• The Land of the Cold and the Home of the Kind: Why I Want to be a Canadian
    12/12/2010


    I want to be a Canadian. For some reason, it appears that part of the United States population does too. Doesn’t it seem strange that young Americans tend to have maple leaves and red and white rectangles sewn onto their backpacks when they are traveling abroad in the various countries of Europe? If the very fact of being from somewhere is enough for you to want to claim you are from somewhere else, then the place you’re from has to be pathetic.
    Here’s a story to give you a sense of what I am talking about: A Canadian, an Australian, and an American are sitting in a bar in Vancouver in the winter, or was it the almost winter, or the extra winter? Whatever season it is, it’s not construction season. The American finishes his beer, throws his glass into the air, pulls his handgun out of his belt and shoots his glass. He continues to say loudly, so that everyone in the bar can hear, to the Canadian and the Australian, “In America, people have so much money that we never drink out of the same glass twice.”
    The Australian finishes his beer, throws it up into the air, and shoots it with the American’s handgun. He says to the American and the Canadian, “In Australia, there is so much sand that glass is cheap and we never have to drink out of the same glass twice.”
    The Canadian finishes his beer, slams it loudly down on the table, takes the American’s handgun off of the bar table, and precedes to shoot the American. Then he says to the Australian, “In Canada, we have so many Americans that we never drink with the same one twice.” (1)
    Why do so many Americans tend to wind up in Canada? It must be because Canada has its advantages. Some of the advantages are as follows:

    It’s well known that the Canadian government supports its citizens. To illustrate my point, here’s another story. An American and a Canadian are in a horrible car accident. They unfortunately die just before they reach the hospital. Just as the doctors are preparing to put a toe tag on the American, he stirs and opens his eyes. The doctors are astonished and they ask the man what happened. He tells them, “I remember the crash and then I saw a bright tunnel. I walked through it and I suddenly appeared at the gates of heaven with the Canadian. Saint Peter met us there and told us that we were too young to die and if we gave a donation of $100, we could resume our life on earth. I, of course, paid the money and the next thing I knew, I was here.” The doctors then asked him what happened to the Canadian. “Well,” he said, “the last time I saw him, he was waiting for his government to pay it for him. (2)
    Along these lines, I want to be a Canadian to have great health care (even when I am dead). Health care that the Canadian government manages instead of privatized, money-sucking American companies. I want to be able to buy medicine for less than I could buy it in America simply because drug companies in Canada have lower liability insurance because Canadians sue less often and for less money than Americans.
    I want to be a Canadian to live in a country that is hardly ever at war. A place with border patrols on snowmobiles. I want to live in the country that let people escape the draft during the Vietnam War. I want to live there because no one’s going to bother to attack a country with a name that originated from the Iroquoian word, “kanata”, meaning “village.”
    I want to be a Canadian so I can see for myself if Canadians really do live in igloos. I want to see just how many of them are lumberjacks and if they actually backpack all the time, to find out if hockey is everyone’s pastime there and if it snows there as much as Americans think it does.
    I want to be a Canadian so that I don’t have to worry about the possibility of Sarah Palin getting elected in 2012, a possibility that would be simply ridiculous except for the fact that Bush was elected twice. What the heck?
    Unfortunately, if I were to become a Canadian, I would have to deal with Americans living within and across the border. Who wants to worry about idiot neighbors? In fact, on the sixth day, God created Canada. He announced to archangel Gabriel, “It will be a land of spectacular natural beauty, with snow-covered mountains full of mountain goats and bald eagles. There will be rivers flowing through these mountains, plentiful with salmon, as well as cliffs overlooking sandy beaches with much sea life.” He went on to say, “I shall call this land Canada and make it plentiful with oil so its inhabitants may prosper. These inhabitants will be called Canadians and will be known as the nicest people on earth.” “But Lord,” Gabriel asked, “don’t you think you are being too generous to these Canadians of yours?” God answered, “I don’t think so, just wait to see the neighbors I’m going to give them.” (3)
    How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is “none” because Canadians don’t change light bulbs, they accept them as they are. (4)This seems to say that Canadians are nicer people than Americans as they accept things the way they are instead of conforming then to their desires, as it infers Americans do. Is it true that Canadians are nicer than Americans? Maybe not, maybe they are just as good as Americans as every country had some good and some bad citizens but no matter what, they are 233.437% funnier than your average American.
    Even if one would have to be regularly ticked-off by Americans, once the prospect of maple syrup becomes involved, many, such as sugar crazed individuals like myself, would like to become Canadians.

    (1,2,3,4): http://listicles.thelmagazine.com/2010/07/top-10-canadian-jokes-ever/