# Canadians: Share With Us Foreigners Facts and Trivia About Your Country. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 8, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676 "2006-07-08T22:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/41 "2006-07-10T03:46:48Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > One “easy” way to tell a Québec french speaker from a European French speaker is the so-called 'africanization" of certain words. Affrication. Comes from affricate, a sound such as the “dz” you mentioned. Nothing to do with Africa! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/42 "2006-07-10T03:48:18Z")
And don’t knock the PCs! They were the first party to achieve gender parity in the House of Commons. One… one. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/43 "2006-07-10T04:25:00Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Affrication. Comes from affricate, a sound such as the “dz” you mentioned. Nothing to do with Africa! 🙂 :smack: I don’t know what I was thinking. No wonder I had trouble Googling a cite. Can I blame it on the World Cup? To make up for it: The most recent territory to join (or, rather, to be formed in) Canada is Nunavut. It was carved out of the previous Northwest Territories (which still exists as it’s own province) and officially became a territory April 1st, 1999. Nunavut’s capital city is Iqaluit. Although it’s population is only about 30 000 people, it has the largest total area (land + water). Greenland has a higher population density. Canadians do, in fact, love their Tim Horton’s if the raw numbers are to be trusted. There are nearly twice as many Tim’s outlets as McDonald’s - it is the largest fast food chain in Canada. It is the proud owner (?) of 62% of Canada’s coffee market. Apparently, Canada’s per-capita amount of doughnut shops is the highest in the world (although, IMHO, Whitby Ontario skews that result…ever get directions in Whitby? “Turn left at the Tim’s , then when you get to the intersection with the Coffee Tyme and Country Style, turn right, go past the gas station with the Tim’s til you get to a _real_ Tim’s shop, then turn left. Our house is just past the Tim’s billboard”) ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/44 "2006-07-10T04:57:33Z")
Another interesting (and, I think, slightly odd) fact: there have been suggestions that Canada incorporate the Turks and Caicos Islands (in the Caribbean) into the Canadian federation, possibly by making the islands part of the province of Nova Scotia. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/45 "2006-07-10T12:47:26Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > Another interesting (and, I think, slightly odd) fact: there have been suggestions that Canada incorporate the Turks and Caicos Islands (in the Caribbean) into the Canadian federation, possibly by making the islands part of the province of Nova Scotia. First I’ve heard of that! What would be the point of it? According to the [Wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_and_Caicos#Proposed_union_with_Canada) the only real reason is because a lot of the tourists who go down there are Canadian – not much of a reason at all!! ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/46 "2006-07-10T15:24:14Z")
In no particular order: - This is my favourite Canadian factoid: there are no [rats](http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex3441?opendocument) in the western province of Alberta. - Because of the tension between American and British customs (like spelling, and measurement systems, etc) a lot of us are somewhere between bilingual (I know what a foot and a metre both look like) and utterly confused. For instance, if you give me your height in centimetres or your weight in kilos or stones, I will have no idea what you’re talking about, but if you tell me the temperature in Farenheit, I will similarly have no idea. Also I still can’t figure out if the Max 40 signs on the roads are referring to km/h or mph (but I’m not a driver so it doesn’t really matter). I have used the American and the British spellings of the exact same word in the exact same post. - Something like 90% of us live within 100 miles of the US border. This brings up interesting challenges for (among other things) representative democracy. For instance, the top half of Sasketchewan (it’s the rectangular one in the centre of Canada on [this](http://www.cumorah.com/atlas/north_america/overviewnam.gif) map, sorry I couldn’t find a better one) is one single electoral district, and it still has fewer people than the smallest (geographical) one. - It seems that people always smoke crack before naming a Canadian political party. The Progressive Conservatives were not only a contradiction in terms but often neither progressive nor conservative. The Liberal party is far from being liberal, but is still left of the US Democratic party. The Canadian New Democratic party is the most socialist of the major parties. When a few right-wing parties merged they called themselves the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party, until someone pointed out what the acronym spelled, at which point they changed it. (Oh, and Kim Campbell was set up to lose. The Conservatives knew they didn’t have a hope after Mulroney, so they knew that whoever led them through the next election would have their career basically ended. Jean Charest was a much better choice to be party leader, he lost, and is now a successful Quebec politician (although interestingly, now a Liberal). Kim Campbell is, well, no longer on the political scene.) