Proud to be Canadian
small town beck
Posts: 6,691
I admit I stole this from a friend's posting somewhere else and I thought it was a good read and although a pacifist, it still makes me damn proud to be a Canuck 
I thought I would share it here.
A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...
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 seven 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 it's 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 on-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.
I thought I would share it here.A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...
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 seven 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 it's 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 on-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.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Ok so he isn't the best example of a Canadian, we are proud of
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
NATO allies in Quebec City to discuss Afghanistan
Last Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 9:07 AM ET
CBC News
Officials from countries with troops in southern Afghanistan are set to meet in Quebec City on Thursday to talk about ways to improve the mission.
Canadian Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor is expected to host the meeting, which will include military officials and defence ministers from countries that have contributed troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force regional command south.
ISAF is a coalition of 36,000 troops from 37 countries, working to improve security in Afghanistan so that reconstruction can occur. Canada has more than 2,000 soldiers deployed in Kandahar province as part of the force.
The countries at the meeting, in addition to Canada, are Australia, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The meeting is set to take place behind closed doors at the Citadelle, one of Quebec City's largest tourist attractions. Security is tight at the site and officials are releasing very little information.
"The participants at the working meeting will share best practices and explore ways to enhance working relationships among Regional Command South countries under the guidance of ISAF," O'Connor said in a news release.
U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates is expected to use the meeting to ask his counterparts to send more soldiers and equipment to Afghanistan.
Gates has said he hopes to find ways to improve reconstruction efforts and help the Afghans become better able to deliver needed services to their people.
In Afghanistan, ISAF has five regional commands: north, south, east, west and Kabul.
NATO has made repeated calls for additional troops from its members but some, including France and Germany, have expressed reluctance and questioned the plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/04/12/isaf-meeting.html
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Peace,
________________________
Too many shows but never enough!
These guys are the fruit of the earth...
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I think (not sure) Bad Religion made a song after the QC events, i know they've made a video with those unreal images that this summit gave us, the fence, the gas, anyway i agree that Pearl Jam could have written Insignificance after the QC meetings.
But still, and i'm not saying it is surprising, but this time around they're running checkpoint for people living in the area, working in the area or i guess just visiting the area, just because some diplomat are set to discuss about a war that is thousand miles away from here. This is what made me jump this moring when i was having my coffee preparing to go to work. And the news station just talking about it like if it's normal, casual activities.
And while i'm started (hehe), those Quebec Election sure left a huge bad taste in my mouth, i don't recognize the Canada and Quebec i know, and i'm one of the 3% peoples who did vote for the only left wing party in these last election in Quebec, sure Canada is changing.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
i don't believe that there were riots in quebec city. many of my freinds and their families went to quebec city to protest the ftaa meetings, and i've seen footage of the protests, they were largely peaceful, where thousands of peopld were just sitting around and hanging out, a few people got angry (some of these weren't even protesters but idiots using the situation to cause trouble), causing the police to use tear gas, water canons, and rubber bullets, many times hitting peaceful protesters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City_Summit_of_the_Americas
Albert Einstein
yeah ... WTF?? ... wanted to ask you about that?? ... how could the BQ be so different from the provincial parties ... it went about as good as possible ... that goof Charest was voted in as the best of the worst ...
yeah ... hooligans and media focusing on that stuff has given these protests an unfair image ...
Agree, and Canadians should be aware of that "new" thing that is the ADQ, i know most medias around the country were happy to declare "separatism is dead" (of course it's not, i'm the living proof
Damn even the old separatist party are now disconnected, what exactly is the goal of having an independant Quebec if it's just to make it like Canada, but in french? I don't want that, if it's how they want it, then i'd rather stay in Canada, the separatist i am is for the establishment of a progressive french state in North America, which is not what the Bloc Q. AND Parti Quebecois are preaching for.
So the options left to me, are the NDP, who should have more quality faces in Quebec next federal election, and Quebec solidaire on the provincial level. Too bad both are not very popular for the moment, they have a lot of work to do and a lot of people's hope on their shoulders.
