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| Our National Athem |
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O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada, We stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. (French) O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux, Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux. Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, Il sait porter la croix. Ton histoire est une épopée, Des plus brillants exploits. Et ta valeur, de foi trempée, Protégera nos foyers et nos droits. Protégera nos foyers et nos droits. |
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| Canada, the land of ice and snow, only one season, mountains, forests, hockey; mounties in red
coats dashing about on horses always getting their man; cowboys and indians; live in igloos and
travel with dog sleds; lumberjacks, fur traders, fishermen, miners, farmers; very neat, quiet,
peaceful and polite but boring non-technical people who continually preface or end sentences with “Eh”; Royal subjects who pay taxes to the Queen; always obey and not question laws; no culture; everyone speaks French and wants to become the 51st state of the U-Ess-of-A; eat walrus and burgers with a Coca-Cola chaser, guzzle beer; told we’re exactly like Americans by Americans, etc., etc., etc. Okey-Dokey. Here is the real Canada and Canadians: We do have ice and snow, and sometimes more snow than we really would like, but we also have 3 other distinct seasons, spring (mud), summer (gonna fry me some eggs on the sidewalk) and fall (get out the leaf blower!). Each season can be down-right cold or so warm you think the scientists are right, our old globe is getting too hot to handle, weather-wise that is. I have seen frost in July and 75F in February here in Ontario, both rarities, but have experienced 40F below Zero in the winter and 110F in the summer, sometimes for weeks. Our Territories, Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut, do have mountains, snow and ice, but they have 4 seasons also, sometimes very warm, sometimes brass monkeys had better be careful. In lower British Columbia, their temperatures are more moderate, rain, rain and once in a blue moon, they do have snow which puts them in a bit of a tizzy as they don’t have the big snow-moving machines like the rest of the country. Think they use a curling broom and a dustpan instead. Mountains, yes, we do have them, mainly in British Columbia, Alberta and Yukon, the beautiful Rockies. We also have older and smaller mountain ranges in Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Our smallest province Prince Edward Island only has rolling hills. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are our prairie provinces where that dust cloud stirred up by the huge tractor, seemingly in the next concession, is still no closer after an hour’s drive. We do have forests, but we also have large cities–Toronto has over 4 million; Montréal, over 3 million; Vancouver, nearly 2 million and Ottawa, 1 million. Many villages, towns and smaller cities hug the world’s longest undefended border, shared with the U-Ess-of-A, living not in igloos or tents, but in homes of brick, stone, or wood. We travel in cars, trucks, trains and planes, sometimes on snowmobiles (ski-dos which, by the way, were invented in Canada) or ATVs. Usually only see dog-sleds in magazines, on TV or U-Ess-of-A’s movies, never driven or ridden one. Seeing or living in an igloo, ditto. Hockey, another Canadian invention. Well, I do admit it does seem to be our national sport and passion, but there is also Lacross (Yep. Invented that too), curling (Scots lay claim to that), baseball (Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series and because of a baseball strike in the following 3rd season and no games, ended up holding that title for 3 years. Go Jays Go), basketball (contrary to wide-spread belief, mainly in the U-Ess-of A, basketball was invented, not by an American, but by a Canadian, James Naismith while a physical education instructor at an American college), football (a faster game than American football), soccer, golf (Yay, Mike Weir) and horse racing (Remember Northern Dancer?). Mounties in red coats on horseback, the classic Canadian symbol, known world-wide. Sorry, while the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) do wear the red jacket, that is only for formal occasions. Their working uniform is dark blue. Very few ride horses, except for the Musical Ride and only a select few are chosen for that which again is only for special functions. It is a grand sight to see. Not all provinces have the RCMP as their police force, Ontario has Ontario Provincial Police and Québec, Sûreté du Québec. The RCMP is our federal force, much like the FBI, and that includes all of Canada. None are Dudley-Do-Rights, some don’t get their man, not all are men as women are on the force also, just as they are in the rest of Canada’s police forces. Lumberjacks, fur traders, fishermen, miners, farmers...very few nowadays. Lumber trade has been slashed due to high tariffs placed by trading partner, U-Ess-of-A, environmentalists driving out the fur traders and lumberjacks, too many endangered fish (cod) harvested by huge foreign trawlers, mines closed and the small family farms, once the backbone of our country, lost to too much government interference and laws, too little money and factory farms taking over. Progress can be a pain sometimes. Cowboys and Indians. Of Canada's 700,000 Natives, about 46,000 are of Inuit ancestry, 295,000 are of Metis heritage and 358,000 are of Indian descent, Mohawk, Algonquin, Iroquois, Ojibwe, Cree, Ottawa tribes to name a few. There are still cowboys, mostly in Alberta, but like the RCMP, they rarely ride horses, using trucks, jeeps, ATVs, snowmobiles or planes instead. Once a year Calgary, Alberta, has the Stampede where cowboys and indians ride once again. We do seem to be a neat and tidy country for the most part, but then, we don’t have the huge population of others. We are about the tenth of U-Ess-of-A’s, around 33 million, so our “slob” quotient is not as high. Quiet and polite Canadians are not