C
I long for the day when Canada adopts the lost US and takes it under its wing
K
Kerry wins
Guest
G
GenderNectar
Guest
from AP:
AMERICANS-CANADIAN IMMIGRATION
If Kerry supporters opt for Canada, they may have to wait
OTTAWA (AP) - Some liberals may be thinking about making a dash
for the border, now that President Bush has been re-elected.
Canada's immigration officials report their Web site is being
flooded by Americans. A new record was set within hours of Bush's
victory speech Wednesday.
Canadian officials say the hits on their Web site seem to be
more than casual surfing. The visitors were looking at requirements
for immigration status.
Canadian officials say Americans who want to move to Canada
won't get any special treatment. There are taxes and fees of about
15-hundred dollars Canadian and a waiting period of up to a year.
AMERICANS-CANADIAN IMMIGRATION
If Kerry supporters opt for Canada, they may have to wait
OTTAWA (AP) - Some liberals may be thinking about making a dash
for the border, now that President Bush has been re-elected.
Canada's immigration officials report their Web site is being
flooded by Americans. A new record was set within hours of Bush's
victory speech Wednesday.
Canadian officials say the hits on their Web site seem to be
more than casual surfing. The visitors were looking at requirements
for immigration status.
Canadian officials say Americans who want to move to Canada
won't get any special treatment. There are taxes and fees of about
15-hundred dollars Canadian and a waiting period of up to a year.
B
Bored at Unemployment
Guest
We'll take California, but we don't want your goddamned Bible belt. Gay marriage is legal up here after all.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
Who is stopping you from moving to Canada?
Feel free to move if you can't hack living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Go up and beg the Canadian socialists to take you under their wing and allow you to live in their nanny state. You won't even have to listen to any contrarian political opinions up there, because the Canadian government likes to control speech, thought, and the media. Of course you might get brainwashed if you're not careful. There was an opinion poll out of Canada which found that 62% of Canadians believe the U.S government was behind 9/11. Not very much in reality up there.
The best Canadians reside in British Columbia, and as they showed in their last election, they wanna tell Ontario to f*** off and let them be more like the USA.
Feel free to move if you can't hack living in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Go up and beg the Canadian socialists to take you under their wing and allow you to live in their nanny state. You won't even have to listen to any contrarian political opinions up there, because the Canadian government likes to control speech, thought, and the media. Of course you might get brainwashed if you're not careful. There was an opinion poll out of Canada which found that 62% of Canadians believe the U.S government was behind 9/11. Not very much in reality up there.
The best Canadians reside in British Columbia, and as they showed in their last election, they wanna tell Ontario to f*** off and let them be more like the USA.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
> We'll take California, but we don't want your goddamned Bible belt. Gay
> marriage is legal up here after all.
Liberals love Canada because in Canada they've had essentially one-party socialist rule for over a decade. But in the west of Canada one finds a revolution brewing.
> marriage is legal up here after all.
Liberals love Canada because in Canada they've had essentially one-party socialist rule for over a decade. But in the west of Canada one finds a revolution brewing.
B
Bored at Unemployment
Guest
I know. It's awesome.
Thing is, we've always voted Liberal, because we ARE liberal, kinda like how the southern US votes Republican mainly, because they mainly ARE Republican.
Thing is, we've always voted Liberal, because we ARE liberal, kinda like how the southern US votes Republican mainly, because they mainly ARE Republican.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
> I know. It's awesome.
> Thing is, we've always voted Liberal, because we ARE liberal, kinda like
> how the southern US votes Republican mainly, because they mainly ARE
> Republican.
The liberals, who were exposed for what they were in a huge corruption scandal, nearly lost the last election up there, and had to resort to bigotry and fear-mongering to pull it out of their asses in the final week.
> Thing is, we've always voted Liberal, because we ARE liberal, kinda like
> how the southern US votes Republican mainly, because they mainly ARE
> Republican.
