Happy Canada Day – the BNA is Canada’s DNA

 

July 1st is the 150th anniversary of the British North American Act, or BNA. The BNA is Canada’s DNA. It transformed 650 years of British parliamentary democracy designed for a small island in the old world into a vast new federation in the new one. It needed no high-minded ideals about rights and freedoms because it was understood that Canadians would inherit the great premiums of the Magna Carta: freedom from arbitrary arrest and confiscation; freedom from taxation without representation; freedom of speech, belief, and enterprise; jury trials; an elected Parliament.

    As Wilfrid Laurier, our first Franco-Canada prime minister, said, “France gave us life; Britain gave us liberty.”

    Let us celebrate these ancient liberties and the prosperity and freedom they have allowed us to enjoy for over a century and a half.