Happy New Year to my fellow Canadians. As we are about to embark on a new journey in 2009 let's take a moment to look back at the past year in Canadian news. It's certainly been a year full of surprises.

Boxing Day means different things to different Canadians. For some it's Boxing Day sales. For others it's turkey leftovers. For others it's all about hockey - World Junior hockey.

Growing up the idea of whether or not we'd put snow tires on the car in the winter was laughable. Of course we did. We didn't just get snow tires, we had studded tires (which sadly are illegal in most of Ontario where I now live). We'd have been foolish not to put winter tires of some sort on our car when I was a kid because we lived in a very rural area. I've seen snow drifts as tall as our single level house and we consistently had several feet of snow for the entire winter. Now I'm not an automotive expert (ha! just ask my boyfriend how often I drive) but I have no problems stating that I think that everyone who drives in snow and ice should have winter tires.

It never seems to fail that if I am living in a city with transit, the transit workers will strike. Montreal went on strike in 2003 and that sucked. Toronto went on strike in 2006 and that sucked. And Ottawa is on strike right now and it really, really sucks. Surprisingly, this is the only strike I've been through where I have access to a car and I still have to say, it really sucks. Perhaps even more surprising is just how against the strike public opinion seems to be.

Canadian politics are boring? Canadian politics are not sensational? Pshaw! The last week has certainly thrown that notion out the window. Yes, Canada's 40th Parliament is proving to be a doozy. It's only been in session since November 18 and we've already seen the potential for another election, the potential for a coalition government made up of the minority parties and a lot of yelling. Now none of that is happening (at least not yet) because our Governor General has agreed to the Prime Minister's request that Parliament be prorogued. Translation? Parliament has been shut down for seven weeks so that everyone can get their act together, the Conservatives can deliver a budget and then we'll all be back to square one and looking at a vote of non-confidence.

Over at BlogHers Act Canada, we usually focus on two broad sets of issues: the environment and family health. This week, one of our writers opened up a discussion on something that has nothing to do with saving trees or cutting carbon emissions, and that is only tangentially related to health, but something that nonetheless demanded attention for the simple reason that we're women. And for women, the issue of hatred directed violently toward women always deserves and demands our attention.

It's beginning to look a lot like blog award time, at least if you are Canadian. Yes, the Canadian Blog Awards are back. The first round of voting started this week and the second round will be commence next week. The winners will have their names on the big screen! (Of your computer monitor that is.) And they'll have earned some major bragging rights with their friends and fellow bloggers.

I've often been told that it's unusual for someone my age to observe Remembrance Day the way I do. People assume that I must have close family ties to someone who served, and my grandfather did serve with the merchant marines, but that's not why. The best answer that I can think of is that I know and once you know you cannot unknow. I've read letters from the front, seen photos, heard stories. I've studied the maps, military strategies and politics. I've seen the tears of those that served as they remember the ones that aren't here with them. Every November 11 I step away from my life to stand outside in the cold, with a poppy on my coat, because I know.

Yesterday was - how do I say this without risking profound understatement?

As Pierre Elliot Trudeau said to an American audience in 1969, "Living next to you is like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt." America is not a beast but it cannot be denied that every twitch reverberates through Canada. The United States is our closest neighbour, largest trading partner and we share the longest undefended border in the world. We watch American elections with interest and fascination. American elections are so very different from Canadians elections. There's glitz and glamour. They are huge - larger than life almost. And no more have we felt this than this past October when our American neighbours were talking about an historic election and record voter turnout, while Canadians were facing an election they did not seem to want and forgot to vote in. We're jealous.

I trick-or-treated every single Halloween when I was a kid. While I frequently dreamed of costumes like ballerinas, fairy princesses, andok , fine, the A-Team, few of those ideas were practical. Any costume that I wore had to have the ability to be worn over a snowsuit or at minimum with a very warm sweater and jacket and maybe a tuque and mittens. Not much changed when I grew up and started going to bars to celebrate. I still had to get there first and seeing as taxis weren't so affordable jackets had to be donned. That's just Halloween in Canada.

Hey Canada, we've got a problem. It seems that last week, two in five of you didn't bother do a very simple task. You didn't put an "X" on a piece of paper. Two in five of you, my fellow Canadians, did not vote. I was in and out of my voting station in four minutes. I still would have done if it had taken me four hours. It's a duty. It's a right. It's something we're darned lucky to have. Yet 40.1 percent of you did. not. vote.