The liberals, who were exposed for what they were in a huge corruption scandal, nearly lost the last election up there, and had to resort to bigotry and fear-mongering to pull it out of their asses in the final week.
B
Bored at Unemployment
Guest
Educate yourself.
Quick lesson in political conversion:
Canada US
Liberal Democrat
Conservative Republican
NDP N/A
Before you bash socialism (which, actually, is represented by the New Democratic Party, WHICH, I might add, was the MOST POPULAR party in the last election in your precious British Columbia - learn something about Canadian politics before you comment), perhaps you should think this over.
Socialism: oh, how horrible. Financial aid and food for the poor, instead of leaving them to die in the streets and turn to crime because they have no choice. Government regulated car insurance, so that good drivers don't end up paying $500 a month for the mistakes of others. Free health care, so that people don't have to DECIDE whether or not they're going to get the medical attention they need. If you think this is a horrible thing, I pity you deeply.
Furthermore, your media is infinetely more controlled than ours. I'm sorry, which country put people on trial for years for "Un-American" activities? Which country has Secret Security officers show up at people's houses because of what someone wrote in their LIVEJOURNAL? Which country's new stations can clearly defined as either Democratic or Republican? Which country can't even trust what is reported regarding wars, elections, and other important events? That would be you. Not Canada.
Canada has always been more free. Where did the African-Americans run to when they wanted to escape slavery? Where did young men go when they were told they had no choice but fight and die in the fruitless jungles of Vietnam? Who decriminalized marijuana, first medically, and then recreationally? (Hemp cannot even be grown in the United States for cloth or paper!) Who has allowed gays and lesbians to marry? What country has in its Bill of Rights that their citizens are allowed to come and go as they please without any trouble?
The way to tell if a country is truly free, is to see how much the citizens brag about their freedom. We've never boasted, because it's always been there. You boast because you are terrified at the prospect of losing something you're not used to.
I don't want to insult any Americans. We are two different countries, run two different ways, and that should be accepted and aknowledged without judgement. However, you can't expect me not to defend my country, especially when so many of your comments were ridiculously erronous.
Quick lesson in political conversion:
Canada US
Liberal Democrat
Conservative Republican
NDP N/A
Before you bash socialism (which, actually, is represented by the New Democratic Party, WHICH, I might add, was the MOST POPULAR party in the last election in your precious British Columbia - learn something about Canadian politics before you comment), perhaps you should think this over.
Socialism: oh, how horrible. Financial aid and food for the poor, instead of leaving them to die in the streets and turn to crime because they have no choice. Government regulated car insurance, so that good drivers don't end up paying $500 a month for the mistakes of others. Free health care, so that people don't have to DECIDE whether or not they're going to get the medical attention they need. If you think this is a horrible thing, I pity you deeply.
Furthermore, your media is infinetely more controlled than ours. I'm sorry, which country put people on trial for years for "Un-American" activities? Which country has Secret Security officers show up at people's houses because of what someone wrote in their LIVEJOURNAL? Which country's new stations can clearly defined as either Democratic or Republican? Which country can't even trust what is reported regarding wars, elections, and other important events? That would be you. Not Canada.
Canada has always been more free. Where did the African-Americans run to when they wanted to escape slavery? Where did young men go when they were told they had no choice but fight and die in the fruitless jungles of Vietnam? Who decriminalized marijuana, first medically, and then recreationally? (Hemp cannot even be grown in the United States for cloth or paper!) Who has allowed gays and lesbians to marry? What country has in its Bill of Rights that their citizens are allowed to come and go as they please without any trouble?
The way to tell if a country is truly free, is to see how much the citizens brag about their freedom. We've never boasted, because it's always been there. You boast because you are terrified at the prospect of losing something you're not used to.
I don't want to insult any Americans. We are two different countries, run two different ways, and that should be accepted and aknowledged without judgement. However, you can't expect me not to defend my country, especially when so many of your comments were ridiculously erronous.
