Bless Canada for its awkward charms.

While July 1 should mark the day my nationalism swells, it’s usually kept at bay by fashion faux pas, like Maple Leaf top-hats and body paint.

Online quizzes picturing our country’s most notoriously drunk founding father just irritate, and proclamations of our civil and plodding nature seem too sentimental—especially in a time where a bit of political chutzpa would be handy.

Then, a few short days later the pomp and circumstance of American Independence Day takes over the TV and I get mushy over the true north strong and free.

For 24 hours, every pop songstress with a pair of sequined hot pants will brutalize eardrums with renditions of the Star Spangle Banner. Cameras will pan over crowds of citizens weeping to the sound—not for the obvious reason—and border-line frightening political bravado will re-energize the image of the fading American dream. That same dream which ultimately plunged them, with the rest of the world in tow, into financial disarray.

To me those bombastic outpourings are a reminder that we, north of the border, are unique and, at the risk of sounding like a sap, special.

It’s easy to forget though. We walk the same, talk the same and for all the chest thumping about how our banks behaved more sensibly leading into the global financial meltdown, we’re struggling the same.

So, how did we manage to keep that little slice of Canadiana marked by good manners and maple syrup?

Maybe it’s like the PM said in his Canada Day speech: we “are a strong and resilient people.” Not exactly a battle cry, but those don’t belong here anyway.

Or maybe it’s because we have been on high alert about our fading national identity for the better part of a century.

Based on a hodge podge of colonialism and multiculturalism, the best way Canada has defined itself has been by what it isn’t.

And after that whole British rule thing was squared away that thing-we-aren’t became, American.

Need evidence? Remember some of the best Canadian television that ever aired?

No, not when Degrassi Junior High alum Spike got knocked up, bringing the first teenage pregnancy to prime time TV—though it’s notable.

By the estimation of this TV aficionado, our Canadian-ness was best defined back when This Hour Has 22-Minutes regularly treated us to a bittersweet dose of us-and-them.

Some of the highlights included Rick Mercer convincing a Princeton University professor to sign a petition against the re-starting of the clearly-fictitious Annual Toronto Polar Bear Hunt and in an election 2000 segment, he convinced George W. Bush that the then PM Jean Chrétien was named Jean Poutine.

Those episodes gave us reason to be smug, yet humbly acknowledge we clearly aren’t the ones dominating this continent.

It’s an odd and unique role to play, but like the PM said, I think it’s made us pretty resilient—especially to sequins and hotpants.