Tim Blair

Confession: I own a copy of "Canadian Citizenship Made Simple." I have no defense beyond having been young, dumb, liberal, and in love with the ostensible best health care system in the world. This is what happens when you take your political cues from Kids in the Hall.

I always get Naomi Klein mixed up with Naomi Wolf.

Much of a muchness, really.

What a strange article.

---"Our economic dependence on the United States is staggering: Almost 40 percent of Canada's gross domestic product comes from exports to the United States."---

So they want to cut it down to say 20%. Problem solved fellas! We got it down to 22%. Just think what it will be like when we get it down to 5. That will show them Yanks a thing or two.

What the hell are they teaching in their economics classes up there?

"Canadians can't quite believe it: Suddenly, we're interesting"

you are?

For someone zealoting against corporate evil, she doesn't have an awful lot to say about DeGussa (products: Zyklon-B, getting gold filings from Holocaust victims, centrifuge reactors to Hitler and Saddam). Maybe because it doesn't have a logo for her to complain about.

"You're not the boss of us, George," Jim Coyle wrote in the Toronto Star.

Nope, Saddam and TotalFinaElf was.

Our government has made only tepid efforts to save Canadian citizens born in countries identified by the US government as "sponsors of terror" from being photographed, fingerprinted and otherwise humiliated when they enter the United States.

When read "Canadian" and "sponsors of terror" in the same sentence I thought "hamas?", but then remembered that it eventually banned the "non-militant" portions of Hamas, so it's doing better than much of Europe.

By passing a bunch of laws that piss off the Bush Administration and then retiring, Chrétien wins on two fronts: He gets to be remembered as the man who rescued Canada's sovereignty, while Martin gets stuck dealing with the fallout.

Reminds me of Clinton's last-minute stunts (Kyoto, Arsenic in water and ICC were last-minute things, right?)

Well, she's entitled to her own stupid opinions; I suspect most Canadians don't see things that way. Why does she remind me of Maureen Dowd?

So the Canadians FINALLY have something to be proud of!!!

I am an Australian living in Canada. Canadians are very concerned about being different from the US. The odd thing is they are the ones who start the rumours in the first place: "Canadians are exactly like Americans, oh I don't believe that anyway".

Canada is a nice place to live. But I often here Canadians talk about how ignorant Americans are about Canada, but I'll tell you what, I've heard a few Canadians make ignorant comments about the US.

The only response I can conjure up is,

Fleshy-headed mutant, are you friendly?

Where is Canada?

hbchrist
Milwaukee, WI

Somewhere near Utah, I think. I understand their economy is based on exporting air masses to the US.

Naomi Klein's parents were draft dodging hippies who sneaked across the border to Canada so her father could avoid military service, then never left. Combine this level of genetic cowardice with parents who have a visceral anti-American hatred, then throw in a lifetime of growing up under Canada's socialist welfare state, and you can see why she reminds you of Maureed Dowd.

At any rate, it's interesting that she brought up how many of her friends south of the border are considering moving up north. I just wrote a blog post about this the other day. The Salon.com article I quoted in the post was written to show how many American "progressives" are chosing to load up the U-Haul and head for snowier pastures. However, it contained this little factoid:

"But every year since 1977, more Canadians have emigrated to the United States than vice versa -- the 2001 figures were 5,894 Americans moving north, 30,203 Canadians moving south."

So, roughly six times more Canadians come south to the US than Americans move north. This pretty much defeats the entire thesis of the Salon article, not to mention Klein's snarky little comment, yet it's glossed over completely. Odd, isn't it, that Salon chose not to write an article questioning why these Canadians are still coming to America, despite Canada's obvious progressive superiority in so many critical areas.

And really, isn't this a fair trade? For every one anti-American socialist dumbass we send north to be a parasite off the nanny state welfare system we get in return six Canadians who realize that they have more opportunities in the United States for a better life. I'm not complaining.

Looks like our plans to depopulate Canada are right on schedule. Soon we can move in.

Sincerely,
The American Imperialist Conspiracy

Wouldn't it be awesome if all of these people actually WOULD go to Canada? Talk about your two birds with one stone.

Exactly!! I'll trade them one leftist with a yen for socialized healthcare for a Canadian who actually contributes to society. I can dream, can't I?

I personally really like the 6-for-1 trade. I think when we finally get nothing but assclowns up in Canada we just gradually move the border north and push them up toward the Arctic circle. We admint Manitoba and Saskatchewan and a couple of others as states, then eventually we surround Quebec and gradually squeeze its borders. Finally, we will have two liberal reservations, one big and cold way up north, and one smaller and stinkier around Montreal. Vacationers can visit to pretend to be liberals for a week or so, depending on whether they hate just the U.S. or anyone who speaks English. Should be profitable, too.

