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Post Info TOPIC: Interesting article by an American paper about Canadians.
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Interesting article by an American paper about Canadians.


Here, Here CANADIANS!!!!

 




INTERESTING READ about the top of North America

Buffalo New York News Article about Canadiansm

An article recently posted in the Buffalo News by Gerry Boley .

Misconceptions in the United States about Canada are quite common. They include: there is always snow in Canada ; Canadians are boring, socialists and pacifists; their border is porous and allowed the Sept. 11 terrorists through; or, as the U.S. Ottawa embassy staff suggested to Washington , the country suffers from an inferiority complex. With Canada Day and Americas Independence Day just past, this is a great time to clarify some of these misconceptions and better appreciate a neighbour that the United States at times takes for granted.

With the exception of the occasional glacier, skiing in Canada in the summer just isn't happening. Frigid northern winters, however, have shaped the tough, fun-loving Canadian character. When it is 30-below, the Canucks get their sticks, shovel off the local pond and have a game of shinny hockey.

The harsh winters have also shaped Canadians sense of humour. Canada has some of the worlds greatest comedians, from early Wayne and Shuster, to Rich Little, Jim Carrey,Russell Peters, Seth Rogan, Mike Myers, Leslie Nielsen, John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy and Saturday Night Live creator and movie producer Lorne Michaels.

The suggestion that Canadians are soft on terrorism is a myth. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau backed down the Front de Liberation du Quebec terrorists during the 1970s. And the 9/11 Commission reported that terrorists arrived in the United States from outside North America with documents issued to them by the U.S. government. Likewise, the Canadians in Gander countered despicable terrorist acts with love and caring to their U.S. neighbours when planes were diverted there.

Americans glorify war with movies, but it is the Canadians who are often the real Rambo. The Canadians are anything but pacifists and their history is certainly not dull. Be it on the ice or battlefield, this warrior nation has never lost a war that it fought in War of 1812 (versus the United States ), World War I, World War II , Korea and now Afghanistan . During the 72 Summit Series, Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak said, The Canadians have great skills and fight to the very end.

In hunting the Taliban in Afghanistan , U.S. Commander and Navy SEAL Capt. Robert Harward stated that the Canadian Joint Task Force 2 team was his first choice for any direct-action mission.  The world record sniper kill was made in 2002 in Afghanistan by Corporal Ron Furlong of the 3rd Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. This shot was recorded at 2,657 Yards. ( Record broken in 2009 by a Brit.)

Contrary to Thomas Jeffersons 1812 comment that, The acquisition of Canada will be a mere matter of marching, the wily Native American leader Tecumseh and Maj. Gen. Isaac Brock captured Brig. Gen. William Hulls Fort Detroit without firing a shot. The Americans never took Quebec and when they burned the Canadian Parliament Buildings at York , Canadian's burned the White House in retaliation.

Canada consolidated its status as a warrior nation during World War I battles at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Somme and the Second Battle of Ypres, where soldiers were gassed twice by the Germans but refused to break the line. By the end of the war, the Canadians were the Allies shock troops.

In the air, four of the top seven World War I aces were Canadians. Crack shots, the names William Billy Bishop, Raymond Collishaw, Donald MacLaren and William Barker, with 72, 60, 54 and 53 victories, respectively, were legendary. These were the original Crazy Canucks, who regularly dropped leaflets over enemy airfields advising German pilots that they were coming over at such and such a time, and to come on up. Bishop and Barker won the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry.

The pilot who is credited with shooting down the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, with a little help from the Australian down under, was not Snoopy but Roy Brown from Carleton Place, Ontario.

During World War II, Winnipeg native and air ace Sir William Stephenson, the Quiet Canadian, ran the undercover British Security Coordination under the codenameIntrepid from Rockefeller Center in New York , as a liaison between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Stephenson invented the machine that transferred photos over the wire for the Daily Mail newspaper in 1922. Americans were not aware that the BSC was there or that it was stocked with Canadians secretly working to preserve North American freedom from the Nazis.

Also little known is that Intrepid trained Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, at Camp X , the secret spy school near Whitby, Ontario. Five future directors of the CIA also received special training there. It is suggested that Flemings reference to Bonds 007 license to kill status, his gadgetry and the shaken not stirred martinis, rumored to be the strongest in North America , came from Stephenson.

