Happy Sir John A. Macdonald Day!

 
Sir John A. Macdonald became the very first Prime Minister of Canada on July 1, 1867. He is one of the Fathers of Confederation. (There were no mothers back then.)

Sir John A. was a hard-working, hard-drinking immigrant. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1815 and he celebrated his birthday on January 11th. There are many stories about his drinking. Here's what Wikipedia says,

Macdonald was well known for his wit and also for his alcoholism. He is known to have been drunk for many of his debates in parliament. Two apocryphal stories are commonly repeated; the first describing an election debate in which Macdonald was so drunk he began vomiting violently on stage while his opponent was speaking. Picking himself up Macdonald told the crowd, "see how my opponent's ideas disgust me." The second version has Macdonald responding to his opponent's query of his drunkenness with "It goes to show that I would rather have a drunk Conservative than a sober Liberal."

In typical Canadian fashion, we honour our most famous Canadian (he's on the $10 bill) by going off to work. There's no holiday for Canadians on January 11th. You celebrate by raising a glass of scotch when you get home in the evening, or maybe at lunch.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that our government at least gives us a day off to celebrate the birthdays of two other famous people: Queen Victoria and Jesus. But they're not Canadians.