So today is July 1, which for most of you probably signifies that a) the rent is due or b) it's only three more days until July 4th. However! for those of us who are Canadian it's also our national birthday. Happy Canada Day! We're now 141 years old. In light of this, and also because this half of FishbowlNY has been coming to you from just north of Toronto for the past ten days, we thought it might be fun to introduce our readers to a little Canadian media (Lara Logan, breathe easy!).

Anyway, in newspaper circles July 1 is also known as the day of great Canadian introspection OR what makes us not American. True to form, Canada's national paper the Globe and Mail is running a "Canada Day Quiz: Test your knowledge of Canadian and American history." The final result: we're "bad on both but worse on Canada." So much for CanCon, we guess.

Over at the Toronto Star the front page appears to be expressing gratitude and some amazement over the fact we still even exist: "141! Not too Shabby, Eh?" "We're still here," reads the first line followed by an encouraging editorial page full of op-ed pieces about why Canada, actually, is so great! Yep, business as usual up here in the apartment above the party. Because no matter how severely the States messes itself up, or how many badly thought out wars it gets itself into, no matter how intolerable the President, or how severe the navel-gazing, no matter that we have the kind natural resources that could make us a power house in the future (should we have that sort of foresight) we still want to be loved by you! Or at least recognized. Even though we are totally, completely different from you. We want you to pay attention to how different we are! It's exhausting. Anyway, Happy Canada Day. We're still here.