One of the qualities we most admire in Canadians is our ability to laugh at ourselves. We believe that, deep down, most of us know we live in a great country but don’t need to broadcast our patriotism with tub-thumping, hands-on-heart rhetoric.

In that spirit, we’re celebrating Canada Day with quotable quotes about the true north strong and free:

“Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it’s doing in the Maritimes.” – Tommy Douglas

“The beaver, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off its own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees.” – June Callwood

“Canadians are generally indistinguishable from Americans, and the surest way of telling the two apart is to make that observation to a Canadian.” – Richart Staines

“In any world menu, Canada must be the vichyssoise of nations – it’s cold, half-French and difficult to stir.” – Stu Keate

“A Canadian is an unarmed American with health care.” – John Wing

“There are few, if any, Canadian men that have not spelled their name in a snowbank.” – Douglas Copeland.

“I’m not going to play politics on the floor of the House of Commons.” – John Turner

“Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.” – Pierre Elliott Trudeau

“What is a Canadian? A Canadian is a fellow wearing English tweeds, a Hong Kong shirt and Spanish shoes who sips Brazilian coffee from a German cup while nibbling Swiss cheese, sitting at a Danish desk over a Persian rug, after coming home in a German car from an Italian movie who then writes his MP with a Japanese ballpoint pen demanding that he do something about foreigners taking away our Canadian jobs.” – Anonymous

Happy Canada Day! Bonne Fete du Canada!

W.F.