COOL, EH?

Showing A Plucky Independence With Its Tolerance And Diversity, Canada
Has Never Been More Hip

Happy Canada Day! Yes, it was just 136 years ago today that Canada signed
its first constitution. True, it took our north-of-the-border friends
another 64 years to break free of their colonial masters in London, but
we're here to celebrate, not criticize.

Remember when Canada was just plain cold? Think Farley Mowat chasing wolves
across ice floes. Think goalie Gump Worsley clogging up the goalmouth for
the Montreal Canadiens. Think of Canada's unflattering nickname: ''Snow
Mexico.''

That was then. Now Canada has gone from cold to cool. Call it global
zeitgeist warming. It may be the coolest place on earth. Canada is what
Cambridge would like to be: ethnically diverse, tolerant, committed to
public transportation. And it's becoming the most permissive place on
earth, west of Stockholm. You can buy all the pot you need in
''Vansterdam'' -- Vancouver -- a city so hip that Seattle grungies trek
northward just to savor its heady melange of multicultural fusion. Needle
exchange programs? Canada's got 'em. Pretty soon they will be adding their
own full-service heroin dens: Vancouver will host the first ''safe
injection site'' for drug addicts anywhere in North America.

Would you like a same-sex marriage? No need to travel to the barren shores
of Lake Champlain in Vermont to sample former governor Howard Dean's
half-baked ''civil unions'' compromise. The Canadian government is
committed to full marital parity for gays and straights.

Got universal health care? Sure do, eh? Got cheap prescription drugs? So
cheap the Yankee pillpoppers are shuffling north from Buffalo.

Did you see the movie ''Chicago''? They should have called it ''Toronto.''
It was filmed there, as are an alarmingly large number of Hollywood movies.

If you don't feel like being part of the cheering section for the Coalition
of the Willing, come on up! South of Sault Ste. Marie, if you oppose George
Bush's Iraqi adventure, John Ashcroft is writing down your name, and he's
marking it twice. In Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chretien's

speaking out on Operation Iraqi Freedom prompted Bush to cancel a summit.
So what does Chretien do? He jets to the Dominican Republic to play golf
with Bill Clinton -- who happens to have been keeping company with a
billionaire bombshell, 36-year-old Toronto auto parts magnate Belinda
Stronach, according to the CanWest News Service. What kind of country has a
30-something auto parts magnate who looks like the young Meryl Streep? Our
kind of country, we say.

So Happy Canada Day, esteemed northern neighbors. You're cool and you know it.