B
Bored at Unemployment
Guest
Re: Educate yourself.
I meant to add: I like you, Republican Party Reptile, but I had to respond, because your post annoyed me so much...
I meant to add: I like you, Republican Party Reptile, but I had to respond, because your post annoyed me so much...
C
Codreanu
Guest
Free Ernst Zundel!!!
I have Faith In You, America . . ."
The following was written by Susan Riggs, a Canadian citizen living in Ontario. She wrote this for the Detroit Free Press (1994).
An Open Letter to my American neighbors:
Like you, I woke up today, got dressed and settled down to a steaming brew and the morning newspaper before heading out to work. Unlike you, I read that dozens of my fellow citizens were arrested for carrying copies of the Buffalo News. The newspaper contained information about a trial here that the powers-that-be did not want us to read. It is that simple.
It is now 11:15 p.m. Minutes ago, I turned on the Buffalo television station, hoping to see on my TV what could not reach us through the newspapers. I am now looking at a blank screen. We received about 10 seconds of the trial controversy, and suddenly my screen went blank. A message appeared on the screen explaining that because of the contravention of a ban, the station was prohibiting broadcast of the news. Along with the sign was a high-pitched whistle that sounded like the air-raid sirens the Britons used during World War II.
As I sit here alone, I realize that my blood is running cold at the sound of that whistle.
This could never happen here.
Not in Canada.
You must wonder about a country that would deny its own citizens the freedom to read. As a Canadian, I have done a lot of hard thinking about it. I guess the powers have their reasons for the ban. Censorship always has its reasons, but, believe me, when you are on the receiving end of government censorship, no reason amounts to a hill of beans - and that is why I am writing to you.
It is my hope that you will read the Canadian story and, as your famous columnist Ann Landers says, "wake up and smell the coffee" - while you still have a newspaper to read along with it.
I have always loved the United States of America, and I know that you are now making critical decisions about the role of government in your lives. Many years ago, we in Canada were at a crossroads in our decision-making that is similar to the one you are at now. I wish our decisions back then had been very different. Then maybe I wouldn't be sitting here looking at a blank screen.
Some two decades ago, Canadians were concerned with how government could best help its citizens. We looked around at countries with a comprehensive social welfare system and envied them their cushions of comfort for everything from universal medical care to national day care.
We were a country that held individual freedom in high esteem. Surely, we thought, it was possible to take the best aspects of socialism and weave them into the fabric of a free society. After all, this was democratic Canada and not the Soviet Union.
Over the next 20 years, we developed an extensive social support network at both the federal and provincial levels of government. The government spent money on every conceivable program. We spent and spent. Still, no one was ever really satisfied.
The spending even now continues unabated, and our national deficit today stands at more than $45 billion. (We are now looking to New Zealand for pointers on how to control our deficit.)
When you adopt an extensive government agenda, you soon discover that all the entrenched programs and layers of bureaucracy become impossible to budge. Much of the population works for the government; about one of every four Canadians now draws a government paycheck.
People learn to depend on government, and all governments, even those whose leaders warn against this dependency, learn to love the power that flows from it.
As for the threat to individual liberty, newspaper censorship is, frankly, the tip of the iceberg. Government intervenes in our lives constantly, and individual liberties are abrogated in new and ever more imaginative ways each day.
Recently, while on vacation, I rented a car in Seattle and tried to drive into British Columbia. My car was confiscated at the border. When I asked for an explanation, I was told that I had not paid taxes on it - a rental car. Had I been an American, there would have been no problem, but as a Canadian, I had to pay $200 more for a Canadian rental car in order to continue my trip.
Canadians who dare to get a haircut or a car tune-up across the border are being photographed and prosecuted upon their return to Canada. Why? Because they have secured these services without having to incur the 7 percent goods and services tax slapped onto our ever-burgeoning provincial taxes. Even insurance plans are now taxed.
A black market has sprung up, mainly in liquor and cigarettes, which carry the heaviest taxes. Don't think that the taxes will end there, though.
