How do Canadians celebrate Canada Day?

As you are American, I will use your country as a comparison. I echo Jim B's comments completely. And go a bit further on the crime thing: I live in the Yukon, and many people here don't even have locks on their doors - we can't lock our houses up even if we wanted to.

Literally! Crime is very, very rare here. There was a recent question on how often police here need to shoot their guns; I answered that they rarely even take them out of their holsters.

Randy B, who is a cop, answered that he did so once in his 26 years of policing. Americans talk about being "free" - but, they are prisoners in their own homes. Canadians really are free.

The race thing is a biggie as well. There is racism in Canada, but it is NOTHING like in the USA. There are no "ghettos" here - no racial enclaves with blacks in one part of a city, and whites in another.

That just doesn't happen. Inter-racial couples are common, and no-one even comments on them. I live in a place that is about 1/3 native, and it can be hard to tell who is who after all the inter-marriages.

So, we don't worry about it. Again, more freedom - you are free to live where you like, and marry who you like, and race doesn't matter. The health care thing is important - health care in Canada is a service, not a business.

We take care of each other in ways Americans just don't seem to understand. We value our children, and old people - and, make sure they, like everyone else, has access to medicine. We are healthier than Americans, live longer - and it costs the country per capita about 1/2 of what it costs Americans.

We have space. That can be good, or bad, depending on your point of view! I is at least a 6 hour drive to the nearest city for me, and that only has 26,000 people.

On the way are 3 villages, of 40, 150, and 400 people. That's it. The rest is wilderness.

I love that - although a city person might not! About 85% of Canadians live in cities, so there is a lot of empty space in Canada - and, we like it that way. I like how our banks are very stable, and truly national.

In the USA, a "national" bank just follows Federal rules. There may be only one branch. In Canada, banks are national in that you can do your banking anywhere in the country - branches of the same bank work like one big bank.

I like how we are international - but, how we can keep a bit of what we were and still be Canadian. That's why there are more pipe bands here than in Scotland, and you can find East Indians and Caribbean immigrants playing cricket, GreekFest in Ottawa is fabulous, you can be born, live, work, and die all in Chinese in Vancouver (well, you need to pass English 12 to graduate school there, but you can do everything else in Chinese speaking schools) - and still be Canadian. Once, when I was in the military, we were talking about immigration over lunch.

Of the 13 or so guys in the room, at least 8 were immigrants - all proudly serving Queen and Country. Another thing - we have a Queen! The Queen of Canada acts to keep us having very stable government, with none of the fuss about changing every 4 years like in the States.

We did become fully independent of the UK (we have the same Queen, but the Crowns are legally distinct), and we did it without war, or any fuss at all. And, we've yet to start a war. We fight like demons when we need to - we are amongst the very best soldiers in the world, man for man, but, in peacetime, our military is tiny.

And, we are friends with just about every country in the world!

Its clean, quiet, and polite, with a stable economy, no bank failures, and few enemies. I live in the largest city in Canada, and I'm not afraid to WALK anywhere in the city ,at any time of the day or night I live in a six story apt building, and I know 90 percent of the people who live here by their first names. The nearest subway station is two blocks away, and I can walk there in 5 minutes.

The main street that I walk along is filled with small business stores, and a great selction of ethnic cafes and bars......Thai, Mexican, Russian, Phillipino, Greek, Italian, Portugese, and so on. In a mile radious we have over 40 to choose from. I've never been a crime vicitim in my 64 years.

I've never had my car broken into or stolen. I have acted to HELP Police, when a female officer was struggling to subdue a drunk who had her down on the ground and was trying to take her hand gun out of her holster. I choked him out and called for help on her portable radio.

She suffered a broken jaw and serious cuts to her face, when he kicked her as she was on the gound. He got 7 years in the pen for that sillyness. I got a civillian citation from the Chief of Police.

Toronto is a city that works, and unlike the USA people WANT to live downtown here, so that encourages others to be out and about at all times of the day and night. It also creates the need to provide parks, schools and shopping centres and public transit, all of which are a further reson that the city is thriving. Jim b.

Toronto.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.