When Wild Bill Donovan, head of the U.S. OSS, forerunner of the CIA, presented Intrepid with the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1946, he said, William Stephenson taught us everything we knew about espionage.

American military writer Max Boot wrote recently in Commentary magazine that Canada is a country that most Americans consider a dull but slavishly friendly neighbour, sort of like a great St. Bernard. Boot needs to come to Canada , have a Molson Canadian and chat about Canadian history. He owes his freedom to Canucks such as Stephenson and the courageous soldiers and fliers of the world wars who held off the Germans while America struggled with isolationism.

Canadian inventions such as the oxygen mask and anti-gravity suit, the forerunner of the astronaut suit, allowed U.S. and other Allied fighter pilots to fly higher, turn tighter and not black out with the resulting G-force. The 32 Canadians from the Avro Arrow team helped build the American space program and were, according to NASA, brilliant to a man. The most brilliant, Jim Chamberlin, chief designer of the Jetliner and Arrow, was responsible for the design and implementation of the Gemini and Apollo space programs.

Although Canadians have had a free, workable medical system for 50 years, they are not socialists and there are not long lineups, as some politicians opposed to Obama care suggest. This writer has had a ruptured appendix, hip replacement, pinned shoulder, blood clot, twist fracture of the fibula and broken foot, and in every case, there was zero cost to me other than my monthly medical premiums. Canadians have and value a medical system for all Canadians that is free with minimal waits. That is not socialism; that is caring about fellow Canadians.

Americans may be surprised by the Canadian content in their life. Superman truth, justice and the American way was co-created by Canadian Joe Shuster, the Daily Planet is based on a Toronto newspaper, and the 1978 films Lois Lane , Margot Kidder, and Supermans father, Glenn Ford, were both Canadians. The captain of the starship Enterprise was Montreal-born William Shatner. Torontonian Raymond Massey played Abraham Lincoln in 1956. And as American as apple pie? Ah, no. The McIntosh apple was developed in Dundela, Ont., in 1811 by John McIntosh.

Many of the sports that Americans excel at are Canadian in origin. James Naismith from Almonte, Ont., invented basketball. The tackling and ball carrying in football were introduced by the Canucks in games between Harvard and McGill in the 1870s. Five-pin bowling is also a Canadian game. Lacrosse is officially Canada s national sport, and hockey well, Canadians are hockey. And Jackie Robinson called Montreal the city that enabled me to go to the major leagues.

To make everyones life easier, Canadians invented Pablum, the electric oven, the telephone, Marquis wheat, standard time, the rotary snowplow, the snowmobile, Plexiglas, oven cleaner, the jolly jumper, the pacemaker, the alkaline battery, the caulking gun, the gas mask, the goalie mask and many more.

Canadian inferiority complex? That is another myth. Never pick a fight with a quiet kid in the schoolyard. Never mistake quiet confidence for weakness. Many a bully has learned that the hard way. Canadians are self-effacing and do not brag. That does not mean we do not know who we are. We are caring but tough, fun-loving but polite and creative, and we share with each other and the world. Our history is exciting but we don't toot our horn. The world does that for us. This is the third year in a row that Canada has been voted the most respected country in the world by the Reputation Institute global survey.

Perhaps once a year around our collective birthdays, Americans can raise a toast to their friendly, confident neighbour in the Great White North.

Gerry Boley is a high school teacher, university lecturer and writer living in St. Catharines , Ontario , Canada


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Right on eh !

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Right on and you got to love it. There is no doubt that Canada and Canadians have been misunderstood by our American friends for many decades. Partly because they can not hear our story past their loudness. Most recently was that useless fake movie by Ben Affleck, an American actor who single handedly changed history by distorting the truth about the facts. We saved those Americans from being executed in that hostile land, not Americans. That was always a given and Americans gave us credit until Ben Affleck came along with his stupid movie about make believe events. It seems now most Americans would rather believe that movie over actual proven reality. Canada was a very major factor in winning the second world war, very very major factor that cost us countless thousands of Canadian lives but you would think that Americans won that war all by themselves. Sadly this says volumes about our American friends. Any way i suppose our biggest fault as Canadians................ is that we do not have as big a mouth, as our friends to the south. We can invent stuff all we want for the last 100 years, we could be the first at stuff all we want, we can change the course of history in a positive way all we want, we can do real positive good in many ways all we want, we can have countless talented people in every walk of life influence American life all we want. What does it matter when Americans take the credit for our efforts. I am a big fan of Americans, i have American relatives and friends and love to travel their but it has always saddened me to no end how little our American friends know about not only us as Canadians but also the rest of the world. I  see nothing that could possibly change any of this because Americans are dead set at being the best at any cost, no matter what. It is easy to over look facts and reality and just keep trying to be the biggest, the strongest and the best by self denying actual realities. I can only hope one day, that our good friends to the south realize that there is a world beyond their border. Thankfully on occasion there are articles like this Buffalo article that depicts reality for what it really is. Cheers. George.