at hockey games, in our Parliament (you should see the shouting matches) or the occasional riot. The latter we have had, we just don’t mention too much of that dark side. Our Canadian armed forces seem to have become more forces for peace in the last few years, but they also have been at the forefront of several wars, First and Second World War, and Korea (officially that was an UN Police Action), while in smaller numbers in Vietnam (Canadians joined the U-Ess-of-A’s army), the Gulf War, Afghanistan and a few unofficially in Iraq. In the First World War, Canadian troops became known by the enemy to be extremely hard fighters, and if they were in the front lines of the oncoming engagement, the enemy knew it was going to be a long, difficult fight. As many of the Canadian soldiers were farm boys and used to rifles, they were excellent snipers. With a population of less than 8 million in 1911, almost 620,000 Canadians served, 66,000 died during 1914-1918 Great War, a generation of young men nearly wiped out. The population had grown to over 11 million by 1939 when the Second World War was declared, more than a million served, about 45,000 died. Canadians are peace-loving, but do not threaten our country. We have tossed out the U-Ess-of-A’s forces more than once. We still feel the sting of having lost our homes during the American Revolution and forced to flee to Canada, but like many a sad beginning, with the end result of becoming a new country, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Like the U-Ess-of-A, we love our country, we just don’t talk about it as much. As for being non-technical, we do have telephones (have the record for being the highest users of telephones in the world..well, we may be quiet but we like to chat, mainly about the weather), TVs (our major networks are CBC, CTV and Global), radios, computers and satellites. Many of the modern conveniences have been invented by Canadians or in Canada, including the telephone, gas mask, ginger ale, Jolly Jumper, IMAX, pablum, pacemaker, paint roller, calking gun, radio transmitter (1906), zambonis, zipper and velcro. Insulin for diabetes treatment was found by Canadian doctors, Frederick Banting, Charles Best and Collip. Our Health Care system is the envy of the world. We do say Eh, but not as much as other countries believe. I have been told I don’t sound like a Canadian when I don’t use Eh at all while in conversion with an American. That is my intentional choice; at home I can toss an Eh around like a ping pong ball with the best of my fellow Canucks. Also, while French and English are the official languages, many of us do not speak one or the other, but some can speak both. Our country is settled by people from many different countries, making for a mosaic of languages. A few have suggested we join the U-Ess-of-A as a 51st state, but the majority of Canadians are happy to be a separate country, even if one or two provinces would like to be their own sovereign nation on the odd occasion. We all have our family spats. We are not Royal subjects and do not pay taxes to the Queen. I have had one or two “discussions” with American friends who told me that Canadians do pay taxes to the Queen. Again the answer is No. While Canada does acknowledge the Queen, (represented by the Governor General) and under law we need "royal assent' for our bills to become law - Canada is it's own country, the royal assent is only a formality. We are a "Constitutional Monarchy" - that is we have our own constitution and we acknowledge the Queen as a figurehead - but that's where it ends. Canada makes it's own laws and it is in no way dependant on Britain for laws or governing the country. We belong to the Commonwealth, but again that does not directly affect our running of Canada. The only time money comes out of our taxes regarding the Royalty is when the Queen comes to visit and we pay the expenses of her tour as she is our guest. Do we always obey the law and the government? Case in point. Our government decided everyone has to register their guns, rifles, hand-guns, etc. The registry was supposed to be up and running by 2000 or there about, costing a million or so dollars. To punish those who didn’t register, the government said fines and or jail (up to 10 years). It is now 2009, the registry is short 500,000+ registrants, including many farmers who just want their rifles to shoot varmints, is nearly two billion dollars in debt, has extended the deadlines numerous times, six provinces have refused to prosecute those failing to register, still can’t get those pesky Canucks to obey the law and no one has paid a fine or in jail, although some non-registrants have wanted to go to court as a challenge to the legality of that law. Nope. Don’t say OK all the time. Culture. Yep, despite rumours to the contrary, we do have that. Ballet companies, music (symphonies in all major cities), film industry, to name just a few. Canadian actors, singers, artists and authors are well-known, including Mary Pickford, Wm. Shatner, Raymond Burr, Shania Twain, The Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Leacock, Lucy Maude Montgomery, Farley Mowat, Mordecai Richler, Robert W. Service. Our diet does not consist of walrus, beer, burgers or Coca-Cola. We do love Tim Horton’s (coffee and donut shop chain, started by Maple Leaf player Tim Horton), poutine (a dish of fries, covered in gravy and lots of cheese which was accidentally started in Québec by restaurant owner Fernand Lachance when he upset the separate ingredients in a customer’s order bag), Beaver Tails (no, not really beaver tails, is a sweet pastry), Kraft dinners (another Canadian record, we eat the most Kraft dinners in the world, but usually not while chatting on the phone), and BBQ’d beef hamburgers, sometimes with a beer or pop (Molson Canadian beer, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Canada Dry Gingerale, President’s Choice colas). Like dog sleds and igloos, I have never indulged in walrus meat. Being a little adventurous, I’d be willing to sample. Now, here is an American’s take on us wild Canucks. |
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| An American perspective on Canada ...