Once it takes hold, monopolization by government soon spreads to nearly every aspect of your life; in the Toronto area alone, we have six separate municipal governments and one super-municipal government (the "mother" of all local governments) called Metro, which exists to oversee the others.
You will find that after a time, your state and federal governments - even those of a different political stripe - will join forces to make their task of tax collection easier.
Our entire education system, up to university level, is governed by a centralized bureaucracy called the Ministry of Education, which dictates what can and cannot be taught in the schools and how it is to be taught. Universities are mainly government-funded.
I realize that the issue of government-run programs is particularly important to you now because of the state of your health-care system. I sympathize with you completely. I cannot imagine a world where one could be left bankrupt because of illness. I also think that you are on the right track with your solutions. If anyone can devise a workable system for medical care, it is you.
I suggest that you look upon it as you do your police protection: a guard in place for the physical and mental well-being of your citizens. The real danger in socialized medicine is the attitude of entitlement it engenders.
The stories you have heard about us are largely true. It is not uncommon to pick up a newspaper and read about "The frightening wait for cancer therapy" here in Ontario, and the situation is no better in the other provinces. There is a shortage of the most advanced diagnostic technology. Thousands of the health cards that ensure access to medical care have been issued erroneously.
We do wait two hours for an appointment booked weeks in advance. Despite our world-class doctors, many patients can't get treatment in time because of overcrowding. When you are faced with a life-and-death medical situation, you don't mind paying whatever it costs. Under the government- dominated medical system, however, you can't even buy your way in - unless, of course, you go to the United States.
The sound of the air-raid siren on my TV has stopped, at least for now. As the politicians love to say, this is my "defining moment."
Writing is my great love, the part of me that can never be censored. This letter was difficult to write, and no one up here knows that I have written it. All these issues are not just personal; they are professional, too.
I am employed in administration at a prominent Ontario university that has historically enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. Last summer, my president wrote a letter to the staff explaining that the government had expressed an intention to take a more active role in the management of university affairs. He described this as an enormous threat to our autonomy as a free-thinking institution, and in the end the government retreated - for now.
As I sit here tonight, it is simply beyond my comprehension that such a well-intentioned and beloved country as my own could go so far astray so quickly. And it is all the more remarkable that it has taken place without grand conspiracies or intricate plots.
Indeed, most Canadians are as offended by the images of totalitarian government as you are. We shared your joy at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Soviet bloc; we value freedom. And yet we have fallen into a trap where we are not free.
As with that other well-known road, we traveled this one with the best of intentions.
To those who would dismiss me as an alarmist, I issue this invitation: Read our newspapers, watch our news broadcasts (what is left of them) and see for yourselves. Prove me wrong. I wish you could.
When you make critical decisions about the role of government in your life, please think about me, about this letter and about Canada.
Really think about what it could mean when you hear about a government initiative that sounds too good to be true. Thank God for a free press, even when you find yourself criticizing the media for broadcasting stories that you would rather not hear about. The recent publication ban is not the first one. There are others, and their number is growing.
Listen and learn, America. Cup your ear to the wind and hear the blood-chilling wail of the siren whistle as it drifts down across your border.
If just one of you reads this letter and pauses, even for a moment, to think about what unchecked government can do, then it has been worth the writing.
I have faith in you, America. Your road is tough and not perfect. Nothing is. Your road will keep leading you to freedom - the freedom to read and think and be exactly who and what you are - if you only let it. Treasure that freedom, love it and resolve never, ever to let it go.
I have Faith In You, America . . ."
The following was written by Susan Riggs, a Canadian citizen living in Ontario. She wrote this for the Detroit Free Press (1994).
An Open Letter to my American neighbors:
Like you, I woke up today, got dressed and settled down to a steaming brew and the morning newspaper before heading out to work. Unlike you, I read that dozens of my fellow citizens were arrested for carrying copies of the Buffalo News. The newspaper contained information about a trial here that the powers-that-be did not want us to read. It is that simple.
