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I lived in Canada and returned to the United States. Canada is a fine country for "old people". If you are young, creative, different, and willing to take risks Canada is really a poor choice. I think most young Canadians that leave recognize that. It is why they leave and never return. They almost, without exception, have fond memories about Canada.
Here was my eye opener about Canada. It is just a small portion of an article that talked about Canada. But I think you will get the drift.
Shortly after becoming an American citizen, I started my junior year at the University of California, Berkeley. At that time it was probably ground zero for the native anti-American movement. It was unbelievable to see American college students carrying the red flags of communism. To my parents, the hammer and sickle on the Soviet flag symbolized death and famine.
I was still unsure if I was an American, but I was quite sure that the solution to America's problems was not socialism. Canada started to become attractive.
Foresters always have a strong attraction to blank places on a map. Canada had a lot of blank places. Canada felt like the frontier country that America use to be. Friends who had moved to Canada to go to school all spoke well of the country.
Confused and unsure of America's future and my own, I decided to move to Canada to attend graduate school.
Canada, while appearing to be similar to the United States, is a very different country. The first clue was when I changed my greenback dollars to the multicolor Canadian bills. There on the front was a picture of her, the Queen of the Commonwealth. When I went to the post office, there she was again beaming down behind the postal clerks. I remember thinking, "Who elected her queen?"
I was thinking like an American.
In response to the kidnapping of government ministers, the Liberal government in Ottawa imposed press censorship throughout the country. I read the Vancouver Sun with big white spaces on the front page where articles had been pulled.
Nobody complained or demonstrated. It dawned on me the First Amendment did not apply north of the border.
I had a hard time adapting to Canadian society and even a harder time with Canadian higher education. As I walked into a seminar on forestry research, little did I know this presentation would change my life.
A graduate student spent 10 minutes talking about the historical differences between Canada and the United States. He pointed out that Canada was founded by a corporation - the Hudson's Bay Company. There was no revolution in Canada and its independence was at Britain's insistence, rather than Canada's. He joked that the reason Canadians have socialized medicine is it began as a corporate benefit. Like most businesses, the emphasis is on fitting in with the corporate culture. Creativity and individualism are not encouraged, but solid contributions to the existing state are.
This is why Canadian research is focused on practical application and also why scientific breakthroughs tend happen in the United States.
An individual will take more risks than groups or committees.
The United States was founded by revolution, brought on by the overriding principle of individual rights. People of this "new world" feared government would impinge on their rights as individuals. So the United States became a country where people felt pride in their government, but also kept guns to use against that same government if their individual rights were trampled. When people became fed up with their government, they headed for the frontier to live their lives as they saw fit.
During that brief lecture, I realized I was never going to fit in Canada. Being born in one country, raised in another culture, and educated in a third, you are always sure of being different. I needed to live in a country where individuals are valued and given the opportunity to make a difference.
Shortly after that lecture, I packed my truck, stuck Allman Brothers into the tape deck and left Canada playing "Southbound" at maximum volume.
There is room in North America for both countries. For years, I had a very poor opinion of Canada, but as I get older I am starting to recognize that people are different and Canada does suit a lot of people.
I am glad that they could find a country they were comfortable with living there. Canada's youth is also lucky that they can relatively easy move to the United States.
Where to begin?
Your "very poor opinion of Canada" notwithstanding, your agreement that it's a place for a particular type of people is condescending to the max.
I toyed with the idea of refuting each incorrect item individually but thought it better to refute the "nature" of the idiot's claim you chose to quote excerpts from with some info he obviously overlooked about his revolutionary created utopia.
Freedom of the press:
Your idiot should have linked to archival issues showing blanked out sections of first pages of the Vancouver Sun as I could not find any such copies, indeed, the Vancouver Sun was one of the proponents of the imposition of the War Measures act with first pages of many editions being full of reportage of it's positive effects.
As to the temporary War Measures act that expired less than one year after it's imposition, let's compare using these links and quotes.
American censorship during wartime:"The Office of Censorship, an emergency wartime agency, heavily censored reporting during World War II. On December 19, 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8985, which established the Office of Censorship and conferred on its director the power to censor international communications in "his absolute discretion." Byron Price was selected as the Director of Censorship. However, censorship was not limited to reporting; postal censorship also took place. "Every letter that crossed international or U.S. territorial borders from December 1941 to August 1945 was subject to being opened and scoured for details."[9]
In later conflicts the degree to which war reporting was subject to censorship varied, and in some cases it has been alleged that the censorship was as much political as military in purpose. This was particularly true during the Vietnam War and the invasion of Grenada. The executive branch of the federal government attempted to prevent the New York Times from publishing the top-secret Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, warning that doing so would be considered an act of treason under the Espionage Act of 1917. The newspaper prevailed in the famous New York Times Co. v. United States case.
In 1991, during the Gulf War under the presidency of George H. W. Bush, The Pentagon placed restrictions on media coverage of the ground war to protect confidential military information.[10]
Such issues arose again during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, when many embedded reporters accompanied soldiers as they made their way into the country. These reports were subject to censorship in that they were not allowed to reveal a unit's exact location.
Wartime censorship often involves forms of mass surveillance. For international communications, like those done by Western Union and ITT, this mass surveillance continued after the wars were over. The Black Chamber received the information after WWI. After WWII NSA's Project SHAMROCK performed a similar function."
Did you get the part where the organization of independent reporters from the World's Press listed the U.S. as 46th in freedom of the press? WAAAY behind Canada's position of 18th.