By Samantha Bennett Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Published: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 You live next door to a clean-cut, quiet guy. He never plays loud music or throws raucous parties. He doesn't gossip over the fence, just smiles politely and offers you some tomatoes. His lawn is cared-for, his house is neat as a pin and you get the feeling he doesn't always lock his front door. He wears Dockers. You hardly know he's there. And then one day you discover that he has pot in his basement, spends his weekends at peace marches and that guy you've seen mowing the yard is his spouse. Allow me to introduce Canada. The Canadians are so quiet that you may have forgotten they're up there, but they've been busy doing some surprising things. It's like discovering that the mice you are dimly aware of in your attic have been building an espresso machine. Did you realize, for example, that our reliable little tag-along brother never joined the Coalition of the Willing? Canada wasn't willing, as it turns out, to join the fun in Iraq. I can only assume American diner menus weren't angrily changed to include "freedom bacon," because nobody here eats the stuff anyway. And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana. Parliament is considering legislation that would not exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket. This is to allow law enforcement to concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather than trying to swat every individual bug. Or, in the United States, bong. Now, here's the part that I, as an American, can't understand. These poor benighted pinkos are doing everything wrong. They have a drug problem: Marijuana offenses have doubled since 1991. And Canada has strict gun control laws, which means that the criminals must all be heavily armed, the law-abiding civilians helpless and the government on the verge of a massive confiscation campaign. (The laws have been in place since the '70s, but I'm sure the government will get around to the confiscation eventually.) They don't even have a death penalty! And yet .. nationally, overall crime in Canada has been declining since 1991. Violent crimes fell 13 percent in 2002. Of course, there are still crimes committed with guns -- brought in from the United States, which has become the major illegal weapons supplier for all of North America --but my theory is that the surge in pot-smoking has rendered most criminals too relaxed to commit violent crimes. They're probably more focussed on shoplifting boxes of Ho-Hos from convenience stores. And then there's the most reckless move of all: Just last month, Canada decided to allow and recognize same-sex marriages. Merciful moose, what can they be thinking? Will there be married Mounties (they always get their man!)? Dudley Do-Right was sweet on Nell, not Mel! We must be the only ones who really care about families. Not enough to make sure they all have health insurance, of course, but more than those libertines up north. This sort of behavior is a clear and present danger to all our stereotypes about Canada. It's supposed to be a cold, wholesome country of polite, beer-drinking hockey players, not founded by freedom-fighters in a bloody revolution but quietly assembled by loyalists and royalists more nterested in order and good government than liberty and independence. But if we are the rugged individualists, why do we spend so much of our time trying to get everyone to march in lockstep? And if Canadians are so reserved and moderate, why are they so progressive about letting people do what they want to? Canadians are, as a nation, less religious than we are, according to polls. As a result, Canada's government isn't influenced by large, well-organized religious groups and thus has more in common with those of Scandinavia than those of the United States, or, say, Iran. Canada signed the Kyoto global warming treaty, lets 19-year-olds drink, has more of its population living in urban areas and accepts more immigrants per capita than the United States. These are all things we've been told will wreck our society. But I guess Canadians are different, because theirs seems oddly sound. Like teenagers, we fiercely idolize individual freedom but really demand that everyone be the same. But the Canadians seem more adult -- more secure. They aren't afraid of foreigners. They aren't afraid of homosexuality. Most of all, they're not afraid of each other. I wonder if America will ever be that cool. |
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| Canadian House of Parliament
Affectionately Known As The Hill |
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| Canadian Parliament
1916 Fire |
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| After The Fire |
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| Ottawa Tulip Festival
Queen Julianna and her family were sent to Ottawa by the Netherlands during WW2 occupation. Her daughter Margaret was born in a special room designated as Dutch Territory. As a token of thanks from the Dutch Royal Family, every year 20,000 tulips are planted in Ottawa in the late Queen Julianna's name. A deep and lasting bond between our two countries. |
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| An Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define
what a Canadian is, so they would know one when they found one.
A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan. A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians. A Canadian's religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan . The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God. A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness. A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return. Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds. But they also welcome the least - the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected. These are the people who built Canada. You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbor. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian. |
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| Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:
Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph LONDON - Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again. That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of eleven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle. Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.' The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity. So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia. Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular only-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit. So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well. |
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| Afghanistan |
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| Homeward Bound |
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| Highway of Heroes
Trenton, ON to Toronto, ON Hwy 401 |
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| THE
I AM CANADIAN RANT Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader, and I don't live in an igloo, or eat blubber or own a dogsled. And I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice. I have a prime minister... not a president, I speak English and French, not American and I pronounce it About, not A-boot. I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack, I believe in peacekeeping, not policing, diversity not assimilation, and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal. A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch, and it IS pronounced Zed, not Zee... ZED!! Canada is the 2nd largest land mass, the 1st nation of hockey, and the best part of North America. My name is Joe... and...I......AM......CANADIAN! Thank you. |
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