It is now 11:15 p.m. Minutes ago, I turned on the Buffalo television station, hoping to see on my TV what could not reach us through the newspapers. I am now looking at a blank screen. We received about 10 seconds of the trial controversy, and suddenly my screen went blank. A message appeared on the screen explaining that because of the contravention of a ban, the station was prohibiting broadcast of the news. Along with the sign was a high-pitched whistle that sounded like the air-raid sirens the Britons used during World War II.
As I sit here alone, I realize that my blood is running cold at the sound of that whistle.
This could never happen here.
Not in Canada.
You must wonder about a country that would deny its own citizens the freedom to read. As a Canadian, I have done a lot of hard thinking about it. I guess the powers have their reasons for the ban. Censorship always has its reasons, but, believe me, when you are on the receiving end of government censorship, no reason amounts to a hill of beans - and that is why I am writing to you.
It is my hope that you will read the Canadian story and, as your famous columnist Ann Landers says, "wake up and smell the coffee" - while you still have a newspaper to read along with it.
I have always loved the United States of America, and I know that you are now making critical decisions about the role of government in your lives. Many years ago, we in Canada were at a crossroads in our decision-making that is similar to the one you are at now. I wish our decisions back then had been very different. Then maybe I wouldn't be sitting here looking at a blank screen.
Some two decades ago, Canadians were concerned with how government could best help its citizens. We looked around at countries with a comprehensive social welfare system and envied them their cushions of comfort for everything from universal medical care to national day care.
We were a country that held individual freedom in high esteem. Surely, we thought, it was possible to take the best aspects of socialism and weave them into the fabric of a free society. After all, this was democratic Canada and not the Soviet Union.
Over the next 20 years, we developed an extensive social support network at both the federal and provincial levels of government. The government spent money on every conceivable program. We spent and spent. Still, no one was ever really satisfied.
The spending even now continues unabated, and our national deficit today stands at more than $45 billion. (We are now looking to New Zealand for pointers on how to control our deficit.)
When you adopt an extensive government agenda, you soon discover that all the entrenched programs and layers of bureaucracy become impossible to budge. Much of the population works for the government; about one of every four Canadians now draws a government paycheck.
People learn to depend on government, and all governments, even those whose leaders warn against this dependency, learn to love the power that flows from it.
As for the threat to individual liberty, newspaper censorship is, frankly, the tip of the iceberg. Government intervenes in our lives constantly, and individual liberties are abrogated in new and ever more imaginative ways each day.
Recently, while on vacation, I rented a car in Seattle and tried to drive into British Columbia. My car was confiscated at the border. When I asked for an explanation, I was told that I had not paid taxes on it - a rental car. Had I been an American, there would have been no problem, but as a Canadian, I had to pay $200 more for a Canadian rental car in order to continue my trip.
Canadians who dare to get a haircut or a car tune-up across the border are being photographed and prosecuted upon their return to Canada. Why? Because they have secured these services without having to incur the 7 percent goods and services tax slapped onto our ever-burgeoning provincial taxes. Even insurance plans are now taxed.
A black market has sprung up, mainly in liquor and cigarettes, which carry the heaviest taxes. Don't think that the taxes will end there, though.
Once it takes hold, monopolization by government soon spreads to nearly every aspect of your life; in the Toronto area alone, we have six separate municipal governments and one super-municipal government (the "mother" of all local governments) called Metro, which exists to oversee the others.
You will find that after a time, your state and federal governments - even those of a different political stripe - will join forces to make their task of tax collection easier.
Our entire education system, up to university level, is governed by a centralized bureaucracy called the Ministry of Education, which dictates what can and cannot be taught in the schools and how it is to be taught. Universities are mainly government-funded.
I realize that the issue of government-run programs is particularly important to you now because of the state of your health-care system. I sympathize with you completely. I cannot imagine a world where one could be left bankrupt because of illness. I also think that you are on the right track with your solutions. If anyone can devise a workable system for medical care, it is you.