-- Edited by long stroke on Saturday 1st of February 2014 10:11:12 PM

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If all the Canadians 'came home"   America would STOP



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I'm a proud Canadian, but this reads like those pro-American chain emails that I delete from my inbox. A canadian invented the bra ... blah, blah, blah.

I already know that Canada is great, without pounding my chest!



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Canada also produced Celine Dion and Justin Beiber ...

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Professur wrote:

Canada also produced Celine Dion and Justin Bieber ...


 Enough said ...



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Something I always find annoying is that people think there was only one canadian on the Enterprise. The other one was a far more talented actor.

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Professur wrote:

Canada also produced Celine Dion and Justin Beiber ...


 Proof of the following quote:

Canadians are self-effacing and do not brag.



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Professur wrote:

Something I always find annoying is that people think there was only one canadian on the Enterprise. The other one was a far more talented actor.


 Beam me up Scotty



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poncho62 wrote:
Professur wrote:

Something I always find annoying is that people think there was only one canadian on the Enterprise. The other one was a far more talented actor.


 Beam me up Scotty


 No kidding, no argument here. Yet the other one continues to be an ambassador to Canadian talent. I prefer to remember Bill in the two very noteworthy TWILIGHT ZONE episodes where he did a really good job and both those episodes are very fondly remembered by TWILIGHT ZONE fanatics..............like myself. Cheers. George.



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long stroke wrote:
poncho62 wrote:
Professur wrote:

Something I always find annoying is that people think there was only one canadian on the Enterprise. The other one was a far more talented actor.


 Beam me up Scotty


 No kidding, no argument here. Yet the other one continues to be an ambassador to Canadian talent. I prefer to remember Bill in the two very noteworthy TWILIGHT ZONE episodes where he did a really good job and both those episodes are very fondly remembered by TWILIGHT ZONE fanatics..............like myself. Cheers. George.


 By the way........ SCOTTY was also in an episode of TWILIGHT ZONE. He was not in either one of Bill's episodes but it would have been interesting if the two of them were in the same episode. George.



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Pontiacanada wrote:
Professur wrote:

Canada also produced Celine Dion and Justin Bieber ...


 Enough said ...


           Don't forget Rob Ford!!!!! Great fodder for late night television. 



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LeeRoy wrote:

           Don't forget Rob Ford!!!!! Great fodder for late night television. 


 Perfect place to re-post the picture of Canada's comedy duo.....

New Canadian Duo.jpg



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While us Canadians are polite, funny, talented, etc.....some Canadians are not so stellar when they get behind the steering wheel.

disbeliefnocrydohbleh



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then there's these funny little aussies from down under...........we and canadians are much alike.....apart from the snow....

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Greaser wrote:
LeeRoy wrote:

           Don't forget Rob Ford!!!!! Great fodder for late night television. 


 Perfect place to re-post the picture of Canada's comedy duo.....

New Canadian Duo.jpg


If you go to the original Yahoo article, the picture has been removed.

The article about us Canadians, was written by an author who seems to have never met an Canadian Lawyer  biggrin



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We all know Canada is a great place to live. It could be better but it's still great.

The USA is also a great place to live. It could also be better but it's still great.

Both of our countries are consistently ranked among the worlds best by any measure. 

Anybody should count themselves lucky to be in either of these countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Back bacon eh



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koolconvertible wrote:

then there's these funny little aussies from down under...........we and canadians are much alike.....apart from the snow....


 We have done a lot of travelling and have had people from many walks of life in our tours. What I have seen is the Australians as a group are the most fun, and we Canadians get along with them very well. Generally the Americans we have travelled with tend not to get the Australians.



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