70% or so went to vote in the last election, which is the lowest since the 70's, so it proves how many in Quebec are starting to be disconnected with politics. In comparison, the 1995 referendum saw a record participation level of around 94% ! Next federal elections will be interesting to follow.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
le parti vert? ... ha! ... my french sucks ... but i can get by in tadoussac ...
Well, i'll never vote for them, they should join the left wing party in Canada and in Quebec, and make their views expand in these coalition, i can't see how it would be good to have a government having environment first, people second. Of course it would be better than the current corporation first, people second, environment last situation, but i don't like them much. I'd like to see a guy like Stephen Guilbault (greenpeace) join one political party and makes his environment thoughts advance in the political sphere.
Tadoussac is great, imagine what those first settlers thought when they first arrived there and saw those hills dropping in the water... it's beautiful. Have you seen any whales?
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
i have no problem with people choosing to eat horse, or to hunt seals, in the world stage they're irrelevant anyway...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
prioritizing doesn't work for anyone ... it's about integrating the relevant issues ... putting environment first as u say is essentially putting people first ... they are one in the same ...
yeah ... i've been out there 3 times ... kayaking out there ... been as close as i want to whales ...
i know it's a personal choice and i respect that. but google PMU MARES and see what your government allows. no animal should be treated like that. in the us; you'd go to jail for such treatment.
well i still won't vote for them, only the environment part makes them relevant, which is probably more what i was trying to say, so instead of voting for a party focusing on environment, i'll first vote for a party like Quebec Solidaire or NDP focusing on social democracy, a good government not bending up on corporate Canada or corporate Quebec would be a HUGE win for the environment, in my opinion it's the way to go.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I don't think the USA have any moral authority over animal treatment, sorry. Although, i agree, no animal should be treated like that. They're being treated like a product, which is definitly not right but not an isolate case to horse. BTW i don't want you to think i've ever ate horse.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Facts About Premarin®
1. What is Premarin®?
As the name implies, Premarin® is a conjugated estrogen product extracted from pregnant mares' urine (PMU). It is manufactured by Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, Inc., and is most commonly prescribed for estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) to relieve hormonal deficiency symptoms associated with menopause or hysterectomy. More recently, it has been prescribed to help prevent osteoporosis and heart disease. Premarin® is the most widely used ERT drug, marketed for more than 50 years, and currently administered to more than nine million American women...(continue)...
http://www.hsus.org/pets/issues_affecting_our_pets/equine_protection/the_facts_about_premarin.html
edit: point 10 is interesting to me:
10. What are the prospects for addressing these cruelties through new laws or government regulations?
Not very good. Years ago, PMU farming was primarily situated in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. When animal-protection groups opposed the mistreatment of horses and PMU farms faced the certainty of regulatory reform, the entire industry simply moved its operations to the more accommodating provinces of western Canada. Given this history, if stringent regulations were enacted, PMU farms would likely relocate to other areas or to developing countries where there may be even less ability to influence the care the horses receive. PMU farming occurs in only two states in the U.S., so there is unlikely to be sufficient support for federal legislation.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
It's normal to give a fine to an individuals who throw litter in the street, but no fine to company polluting massively air and water.
It's normal for individuals crossing our borders to pay taxes if they import some souvenirs, but not for company who trade billions of dollars in products.
It's normal for individuals to have fine or jail time when they mistreat their dogs, but no fine for mega company mistreating thousands of animals (pigs, cows, horses!)
Anyway... i could go on...
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Canada is an amazing country and it sounds very much like you guys have suffered the same kind of bridesmaid bullshit that Australia has, only Australia is considered, (IF Australia's contribution is considered at all) more like the flower girl or the usher!
Go Canada!!
*~You're IT Bert!~*
Hold on to the thread
The currents will shift
Funny I always thought if I had to leave Canada that I would go to Australia
Well I'm sure either or would be a highly satisfactory arrangement for both of us.
so, not that I'm planning on getting married, but I guess if I did, I wasn't planning on bridesmaids either. but should I get married, you are more than invited.
keep your eyes on the main game girl. you'll always be the bride.
*~You're IT Bert!~*
Hold on to the thread
The currents will shift
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
having been to all 3 countries - i'd pick NZ first ... although there are upsides and downsides for all 3 ...
there's a down side to living in australia?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
you have no water