Now need I compare your years running Patriot Act and it's abrogation of many of your rights and freedoms on a PERMANENT basis with a list of links or would you be satisfied with just this one link only?
As to this idiots claim that being proud of your government but finding it imperative to mistrust them to the extent of ownership of personal firearms being as about as oxymoronic as it could possibly be; I'll simply mention Canadian firearm ownership is both allowed and widespread:
Notice Canada being a "Royal Blue compared with the U.S. being Navy blue"
Now in response to this nonsense: "I needed to live in a country where individuals are valued and given the opportunity to make a difference"......... DUUUH, here's a couple of incidents your goofy scribe failed to take note of while attending Berkely
Fine examples of individuals being valued eh? A whole segment of your population not even being able to drink from the same fountain, eat in the same restaurants or sit where they liked on buses, very probably at the same time that nut wrote about his experience at Berkeley U.
There are many more examples of where either your military or LEO's have been deployed to not only suppress civil liberties but to actually murder people while doing so. I think however those few will make my point of your so-called superiority in placing a value upon and maintenance of liberties ie; rights and freedoms on all fronts is just so much bullcrap.
Now onto the ability to head out to the frontier when desired, well crap, Canada is bigger than the U.S. and has more remaining frontier than you ever had to begin with, so we'll just consider that one a Freudian slip.
Let's just leave it at your opinion of Canada not being in any way relevant to reality
That warm thingy is why I'm currently sitting in a lanai in Florida with a cuba-libre close at hand.... along with the very reasonable greens fees and wonderful like-minded folks.
That warm thingy is why I'm currently sitting in a lanai in Florida with a cuba-libre close at hand.... along with the very reasonable greens fees and wonderful like-minded folks.
I kind of hate you right now, in the most genuinely loving way of course Especially since my flight to warmer climates tomorrow has been cancelled due to inclimate weather.
I kind of hate you right now, in the most genuinely loving way of course Especially since my flight to warmer climates tomorrow has been cancelled due to inclimate weather.
Haar! Just keep in mind that to enjoy this lifestyle as I am doing, one must reach retirement age and be on the downside of their life.....don't rush it man! Find something about your current day to embrace and enjoy.
It seems strange that behind every decisive thought process is the precept "with the time that remains how will I approach this.......?"
It seems like just yesterday I was packing a truck and preparing it for another snowmobiling and cross country skiing trip to the Temagami area. Shuddder!
Don't envy retirees; they had to get old to qualify.
***on edit*****
By the way; did I mention I played 18 holes this morning?........Haaar!
The U.S is bigger in population smaller in area. Warmer... yes though the U.S Midwest and N.E is getting dumped on this winter in terms of snow
While the US is smaller in total area, the habitable area of the country extends beyond 300 miles from the 49th parallel, unlike Canada.
I'm missing the Cuba Libre, as I actually still have to work, but am looking forward to a dip in the pool tonight as it is in the mid-20's C today. Spring is here.
Haar! Just keep in mind that to enjoy this lifestyle as I am doing, one must reach retirement age and be on the downside of their life.....don't rush it man! Find something about your current day to embrace and enjoy.
It seems strange that behind every decisive thought process is the precept "with the time that remains how will I approach this.......?"
It seems like just yesterday I was packing a truck and preparing it for another snowmobiling and cross country skiing trip to the Temagami area. Shuddder!
Don't envy retirees; they had to get old to qualify.
***on edit*****
By the way; did I mention I played 18 holes this morning?........Haaar!
Haha, very good point. I still somewhat envy the weather and 18 holes...
It seems like I will be able to get out of here tomorrow, so one extra day in the snow wont kill me I suppose.
While the US is smaller in total area, the habitable area of the country extends beyond 300 miles from the 49th parallel, unlike Canada.
I'm missing the Cuba Libre, as I actually still have to work, but am looking forward to a dip in the pool tonight as it is in the mid-20's C today. Spring is here.
Habitable? What about the Inuit living in the north for thousands of years... Its habitable to them.. So let's just differentiate between comfortable habitation and less so rather than to conclude something is uninhabitable.. Irregardless, Canada is a larger country, this is irrefutably a fact unlike most of the subjectivity in here..
Enjoy the dip in the pool... In Two weeks I'll be in Portugal and than Agadir Morocco.. Besides, not crappin on Houston but compared to T.O its just not my urban cup of tea.. Enjoy you're swim (not as jealous as you think and I have an indoor pool in my building anyway lol). I've got my cuban libre in hand right now too ha
Habitable? What about the Inuit living in the north for thousands of years... Its habitable to them.. So let's just differentiate between comfortable habitation and less so rather than to conclude something is uninhabitable.. Irregardless, Canada is a larger country, this is irrefutably a fact unlike most of the subjectivity in here..
Enjoy the dip in the pool... In Two weeks I'll be in Portugal and than Agadir Morocco.. Besides, not crappin on Houston but compared to T.O its just not my urban cup of tea.. Enjoy you're swim (not as jealous as you think and I have an indoor pool in my building anyway lol). I've got my cuban libre in hand right now too ha
That's the great part about all of these discussions; they are merely fuel for the inquisitive mind.
You're going to enjoy sights and sounds in your travels that will equate to the cherry on the top of the sundae, then come back on here with further refined perspectives to share.
There will undoubtedly be a topic on here that will benefit from what you've experienced to some degree.
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