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Canadians don't have a drastically different culture from Americans (though we have different political values, which is why I still think we shouldn't unite into a continent-nation like Fox News often suggests), but it is almost a slur to be called 'American' (possibly because of the USA's reputation on the global scale). There is a truth to the statement that we're treated better than Americans when we visit Europe, however. Especially by people in Dutch countries, who love us because our military force liberated them during World War II. A friend of mine anecdotes that while living on the military base in Germany, some German kids followed he and a friend around town swearing at them for being American. When they found out he was Canadian, they apologized profusely and tried to make it up to him.
I'm digressing, however. The point I'm getting at is that a major staple of Canadian culture is simply in not being American, even though we move in that direction every day. Until recent years, our news media was of a significantly better quality, less prone to random acts of propaganda than the major American networks, but this has changed. Also, despite constant disputes, both the USA and Canada rely heavily on eachother for trade (though patriotic rednecks on both sides argue endlessly that one or the other could survive without).
Claiming that nobody cares about Canada on the international stage is rather incorrect. Canadian government was responsible for initiating the first peacekeeping missions after the United Nations formed (basically saying, that whether or not you believe the UN is useful, most of its use has been generated by Canada). Canada also produced Pierre Trudeau, who, besides being possibly the most famous Canadian, also shook things up on a major scale. He was kind of like a Canadian Obama for his time, in that everybody was completely split on their opinions of him and had a celebrity stature. Canada is also a member of the G8, a group which surprisingly lacks several developed nations.
In order to actually reach a level of understanding between people from two nations, one has to avoid being outright prejudiced against the actual nation itself. The idea that nobody cares about Canada is a popular notion in the United States, but is not shared by most of the world.
The subject of Canadian racism/annoyingness/whateverness does not concern Canada's role on an international scale anyway. The Government (which has been in turmoil for a few years now and rarely does anything but smear eachother anymore. They just called another election) deals with that sector. No matter how racist Joe from Manitoba is, it won't affect international policy. Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was criticized for trying to help out pig farmers by calling the H1N1 virus by its suggested alternative name of 'Mexican Flu', recently, however. Because, after all, it's better to discriminate against Mexicans than Pig Farmers. Priorities. Also, he told the press that the Atlantic Provinces are poor because they are lazy. So yeah, I guess racism has permeated strongly in Canada.
Canada has always been a racist, discriminatory country. During the early 20th century, we shut our doors to immigrants when we decided we'd had enough. We herded our Aboriginals into special boarding schools and raped them until they forgot their languages. We attacked several legal immigrant ships which tried to dock at our harbors. We denied Medical Doctors the ability to continue their practice in our country. We allowed a megacorporation to subjugate an entire group of people who had to form full scale rebellion against us just to survive. We denied Holocaust Victims access to our country. And then, to top it all off, we made an immigration system that was impossible for the working poor to pass through. We're only considered 'immigrant-friendly' because at the dawn of the 20th century, a government official decided we needed some cheap labour to work factories and farms, so we imported millions of Eastern Europeans.
Anyways, I've gone into way too much detail about this. I'll conclude by saying that while I still enjoy living in Canada, and would rather be here than most other places (including the USA, because I agree more with the Socialist-leaning system than the Capitalist-leaning system. And the hospital lines aren't actually nearly as long as people say), this isn't exactly Mecca. It has as many issues as any other developed nation. Xiao, unless your life really is shoddy in Australia, you should make immigration a secondary priority to trying to relocate inside your own developed nation. I fully support new blood coming in to replenish this dwindling population, but it might actually be in your best interest to ensure that you really want to go to Canada.
We have Australians here, though. A nice one was working security at an event here a couple months ago, he was the friendliest one there.
_________________ Coinneach wrote: The sexual orientation of your Brass & Steel character is entirely up to you.
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Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2009 1:06 am Post subject: Yo
