Invade Canada

I know what you're implying, but you might want to elaborate for those who haven't lived in both Ontario and the states.
 
Ozrat said:
I know what you're implying, but you might want to elaborate for those who haven't lived in both Ontario and the states.
Click to expand...

Ok, for all of you who aren’t privy to the nuances of Canada, here's how it works:

The USA has such a huge industrial base and media industry that they dominate the Canadian economy. That is, Canada is completely dependent economically on the United States. (They are our biggest trading partner, about 85% of our exports go to them, and when they went into recession, they drug us right down with them.) Also, 90% of the population of Canada lives within 180km of the US boarder, so they also have somewhat of a cultural influence.

The USA, being the USA, like to "exert their dominance" over other countries and can be a real big asshole sometimes while doing it. So a few of the things that they are assholes toward Canada in are:

  • Blaming Canada for some of their problems: A few US officials have accused Canada of being a "doorway" that terrorists use to get into the USA, you know, despite the fact the fact that if you're coming into the USA from Canada or terroristan, you still have to go through US customs and security.
    Also, they closed the boarder to all Canadian beef after a single case of BSE was discovered in a Cattle in Alberta, which has devastated the Alberta beef industry. When it was discovered in the USA as well, they tried to trace the cattle back to Canada. Gee, thanks guys.

    Being economic bullies: In 1994, the USA, Canada, and Mexico all supposidly ratified the "free trade agreement", which was supposed to abolish all taxes on imported goods coming from one of those three countries. The USA violates this agreement to this day by maintaining a tax on softwood lumber, claiming that Canada is flooding the market with cheap lumber that is being sold at "below market price" (You know, because if someone can sell a comodity for less and still make a profit, it's totally not the new market price, and the US would never do something similar like flooding the Canadian market with American television programming)

    There are other things that the USA bullies Canada with, but that would take too long to type.

Well the USA can do all these thing because Canada is pretty helpless to do something other than complain about it.

"Ok, so why the analogy with Ontario and western Canada?" You might be asking:

Well, a similar situation exists between the Canadian Province of Ontario and Western Canada (especially Alberta).


  • Canada has 10 provinces and 3 Territories. You can think of them as States. Here are a few key players:

    Ontario: Where the capital is, population of like about 12.5 million, so they have a lot of votes.

    Quebec: Where almost all of the French Canadians live. Over the years they keep whining about their language rights being taken away. In reality this is just the fear that their language and culture will be absorbed into the rest of the continent of North America. A pop of about 7 million, so the Government pretty much has to pay attention to them if they want to get re-elected.

    Alberta: Oil-based economy, where I live, and it's supposedly the best place to live in Canada because of the oil revenue (The province has no debt as of 2005, the rest of Canada is swimming in it). Only about 3 million people live here, so not many votes.

    In 1973, OPEC instituted an oil embargo which led to a gas shortage in North America. The price of gas shot up and Alberta hit a major boom. Calgary(where I live) and Edmonton(Where I was born, provincial capital) are it's two major cities. Anyway, during the Oil boom as it is known, Calgary grew from 325,000 people in 1974 to 647,000 in 1987. In the mid-80's, the Government of Canada instituted the "National Energy plan", which, due to high gas prices, forced Alberta to sell it's Oil at low prices so the rest of the country wouldn't be gouged for gas money. This devastated the Alberta boom and ended it overnight, and cost the Alberta economy tens of billion of dollars. Not having the population to get enough votes to worry the government about political suicide, Alberta had to just sit there and take it.

    So basically, an estimated $40-billion was stolen from Alberta and given to the rest of the country, mainly Ontario and Quebec. This pissed Alberta off, and it's still sore about it. Now Alberta has just paid down all it's debt, and is in another time of prosperity (Not a boom, but we are doing really well for ourselves), and the current government is once again eyeing up our wealth.

    There's also lots of other stuff that the Government has done to piss off the West, but that would also take too long to type

Calgary is the third biggest city in Canada in terms of population, and the second biggest in terms of head offices, and the biggest in terms of land area. It's also the fastest growing with currently over 1 million people in the metro area.

Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, who a lot of people say that they think they are the center of the universe, or at least the only city that matters in Canada, has about 5 million people in the metro area.

When someone says "made in Canada", they usually mean "made in Toronto"

So you can probably see the analogy now, the USA bullies Canada like Ontario bullies Alberta, and the rest of the west, who also don't have enough votes to be a political priority.

So there's a little resentment in Alberta and Calgary about how they've been treated over the years, and they get the feeling like they don't even matter in the eyes of the Government (This is known as "Western Alienation" in Canada). The sad fact is, all a party needs to do to keep power is be nice to Ontario and Quebec, which together make up 66% of the population of Canada, and they can effectively forget the rest of the country, which is pretty much exactly the current situation.

So here's a site with a LOT of stats on all the major Canadian cities:
http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/co/?id=100075
 
In the words of Canadian Bacon:

Boomer: The capital Toronto.
Mountie: No, the capital of Canada is Ottawa.
Boomer: Yeah, right. Do we look that stupid? Ottawa!
Roy Boy: Nice try, Dudley.
 
Hey Calculoon, long time no see.

One other thing about Ontario and Quebec, between our two provinces, we hold more elected seats than the rest of the country.
 
I swear I'm workin' hard to get projects like Fallout Tycoon Rebirth done! lol :D

About what you said, here's a quote of myself:

Ugly John said:
Hey Calculoon, long time no see.
One other thing about Ontario and Quebec, between our two provinces, we hold more elected seats than the rest of the country.
Click to expand...

Calculon00 said:
.....Ontario and Quebec, which together make up 66% of the population of Canada......
Click to expand...
 
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