Saturday, July 1, 2006 marked 139 years of the formation of Canada's Federal Government. Note my emphasis here: Canada as a nation existed before July 1, 1867, but there doesn't seem to be a cut-and-dried date at which Canada declared itself as happened in the American Colonies on July 4, 1776. Perhaps Canadians would consider the September 1864 Charlottetown Conference as being their time of officially obtaining the spirit, if not the legal substance, of nationhood. It's worth noting that while Americans observe Independence Day as being the birth of the United States as a nation, the actual implementation of the United States Federal Government as we know it did not actually occur until the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, and the effective date of the U.S. Government actually being March 4, 1789. On Canada Day 2006, yours truly traveled early in the morning from the Seattle area to a few Canada Day observances in the British Columbia Lower Mainl...