I thought Canada was becoming famous for siding with evil despots and protecting terrorists. RCMP tipped the CIA off about a Syrian terrorist leaving Canada, and now Chretien is pissed!

Born and raised in Canada, currently living in the U.S. I'd like to go back (what with global warming, Edmonton will soon be like Phoenix, and Phoenix will just be hell). But the foriegn policy choices really puzzle me. Yes, let's tick off our biggest trading partner. Yes, let's make it harder for our high-tech industry to procure U.S. defense contracts.

Consider that the only people who will be emigrating to Canada because of the new laws are...

Dopers
Gays
People who think dopers and gays are the kewlest.

So, where's the downside?

My friends in New York and San Francisco have been quietly inquiring about applying for citizenship.

Thereby simultaneously raising the IQ of two countries.

Have to admit I'd like as many who believe the US is becoming like Nazi Germany to just leave and never return. Please become citizens of some other country!!

However, my grandparents came from Canada. Canada does have many people who are hard-working and hate the looney left that has taken over. I'd hate to see them subjected to our nutz. But, I love the idea we can be rid of some nutz because they want to leave!!

I wish the people leaving would go to Cuba instead of Canada. I've been told it's a paradise there. It is more 'progressive' in its social policies than Canada, although Canada seems to be rushing to catch up.

Like Jonny, I'm an Australian living in Canada. Christ, you think New Zealanders have an inferiority complex? Come to Canada! Home of the Moaning Nanny-State Ignoramus and the Simpering Pacifist UnAmerican! Canadians are convinced that they invented socialized medicine and the "social safety net", and their level of ignorance of the US is often staggering; it's an intellectual monoculture of mindless fat jingoist flag-wavers who die on the streets because they can't afford aspirin.

To be fair, the socialist suckiness of Canada seems to be a largely urban phenomenom (and they don't come much more Left Coast Urban than my home of Victoria). Unfortunately, the federal parliamentary system here is broken to such a degree that there's no realistic prospect of change for a long time to come.

But the scenery is nice.

As a Canadian - and yes, even a Canadian living in Quebec - please realize we're not all socialist nitwits. The Canadian government didn't support the war in Iraq but nearly half of Canadians did, which is more than can be said for the Spanish or even the British.

Naomi Klein is an idiot.

And Canadians keep leaving to move to the US in droves cause there are better-paying jobs there. Follow the money. It's really that simple.

Incidentally, I agree with the laws on marijuana and on gay marriage.

Canadians are unarmed Americans on waiting lists for medical treatment.

Segacs, sorry if my hyperbole offended - I wasn't referring to all Canadians, but instead to the highly visible, hugely smug and easily stereotyped subset typified by the CBC/Toronto Star mentality. Heck, some of my best friends are Canadian leftists! One recently declared that she'd rather live in Castro's Cuba than the US because at least Cubans had universal healthcare. After 11 years here, this kind of buffoonery is all too familiar.

On marijuana and gay marriage, I'm with you and Naomi Klein. On Naomi Klein, I'm with you.

Porphyrogenitus just nails the Americans-moving-to-Canada thing. He also links to this dead-on article on Being A Successful Canadian Nationalist.

Oops, hyperlink weirdness there. Try this:

Being A Successful Canadian Nationalist.

I wrote about this flake of a journalist back on the 6th of July. She and her so-called pollster are a joke on the first order. My blog entry is located at the "Intergalactic Capitalist" click the link StarBanker to go to it. First it was draft dodgers migrating to Canada, now it's gays and drug addicts, and tomorrow it will be the Congolese after the legalization of cannibalism. I think Chretien will give his farewell speech dressed in big floppy shoes and a shiny red ball on his nose. He'll shout "unscrew this mess!"

I wish the people leaving would go to Cuba instead of Canada. I've been told it's a paradise there

Funny, ain't it, how these progressive types like to vacation, er, make solidarity trips to the sunny socialist paradise but they somehow never find the time to emigrate. A pity.

Personally, I am for gay marriage and legalization of marijuana because I am a libertarian. I am not, repeat not, for Naomi Klein and the rest of the loony left in Canada because I have a brain and because I haven't had everything handed to me on a silver platter like the lifestyle liberal sect that work and write for the CBC and other likeminded institutions.

SARSstock was nice. It was nice of the Rolling Stones to phone in their performance. AC/DC rocked the place, and that is not surprising since they are AC/DC, but in the end the best thing about the show was that it was organized and no one got hurt. How freakin' Canadian.

