens to be a lot mroe comfortable to acceptable human living conditions.

America has a larger than life feel to it because of their history. They want to try and be like their forefathers in the Revolution, and so will strive to be larger than life, whereas Canada's history, while extremely interesting and pride-instilling if taught correctly, has also been more "proper" and "Gentlemanly", because Canadians for most of our history have had strong roots and ties to our ancestors across the pond in England; Home of the Gentleman.

If you actually took a close look at Canada and even a fleeting glance at our history books will reveal that we are in fact larger than life, it's just that most people choose to be modest and unfortunately, have lost all interest.

Canada, since its discovery, has been a bloody battleground for everyone from the Vikings, to the French, to the British, to the Americans.

Pirates hiding in coves from Newfoundland and Labrador to Nova Scotia...Britain and France fighting over the control of Canada...the sacking of Montreal in 1775...Or how about when Natives, Frenchmen and Englishmen and Canadians alike banded together to fight a nation that outnumbered them ten to one and managed to fight them back...Or how a hundred or so Natives surrounded the fort of Detroit, started their war cry, and that cry alone made the General surrender the Fort without a fight...

And what of our national heroes? Sir Isaac Brock? Tecumseh? Sir Arthur Currie? Laura Secord? These people have helped make Canada what it is today.

And in more modern history, what of Tommy Douglas, the Father of Canadian Medicare? Or Terry Fox? Whose story touched millions and still continues to raise awareness about Cancer and receives millions of dollars in donations for Cancer reasearch? Sir Frederick Banting, who was the co-discoverer of insulin, which has helped save millions of lives?

Or what of our contributions to the wars of the 20th century? The Germans in WWI learned to fear the name "Canadian" and gave us many nicknames from the Red Devils, to Storm Troopers. The Germans never messed around and always pissed themeselves when they heard that the Canadians were coming. That's how badass we were...

In WWII, the Nazi's learned to fear us as well. At Dieppe, which was a colossal failure for Canadian forces, the victorious Nazi's said that they had expected more of a fight from the Canadians, because they knew that we were dangerous soldiers.

In Sicily and Italy, we advanced so fast at some points that our allies told us to slow down and stop kicking so much Nazi ass. And on D-Day, we were the only allied force to achieve all of its objectives and advanced further than any of the other allied forces that day, which created the Falaise Pocket, where Canadians had to wait for everyone else to catch up while simultaneously fighting back the "unbeatable" and fanatical SS and Hitler Youth.

As if that wasn't enough, we also ended up liberating Holland and most of the Netherlands, which is something today that is still remembered with the Tulip Festival and the Nijmenen Marches. On top of that, the Dutch Royal Family became refugees in Canada, and one of the Princesses was pregnant with a child, and Dutch law said that royalty must be born on Dutch soil. As a result, the Canadian Government temporarily seceded a wing of the Civic Hospital here in Ottawa to the Dutch, officially making it Dutch territory, so that the new princess would be born on Dutch soil.

In the Korean War, a handful of Canadians and Australians held back a large force of Chinese and North Koreans on a hill in the famous battle of Kap-Yong. By fighting off this force,w e prevented the Chinese and North Koreans from marching unopposed into Seoul, the Capital of South Korea. Were it not for our efforts there, South Korea would have fallen to the Communist forces of China and North Korea.

And from thereon, we felt that we had had enough of war, and so we invented peacekeeping, which has worked in some cases such as Cyprus, the Suez Crisis, and even Bosnia and Kosovo to a certain extent.

You should also be proud to come from a nation that accepted tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees escaping Vietnam after the Vietnam War. These people were found on crammed onto small boats floating in the Pacific.

And how can you not be proud of nation so diverse in its cultures and people and climate? From the frozen Archipelago of the Arctic, to the Dominating Mountains of the West, teh Rainforests of British Columbia, the deserts of the Osoyoos and Okanagan, the Alberta Badlands, the Prairies, the rolling hills and forests of the Canadian Shield, the green valleys and pastures of Southern Ontario, the Mountains of Quebec, and the surreal lanscape of the Maritimes. We have Cowboys, and First Nations, and Quebecois and Acadians, and people who haven't forgotten their Irish and Scottish roots out in the East.

To also hail from a nation that is world-reknowned for its artistry...From The Group of Seven to the beautiful stone and bone carvings of the Inuit, to the breath-taking crafts of the Haida on the West Coast...

To hail from the third nation in space, which is also still a significant contributor...

To hail from a nation that is a leader in robotics technology, telecommunications, and right now, the world's most sophisticated and advanced satellites and is also home to a homegrown aviation and transportation company that is the the world's third largest aviation company.

To hail from a nation that has given so much to so many, and asked for so little in return...That is why you should be proud...