One thing we’ve done to celebrate Canada Day 2015 is post C.M.W. Marcel’s long awaited report on the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s visit to what is now Ontario in the summer of 1615.  ( See “Huronia/Wendake 2015” above and/or CLICK HERE.)

Meanwhile, Happy Canada Day 2015 – a year when there “has never been an election campaign like the one on which we are now embarked. There’s a weird fin-de-siècle glow in the air, a sense of things coming unstuck, old certainties uprooted. Policies, parties, institutions, everything is in flux, to a degree I cannot recall any precedent for” (Andrew Coyne).

Another thing some of us have done today is walk to the Q107 Canada Day Picnic, at Woodbine Park in the east end of the old city of Toronto (before Mike Harris created the megacity monstrosity and all that) … And we have noticed in the process that sometimes governments actually do the right thing. Beliebe it or not!

Those of us who live in “the Beach” or “the Beaches,” eg (esp “south of Queen,” in the houses we bought back in the 1970s, when they were cheap as dirt etc ), have long complained about the deteriorating boardwalk at the foot of our streets.

But today, walking west to Woodbine Park by way of Woodbine Beach (where the great unwashed of Toronto who have no cottages up north etc, erect their umbrellas, tents, and outdoor kitchens on holidays) we discovered that, suddenly at Kippendavie Avenue, just east of Woodbine, the boardwalk is in good repair – all new boards and all that! And this carries on westward, past the endless volleyball courts and beyond, more or less all the way to Ashbridges’ Bay.

And it does make sense … Woodbine Beach, west of Kippendavie to Ashbridges’ Bay, is where the free and democratic people assemble en masse, every weekend during the summer and especially on public holidays.

Kew and Balmy beaches, where people like us live, are just places where a few old guys (or very young families) go for a stroll in the late afternoon or early evening. In a time of financial restraint the boardwalk can be left in a state of ill repair for these purposes. It is the much larger numbers of diverse real people at Woodbine Beach who need and deserve a boardwalk in good repair most.

And it is a sign of what a good country Canada still is that the local government looks after the people at Woodbine Beach first! So … Happy Canada Day indeed. As the mayor says, it’s not perfect, but we are all very lucky to live here. Even if some of us still don’t quite see this yet! (Or still aren’t really paying attention??)