Who cares who Naomi Klein's friends are. Who cares about Naomi Klein, the anti-globalization mouthpiece that blames Ariel Sharon for the fact that a synogogue in Kensington Market (Toronto) was vandalized by a bench of leftist hatemongers. (who aren't anti-Semitic but anti-Zionist)

I went to school in Montreal and I ate plenty of Whoppers at the Burger King that was vandalized at Crescent and Ste Catherines Street. I ate at Burger King because I didn't have the money to eat in the kind of restaurants Naomi Klein and her friends from New York eat in. So somehow through the magical the mythology of the left, myself and the rest of the people eating in Burger King and the employees (all of them working class) deserve to be 'demonstrated against' by the type of people that are Naomi Klein's friends. (Interestingly, I am civilized, otherwise I would advocate a counter-demonstration involving the destruction of CBC windows, but I am civilized and not advocating that)

One of these days, the people of Canada will decide that it isn't 'cool' or a good idea to enable this uber-leftist trash. Sadly, it will probably be too late. It is probably already too late. As for me, I am thinking of moving to a better place, or at least to Alberta.

I don't want to be accused of wishful thinking, but does anyone else see at least a passing chance of Alberta-Saskatchewan spinning off if the US made a decent offer?

Man, there are some good Dowdifications in there, if you look hard enough.

KevinV:

You don't want Saskatchewan, the birthplace of Canada's moribund New Democratic Party (the mopey equivalent to Australia's ALP Left, but without the killer factional instinct).

Alberta and BC, though, are wealthy, resource-rich provinces with a healthy loathing of the federal government. Give us another ten years of Central Canadian Liberalism, and we might just go for it.

Reckon they've got room there for a million Australian chardonnay socialists?

Boy howdy, would we in the "regular" U.S. love to dump a few million New York and San Francisco whackos off on the Cannucks.

What's the big deal with legal pot and gay marriage. It's not like the Canadians wrote the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights. Sheesh to hear them talk it sounds as if they had a cosmic revelation. Quite frankly Americans don't think that much about Canada because there's not that much to think about. Canadians really need to get over themselves, one symptom of paranoia is delusions of grandeur.

My friends in New York and San Francisco have been quietly inquiring about applying for citizenship.

If she can empty SF of all its bums, lefties and wackjobs, I'd be forever grateful.

Can't pretend to speak for 'most Americans', as some have, but I'd say the US has been lucky to have Canada as a neighbor. Canada has been a great neighbor to the US. I can't begin to count the number of people, myself among them, who have Canadian backgrounds and who love Canada.

There are good, decent, hard working, not looking for a handout people in Canada. These are the ones who the loones are leaching off of.

You can't blame all Canadians for the lefty loones who run the place. Think of the West Coast of the US and their 'siblings' scattered in various states. None of us want to be lumped in with them.

It's too bad we can't do a large swap. For example trade the West Coast for some Canadian provinces. Rename both new countries. Imagine we get hard working citizens in exchange for the leeches? Sounds like paradise to me.

This border emmigration is rather odd. Americans move to Canada so they can say they aren't Americans, but still live like Americans. While Canadians move to America so they can say they are Canadians, but not live like Canadians.

Just remember -- where would film history be without "Strange Brew?"

That 6-1 trade ratio of workers-for-leftists sounds bad enough for Canada. But remember, they have 10% of our population, so proportionately, it's more like 60-1. Christ, it must be a paradise, huh?

Seriously, I grew up across the river from Canada, and they're an absolutely terrific (if misguided and sometimes annoying) people. About half of our citizens aren't worth a shit, same for Canada. So all you responsible, hardworking Canucks - come on down! There's plenty of room. Oh, and more Pam Andersons, please.

And hey, if the politicians and elites in Canada (and New Zealand) are too smug and stupid to be part of the Anglosphere, fine. With Britain, Australia, and a hundred thousand or so Canadian expats, we'll be fine.

The last Americans who sought Canadian citizenship were ones trying to avoid a trip to the Far East with GI Tours. There possibly are a few noisy hippy/activist/stickybeak types moving there in order to cause trouble and increase the cost of everything by making them dolphin safe,child/idiot proof, non combustible etc, same as the dickweeds we seem to attract, because they can't stand living in a country where they are ignored like the pipsqueaks they are.
Canada to the US is about the same as NZ is to Australia- a haven for inbred hillbillies who have discovered the 'sixties forty years after everyone else did.

And it's full of frogs as well.

Imagine being a Canadian and hating the US intensely, yet being forever mistaken for a US citizen when travelling the world. That must really sting. At least other US-haters don't have the accent and the North American address.