Dominion Day

[IditarodJoe]

Happy 150th to our good neighbors to the north!

[bruce]

Agree! Happy 150 birthday to the folks in Canada! Sincerely. bruce.

[Ken The Kanuck]

Thanks guys,

Your good wishes are most appreciated.

KTK

[JB White]

Belated Canada Day from me too. I have the 1967 set of coins, but I need to get the sesquicentennial proof set now. This time I'm not driving to the RCM in Ottawa to get it!

[Mark in Ottawa]

Thank you for your kind wishes

I live in Ottawa which is the epicentre for the celebrations and went downtown with my wife, daughter and granddaughter. What a zoo. The police were expecting several hundred thousand people in the core, near the Parliament Buildings with the official opening ceremony there in the early afternoon. Prince Charles was there with his wife along with a lot of other dignitaries. The authorities, however, were so worried about security, particularly some jihadi idiot with a truck that for several days they have been sealing off the downtown streets with dump trucks, snow plows and road graders to make them impassable to vehicles. In addition, to get into the core area you had to go through a screening process and then to get onto Parliament Hill you had to go through a second screening. The lineups were several thousand people long. There were obviously a lot of police around and to my observation they were trying very hard to be friendly and welcoming in spite of trying to keep the mobs away from the bus lanes; kudos to them. Lots and lots of children and a friendly very polite atmosphere with almost everybody dressed in red and white. In spite of the atmosphere it is known that the army set up an emergency field hospital "just in case" and that the anti-terrorist and riot squads were deployed nearby.