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/47 "2006-07-10T15:40:11Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > In (Oh, and Kim Campbell was set up to lose. The Conservatives knew they didn’t have a hope after Mulroney, so they knew that whoever led them through the next election would have their career basically ended. Jean Charest was a much better choice to be party leader, he lost, and is now a successful Quebec politician (although interestingly, now a Liberal). Kim Campbell is, well, no longer on the political scene.) I realize it’s easy to forget, but at the beginning of the 1993 election campaign, the Tories and Grits were tied in the polls, and not long before the poll the Tories were AHEAD. The campaign, however, was almost comically inept - the first in a long series of inept Conservative campaigns that ended this year when the virus apparently infected the Liberals. ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/48 "2006-07-10T15:47:17Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I realize it’s easy to forget, but at the beginning of the 1993 election campaign, the Tories and Grits were tied in the polls, and not long before the poll the Tories were AHEAD. Hm, perhaps so, but I remember many folks saying at the time that the Tories didn’t stand a chance. But perhaps my memory is affected by my lack of political perspective and the fact that nobody I knew liked the Conservatives. I still think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and anyone at the helm of that ship would have gone down with it. But we can agree to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/49 "2006-07-10T15:59:01Z")
What’s life like in a territory (Yukon0 versus a Province (like Alberta). Lower taxes? Different laws? Are there “Districts” any more? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/50 "2006-07-10T16:09:05Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > …although, IMHO, Whitby Ontario skews that result…ever get directions in Whitby? “Turn left at the Tim’s , then when you get to the intersection with the Coffee Tyme and Country Style, turn right, go past the gas station with the Tim’s til you get to a _real_ Tim’s shop, then turn left. Our house is just past the Tim’s billboard”) I grew up in Whitby. No comments on your description. 🙂 It didn’t used to be that way though… Whitby was a lot smaller when my family moved there, and our idea of an expensive ight out was to go to the Ali Baba Steak House on Highway 12. (Is it still there?) The donut shops didn’t really start to multiply until the (badly-planned and sprawlsome) suburbs did. Incidentally, I was rather startled to find the Whitby Mall on an internet listing of mostly-dead malls. What’s been going on there? ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/51 "2006-07-10T16:46:38Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > When a few right-wing parties merged they called themselves the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party, until someone pointed out what the acronym spelled, at which point they changed it. That somebody being the Liberal Party, who never missed a chance to make the right wing parties look stupid. Oh, and a nitpick: The Canadian Alliance wasn’t the merger of the Reform and Progressive Conservatives. It was intended to be so, but the Progressive Conservatives(often called the Tories here in Canada) balked at the merger. The Alliance ended up being a rebranding of the Reform party, and was about as successful. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/52 "2006-07-10T16:54:16Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > Hm, perhaps so, but I remember many folks saying at the time that the Tories didn’t stand a chance. But perhaps my memory is affected by my lack of political perspective and the fact that nobody I knew liked the Conservatives. I still think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and anyone at the helm of that ship would have gone down with it. But we can agree to disagree. I think it’s _unlikely_ any strategy would have saved them from losing. However, there’s a difference between losing, and ending up with 89 seats and a strong core caucus, and losing the way they did. And, after all, anything is possible; after an election is held we tend to retroactively apply a degree of inevitability to the results. Really, however, the quality of campaign has a lot to do with the results, and the 1993 Conservative campaign was one of the worst ever run, a fact widely acknowledged even by people who were involved in it. It was even worse than the 2005-2006 Liberal campaign, which was appalling. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/53 "2006-07-10T17:19:41Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > The Progressive Conservatives were not only a contradiction in terms but often neither progressive nor conservative. They called themselves the Progressive Conservatives because John Bracken wanted them to because he was trying to get the Progressives in Manitoba to join the party (it didn’t work). ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/54 "2006-07-13T17:26:46Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > That somebody being the Liberal Party, who never missed a chance to make the right wing parties look stupid. Well, no. I was listening to the news that night, and it was noticed at the Alliance convention immediately after the name was chosen (I remember hearing the chairman say, “This isn’t funny, people”); and they somewhat embarrassedly reversed the order of “Conservative/Reform” in the name as soon as it was realized. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/55 "2006-07-13T22:59:53Z")
A few contributions from a Yank who’s been to Canada on several occasions: As noted on a recent episode of _Jeopardy!_, three of the world’s ten largest islands by area are Canadian – Baffin (#5), Victoria (#9), and Ellesmere (#10). [This page](http://worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/islands.htm) contains the complete list, as well as other island info. Before the Canadian confederation, [New Brunswick](http://www.sandafayre.com/Gallery/country_263_1.htm) issued its own postage stamps, as did [Nova Scotia](http://www.frmfoundation.org/NovaScotia/default.asp), [Prince Edward Island](http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9508391550&ssPageName=MERCOSI_VI_ROSI_PR4_PCN_BIX), and [The United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_and_Vancouver_Island). (British Columbia subsequently issued its own stamps, as did Vancouver Island.) As has already been suggested in this thread, [Newfoundland](http://homepage.eircom.net/~edrice/stellar/stamps.htm) had its own postal system until 1949, and the former colony’s stamps continue to be postally valid anywhere in Canada, although such use is uncommon. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/56 "2006-07-14T05:03:41Z")
> [@cowgirl](#): > > Hm, perhaps so, but I remember many folks saying at the time that the Tories didn’t stand a chance. But perhaps my memory is affected by my lack of political perspective and the fact that nobody I knew liked the Conservatives. I still think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and anyone at the helm of that ship would have gone down with it. But we can agree to disagree. I think it’s interesting that the Conservatives went from 169 to 2 seats in the house (2 of 295 is 0.68% of the seats). However, their share of the popular vote only went from 43% to 16%. Still pretty disastrous, but 16% is a hell of a lot better than 0.68%. It’s just that the 16% of votes (over 2 million in total) were spread across the country, and not concentrated enough to win more seats. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/57 "2006-07-14T13:15:52Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The Maple Leaf flag has only been the national flag since 1965. Is it susposed to be a sugar maple leaf, another type, or not ever considered a specific type when the change was made in the flag? Anybody that knows feel free to answer. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/58 "2006-07-14T13:35:01Z")
Naturally, it’s a Sugar Maple leaf. No tree could possibly be more Canadian (except the allotment of Douglas Fir on Queen’s land that are designated for the exclusive production of _The Globe & Mail_, Tim Horton’s cups, and hockey sticks.) ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/59 "2006-07-16T06:30:34Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Naturally, it’s a Sugar Maple leaf. Seriously, though, IIRC no specific species of maple is referred to in either the blazon of Canada’s coat of arms nor in the description of the flag. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676/60 "2006-07-16T14:01:51Z")
According to Colonel John Matheson (Pearson’s go-to flag dude): > [@](#): > > I selected the hard sugar maple tree as the desired species because not only did it have a handsome leaf but also this tree had been familiar to the Indians, the Habitants, and the United Empire Loyalists, for whom it had produced furniture, food, and fuel. Most important, the leaf was visually familiar to all Canadians. (From _Canada’s Flag, A Search for a Country_.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadians-share-with-us-foreigners-facts-and-trivia-about-your-country/363676.md?page=4)