I suggest that you look upon it as you do your police protection: a guard in place for the physical and mental well-being of your citizens. The real danger in socialized medicine is the attitude of entitlement it engenders.
The stories you have heard about us are largely true. It is not uncommon to pick up a newspaper and read about "The frightening wait for cancer therapy" here in Ontario, and the situation is no better in the other provinces. There is a shortage of the most advanced diagnostic technology. Thousands of the health cards that ensure access to medical care have been issued erroneously.
We do wait two hours for an appointment booked weeks in advance. Despite our world-class doctors, many patients can't get treatment in time because of overcrowding. When you are faced with a life-and-death medical situation, you don't mind paying whatever it costs. Under the government- dominated medical system, however, you can't even buy your way in - unless, of course, you go to the United States.
The sound of the air-raid siren on my TV has stopped, at least for now. As the politicians love to say, this is my "defining moment."
Writing is my great love, the part of me that can never be censored. This letter was difficult to write, and no one up here knows that I have written it. All these issues are not just personal; they are professional, too.
I am employed in administration at a prominent Ontario university that has historically enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. Last summer, my president wrote a letter to the staff explaining that the government had expressed an intention to take a more active role in the management of university affairs. He described this as an enormous threat to our autonomy as a free-thinking institution, and in the end the government retreated - for now.
As I sit here tonight, it is simply beyond my comprehension that such a well-intentioned and beloved country as my own could go so far astray so quickly. And it is all the more remarkable that it has taken place without grand conspiracies or intricate plots.
Indeed, most Canadians are as offended by the images of totalitarian government as you are. We shared your joy at the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Soviet bloc; we value freedom. And yet we have fallen into a trap where we are not free.
As with that other well-known road, we traveled this one with the best of intentions.
To those who would dismiss me as an alarmist, I issue this invitation: Read our newspapers, watch our news broadcasts (what is left of them) and see for yourselves. Prove me wrong. I wish you could.
When you make critical decisions about the role of government in your life, please think about me, about this letter and about Canada.
Really think about what it could mean when you hear about a government initiative that sounds too good to be true. Thank God for a free press, even when you find yourself criticizing the media for broadcasting stories that you would rather not hear about. The recent publication ban is not the first one. There are others, and their number is growing.
Listen and learn, America. Cup your ear to the wind and hear the blood-chilling wail of the siren whistle as it drifts down across your border.
If just one of you reads this letter and pauses, even for a moment, to think about what unchecked government can do, then it has been worth the writing.
I have faith in you, America. Your road is tough and not perfect. Nothing is. Your road will keep leading you to freedom - the freedom to read and think and be exactly who and what you are - if you only let it. Treasure that freedom, love it and resolve never, ever to let it go.
C
Codreanu
Guest
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
Thanks for that intersting read!
And yeah, I just live across a lake from Canada, I know full well how controlled their media is.
And yeah, I just live across a lake from Canada, I know full well how controlled their media is.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
U should see how many Canadians come to the Cleveland Clinic to avoid lines for treatment!
G
GenderNectar
Guest
U should see how many Yanks came to Canada for their flu shots so they wouldn't die!
B
Bored at Unemployment
Guest
Re: Thanks for that intersting read!
But you don't live here. Honestly, it's not the same. It's like me standing in Windsor and looking across the river at Detroit and saying I know all about life on the 8 mile.
But you don't live here. Honestly, it's not the same. It's like me standing in Windsor and looking across the river at Detroit and saying I know all about life on the 8 mile.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
Flu shots are for pussies.
R
Republican Party Reptile - VICTORY
Guest
Why does Canada allow Al Jazeera but not Fox News?
C
Codreanu
Guest
Re: Why does Canada allow Al Jazeera but not Fox News?
J
Jamie
Guest
To think, I thought they were for helpless infants and people who can't afford health care.
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