Although Colin Pugh of the Canadian Club (actually born a Brit) is an agreeable and helpful man, it’s proved difficult to interview a sample of the club’s members in order to profile the community. One of us was invited to a Happy (sic) Hour in Monaco where even the mildest of queries was greeted with open suspicion. Well, that’s Monaco for you, but even elsewhere we found Canadians were often reluctant to discuss their backgrounds and – unusual this – to seek out their fellow countrymen. The Honorary Consul here asked me to send her written questions ... but never offered me any answers. 

Perhaps, in the now well-known American phrase, they prefer “bowling alone”. Well, we’ll think of them on July the 1st, that’s Canada Day (Dominion Day until 1982) when Canucks worldwide are supposed to feel, even in solitude, that “true patriot love” spoken of in their national anthem. It’s got a good tune, by the way, written – like the original lyrics – by a French Canadian. The current English version only dates from 1968 and it was another dozen years later before O Canada became the country’s official anthem, replacing God Save the Queen, now relegated to the obscure status of “royal anthem”.
 

From Reporter 115 - June/July 2006

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