each year, in the run-up to Canada ...

each year, in the run-up to Canada Day, my office calls the various Canadian expatriate collections here in London to confirm their plans for the festivities. Their affairs are then publicised in our newspaper, which caters to Canadians living in Britain.

Among these annual commemorative conclusions is a Canada Day thanksgiving prayer service at the independent Church of Scotland in Covent Garden which, this year, has been cancelled. The reason? Poor attendance. that not readers be tempted to view this as a sign of expat indifference to the day itself, consider this: last July 1 more than 4000 Canadians inflected ...